Master Forger! Master Forger!He was still with me. “I understand, Roland, and I’ll let you know if I need anything. But for right now, I guess it just makes the most sense to sit back and wait and hope for the best.”

The Master Forger said, “As usual, we are in agreement. But until this investigation runs its course, you should steer clear of Switzerland. Remember, though, that I am always with you, my friend, and I will do everything in my power to protect you and your family.”

As I hung up the phone, I knew my fortunes would rise and fall with Saurel. Yet I also knew that I had to get on with my life. I had to take a deep breath and suck it up. I had to get back to work, and I had to start making love to the Duchess again. I had to stop jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang or there was an unexpected knock at the front door.

And that was what I did. I reimmersed myself in the very insanity of things. I plunged into the building of Steve Madden Shoes and kept advising my brokerage firms from behind the scenes. I did my best to be a loyal husband to the Duchess and a good father to Chandler, in spite of my drug addiction. And as the months passed, my drug habit continued to escalate.

As always, I was quick to rationalize it, though—to remind myself that I was young and rich, with a gorgeous wife and a perfect baby daughter. Everyone wanted a life like mine, didn’t they? What better life was there than Lifestyles of the Rich and Dysfunctional?

Either way, by mid-October, there were no repercussions from Saurel’s arrest, and I breathed a final sigh of relief. Obviously, he had chosen not to cooperate and the Wolf of Wall Street had dodged another bullet. Chandler had taken her first steps and was now doing the Frankenstein walk—sticking her arms out in front of her, keeping her knees locked, and walking around stiffly. And, of course, the baby genius was talking up a storm. By her first birthday, in fact, she had been speaking full sentences—an astonishing achievement for an infant—and I had no doubt that she was well on the road to a Nobel Prize or at least a Fields Medal for advanced mathematics.

Meanwhile, Steve Madden Shoes and Stratton Oakmont were on divergent paths—with Steve Madden growing by leaps and bounds and Stratton Oakmont falling victim to ill-conceived trading strategies and a new wave of regulatory pressure, both of which Danny had brought upon himself. The latter was a result of Danny’s refusal to abide by one of the terms of the SEC settlement—namely, for Stratton to hire an independent auditor of the SEC’s choosing, who would review the firm’s business practices and then make recommendations. One of these recommendations was for the firm to install a taping system to capture the Strattonites’ phone conversations with their clients. Danny refused to comply, and the SEC ran into federal court and secured an injunction ordering the firm to install the taping system.

Danny finally capitulated—lest he be thrown in jail for contempt of court—but now Stratton had an injunction against it, which meant all fifty states had the right to suspend Stratton’s license, which, of course, they slowly began doing. It was hard to imagine that after everything Stratton had survived, its demise would be tied to the refusal to install a taping system, which, in the end, hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference. Within days Strattonites had figured out how to circumvent the system—saying only compliant things over Stratton’s phone lines and then picking up their cell phones when they felt like going to the dark side. But the handwriting was now on the wall: Stratton’s days were numbered.

The owners of Biltmore and Monroe Parker expressed their mutual desire to go their separate ways, to no longer do business with Stratton. Of course, it was done with the utmost respect, and they each offered to pay me a $1 million tribute on each new issue they took public. It amounted to somewhere around $12 million a year, so I gladly accepted. I was also receiving a million dollars a month from Stratton, pursuant to my noncompete agreement, as well as another four or five million every few months as I cashed out of large blocks of inside stock (144 stock) in the companies Stratton was taking public.

Still, I considered it a mere drop in the bucket compared to what I could make with Steve Madden Shoes, which seemed to be on a rocket ship to the stars. It reminded me of the early days of Stratton…those headydays…those glorydays…in the late eighties and early nineties, when the first wave of Strattonites had taken to the phones and the insanity that had come to define my life had yet to take hold. So Stratton was my past, and Steve Madden was my future.

At this particular moment I was sitting across from Steve, who was leaning back in his seat defensively as the Spitter shot spit streams at him. Every so often, Steve would give me a look that so much as said, “The Spitter is relentless when it comes to ordering boots, especially since the boot season is almost over!”

The Drizzler was also in the room, and he was drizzling on us at every opportunity. Right now, though, the Spitter had center stage. “What’s the big fucking deal about ordering these boots?” spat the Spitter. Because this morning’s debate involved a word beginning with the letter B,he was doing an inordinate amount of spitting. In fact, each time the Spitter uttered the word boot,I could see the Cobbler cringe visibly. And now he turned his wrath on me. “Listen, JB, this boot”— oh, Jesus!—“is so fucking hot there’s no way we can lose. You gotta trust me on this. I’m telling you, not a single pair will get marked down.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “No more boots, John. We’re done with fucking boots. And it’s got nothing to do with whether or not they’ll get marked down. It’s about running our business with a certain discipline. We’re going in eighteen different directions at the same time, and we need to stick to our business plan. We’ve got three new stores opening; we’re rolling out dozens of in-store shops; we’re about to pull the trigger on the unbranded business. There’s only so much cash to go around. We gotta stay lean and mean right now; no huge risks this late in the season, especially with some leopard-skin fucking boot.”

The Drizzler took this opening to do some more drizzling. “I agree with you, and that’s exactly why it makes so much sense to move our shipping department down to Flor—”

The Spitter cut the Drizzler right off, using a word with a double- P,the Spitter’s second-deadliest consonant. “That’s fucking preposterous!” spat the Spitter. “That whole fucking concept! I have no time for this shit. I gotta get some fucking shoes made or else we’ll be out of fucking business!” With that, the Spitter walked out of the office and slammed the door behind him.

Just then the phone beeped. “Todd Garret’s on line one.”

I rolled my eyes at Steve, then I said, “Tell him I’m in a meeting, Janet. I’ll call him back.”

Janet, the insolent one: “ ObviouslyI told him you’re in a meeting, but he said it’s urgent. He needs to speak to you right now.”

I shook my head in disgust and let out a great sigh. What could be so important with Todd Garret—unless, of course, he had managed to get his hands on some Real Reals! I picked up the phone and said in a friendly yet somewhat annoyed tone, “Hey, Todd, what’s going on, buddy?”

“Well,” replied Todd, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some guy named Agent Coleman just left my house and told me that Carolyn is about to get thrown in jail.”

With a sinking heart: “For what? What did Carolyn do?”

I felt the world crash down on me when Todd said, “Did you know that your Swiss banker is in jail and he’s cooperating against you?”

I clenched my ass cheeks for all they were worth and said, “I’ll be there in an hour.”