Daddy didn’t rate the Limos situation as a particular problem. He reckoned it was all a bit of a ‘storm in a teacup’ and felt, like he always does, that a ‘bit of dosh’ would fix things, but he would, wouldn’t he, being three thousand miles away! Eventually we’d paid Limos on Line 6 months worth of fees just to get out of the contract which was probably worth it having seen their faces when the shredded document was emptied onto the table in Privilege. Tanya, our lawyer in London however, wasn’t quite so forgiving and implemented a whole new raft of administrative procedures to ensure we never again fell into the same sort of trap. But then again, she was three thousand miles away. What we got up to and she didn’t know about wouldn’t hurt her!
The fund we’d built up had been doing ok. Daddy was pleased. As long as our numbers beat the median of the other fund managers, we could hold our heads up with our clients and charge even more for our ‘services’ the following year.
Keeping well away from the Street was a great idea of Daddy’s. Madison Avenue was much less frenetic and fewer questions were asked, which was the plan all along but our Friday night sojourns up to the ‘centre of the universe’ kept us appraised of what was going down. Who was doing what and to whom. Names of the big investors whom we would tap up the following week.Who was making the money and, more importantly, who was being investigated.
The delightful Samantha, who had returned from London reinvigorated, was also keeping me well occupied. Her range of skills in the bedroom never failed to surprise me and made me wonder if she’d had another occupation before becoming a respectable PA. I have to say that she also worked miracles when we hosted our clients to some of those little events they expect and which we organise occasionally to thank them for their custom……and our ridiculous charges! She took over the whole balcony of Metrazur in Grand Central one night which apparently had never been done before. The clients were most impressed and one or two of them, after a few too many glasses of Cristal, felt they were entitled to sample the delights of her stunning body as well as the delicious canapés she’d organised. The fact that I was none too fussed about this ‘attention’ had started the problems with Samantha a few months back. As far as I was concerned, they were clients, and good ones to boot. If one of them had wanted to bend her over the balustrade in Metrazur and give her a good seeing to, that was just fine by me. Just as long as he kept his money in the fund.
A few weeks later, on one of the few Friday nights when we didn’t go en-masse to Harry’s Bar which is a short stroll from Wall Street, we ended up at another steak restaurant, probably more famous than Harry’s – Sparks in Midtown. I didn’t know it at the time, but Sparks was where John Gotti, the infamous Mafia gangster had ordered the execution of two fellow Mafia members (Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti) and, according to ‘Mr Fixit’, Richard Pelinni, the Mafia still held court in the farther recesses of the restaurant. How did he know? It bothered me.
I still remember walking into Sparks (pictured). Lots of round tables populated by older guys, sitting, talking with their heads down. Waiters, all men, rushing around in their black dress jackets, making sure no table wanted for anything. I didn’t think anything of it until Pelinni told us of the supposed Mafia connections and then there was a different feel to the place. I’m sure I felt a few glances cast in our direction, but that could have been Samantha, who, as usual on a Friday, wore one of her most alluring outfits. Normally, she dressed like this to attract the Wall Street guys (and get information from them) but now I was slightly concerned about the attention she was attracting.
Dinner went without a hitch. Well nearly! The steaks, which Sparks is famous for, were delicious and cooked to perfection, as you would expect, but for Samantha’s taste, a little too rare. Despite the waiter offering to replace it, Samantha, who had quaffed a few too many glasses of the 82 Margaux, decided that she should lecture the waiter on how ‘the Brits like their steaks cooked’. At one stage she screamed that ‘if she’d wanted raw meat she’d have gone to the fucking butchers’ and then added that ‘fucking yanks have no class’, which was, to me, hysterical given that nobody with any class would order a burnt steak! The waiter was a model of politeness despite the tirade coming from Samantha’s lips and offered to bring another steak but a guy at the adjoining table took exception to her comments and I noticed him whispering in Richard’s ear. Pelinni then whispered in my ear that we needed to leave – pronto. And so we left, without Samantha seeing her steak returned to the table. Outside, Richard said he had been left in no doubt that the underworld traditions of Sparks were alive and well, which might not be a description you could apply to our group if we carried on disturbing other diner’s meals.
As we waited for our limo to take us to the bar at Chambers which we still frequented, I thought it strange that if I’d taken out a gun and shot bullets into the ceiling at Sparks, it’s likely that nobody would have batted an eyelid. But, a rather drunk Samantha shouting about ‘fucking yanks’ managed to get us warned off by a guy who probably had seen, and more ominously, done it all before!
I didn’t know it then but that was the start of our problems in The Big Apple.
