December 1995

It was that time of year once again. Outside the Exchange, a secular inst.i.tution if ever there was one, they'd hung pine boughs and twinkling white lights in a gesture of goodwill. "G.o.d Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" drifted from stores. End-of-the-year bonus checks were in the mail, and the holiday parties-"baccha.n.a.lian" as a description didn't do them justice. Money was rolling in on the new technology stock wave. Dot-com mania had set in. There was irrational exuberance to burn. Down at Joseph's Restaurant, a few blocks from Wall Street, the bar was jammed on a Friday after a long week and Jeffrey Pokross was happy to be alive.

Tonight was a big night. His wife-who almost never came into the city from their suburban paradise in New Jersey-had decided to fling caution to the wind and see what there was to see. She sat at a bar stool in the middle of the roar and din that was a holiday party thrown by his newest firm, Monitor Investments. A few months into his time at La Jolla, he'd been lured away to what he believed was unlimited opportunity at Monitor. The place was packed with brokers and stock promoters of all types. The firm's big clients were all invited to drink up the open bar as fast as they could, and most were happy to oblige. Pokross and his wife sat next to each other at the bar, where he could command a view of the people he needed to talk to and the people he needed to avoid.

In the middle of all this some obnoxious guy decided it would be a good idea to lean across the bar between husband and wife and begin to hit on wife.

At first, Jeffrey wasn't sure this was really going on. Then it became obvious. Jeffrey would tell people, "I'm not a tough guy. I never purported to walk around and say I would do personally things of that nature, personally." But Jeffrey had to do something. Something had to be done. He poked the guy in the chest and waved his arms about. The guy was quite a bit larger than Jeffrey but out of shape. And Jeffrey could make himself seem bigger than he actually was.

A scene ensued.

In a minute four of the guys from Monitor were all over this guy. They pulled him away from the bar and offered up a little threatening body language. The guy sat down with his pals, one of whom happened to be a big Monitor client n.o.body wanted to offend. But the obnoxious guy-Jeffrey soon learned the guy's name was Mitch-he kept up. Now it was commentary about short guys and how he'd like to f.u.c.k that guy's wife, etc. This type of commentary was not encouraging a healthy group dynamic.

One of the Monitor guys, Vinny, a guy from the neighborhood, said to Jeffrey, "You want I should take him outside and give him a beating and put him in a trunk?"

Jeffrey said no, Vinny, that would not be a good idea at this time. Meanwhile Jeffrey's wife was very upset and wanted to go home to New Jersey right away. Jeffrey was in the middle. He could just leave and then live with this guy's voice in his head for weeks on end. Or he could do something.

When the guy was facing away, Jeffrey walked up behind and grabbed him by the back of the shirt. This time he threw the guy, Mitch, onto the floor as hard as he could.

The place erupted. The bartender and the owner of Joseph's came running over and started yelling at the guy, Mitch, telling him to get the h.e.l.l out. He and his pals left, making the usual threats.

A few weeks later, the big client who was friends with Mitch showed up at Monitor's office. He said his friend Mitch wanted $50,000 right now or he would press charges. Jeffrey told the client to f.u.c.k himself. Jimmy Labate heard the whole thing.

"Jimmy, he offered me the opportunity that he would go there or send somebody up there and put Mitch in the hospital for real," Pokross said. "I told Jimmy, 'No, no, no.' " Jeffrey had a better idea. He called up a lawyer and made all the arrangements. He figured if the guy was threatening to sue him, he might as well sue the guy first.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

March 25,1996

It was possible that some of the guests arriving at the Box Tree Hotel on this chilly spring evening came by Lexington Avenue subway, but it was highly unlikely. Most showed up in limousines, a few by shiny black livery cabs. They exited in formal wear or long glittering gowns, the women with their hair, jewelry and cleavage arranged for show. The men headed straight for the bar. Nearly everyone stopped to shake the hand of the man of the hour, Francis Warrington Gillet III, who stood at the door with the smile of a man who knows he is the center of the world.

This was a big night for Warrington. He was to be married, and this dinner at the Box Tree was to provide the stage for his public transformation from suave bachelor-about-town to regular ordinary married guy.

As hotels go, the Box Tree was an unusual spot, even by New York standards. It consisted of only nine rooms and four penthouse suites fit inside two adjacent town houses in a quiet street of the Upper East Side. Its lobby featured stained gla.s.s windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a sweeping four-story art nouveau staircase. Some of its rooms looked like Versailles, some looked like j.a.panese tea gardens. It was located in the heart of the Upper East Side, a unique neighborhood in a city of ever changing ethnic mix.

The Upper East Side was an exception to the rule in New York, a city that is not really a city but a collection of insular villages. There is Italian Brooklyn in Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst; there is the Caribbean in Brooklyn's Crown Heights and Jamaica in Queens. The citizens of Puerto Rico are well represented throughout the Bronx, while the Irish inhabit Woodside in Queens and Norwood in the Bronx. Almost all of the city's neighborhoods, from the border of Long Island to the edge of Staten Island to the Yonkers line, are an ever-shifting mosaic of humanity, with one ethnic group morphing into another from generation to generation. Everywhere, that is, except the Upper East Side.

There longevity is at a premium. Some of the families who've lived there forever date back to the Mayflower Mayflower. They are the wealthy progeny of the robber barons: the Vander bilts, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Astors. This is the social register neighborhood, the silk stocking district. Here are all the WASP totems that imply seriousness and sophistication: the Waldorf Astoria, upper Madison Avenue, Park Avenue duplexes, Bobby Short at the Carlysle, the King Cole Bar at the Hotel Saint Regis, Museum Mile, dowagers doing lunch, actual French poodles, and of course, the Box Tree.

At the Box Tree, Warrington watched as one hundred and fifty of his closest friends entered the elegant dining room to celebrate him. And, of course, his new wife-to-be, Martina.

The wedding was to be a few nights away at the Swedish Church, also on the Upper East Side. His fiancee, of course, was Swedish. The Box Tree was hosting a sort of pre-wedding reception for Warrington and Martina. On this delicate March evening some of the biggest money in America sat at round tables with white linen and polished silver and impeccable crystal and toasted the beautiful new couple and the boundless life of happiness that awaited them.

Mary Lou Whitney was there, along with Joseph Cornacchia, who owned one horse that was a favorite in the upcoming Preakness and another that had won the Kentucky Derby two years back. Warrington's real father, Francis Junior, was there with his new bride, another heiress from Palm Beach. His real mother was there with his stepfather, Schapiro, and his half-brother and real sister. His good friend Cary Cimino sat at a table talking his talk to an executive from a major construction firm. Although this was purely a personal affair, it would be unreasonable to expect that Cary wouldn't have conducted a bit of business by the time the last dance was danced. He could be excused.

In fact, Warrington owed much to Cary. In some ways, without Cary the wedding itself wouldn't have been happening at all.

When Martina first told Warrington she was pregnant, he'd practically run for the hills. This was life-changing news to a guy who's biggest worry was whether the maitre d' knew him well enough to comp him and his table full of models. Now he was being told that he was going to be a father. He was going to have to take care of someone other than himself. The New York Times New York Times had recently mentioned Warrington in a column about the city's most eligible bachelors. There was no mention of Martina or the little Warry the Fourth in her belly. The all-day, all-night party of the former Jason of had recently mentioned Warrington in a column about the city's most eligible bachelors. There was no mention of Martina or the little Warry the Fourth in her belly. The all-day, all-night party of the former Jason of Friday the 13th Friday the 13th was about to morph into a life of changing diapers and warming bottles. It was enough to make any guy with a trust fund and no responsibilities run screaming into the night. was about to morph into a life of changing diapers and warming bottles. It was enough to make any guy with a trust fund and no responsibilities run screaming into the night.

He sought advice. His father was useless. This was a man who had told him to marry for money, not beauty. Dad was a full-time philanderer who viewed monogamy with contempt. He had nothing to offer. Instead, Warrington turned to his friend Cary Cimino.

Since the New Year's Eve party on Coco Chanel's yacht in Gustavia Harbor, Warrington had come to trust Cary in matters beyond mere business. Of course the foundation of their relationship was mutual benefit derived from the buying and selling of stock. In the last year, Warrington had done the s.p.a.ceplex deal, first while he was still at Gruntal, then when he jumped to Baird Patrick, and now at his new job as a registered stockbroker working out of the Philadelphia-based Monitor Investment Group. When s.p.a.ceplex was over, Cary had found another company, Beachport, and now Warrington was working on that.

Of course, working with Cary was a bit unusual. The first time Warrington had gone to Monitor to meet Cary's friends Sal and Jeffrey and Jimmy face-to-face, he was a bit surprised. Monitor itself looked like every brokerage he'd ever seen: oak-paneled walls, guys in shirts and ties sitting at desks working phones, tapping at computer screens, hard at work at the business of money. He could see that most of the people there were just like everybody else he'd met on Wall Street. They'd attended prep school, they'd acquired degrees from prestigious colleges, they knew all the best spots in New York before they wound up in a New York New York magazine best-of list, and they knew to stay away from those places once they made the list. magazine best-of list, and they knew to stay away from those places once they made the list.

Somehow Jeffrey and Sal and Jimmy didn't really fit in with that scene.

From Warrington's genteel perspective, Jeffrey Pokross was short and loud and mightily impressed with himself. He talked with a Brooklyn accent, though Warrington knew he was from Kentucky. Jeffrey had a tendency to lecture rather than converse. Neither Warrington nor Cary really liked the guy, but he often had new deals going and he was the guy behind Monitor. Then there was Sal Piazza. He was quiet and seemed to know what he was talking about, but he was clearly not from the Dalton School. He wore jogging suits to work and lived on Staten Island. He owned a boat called the Second Office Second Office, moored at the World Financial Center, and made distinctions between capable guys and knock-around guys and legit guys. He talked about the Hawaiian Moonlighters Club in Little Italy and the Veterans and Friends social club in Bensonhurst. Warrington had no idea what the guy was talking about. He couldn't have located Bensonhurst on a map.

And then there was Jimmy Labate. Forget Jimmy. He was about as far from the Gilman School as you could get. If the guy finished sixth grade, Warrington would have been shocked. He was barely literate. Trying to explain a reverse merger to Jimmy would be like trying to describe the theory of relativity to a ten-year-old. But Cary loved the guy. He was always repeating Jimmy's stories about beating up guys with golf clubs and the like. Warrington didn't understand Cary's fascination with Jimmy.

Cary, on the other hand, he could relate to. Cary was a college graduate. Warrington knew he'd gone to Boston University and just laughed it off as a Cary-ism his friend's occasional claim of being a Stanford grad. That was just Cary. He tended to exaggerate. Warrington liked him anyway. Sure he visited a tanning booth each week. Sure he'd had certain injections and surgeries to keep himself looking young. Warrington could relate to that. He and Cary were about the same age, heading into their mid-thirties together.

Cary was down to earth enough to hang out with Jimmy but also smooth enough to charm Warrington's horse country friends. Even Martina. She'd hated him at first, but now even she thought he was amusing. That was his way. The longer you knew him, the more you liked him. He often talked nonsense, but it was always charming nonsense.

In a way, Warrington saw himself as Cary's escort into the world of horse farms and debutantes and all the rest. He was kind of an older brother. He and Cary had recently flown to Europe for a business/pleasure trip. The stated purpose was for Warrington to meet with overseas clients in Milan. They decided to stretch the trip out a bit, starting in Paris. Warrington had been to Paris dozens of times, beginning when he was a child. Cary had never been. Cary had also never been to a Euro horse race, so Warrington took him to the Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp the first weekend in October. It was a totally different scene, far more sophisticated. All traces of Damon Runyon had been erased. Cary was a bit out of his element. Somebody like Jimmy Labate wouldn't have known what to do at Long-champs. Here Warrington was king.

They bet heavily on a favorite. They won.

The ebullience overflowed. Warrington left Cary in Paris to meet with one client and was riding high as he flew to Milan to meet with another. He was feeling so good, he bought himself a red Ferrari and had it shipped back to the States. He could afford it. With Cary and Monitor he was making more money than ever before.

Now, as his wedding reception at the Box Tree unfolded, Warrington could see that Cary fit right in. He was charming everyone at his table. He was tan and fit and wore the right clothes. He said the right things. He laughed at just the right moments. Sure, he was a bit rough around the edges, but that was part of his charm. A little taste of Brooklyn was refreshing for this crowd. And he was like them in another way-he rarely made a distinction between a social setting and a business opportunity. As he chatted away, Warrington imagined that Cary was probably lining up a deal. That was important, to always have a new deal on the horizon. Now that Warrington was about to become a married man with a kid on the way, it was even more important to pay attention to the bottom line.

That was something even his Palm Beach father would appreciate. His father hadn't said much when he told him about getting married to Martina, but he'd certainly been mightily impressed by his new red Ferrari.

It was Friday, and Warrington once again stood in line at the Marine Midland Bank branch in Lower Manhattan, around the corner from Monitor Investment Group's office. He held in his hand a check for $9,750 written on a Monitor account and made out to one Johnny Casablanca. In front of him snaked a line of Monitor brokers, all waiting patiently to cash their own version of that check. All amounts came in just under $10,000, the amount that requires a bank to report the transaction to federal authorities. This was a weekly event, this line.

In the middle of 1996, Warrington Gillet was invisible to the eyes of law enforcement. His rap sheet consisted of a handful of traffic violations in the state of New York. In one incident, he'd drifted through a stop sign. In another, he'd driven a tad too fast. He was. .h.i.t with a summons that described him as a wanton violator of New York state laws governing the use of motor vehicles on the common byways. That, more or less, was the full extent of nefarious behavior known to the authorities regarding Francis Warrington Gillet III.

Sure, he'd probably lied to his friends and family about certain matters. He'd probably cheated at checkers once or twice. He might have glanced at a fellow student's test answers in algebra II. He'd certainly lied to his father about how much money he was making as a stockbroker. But these were white lies, good lies. Like his grandfather's lie about being eighteen to get into the Canadian Air Force. These were the kinds of lies people told every day to make their lives a little easier. They hurt no one. Sometimes he told people he was thirty-six, sometimes he told them thirty-seven. Who really cared? During his so-called acting career, he'd lied about his age whenever possible. Everybody in that business did, too.

That was the toughest part about knowing whether it was actually and factually right or wrong to take envelopes of cash or checks made out to fictional characters to push s.p.a.ceplex stock to his customers. He couldn't really tell, because everybody else at Monitor-whether they were registered stockbrokers or just stock promoters-was doing it, too.

"I was expecting to walk into a legitimate-looking brokerage house or a businessman's office. I didn't expect to walk into a town house full of gangsters. I never knew people from Brooklyn. I never knew people with diamond pinkie rings and polished crocodile shoes. The money is so good you overlook these unusual character traits . . . You knew you were doing something wrong when you looked at Pokross and Labate and Piazza. You said, Oh s.h.i.t. Go look at this office, this tiny office with Labate, Pokross and Piazza in a one-room office, look at what they're wearing, look at the pinkie rings, look at their polished nails, listen to their anecdotes-come on! But the fact that they're handing you all these checks?

"You learn to live with it."

His first trade was a hundred thousand shares of s.p.a.ceplex for the Bank of Monaco. He made the trade, and they almost had collective heart failure. He a.s.sured Jeffrey and Sal and Jimmy that those shares wouldn't be going anywhere. He was cutting the banker in on his commission, so the banker would do as he was told. When he met Cary Cimino at the bar at the Rigas Regal Hotel, Cary handed him an envelope. Inside was $25,000 cash.

"Then you knew something was wrong. That was the time you should have gone to the U.S. attorney, gone to your manager and said, 'I did something wrong.' It was like the politicians in the Abscam trials. You were tainted by the money. And that overrode your judgment."

The line at Marine Midland inched forward. Here stood Warrington with his check made out to Johnny Casablanca, headed to the same teller he saw every week. Sometimes he'd sign off on a check made out to Warrington Gillet, and sometimes the check would be made out to Mr. Casablanca. The teller didn't care. The teller also didn't seem to care that every broker that stepped up to her window was cashing checks that came in just under the $10,000 red flag. That was the way it was. Everybody knew what was going on, but no one had a real incentive to make it stop. The bank benefited from the Monitor brokers who opened accounts there. Warrington could have brought in a check made out to Jason from Friday the 13th Friday the 13th. Marine Midland would have cashed it, no questions asked.

Sometimes he deposited the money into secret accounts in Switzerland.

Did he know this was wrong? Perhaps. But there were ways to explain it away until it seemed legal and right. Cary Cimino was expert at this.

The way Cary explained things there was every justification for their actions. It all started with the investors themselves. Investors by nature were willfully naive. They just wanted easy money. The skepticism required of any competent investor was sometimes overwhelmed by the sight of high-percentage immediate turnaround profit. They saw the market going crazy, so they went crazy. The profits were beyond the pale and would disappear at any moment. They were distorting people's faculties, but the distortion was deliberate. Cary insisted that the investors-the Wilmas and Chesters out there in Moosebreath, Indiana, the AARP members with their mall-walking sneakers and Sansabelt pastel pants, they knew d.a.m.n well what they were doing. They had the same information everybody else did. They didn't have to stay on the phone. They could hang up when they wanted to. Maybe the cold-callers at Monitor took advantage of the fact that some of these people were lonely, but too bad. They were grown-ups. It was their decision to buy the stock and theirs alone.

Cary logic dictated: the investor is greedy, so all you're doing is capitalizing on that greed.

Plus, you had no choice. Just about everyone else out there was doing exactly the same thing, so you'd better do it or be left behind in the dust. The legitimate firms like Bear Stearns, where Cary once was partner (as he dropped into conversation practically every day), they did more or less the same thing. They promoted house stock in companies whose IPOs they were quietly underwriting. Full disclosure was a joke, and besides, what was the difference, as long as the customer was making a profit?

The first time Warrington was handed that envelope of $25,000 cash, he'd wondered if it was right to keep it. Would his father have done it? Certainly. Would his grandfather the flying ace of World War I have done it? Probably not. Warrington decided it was okay, as long as he reported it to the Internal Revenue Service and didn't take any more. But then he was handed another envelope. Did he return it in disgust? Feign outrage that Cary would try to bribe him and question his integrity as a registered broker who'd sworn total allegiance to the customer? Certainly not. He took that envelope, and then another and so on. He took them and spent the money.

He spent some at nightclubs. He bought a nice suit. He put some of the money into buying Thoroughbred horses. The red Ferrari was paid for with s.p.a.ceplex bribe money. He spent it because it was his money. It wasn't just a bribe. Somehow Warrington pictured a bribe as dirty money handed to someone to do nothing. This wasn't true at Monitor. He'd earned his bribe. He'd spent months cultivating high-maintenance complaint-filled customers. He'd had to overcome the reluctance of his overseas banker friend who managed inst.i.tutional accounts worth millions, by splitting his bribe. He'd worked hard to hold up his end, convincing customers to hold on to s.p.a.ceplex long after they should have dumped every cent they owned.

Cary was right. Those customers really just wanted the same things Warrington desired-enough money to live comfortably. If they lost out on s.p.a.ceplex, no problem. There were so many opportunities now, they'd make money elsewhere. Warrington could still help them with that. Jeffrey and Sal and Jimmy didn't care about the rest of his customers' portfolios, as long as they left the s.p.a.ceplex in place until the game was over.

In fact, most of his customers were doing well regardless of s.p.a.ceplex, because in these wildly bullish conditions on Wall Street, everybody was doing well. It was like surfing. You didn't just go down to the beach and sit there until the waves were right. When the waves were right, you got your board down to the beach. The waves of Wall Street were as right as they'd ever be.

And Warrington really had no interest in getting caught. Not getting caught, of course, involved another level of deception. That was the reasoning behind checks made out to Johnny Casablanca and other ridiculous noms de guerre. And the overseas accounts. If you were going to make the money, you might as well keep it. Only fools handed it over to the tax man. Warrington saw the numbers and dollar signs and wanted to keep them all for his own.

He stepped up to the Marine Midland window and smiled at the bank teller, exchanged the usual pleasantries. She was probably making about $30,000 a year. He could almost make that with one of Cary's fat envelopes. There was no way a girl like this was going to rock the boat. She knew how the system works. He signed his name, Johnny Casablanca, with a little flourish on the final "a."

She smiled and asked, "Fifties and twenties?"

The fifth race at Aqueduct featured a Najinsky colt named Glory of Fun. He'd been purchased at auction from a Saudi prince. His bloodline was strong, but this was his first race. His owners included Francis Warrington Gillet III and an old Gillet family friend, Joseph Cornacchia, a major-league name in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing. Cornacchia was a printer from Queens who'd transformed himself into a multimillionaire man-about-Palm Beach with money he made printing up a little game n.o.body ever heard of called Trivial Pursuit. Cornacchia owned dozens of famous horses. In 1994 his Go for Gin won the Kentucky Derby. Two years later his Louis Quatorze won the Preakness. He'd bought into Glory of Fun because of Warrington's relationship with his father. It was likely Cornacchia had no clue about the third partner on Glory of Fun, Salvatore Piazza.

After Warrington started talking up Glory of Fun at the Monitor office, Sal had come around asking questions. Warrington was not entirely clear on what exactly Sal Piazza was all about. By now, he'd become aware of a certain influence at Monitor. The influence seemed to involve guys from Staten Island and Brooklyn in jogging suits and gold jewelry and manicures floating in an out with no apparent vocation. Every Friday, a guy everybody called Robert from Avenue U showed up, went into Jeffrey Pokross's office for a while and then left. Warrington never actually heard the guy say a word, but he could tell that everybody at Monitor would have listened if he did.

Sal Piazza was a slightly different version of Robert from Avenue U. He was a congenial silver-haired guy in an aquamarine nylon jogging suit who knew something about buying and selling stocks. And now he wanted a piece of Glory of Fun. This was something of a dilemma for Warrington. Sal Piazza was surely affiliated with organized crime. It wasn't as if Sal had told Warrington anything like that. It didn't say "Bonanno crime family" on his business card. But Warrington just knew there was more to Sal Piazza than a pa.s.sing knowledge of the stock market and an ever-changing set of jogging suits. So when Sal Piazza asked to become a partner in Glory of Fun, Warrington knew that Sal wasn't really asking.

Sal wrote checks to Warrington under a business called Chateau Margot. Warrington didn't ask about this. Warrington didn't ask about anything. He just made sure the checks cleared, which they did. Now there were three partners attached to Glory of Fun: Francis Warrington Gillet III of Maryland horse country; Joseph Cornacchia of upstate Saratoga County, New York, and Palm Beach; and Salvatore Piazza of the Bonanno crime family.

At Aqueduct Glory of Fun was running five to one. Sal Piazza had shown up with Warrington to watch, and he'd brought his entire family. His wife, his mother, his kids, his friends from the social club-everyone. It was like a scene from Goodfellas Goodfellas, with Warrington the odd man out. Warrington was very popular with this crowd because he could talk Thoroughbred horses all day and not get bored. He knew what he was talking about. Other than that, he had absolutely nothing in common with Sal Piazza and his entire Staten Island clan.

At post time it was like a scene from a Rodney Danger-field movie. The Piazzas were hollering like crazy, waving cigars and slapping each other on the back. As the horses sprinted out of the gates, Warrington was torn about the outcome.

Sal had put big money down and it was a $50,000 race. He was trying to impress his family. If Glory of Fun lost, Sal would lose all his money and possibly be mad at Warrington. But he might also be soured by the experience of owning a horse, which usually consisted of dumping piles of money into a burning pyre to watch it turn into smoke. If Glory of Fun took the fun out of owning horses, maybe Sal Piazza would call it a day, and Warrington's father's old friend, Joseph Cornacchia, would never have to know he was business partners with a gangster.

On the other hand, if Glory of Fun won, Sal would probably be delirious and want to invest even more. Then what would Warrington tell Cornacchia, the big-name owner of a Kentucky Derby winner?

The horses rounded the turn and headed into the final stretch. The crowd began its usual roar.

In a minute, the race was over, and Glory of Fun won it all.

Sal and his entire family jumped in the air cheering and hollering. Warrington began thinking of a way to get either Sal Piazza or Cornacchia out of Glory of Fun as soon as possible.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Spring 1995

The stockbroker lay sprawled on the floor of the conference room, his tie askew, his eyes shut tight, not a sign of movement in him. Jeffrey Pokross couldn't tell if the guy was alive or dead. Jeffrey was furious.

The offices of DMN Capital were supposed to sparkle with legitimacy. That's how Jeffrey wanted it. If the NASD guys came sniffing around, they'd find nothing but law-abiding citizens going about their business, contributing to the economy. No sign of criminality anywhere. The brokers all wore shirts and ties; the support staff dressed professionally. An investigator buzzed past the three secure doors into the office would see brokers diligently filling customers in on the latest bargains, phones ringing cheerfully, computer screens blinking with the latest market updates. This was no typical Mafia Wall Street rodeo. This was legit.

Jeffrey knew all about the rodeos. There were some boiler rooms downtown that had more in common with the World Wrestling Federation than the New York Stock Exchange. There was one where there were fewer phones and desks than there were "brokers," so whoever got there first in the morning got the phones. If you got there late, you could always try to beat the h.e.l.l out of some guy who was already at a phone. It was dog-eat-dog, with guys parading around in full Staten Island regalia-nylon sweat suits, gold chains, the works. There were holes in the plasterboard at this place. A biker guy built like a mountain range stood by the trading window. If a broker showed up with a sell order, he'd grab the guy by the neck and shout, "Somebody show this guy how to run his business!" Not at DMN Capital.

Except, of course, for the stockbroker sprawled on the carpet in the conference room.

It was the guy's own fault, of course. The number one rule at DMN was simple and easy to understand-no sales, period. This guy, this broker they were bribing to the tune of $25,000 a hit, had gone and violated that rule. They hadn't noticed it at first, but when they found out, Jeffrey knew they had to do something about it. So he called up Jimmy Labate and had him come into the DMN office and wait in the conference room. Then he'd summoned the broker by telling him there was a staff meeting.

The idea was just to scare the guy. The guy walked in, and Jimmy got up from his chair, walked over and hit the guy as hard as he could square in the forehead. The guy had gone down like a piece of frozen meat falling off the back of a truck. And now, unfortunately for all concerned, he wasn't moving.

"Get a rug," Jimmy said. He said it the way you say, "Pa.s.s the salt" or "What time is it?" Jeffrey didn't know what he was talking about. All he knew was that he had a dead guy lying in the conference room of a company that had his name on its letterhead. The aroma of legitimacy was seeping out the windows like air from a punctured balloon.

"To wrap him up," Jimmy explained.

"Oh. Right."

They started scrambling around, considered ripping up the rug from one of the rooms, but figured there'd be all these little carpet tack things flying everywhere and that would just add to the mess.

Suddenly the guy sat up.