I motioned to Steve and said, “Tony, I’d like you to meet a very close friend of mine: This is Steve Madden. We’re partners in a shoe company over in Woodside.”
Steve immediately rose from his chair, and with a hearty smile he said, “Hey, Tough Tony! Tony Corona! I’ve heard of you! I mean, I grew up out on Long Island, but even there everyone’s heard of Tough Tony! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” With that, Steve extended his hand to his newfound friend, Tough Tony Corona, who despised that nickname immensely.
Well, there are many ways to go, I figured, and this was one of them. Perhaps Tony would be kind and allow Steve the honor of keeping his testicles attached to his body, so he could be buried with them.
I watched the Master Cobbler’s bony, pale hand hover suspensefully in the air, waiting to be grasped by a return hand, which was nowhere in sight. Then I looked at Tony’s face. He seemed to be smiling, although this particular smile was one a sadistic warden would offer a death-row inmate as he asked, “What would you like for your last meal?”
Finally, Tony did extend his hand, albeit limply. “Yeah, nice to meet ya,” said a toneless Tony. His dark brown eyes were like two death rays.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Tough Tony,” said the increasingly dead Cobbler. “I’ve heard only the best things about this restaurant, and I plan on coming here a lot. If I call for a reservation, I’ll just tell them I’m a friend of Tough Tony Corona! Okay?”
“Okay, then!”I said with a nervous smile. “I think we’d better get back to business, Steve.” Then I turned to Tony and said, “Thanks for coming over to say hello. It was good seeing you, as always.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head, as if to say, “Don’t mind my friend; he has Tourette’s syndrome.”
Tony twitched his nose two times and then went on his way, probably down the street to the local social club, where he would sip an espresso while ordering Steve’s execution.
I sat down and shook my head gravely. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Cobbler? No one calls him Tough Tony! Nobody! I mean, you’re a fucking dead man.”
“What are you talking about?” replied the clueless Cobbler. “The guy loved me, no?” Then he cocked his head to the side nervously and added, “Or am I totally off base here?”
Just then, Alfredo, the mountainous maître d’, walked over. “You have a phone call,” said Mount Alfredo. “You can take it up front by the bar. It’s quiet over there. There’s no one around.” He smiled.
Uh-oh!They were holding me responsible for my friend’s actions! This was serious Mafia stuff, impossible for a Jew like me to fully grasp the nuances of. In essence, though, by bringing the Cobbler into this restaurant I had vouched for him and would now suffer the consequences for his insolence. I smiled at Mount Alfredo and thanked him. Then I excused myself from the table and headed for the bar—or, perhaps, the meat freezer.
When I reached the phone I paused and looked around. “Hello?” I said skeptically, expecting to hear nothing but a dial tone and then feel a garrote around my neck.
“Hi, it’s me,” said Janet. “You sound weird; what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Janet. What do you want?” My tone was a bit curter than usual. Perhaps the Lude was wearing off.
“Excuse me for fucking living!” said the sensitive one.
With a sigh: “What do you want, Janet? I’m having a bad time of it here.”
“I have Victor Wang on the phone, and he said it’s urgent. I told him that you were out for lunch, but he said he would hold on until you got back. I think he’s an asshole, if you want to know my opinion.”
Who—cares—about—your—fucking—opinion—Janet!“Yeah, well, put him through,” I said, smiling at my own reflection in a smoked-glass mirror behind the bar. I didn’t even look stoned. Or maybe I wasn’tstoned. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Spanish Quaalude, examined it for a brief second, and then threw it down—dry.
I waited for the sound of the Depraved Chinaman’s panic-stricken voice. I had been shorting him into oblivion for almost a week now, and Duke Securities was up to its ears in stock. Yes, it was raining stock on Victor, and he was looking for my help, which I had every intention of giving him…sort of.
Just then came the voice of the Depraved Chinaman. He greeted me warmly and then began explaining how he owned more stock in this one particular company than there was physical stock. In fact, there were only 1.5 million shares in the entire float, and he was currently in possession of 1.6 million shares.
“…and the stock is still pouring in,” said the Talking Panda, “and I just don’t understand how that’s possible. I know Danny fucked me over, but even he’sgotta be out of stock now!” The Chinaman sounded thoroughly confused—unaware that I had a special account at Bear Stearns that allowed me to sell as much stock as my little heart desired, whether I owned it or not and whether I could borrow it or not. It was a special kind of account called a prime-brokerage account, which meant I could execute my trades through any brokerage firm in the world. There was no way the Chinaman could figure out who was selling.
“Calm down,” I said. “If you’re having capital problems, Vic, I’m here for you—a hundred percent. If you need to sell me three or four hundred thousand shares, just say the word.” That was about how much I was short right now, but I was short at higher prices, so if Victor was dumb enough to sell me the stock I would lock in a huge profit—and then turn around and reshort the stock again. Before I was done, the stock would be trading in pennies, and the Chinaman would be working on Mott Street, rolling wontons.
“Yeah,” replied the Talking Panda, “that would really help. I’m running tight on capital, and the stock is already below five dollars. I can’t afford it to drop anymore.”
“No problem, Vic. Just call Kenny Kock at Meyerson; he’ll buy fifty thousand share blocks from you every few hours.”
Victor thanked me, and then I hung up the phone and immediately dialed Kenny Kock, whose wife, Phyllis, had been the minister at my wedding. I said to Kenny, “The Depraved Chinaman is gonna be calling you every few hours to sell you fifty thousand share blocks of you know what”—I had already shared my plan with Kenny and he was well aware that I was waging a secret war against the Chinaman—“so go out and sell another fifty thousand shares now, before we actually buy any from him. And then keep selling fifty thousand share blocks every ninety minutes or so. Make the sales through blind accounts, so Victor won’t know where it’s coming from.”
“No problem,” replied Kenny Kock, who was head trader at M. H. Meyerson. I had just raised $10 million for his company in an IPO, so I had unlimited trading authority with him. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it,” I replied. “Just keep the sales small, in blocks of five or ten thousand. I want him to think it’s coming from random short-sellers.” Ahh, a lightbulb.“In fact, feel free to short as much as you want for your own account, because the stock’s going to fucking zero!”
I hung up the phone, then went downstairs to the bathroom to do a few hits of coke. There was no doubt that I deserved it after my Academy Award–winning performance with Victor. I didn’t feel a twinge of guilt over the rise and fall of Duke Securities. Over the last few months, he had fully lived up to his reputation as the Depraved Chinaman. He had been stealing Stratton brokers under the guise of them not wanting to work on Long Island anymore; he’d been selling back all the stock he owned of Stratton new issues and of course denying it; and he was openly bashing Danny, referring to him as a “bumbling buffoon” who was incapable of running Stratton.
So this was payback.