The Wolf of Wall Street (10 page)

But that was only the start of it. Even a simple trip to the refrigerator could be a dicey affair, what with his habit of drinking milk directly from the container. The problem there was if even one drop of milk dripped down his chin, he would go absolutely ballistic—slamming down the milk container and muttering, “That goddamn piece-a-shit motherfucking milk container! Can’t those stupid bastards who design milk containers come up with one that doesn’t make the fucking milk drip down your godforsaken chin?”

Of course. It was the milk container’s fault! So Mad Max shrouded himself in a series of bizarre routines and steadfast rituals as protection against a cruel, unpredictable world filled with rattling dashboards and imperfect milk containers. He’d wake up each morning to three Kent cigarettes, a thirty-minute shower, and then an inordinately long shave with a straightedge razor, while one cigarette burned in his mouth and another burned over the sink. Next he would get dressed, first putting on a pair of white boxer shorts, then a pair of black knee-high socks, then a pair of black patent-leather shoes—but not his pants. Then he would walk around the apartment like that. He would eat breakfast, smoke a few more cigarettes, and excuse himself to take a world-class dump. After that he would coif his hair to near-perfection, put on a dress shirt, button it slowly, turn up his collar, wriggle on his tie, knot it, turn down his collar, and put on his suit jacket. Finally, just before he left the house, he’d put his pants on. Just why he saved this step for the end I could never figure out, but seeing it all those years must’ve scarred me in some undetermined way.

Odder still, though, was Mad Max’s complete and utter aversion to the unexpected ringing of the telephone. Oh, yes, Mad Max hated the sound of a ringing phone, which seemed unusually cruel—considering he worked in an office that had one thousand tightly packed telephones, give or take a few. And they rang incessantly, from the moment Mad Max entered the office at precisely nine a.m. (he was never late, of course) to the moment he left, which was whenever the fuck he damn well pleased.

Not surprisingly, growing up in that tiny two-bedroom apartment in Queens got pretty wild sometimes, especially when the phone started ringing, and especially when it was for him. Yet he never actually answered the phone himself, even if he so desired, because my mother, Saint Leah, would morph into a world-class track star the moment it started ringing—making a mad dash for it, knowing that each ring she stymied would make it that much easier to calm him down after the fact.

And on those sad occasions when my mother was forced to utter those terrible words, “Max, it’s for you,” my father would slowly rise out of his living-room chair, wearing a pair of white boxer shorts and nothing else, and stomp his way to the kitchen, muttering, “That motherfucking cocksucking piece-of-fucking-shit phone! Who-the-fucking-hell-has-the-goddamn-fucking-nerve-to-call-the-motherfucking-house-on-a-piece-of-shit-fucking-Sunday-after-fucking-noon…”

But when he finally reached the telephone, the most bizarre thing would happen: He would magically transform himself into his alter ego, Sir Max, who was a refined gentleman with impeccable manners and an accent reeking of British aristocracy. It was rather odd, I’d thought, considering my father was born and raised on the grimy streets of the South Bronx and had never been to England.

Nevertheless, Sir Max would say into the telephone, “Hello? How may I help you?” And he would keep his lips puckered and his cheeks slightly compressed, which really brought out that aristocratic accent of his. “Oh, okay, then; that will be quite fine! Righty-o, then!” With that, Sir Max would hang up the phone and revert back to Mad Max. “That-motherfucking-cocksucking-piece-of-fucking-shit-friend-of-fucking-mine-who-has-the-motherfucking-goddamn-gall-to-call-this-motherfucking-house…”

Yet with all the insanity, it was Mad Max who was the smiling coach of all my Little League teams, and it was Mad Max who was the first father to wake up on Sunday mornings and go downstairs and throw a ball around with his kids. He was the one who held the back of my bicycle seat and pushed me down the cement walk in front of our apartment building and then ran behind me, and he was the one who came into my bedroom at night and lay with me—running his fingers through my hair as I suffered with night terrors. He was the one who never missed a school play or a parent–teacher conference or music recital or anything else, for that matter, where he could relish his children and show us that we were loved.

He was a complicated man, my father; a man of great mental capacity who was driven to succeed yet humbled into mediocrity by his own emotional limitations. After all, how could a man like this function in the corporate world? Would such behavior be tolerated? How many jobs had he lost because of it? How many promotions had passed him by? And how many windows of opportunity had been slammed shut as a result of the Mad Max persona?

But all that changed with Stratton Oakmont, a place where Mad Max could unleash his fiery wrath with complete impunity. In fact, what better way for a Strattonite to prove his loyalty than to get berated by Mad Max and suck it up for the greater good, meaning: to live the Life. So a baseball bat to your car window or a public tongue-lashing was considered a rite of passage for a young Strattonite, to be worn like a badge of honor.

So there was Mad Max and Sir Max, and the idea was to figure out a way to bring out Sir Max. My first trial balloon was the one-on-one approach. I looked at Kenny and Danny and said, “Why don’t you guys give me a few minutes to talk to my father alone, okay?”

No arguments there! The two of them left with such alacrity that my father and I had barely made it to the couch, only ten feet away, when the door slammed shut behind them. My father sat down and lit up another cigarette and took one of his enormous pulls. I plopped myself down to his right, leaned back, and put my feet up on a glass coffee table in front of us.

I smiled sadly and said, “I swear to God, Dad, my back is fucking killing me. You have no idea. The pain’s going right down the back of my left leg. It’s enough to drive a person insane.”

My father’s face immediately softened. Apparently, trial balloon number one was off to a flying start. “Well, what do the doctors say?”

Hmmmmm
…I hadn’t detected any hint of a British accent in those last few words; nonetheless, my back really was killing me and I was definitely making progress with him. “Doctors? What the fuck do they know? The last surgery made it even worse. And all they do is give me pills that upset my stomach and don’t do shit for the pain.” I shook my head some more. “Whatever, Dad. I don’t wanna worry you. I’m just venting.” I took my feet off the coffee table, leaned back, and spread my arms out on either side of the couch. “Listen,” I said softly, “I know it’s hard for you to make sense of all this craziness around here, but trust me, there’s a method to my madness, especially when it comes to the spending. It’s important to keep these guys chasing the dream. And it’s even more important to keep them broke.” I gestured over to the plate glass. “Look at them; as much money as they make, every last one of them is broke! They spend every dime they have, trying to keep up with my lifestyle. But they can’t, because they don’t make enough. So they end up living paycheck to paycheck on a million bucks a year. It’s hard to imagine, considering how you grew up, but, nevertheless, it is what it is.

“Anyway, keeping them broke makes them easier to control. Think about it: Virtually every last one of them is leveraged to the hilt, with cars and homes and boats and all the rest of that crap, and if they miss even one paycheck they’re up shit’s creek. It’s like having golden handcuffs on them. I mean, the truth is I could afford to pay them more than I do. But then they wouldn’t need me as much. But if I paid them too little, then they would hate me. So I pay them just enough so they love me but still need me. And as long as they need me they’ll always fear me.”

My father was staring at me intently, hanging on every word. “One day”—I gestured with my chin toward the plate glass—“all that will be gone, and so will all that so-called loyalty. And when that day comes, I don’t want you to have any knowledge of some of the things that went on here. That’s why I’m evasive with you sometimes. It’s not that I don’t trust you or that I don’t respect you—or that I don’t value your opinion. It’s the opposite, Dad. I keep things from you because I love you, and because I admire you, and because I want to protect you from the fallout when all this starts to unwind.”

Sir Max, in a concerned tone: “Why are you talking like this? Why does all this have to unwind? The companies you’re taking public are all legitimate, aren’t they?”

“Yes. It has nothing to do with the companies. And the truth is, we’re not doing anything different than anybody else out there. We’re just doing it bigger and better, which makes us a target. Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’m just having a morbid moment. Everything will work out fine, Dad.”

Just then Janet’s voice came through the intercom: “I’m sorry for interrupting, but you have a conference call with Ike Sorkin and the rest of the lawyers. They’re on the line right now and they have their billing clocks ticking. Do you want them to hold or should I reschedule it?”

Conference call? I didn’t have any conference call! And then it hit me: Janet was bailing me out! I looked at my father and shrugged, as if to say, “What can I do? I gotta take this call.”

We quickly exchanged hugs and apologies, and then I made a pledge to try to spend less in the future, which both of us knew was complete bullshit. Nevertheless, my father had come in like a lion and gone out like a lamb. And just as the door closed behind him, I made a mental note to give Janet a little something extra for Christmas, in spite of all the crap she’d given me this morning. She was a good egg—a damn good egg.

CHAPTER 8

THE COBBLER

A
bout an hour later, Steve Madden was making his way to the front of the boardroom with a confident gait. It was the sort of gait, I thought, of a man in complete control, a man who had every intention of giving a first-class dog-and-pony show. But when he reached the front of the boardroom—that look on his face! Sheer terror!

And the way he was dressed!
It was ridiculous. He looked like a broken-down driving-range pro who’d traded in his golf clubs for two pints of malt liquor and a one-way ticket to Skid Row. It was ironic that Steve’s business was fashion, considering he was one of the least fashionable dressers on the planet. He was the wacky-designer type, an over-the-top artsy-fartsy guy, who walked around town holding a horrendous-looking platform shoe in his hand as he offered unsolicited explanations as to why this shoe would be what every teenage girl would be dying to wear next season.

At this particular moment he was wearing a wrinkled navy blazer, which hung on his thin frame like a piece of cheap boat canvas. The rest of his ensemble was no better. He wore a ripped gray T-shirt and white peg-legged Levi’s jeans, both of which had stains on them.

But it was his shoes that were the greatest insult. After all, one would think that anyone who was trying to pass himself off as a legitimate shoe designer would have the common decency to get a fucking shine the day he was going public. But, no, not Steve Madden; he had on a pair of cheap brown leather penny loafers that hadn’t seen a high-shine rag since the day the calf was slaughtered. And, of course, his trademark royal-blue baseball cap covered his few remaining strands of wispy strawberry-blond hair, which, in typical downtown fashion, had been pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a rubber band.

Steve reluctantly grabbed the microphone off a maple-colored lectern and said a couple of quick
uhh-humms
and
uhh-hoos,
sending a clear signal that he was ready to start the show. Slowly—very slowly, in fact—the Strattonites hung up their phones and leaned back in their chairs.

All at once I felt some terrific vibrations coming from my left—almost a mini-earthquake. I turned to see…
Christ, it was fat Howie Gelfand!
Four hundred pounds if he was an ounce!

“Hey, JB,” said fat Howie. “I need you to do me real solid and flip me an extra ten thousand units of Madden. Could you do that for your uncle Howie?” He smiled from ear to ear, and then cocked his head to the side and put his arm around my shoulder, as if to say, “Come on, we’re buddies, right?”

Well, I kind of liked fat Howie despite the fact that he was a fat bastard. But that aside, his request for additional units was par for the course. After all, a unit of a Stratton new issue was more valuable than gold. All you had to do was some simple math: A unit consisted of one share of common stock and two warrants, an A and a B, each of which gave you the right to buy one additional share of stock at a price slightly above the initial offering price. In this particular instance, the initial offering price was four dollars a share; the A warrant was exercisable at four-fifty and the B warrant at five dollars. And as the price of the stock rose, the value of the warrants rose right along with it. So the leverage was staggering.

A typical Stratton new issue consisted of two million units offered at four dollars per, which by itself wasn’t all that spectacular. But with a football field full of young Strattonites—smiling and dialing and ripping people’s eyeballs out—demand dramatically outstripped supply. In consequence, the price of the units would soar to twenty dollars or more the moment they started trading. So, to give a client a block of 10,000 units was like giving him a six-figure gift. There was no difference, which was why the client was expected to play ball—meaning: For every unit he was given at the initial-public-offering price, he was expected to purchase
ten times as many
after the deal began trading publicly (in the aftermarket).

“All right,” I muttered. “You can have your extra ten thousand units because I love you and I know you’re loyal. Now go lose some weight before you have a heart attack.”

With a great smile and a hearty tone: “I hail you, JB. I hail you!” He did his best to take a bow. “You are the King…the Wolf…you’re everything! Your wish is my—”

I cut him off. “Get the fuck out of here, Gelfand. And make sure none of the kids in your section start booing Madden or throwing shit at him. I’m serious, okay?”

Howie began taking small steps backward and bowing toward me with his arms extended in front of him, the way a person does when they’re leaving a royal chamber after an audience with a king.

What a fat fucking bastard, I thought. But such a wonderful salesman! Smooth as silk he was. Howie had been one of my first employees—only nineteen when he came to work for me. His first year in the business he’d made $250,000. This year he was on pace to make $1.5 million. Nevertheless, he still lived at home with his parents.

Just then came more rumblings from the microphone: “Uh…excuse me, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Steve Madden. I’m the president—”

Before he could even finish his first thought, the Strattonites were on him:

“We all know who you are!”

“Nice fucking baseball cap!”

“Time is money! Get to the fucking point!”

Then came some boos and hisses and whistles and catcalls and a couple a
hoo
-yaaas. Then the room began to quiet down again.

Steve glanced over at me. His mouth was slightly parted and his brown eyes were as wide as saucers. I extended my arms, palms toward him, and moved them up and down a few times, as if to say, “Calm down and take it easy!”

Steve nodded and took a deep breath. “I’d like to start by telling you a little bit about myself and my background in the shoe industry. And then, after that, I’d like to discuss the bright plans I have for my company’s future. I first started working in a shoe store when I was sixteen years old, sweeping the stockroom floor. And while all my other friends were out running around town chasing girls, I was learning about women’s shoes. I was like Al Bundy, with a shoehorn sticking out my back—”

Another interruption: “The microphone’s too far from your mouth. We can’t hear a fucking word you’re saying! Move the mike closer.”

Steve moved the microphone. “Well, sorry about that. Uh—like I was saying, I’ve been in the shoe industry for as far back as I can remember. My first job was at a little shoe store in Cedarhurst called Jildor Shoes, where I worked in the stockroom. Then I became a salesman. And it was…uh…then…back when I was still a kid…that I first fell in love with women’s shoes. You know, I can honestly say…”

And just like that he began giving a remarkably detailed explanation of how he’d been a true lover of women’s shoes since he was in his early teens, and how somewhere along the way—he wasn’t sure where—he had become fascinated with the endless design possibilities for women’s shoes, insofar as the different types of heels and straps and flaps and buckles, and all the different sorts of fabrics he could work with, and all the decorative ornaments he could stick on them. Then he began explaining how he liked to caress the shoes and run his fingers along the insteps.

At this point I snuck a glance into the heart of the boardroom. What I saw were some very puzzled looks on the faces of the Strattonites. Even the sales assistants, who could usually be counted on to maintain some sense of decorum, were cocking their heads in disbelief. Some of them were rolling their eyes.

Then, all at once, they attacked: “What a fucking homo!”

“That’s some sick shit, man!”

“You queer! Get a fucking life!”

Then came more boos and hisses and whistles and catcalls, and now some foot-stomping—a clear sign they were entering phase two of the torture treatment.

Danny walked over, shaking his head. “I’m fucking embarrassed,” he muttered.

I nodded. “Well, at least he agreed to put our stock in escrow. It’s a shame we couldn’t get the papers drawn up today, but it ain’t a perfect world. Anyway, he’s gotta stop with this shit or they’re gonna eat him up alive.” I shook my head. “I don’t know, though…I just went over this shit with him a few minutes ago and he seemed okay. He’s actually got a good company. He needs to just tell the story. I mean, he’s your friend and everything, but he’s a fucking crackpot!”

Danny, tonelessly: “Always has been, even in public school.”

I shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll give it another minute or so and then I’ll go up there.”

Just then Steve looked over at us, and the sweat was
pouring
off him. He had a dark circle on his chest the size of a sweet potato. I waved my hand in small circles, as if to say, “Speed it up!” Then I mouthed the words: “Talk about your plans for the company!”

He nodded. “Okay—I’d like to tell everybody about how Steve Madden Shoes got started and then talk about our bright future!”

The last two words resulted in some eye-rolling and a little bit of head-shaking, but, thankfully, the boardroom remained quiet.

Steve lumbered on: “I started my company with one thousand dollars and a single shoe. It was called the Marilyn”—
Christ almighty!
—“which was sort of like a Western clog. It was a great shoe—not my best shoe, but still a great shoe. Anyway, I was able to get five hundred pairs made on credit, and I started going around and selling them out of the trunk of my car to any store that would buy them. How could I describe this shoe to you? Let me see…it had a chunky bottom and an open toe, but the top of it was…well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. The point I was trying to make was that it was a really funky shoe, which is the trademark of Steve Madden Shoes: We’re funky.

“Anyway, the shoe that really launched the company was called the Mary Lou, and this shoe
…
well,
this
was no ordinary shoe!”
Oh, Jesus! What a fucking fruitcake!
“It was way ahead of its time—way ahead!” Steve waved his hand in the air, as if to say, “Forget about it!” And he kept right on going. “Anyway, let me describe it to you, because this is important. Now, it was a black patent-leather variation of the traditional Mary Jane, with a relatively thin ankle strap. But the key was that it had a bump toe. Some of you girls here must know exactly what I’m talking about, right? I mean—it was really a hot shoe!” He paused, obviously hoping for some positive feedback from the sales assistants, but none came—only more head-shaking. Then there was an eerie, poisonous silence, the sort of silence you find in a small town in the middle of Kansas the moment before a tornado hits.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a paper airplane sail across the boardroom in no particular direction. At least they weren’t throwing things directly at him! That would come next. I said to Danny, “The natives are getting restless. Should I go up there?”

“If you don’t, I will. This is fucking nauseating!”

“All right, I’m going.” I made a beeline for Steve.

He was still talking about the Mary fucking Lou when I reached him. Just before I grabbed the microphone he was talking about how
she
was the perfect prom shoe, priced reasonably and built to last.

I grabbed the mike out of his hand before he knew what hit him, and it was then that I realized he’d gotten so absorbed in the glory of his own shoe designs that he had actually stopped sweating. In fact, he seemed completely at ease now and was entirely unaware that he was about to get lynched.

He whispered to me, “What are you doing? They love me! You can go back now. I got it covered!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Get the fuck out of here, Steve! They’re about to start throwing tomatoes at you. Are you that blind? I mean, they don’t give a shit about the Mary fucking Lou! They just want to sell your stock and make money. Now, go over to Danny and relax for a while, before they come up here and rip off your baseball cap and scalp the last seven hairs off your head!”

Finally, Steve capitulated, and he walked off center stage. I raised my right hand, asking for quiet, and the room fell silent. With the microphone just beneath my lips, I said in a mocking tone, “All right, everyone, let’s give a big round of applause to Steve Madden and his very special shoe. After all, just hearing about little Mary has inspired me to pick up the phone and start calling all my clients. So I want every last one of you—sales assistants included—to put your hands together for Steve Madden and his sexy little shoe: the Mary Lou!” I wedged the microphone under my arm and started clapping.

And just like that—thunderous applause! Every last Strattonite was clapping and stomping and hooting and howling and cheering uncontrollably. I raised the microphone in the air again—asking for quiet—but this time they didn’t listen. They were too busy seizing the moment.

Finally, the room quieted down. “All right,” I said, “now that that’s out of your system, I want you to know that there’s a reason why Steve is so completely off the wall. In other words, there’s a method to his madness. See, the simple fact is that the guy’s a creative genius, and by definition Steve has to be somewhat insane. It’s necessary for his image.”

I nodded my head with conviction, wondering if what I’d just said made even the slightest bit of sense. “But listen to me, everyone, and listen good. This ability Steve has—this gift of his—goes far beyond being able to spot a couple of hot shoe trends. Steve’s real power—what separates him from every other shoe designer in America—is that he actually
creates
trends.

“Do you know how rare that is? To find someone who can actually set a fashion trend and enforce it? People like Steve come along once every decade! And when they do, they become household names, like a Coco Chanel or an Yves St. Laurent, or a Versace, or Armani, or Donna Karan…or a short list of others.”

I took a few steps into the boardroom and lowered my voice like a preacher driving home a point. “And having someone like Steve at the helm is exactly what it takes to launch a company like this into the stratosphere. And you can mark my words on it! This is the company we’ve all been waiting for since the beginning. It’s the one that’ll put Stratton on a whole new plateau. It’s the one that we’ve been…”