Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street Page 9

  Louis was in a world where the outer parameters of acceptable behavior were determined not by right or wrong, but by what the NASD and SEC saw and what they didn’t see or didn’t want to see. The regulators saw the unauthorized trades and no-sales rules because people complained. They didn’t see, and didn’t want to see, the unregistered brokers and the rips—or at least, they didn’t see them while the unregistered brokers were working and the rips were being charged.

  Sure the regulators acted decisively against the chop houses—after they went out of business. If World War II had been fought like that, the Allies would have stormed the beaches of Normandy during the Korean War.

  Todd was never seriously threatened by regulators during its existence. It nurtured Louis, transforming him from a well-off kid into a rich adult.

  CHAPTER TEN

  After Louis started pulling down good money at Todd, the first thing he did was buy a brand-new Jeep Wrangler. A beauty. Nick Pasciuto signed the papers because Louis didn’t have a credit rating.

  The second thing he did was move out.

  Louis moved to Tottenville, a neighborhood at the tip of Staten Island, where he rented a small apartment in a row house. The first night was bliss. Silence. No screaming. No criticism. He dropped down onto the bed, after a long day of hard work at Todd, and slept.

  Fran Pasciuto was upset. She was not an overly protective mother, not by any stretch of the imagination. But she worried and she had a sixth sense, an instinct of sorts that kicked in when Louis was in trouble. She could tell when there was a problem. Fran’s sixth sense told her that Louis should not move out of the family’s house in Staten Island. He should stay where he was. At home.

  But there was no convincing Louis once he made up his mind. It was enough to make any mother feel as if things were spinning out of control.

  “I couldn’t handle it too well,” said Fran. “I thought he should be home. When he moved out it was a whole different lifestyle. Whatever he was doing—partying, drinking, going out, having a good time—it was a world that I was never in, never used to, so for me it was crazy.

  “Louis and Stefanie used to come for dinner on Sunday. I used to say, ‘What’s going on?’ He’d say, ‘Ma! Don’t worry about it. What are you worried about?’ I think Nicky knew more of what was going on than I did. . . . He was gambling, going to Atlantic City a lot, he’d be betting on football games. And I used to get crazy. I’d say, ‘Where are you getting this from? Nobody ever gambled in this house. All of a sudden now you become the gambler?’ I said, ‘We never went to Atlantic City. We never bet on football games. Your father never bet or gambled.’ Where was this coming from? This was like shocking. I didn’t know where it was coming from. It came out of left field. . . .

  “I don’t know if it’s part of the Wall Street thing. All the kids, young guys, I really don’t know. But that used to make me crazy. All the gambling, Atlantic City. I was shocked. Really shocked. Crazy. Like I said, we never went for that. I can count on one hand the times I’ve been to Atlantic City. I hate it. I really hate it. I think I’m the only person in the world who hates it! I used to go as a kid, because of the rides, the boardwalk, the convention center. We used to go for that—for the rides.”

  The Donohues loved Atlantic City, and they took Louis along. It was a typical future-in-law power struggle, and the Donohues were winning. The trips to Atlantic City were the clincher. “When I got there and I seen it for the first time,” said Louis, “I was like ‘Holy shit!’ I think we arrived out there at about six o’clock. It was getting dark so you could see the lights. It was really cool. I says, ‘This place is two hours away from Manhattan?’ I felt like I’d never seen the world, never been out of the city. I’d been to the Jersey shore, but never to Atlantic City. This was fascinating shit. Those hotels were sick. The Taj Mahal was insane.“Right away that first time I won five hundred dollars at roulette. So naturally I wanted to go back again. I left there and I says, ‘We got to go back.’ This is too easy if I could win five hundred every time I come there. It’s fucking crazy. I was figuring shit out. ‘I can make fifteen hundred a week at Hanover plus five hundred at Atlantic City, that’s two thousand a week.’ That’s what I was thinking.”

  Louis’s lucky streak was running in all parts of his life. He had a new career, a new car, a great girlfriend with a great family, and even a new pastime that was obviously going to pay dividends in the future.

  It wasn’t just the money. It was the fun. The rush he felt when he put his money on the table. And it was great how Atlantic City was such a short ride away. Soon he started going there by himself. Zooming down the Garden State Parkway in his brand-new Beemer. He got the BMW right after he moved to the apartment. Having two cars was nice. And Stefanie really liked Beemers.

  The wisdom of his move to Todd was confirmed during his first month there, when he took home about $10,000. But after the initial glow wore off, he realized he and Benny had a problem. A corporate culture issue.

  The brokers at Todd were a mixed bag. Aside from Benny there was a powerhouse young broker, Marco Fiore, plus other brokers who were in it for the right reasons. Louis liked to work with the right people—hungry kids who wanted to make money. But for the most part, the brokers and cold-callers at Todd had all the energy of a mouse turd on a subway platform.

  “When I walked in that first day, the only one I heard on the phone was Benny. Everybody else was on the phone, but they were sitting down. At Hanover, if you sat in a chair, Roy used to put paper clips in the rubber bands and fold them back, and if you’re sitting down you get shot in the head,” said Louis.

  “When you’re up, when you stand, you project more. My cold-callers never sat down. I’d take the chairs out of the room. You have to stand up. You can move your hands around, walk around. Used to get my cold-callers twenty-foot cords, and the chairs that I had were uncomfortable for them. I didn’t want them to sit down. I got wooden folding chairs. When you sit down you get lazy. When you stand up, you go. It’s a numbers game. Got to keep dialing that phone.”

  Louis had to get some new cold-callers—and fast. The firm was going to pay for ten cold-callers, so Louis and Benny had to start recruiting.

  At nineteen, Louis was one of the younger middle managers on Wall Street—and surely one of the very few, at that or any other time, who was listed in the NASD’s Central Records Depository as an “assistant.” By law, brokerage house managers had to hold not only the Series 7 broker license, but also the Series 24 license required for individuals with the task of managing others. Such formalities were obeyed by the chop houses only when it wasn’t too inconvenient.

  “They were going to pay for ten cold-caller salaries, so we put an ad in the paper and that’s how we found Sally Leads, Chris Ray, Pete Restivo, everybody. We had ads in the Post, the News, the Times. Didn’t do the Staten Island Advance. Benny didn’t like the kids from Staten Island. He thought they were fucking thugs. They were. They were not good workers. Some of them were good, but most were like punks. I hated hiring kids from Staten Island. Too close to home anyway. They’d come to your house when you owed them money. It was a pain in the ass,” said Louis.

  The crew system fostered unit cohesiveness, intramural competition, and loyalty. Louis and Benny hired kids who were very much like themselves—hungry outer-borough kids, mainly Italian and Jewish.

  “Me and Benny used to do the interviews. They’d come in, and we’d ask them stupid questions—Roy Ageloff questions. ‘Why you here?’ ‘I seen the ad in the paper.’ ‘You know what this is? You sell stock here. Can you be on the phone all day?’ I wouldn’t even know what the hell to ask,” said Louis.

  “And then if we thought they had potential we hired them. Give them a shot. And make them work too. Work hard. We kept them if they worked hard. Some of them would come in and they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s not for me. It’s only a hundred a week,’ blah blah blah. The ones that didn’t complain, some of them said, ‘Can I make money if
I open accounts?’ Some of them were just determined. They wanted to do it.”

  For the ones with potential, persuading them to take the job wasn’t too hard. All Louis had to do was tell the truth:

  “I used to tell them, ‘I’m nineteen years old. I got my own apartment. I got a car. I make ten grand, fifteen grand a month.’”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Half these people, you could hear it in their voice. They’re willing to send the money. They’d give signs. I’d really pay attention to what they said, because a lot of the times it was a sign that they were willing to invest.

  “A guy would say, ‘How exactly do you spell that?’ I’d know he was done right after he said that. I knew he was interested. Or, ‘What kind of commission do you charge?’ I’d say, ‘Nothing.’ Yes, absolutely nothing except for a two-point chop I won’t tell you about. It was weird. These people were just naÏve. I guess they just didn’t know anything out there. Probably still don’t know.

  “To this day, I would bet any sum of money that people are still stupid. I used to tell Benny we could make a million dollars by getting a million leads, we hire thirty cold-callers, and have them just calling everybody, and ask them for ten dollars. Ten dollars in a check by mail. And I bet you any amount of money that after five months we’d accumulate a million bucks. We ask them for ten dollars and if they send a dollar it would be good enough. Call a million people. That’s how stupid these people are.

  “We had stacks of leads from Shearson Lehman, D. H. Blair. We wound up getting Hanover leads; we got Hanover microfiche, which was big. And it was a great edge for us, because on the microfiche we would get the statement, so you would see the stocks that they bought. And I’d say, ‘Remember the last time I spoke with you, you told me you owned Mr. Jay’s and Porter McLeod at Hanover Sterling?’ It would give you, like, an edge. ‘How are those stocks doing?’ ‘Ehh, they’re doing shit.’ ‘Well, why don’t you transfer that account over to me, work with a real guy?’ They would do it. They would fill out ACAT [account transfer] forms.

  “I would never call anybody who lived in Jersey or New York. Never. My best states were Utah, Texas, Arizona, Virginia. Michigan was one of my favorite states too. Michigan was good. Stupid people up in Michigan. California too. Not Los Angeles but on the outskirts of California. Sacramento. Utah was my favorite state. I think that was my top state. Because they were completely fucking retarded. They have like nine wives, they’re Mormons. They’re retards. You call them from New York, and they’re like, ‘Where are you?’ And I’d say, ‘I’m a spit throw away from the New York Stock Exchange.’ And they’d say, ‘Really! How is it up there in New York?’

  “They’re fascinated by the whole concept of it. Utah, Arizona, Texas—but only certain parts of Texas. Dallas, never. San Antonio, never. Houston, no. Parts of Texas like Fort Worth. Just shithole parts of Texas. I would never call big cities. I would never call Salt Lake City. Because these were big cities; people would know better. I’d call towns. Rural places, not suburbs.

  “I used to see Dallas on the lead, I’d go, ‘Nope.’ Places like Fort Worth were okay. I went to Fort Worth once. Went into the store, asked the lady for five packs of Marlboro. Her kids are running around barefoot. She went, ‘Fahv packs a Marlboro?’ Like people bought a cigarette at a time. I wanted five packs and she almost dropped dead. She says, ‘Fawteen dollars,’ like it’s the biggest sale of the century.

  “In the more eastern states, people were closer in touch. When you called out West, it’s just a different fucking world out there. And some of the South people too, like Tennessee. I had this guy, an old black guy from out there. This guy was good. We lost him money. I remember him calling up, he had this black Tennessee accent, and he says, ‘I’ll tell you, boy, you fucking New Yorkers, man. You lose me all my money.’ I remember him calling up, and he had this old scratch in his voice.

  “The furthest I’d been was Ocean City, New Jersey. I didn’t even know these people existed out there, out in the country, or even had money. It was actually fascinating for me at first. I used to tell Stefanie and my mother, ‘I spoke to somebody in like Montana, Ma!’ Then it became like a ritual, like second nature to me. And then I used to know what to say to a guy who lived in Utah. Or I would know the different ways to talk to these people. And if they were old or if they were young how to talk to them. Like the old men, I used to hard-sell them. Pump them up. Because they used to like it, the old men. I’d say, ‘Come on, Bob! What the fuck! Grab your balls!’

  “Old men I used to treat like that. And they’d go, ‘Ahh, you fucking New York broker!’ They’d be like crazy old men. The young guys I used to talk to in a more sincere, greedy kind of way.

  “I used to love talking to the old guys. They were my favorite. Because they used to abuse you and send you the money too. They’d be like, ‘Ehh, you’re busting my balls! I’ll send you the goddamn hundred grand.’ It was like a comedy. It was. But it’s the truth. It’s sad but it’s funny.

  “They’d call up and they’d say, ‘You charged me thirty bucks too much on the commission,’ and I’d say, ‘I’ll send you a personal check for that thirty bucks,’ and I would send it to them. And they would get the thirty bucks. And they’d say, ‘Wow, that was great. I’ll send you a hundred thousand now.’

  “Just dumb. I’m not saying I was such a great salesman that people would send me money, because yeah, I was a good salesman, but come on! I would get off the phone with some of these people after they sent me a hundred thousand and I’d say, ‘What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Is he a retard?’ And they would call back the next day and ask, ‘Did you get that check? I sent it out.’ Yeah, I got it, I spent it already. I just bought myself a new car. So obviously I got it, right?

  “I would give them my home number, and it would be like the best thing that ever happened. ‘Only a picked few of my clients get my home number.’ Since you sent me over a half a million, and you actually hooked up my phone line for me. These people were just naÏve to the world I guess, you know. They live in the boondocks of Texas or Arizona, where dirt roads lead to their house. They just don’t know no better.

  “I don’t know if it’s greed. I don’t know what it is with these people. Why would you send somebody half a million dollars? Us being New Yorkers, somebody tells us we’re going to make a million dollars, we’d say, ‘Get the fuck out of here. Right, give me the half a million and then I’ll give you half a million.’ We’re very shrewd. But they’re not shrewd. It used to surprise me how the fuck they got their money. Like, how did this idiot get fifteen million? What did he do for this fifteen million? Because he’s a complete moron. If he’s sending people a million dollars over the phone, he’s not going to have that fifteen million for long.

  “We used to get attorneys to send us a couple of hundred thousand. We had an attorney in Utah. This guy Alan, I forget his last name. He was an attorney, like a trial attorney. We got him at Robert Todd. Supposed to be a smart guy, sends us seven hundred thousand for fucking dogshit stocks. Over the phone without meeting us. He’s an attorney. He should be more shrewd than that to be an attorney. Boy, I’d hate to be in fucking Utah having him represent me.

  “Sometimes their wives would pick up the phone, and they’d tell me, ‘He’s out in the crop.’ Out in the field in their crop. Sometimes they couldn’t even get him, and I used to picture this guy having like six hundred acres of land, and his wife saying, ‘The New York broker called,’ and him saying, ‘You didn’t tell me! Gee!’ And him running to the phone, from six miles out in the field, running back to the phone.

  “And I used to laugh about it too. I used to cover the phone and say, ‘She’s getting him. He’s fucking four miles out in the field. He’s gonna run back to the phone, Ben. Watch.’ And I used to know that if he came to the phone at that particular moment, if she got him to come to the phone, he’s done! He’s good for a hundred grand. Came all the way from his fields to the phone.

  �
��They’d be farmers, or they’d be retired and have all this money. We had this guy, John Kiwalski. He was in computers and he actually engineered computers for some company. He sent us like three hundred thousand. I used to ask him about himself, and he had a wife, two kids, three kids. He had a nice house. I always asked them what kind of car they drove, and I would write it down. Because you know how the guy is living. He had a Jaguar. And I remember pitching this guy and saying to myself, ‘This guy’s got to be a smart guy. He builds computers.’ But he can’t even find the stocks I’m giving him on the computer.

  “They’d say that—‘I couldn’t find that stock in the paper.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, it only goes in the paper if it trades more than a hundred thousand shares.’ That’s not true! And they would believe it. Or I’d say, ‘What paper you looking in?’ They’d say, ‘I’m looking in the New York Times,’ and I’d say, ‘No, you have to get the Journal.’ They’d say they couldn’t get the Journal out there, and I’d say I’d send them a copy of the Journal. And I’d never send it. Just a fucking joke.

  “The best client Benny and me had at Robert Todd was Stormin’ Norman. That’s what we called him, Stormin’ Norman. Stormin’ was like eighty-nine. We used to call up and he’d say, ‘Yeahhhh, how’s my account?’ Talking like he’s dying. And we used to keep pushing him for more money. He used to call up and say, ‘We need some money back down here.’ And I’d say, ‘I need another fifty from you to even start to send you money back.’ He was from someplace out West. He was good, Stormin’ Norman. We had like two hundred thousand of his money, lost him like ninety thousand.