“Trust, but verify.”

–Ronald Reagan

In the midst of this political season where the sides of this new great American debate unfolds, I provide an alternate reality to offset the Space Lasers and preparations for the invasion of Greenland. I submit a little conversation that provides contretemps from my nearly five years in prison for having offended the criminal Hamptons politicians and banks — like Capital One — who reportedly stole from 2 million customers — WaMu, whose mortgage workers were snorting meth — and MortgageIt which Deutsche Bank bought after paying $200 million for committing mortgage fraud. So, for a little Night Music as fascism plays itself out — here’s a conversation in prison which will soon become available from my publisher in book form..

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A New York State Prison —

“As I walked around the basketball court with Mat, the mortgage broker, we talked about business in general and his “business” which landed him in prison. I had originally thought that he’d come there with a case involving mortgages — then learned about the attack that got him the nine flat, then dropped to an eight flat after the judge received some letters.

“I got into some shit on the side while I was at Wells Fargo,” said Mat. 

I didn’t ask but listened as they walked aound the court. News reports had outed a few operations that involved drugs. 

Like Washington Mutual. Bankers were creating phony applications while high as a kite. 

A guy named Parsons, he remembered,

“oversaw a team screening mortgage applications, he was snorting methamphetamine daily,” he said. “In our world, it was tolerated,” said Sherri Zaback, who worked for Mr. Parsons and recalls seeing drug paraphernalia on his desk. “Everybody said, ‘He gets the job done.’ ” At WaMu, getting the job done meant lending money to nearly anyone who asked for it.. and its precipitous collapse was the biggest bank failure in American history.” — NYT 12/27/08

“Guy calls me one day and asks me to come down to this bar for a drink. I get there and there’s some celebrities, mobsters, cops, like the place in East Harlem where all the politicians go, you know like Rao’s…”

“Yeah,” I said, “I forget, Giuliani had a table there and a lot of CEOs keep tables there. Crazy. I just read the Wolf of Wall Street and he met an FBI agent there.”

“Anyway…,” said Mat, as we walked around and around. 

“I get there and my friend introduces me to a guy who pulls me aside and says ‘so, I hear you’re a mortgage broker,’ and starts pumping me about what I do — meanwhile, I’m thinking, ‘what does this guy know about me, I’ve never met him before.'”

“Uh,huh.”

“Next thing I know, I’m being treated to drinks and he’s smiling and suggesting we talk again. I’m impressed at being important to this guy, obviously, a Mob guy, and I move around at the bar.”

“So, what happens next?”

“Next time I’m with my friend, his ‘friend’ happens to come by as we’re having a bite to eat. He sits down and my friend excuses himself. This guy, Tony, asks me if I could do him a favor. And, I say, ‘What kind of favor’ and he says, ‘No big deal,’ would I pick up something for him at his friend’s restaurant?” 

“I think about it and try to figure out ‘Why me?’ but I agree and stop by his friend’s place and the guy gives me an envelope to bring back to Tony. I get a REALLY nice meal while I’m there on the house and I don’t look in the envelope and hand it to Tony. He thanks me very much and puts me into something that makes me a small bundle in return.”

I don’t ask what. Mat doesn’t offer either. Clearly, it was illegal. It was drugs. And, Mat kept 100% of the take for doing the deal.

“It was great.” he said.

“And…?” I said.

“And, he asked me a couple of other times to do him a favor. Simple things. And, meantime, he put me into a couple of really simple, really profitable errands. I was making very nice money for not much effort and NO exposure as far as I was concerned. I was almost in the life, you know, like ‘Bronx Tale’ or ‘Goodfellas.’”

“Okay.”

“Then, suddenly, one day,  he asks me for his cut. And, I say, ‘What cut?”‘ 

“I see.”

“Yeah,” said Mat, smiling as we walked.

“He says to me, ‘What do you mean? ‘What cut?’ –What did you think, this is a party just for you?’ And then he takes me down to the basement of his house.”

“Shit.”

“So, now we’re in his basement and he says, close up to my face, really nasty, and scary as shit, ‘You got a couple of deals as a gift, now you work for me and I get a piece off the top. You understand?'”

“And, you understood, I’ll bet?”

“Oh, I understood alright. That’s why, when this guy was following me, the crazy guy I told you about, the one I hit with the hammer and nearly killed — that was about a deal I was handling. There was no way I could go to trial and bring anyone into the thing with a court case and witnesses and all of that shit. I had to just take it and shut up.”

“Nice. And, I thought mortgages were dangerous.”

“It was fucked up,” he said. “But, I had no choice. And, here I am. I’ve got another two years and it’s over.”

“Hopefully, I’ll be getting out with you. Merit Board in a year from this coming June and Parole two years from this February.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s a lot better than some of these guys with an L at the back end of their sentence.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You know Jose,” he said, “don’t you?”

“Yeah, he jogs a lot. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in the Yard for a while now.”

“He’s in my dorm,” said Mat “He’s really depressed. Hasn’t gone out at all. I’ve been trying to get him to come to the Gym.”

“He’s been in prison for 28 or 29 years, hasn’t he?”

“I thought it was 26? Anyway, you know why he’s here don’t you?”

They kept walking and the continuous circles were making him a little tired after having jogged for two miles.

“No,” I said, “what was it?”

“He killed a guy. Shot him six times. It was a contract killing. Just got out of the Army and he was broke.”

“Jesus. He couldn’t find a job?”

“He was young. Only 19 or 20, no money and he was a sharpshooter in the service.”

“So, I guess McDonald’s was not an option?”

“Well, looking back on it I’m sure that would’ve made more sense.” 

“So, is he EVER getting out?”

“I dunno. It’s hard to tell. I’d imagine that they’d have a hard time letting an assassin go. I like Jose, but…”

“I hear you. I’m sure the newspapers would go to town if he ever got out.”

The circular motion continued with Mat and I walking — almost two hours. Before he got back to his own bid. The flat 8 he drew.

“You know in my case I had it coming from all directions.” 

“What do you mean?”  I said.

“The night that all that shit hit the fan I was completely fucked up. It was completely unexpected when the guy drew a gun on me.”

“Where?”

“He came to my house and I let him in because we had a deal. He gets in and pulls a gun on me. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find and hit him with it.”

“Which was…?” 

“A sledgehammer.” 

“I see.”

“So, he goes down and he’s bleeding from the head. Out cold. My friends were there, couple of wiseguys and they help me carry the body out to the car and I put him in the trunk of his car.”

“Sounds like Goodfellas.”

“Well, it was like that. But, I get the body into the trunk and a big black SUV is blocking my driveway. So, we can’t get the car out.”

“Then what happened?”

“Guy wakes up, he’s all fucked up and I say to him ‘Listen, I’m saving your life, shut the fuck up and don’t ever report this.” 

“And he says, ‘yeah, thanks, don’t worry, I’ll never say a word, thanks’ and we get him into the car and close the trunk and manage to drive him around the SUV and leave him parked in front of a hospital.”

“Shit.”

“So what does he do?”

“Beats me,” I said.

“He immediately goes to the Police. Tells them I tried to kill him.”

“You just can’t trust anybody.”

“No shit.” says Mat, “I save this fucking guy’s life and what does he do — he runs to the fucking Police — after trying to kill ME!”

“Talk about ingratitude.”

“Of course, the story the Police got has no gun that he had in it. It was just me trying to rob him — when this was about money he’d taken for a drug deal and didn’t deliver to the people I knew.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, he recovered and now, who knows, after having to take a plea so I didn’t have to worry about bringing MY people into court to testify — maybe he’s still holding a grudge and will come after me when I get out?”

“After doing eight years?”

“Who knows?” he said. “I had a beautiful house with about $500,000 in equity, a beautiful daughter who’s now 6, a new Audi, and a great relationship. The house is gone, the car is gone, my girlfriend went to pieces when I went to prison and I’ve had to fight for custody of my little girl while in here — in order for my parents to take care of her. My girlfriend is gone and I have to find someone else.”

“I don’t envy you having to completely start over.”

“You know,” he said, “part of the reason I didn’t go to trial was the eyewitness from across the street. This older woman says she saw me loading a body into the trunk of a car, closing it and then driving away. It was 10:30 at night, the hood was up and the trunk was open and I’m talking to a guy who’s half delirious and bleeding in the trunk. And, the SUV was blocking her view too. How could she see me?”

“Sounds like ‘My cousin Vinnie.’”

“Yeah,” he said, unable to let it go and not listening to me. 

“But, she worked at the Chamber of Commerce and her husband was a politician. There was no chance. We couldn’t get the truth.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And, then there’s the guy who you almost killed.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, “that guy.”

“Fucking ingrate.”

— From “Gulag” copyright 2025