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.He says he didn’t get out and the police arrested him right there.He made it seem like it was a bad scene, with hostage negotiators and everything, helicopters flying over the house.After that, whenever I watched a movie about a hostage situation, I thought about Charlie.”Louis tried to bring his new almost-friend up to speed on how money was made on Wall Street.He explained it as simply as he could, because Charlie did not have a particularly good grasp of the principles of finance.“I tried to explain it to him, but he had trouble with it.Finally I say, ‘Look, you’re buying it for a penny, and you’re selling it for two dollars.’ Like with warrants I didn’t explain to him what exactly it was, or he had an option to buy stock, or anything like that.It was just, ‘Give me the money.I’ll give you thirty grand.’ Because there was no point.Even if I explained it to him, he wouldn’t understand.I knew he was a simple-fucking-minded guy, but he’s definitely shrewd.”Charlie made it clear from the start that he was going to be more than a friend, and more than a client, though Louis had a hard time figuring out just what he would be.This much was sure, though: Charlie was going to be around—physically.He was never going to stray too far from his money, or from his new money generator.“When he came up to my office to see me at Nationwide, it was a surprise out of nowhere.‘How you doing, Louie.Let me open my account.’ That’s what he was coming up there to do.Open his account.He opened it under his girlfriend’s name.I opened the account, and he sent a ten-thousand-dollar check.He did like he said he would.He actually bought stock on the first deal, Gaylord.It was amazing.”The money in Charlie’s account was set aside for two thousand shares of Gaylord common stock, and Louis was throwing in five thousand warrants.He was going to make a bundle—$30,000 on a $10,000 investment.That is what he told Charlie.He was going to make some good money for Charlie, his new Guy friend.But things weren’t going as planned.Louis was annoyed at the way he and his partners were going to split up the warrants from the Gaylord deal.So Louis decided to quit.Chris Wolf was through with Greenway and now he had set up shop just down the street, at 63 Wall—Vision Investment Group.They were going to be selling stock in a company called Auxer Enterprises—AUXI—from Vision.Louis liked AUXI.He liked Vision—good name.He liked Chris.Chris would treat him fairly.Bobby Cash Deals was at Vision.Vision would have to be better.He was sure of that.So he went to Vision, taking Sally Leads and nobody else.In comparison to Vision, Greenway could have been the Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library.“Vision was just completely fucking insane.It looked like a rave.Like a fucking underground club.Real shithole office.You walked in, there were three offices.That was it.Dozens of guys on drugs, hanging out in the office.All punks working up there.”The Chris-Rocco team was over.Rocco Basile had gone to another firm, State Capital Markets, and now there was a new team—Chris-Dom-Rico.It was the same arrangement as at Greenway, except that Dom and Rico were now running the place.And the stories about Chris and his two keepers weren’t rumors anymore.Louis saw for himself how Black Dom and Rico bullied Chris and shook him down, driving his cars and, in the case of Rico, even living in his apartment.Chris wasn’t a willing roommate: “Rico forced his fucking way in there.‘I’m taking the second bedroom.Fuck you.’”Vision was a nightmare.And not just because of the occasional bloody nose, as was doled out at Hanover.Brokers who crossed Rico and Dom were getting beaten senseless.“Dom and Rico beat the shit out of my friend Armando, hung him out the window.Armando told me.What happened was, he pitched some client, the client reneged on the trade.He and his friend went to the client’s house and robbed the guy.They took coins from the guy.And then he left his card there.He was fucking nuts, Armando.Then the guy called the firm and talked to the manager, which was Dom.So he made Armando return the coins, and then they beat the shit out of him.They made him walk through the fucking ‘train’ under everybody’s legs.Dom had everybody in the firm make a circle, and then Armando had to crawl in the circle and everybody would hit him in the back of his ass with a fucking newspaper.He’d walk to the end and then Dom would be there with a Whiffle ball bat.Bam!”Louis never fell afoul of the Vision style of employee discipline.Charlie saw to that.Charlie went up to Vision as soon as Louis started working there, and told Black Dom to leave him alone.It was nice.It was as if Charlie had become his big brother, telling the schoolyard bully to lay off.“Charlie said, ‘He’s with me,’” said Louis.“If Dom had a problem, he was supposed to call Charlie.”It was great to be protected from physical violence.At least Charlie could do that much.It made it easier to pay Charlie.And it was good that it was easier because Charlie was expecting to be paid.Charlie never came out and said it in so many words, but he was anticipating a regular flow of money from Louis.Louis’s earnings from Vision were pretty good, about $150,000.Charlie didn’t know that, because he wasn’t there.But he could always ask around.“I said to myself, if he talks to Black Dom, God forbid word gets out that I just made a hundred fifty grand.The fucking guy is going to lose his wig.I figured that if I give him money, he’ll never go around asking.”But how much to give? This wasn’t like tipping the building superintendent at Christmas, but there were similarities.The same question is involved: How much will make him happy?Charlie was never very happy with having to write out a check for $10,000 to buy Gaylord warrants [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]