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Wall Street hedge-fund trader Turney Duff cut his teeth at The Galleon Group long before the firm’s founder, Raj Rajaratnam, wound up behind bars for insider trading. In a revealing new memoir, “The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader’s Tale of Spectacular Excess,” Duff shares his front-row seat to the intoxicating world of high-stakes investment and the exorbitant after-hours culture of drugs, booze and sex while at Argus Partners. Here’s an excerpt, compiled by KATE STOREY, from his book, which comes out June 4.
Summer 2002: I can smell the tequila I drank last night. It oozes from my pores. I’m still wearing my blue Prada suit from yesterday. It looks like I’ve just pulled it out of a gym bag. I have 10 clean ones just like it hanging in my closet, but I woke up late again. I wonder what my personal shoppers at Barney’s would think if they saw me right now. I reek of cigarettes, too. It feels like my teeth are wearing little wool sweaters.
The trading desk is surrounded by glass. I work in a fish bowl. I’m in the middle of a newly renovated office on Park Avenue . . . As the opening bell rings, every muscle in my body clenches. I sit upright and try to focus on the eight computer screens in front of me. There are 25 orders on my desk, each from five to 10 million dollars and involving some sort of investment decision. My head throbs.
If I can just make it to lunch, I tell myself. A cheeseburger with a fried egg will help. I try to see how many minutes I can go without looking at the clock — 16 is the record for the day. I can’t keep my eyes open. I just need to make it to the closing bell.
2:55 p.m. . . . 3:17 p.m. . . . 3:58 p.m. . . . I count down the final minute like a Canadian in Times Square on New Year’s Eve . . .
Forty-five minutes later: There’s an ounce of cocaine piled in the microwave. An additional few thousand dollars’ worth of blow sits on a single plate in the kitchen. The place is littered with Grey Goose bottles, ice, cups, and straws for snorting. We call this East Side apartment the White House for obvious reasons, but it’s more like a Wall Street crack house. Randy and James [two sell side traders] live here. Everything is provided and paid for, compliments of the sell side … They like to please their clients. Tonight they were kind enough to order in: Chinese and Mexican escorts. I watch as two American Express black cards fly through the air across the kitchen. They land right on top of the blow. James uses the cards to chop the cocaine as 12 guys roll up their shirtsleeves. One of the hookers, Adelina, a large-breasted firecracker, drags a finger across my chest. Two traders who work for a hedge fund in Connecticut — and raced here by car service — grab the Asian twins and head to the bedroom. Dr. Fish, a 300-pound sales trader who grew up in the Florida Keys, lays claim to Adelina and escorts her to the other back bedroom . . .
By 8 p.m., the last of the guys are putting on their coats. They have wives, girlfriends and children to go home to. I try not to judge, but I tell myself that when I’m married and have kids, I won’t carry on like I do now. I’m left standing with Gus, Randy and James. The four of us head out for the night.
The Wetbar in the W Hotel is easy. James and Randy are regulars, and we’re afforded full access … The place is dark and sexy. Candlelight is the primary form of illumination. Hotel guests camp out on the back wall, but the Street owns the middle, and that’s where the action is — if you call girls looking for a husband “action.” The four of us sit in the corner booth. Before we left the apartment, we each took a spoonful of blow and dumped it into our cocaine doggy bags . . .
Gus digs into his pocket and surprises us with a few ecstasy pills and some weed. We traders on Wall Street pride ourselves on being the ultimate alchemists. Drugs, alcohol, money and sex are all ingredients in the elixir of power . . .
Two girls at the booth on my left lean over and tell me they’re in college. Wide eyed, with smooth skin, and a bit gawky, they look the part. They also look uncomfortable. I pour them both a glass of champagne. They tell me they appreciate the free alcohol but don’t usually drink champagne. Neither do I, I say.
We toast to the universe for allowing our paths to cross. When they ask me what I do, I hesitate.
“I work on Wall Street,” I say.
“And?” one of the girls says expecting more. “What’d ya do?”
“I work at a hedge fund, I’m a trader,” I explain.
“Cool, but what’d ya do?” the other one asks . . .
Everybody says they want to know how Wall Street works, but the truth is, all they really want to hear is how much money I make — or how much I can make for them. “Well,” I say, struggling to be heard over the music, “basically, institutions and people give us money to invest because we’re going to make more for them than they could make on their own. For that service, we charge a fee and take twenty percent of the profits.” I have the girl’s attention and the coke is fueling my narrative. “It’s like this,” I continue, “say you invest a hundred dollars, and for that investment you get a return of ten bucks. Not bad, right?” The girls nod. “But what if I was to tell you for the same hundred I could get you a return of fifty? Would you do it?” Now the girls nod enthusiastically. “All I ask for is ten dollars of the profits and a nominal fee.”
“Wow,” says the girl closest to me. “You can really do that?”
“Give me a hundred; I’ll show you,” I say.
Hours pass and the college girls have to go home — maybe they have a pop quiz in the morning . . . If I liked them less, I would have tried to trick them into going home with me. I still live on 67th and Broadway. Sometimes I ask girls if they want to go to an underground club called Club 67. When the taxi pulls up to my building, they start to get suspicious. But my doorman is in on the ruse, and when I ask him if the club is open he’ll say: “Yes, go on up.” I’ve walked a number of girls into my apartment and only one has screamed and run back to the elevator.
It’s 4 a.m. I’m somewhere on Lexington Avenue and I’m looking for a cab. I remember I know someone who lives close . . . When I call she picks up. Ten minutes later, she unchains the lock and lets me in. Barbara is in her forties and on the tail end of her escort career. Her apartment is lined with Christmas lights year round, and there’s a mattress with no box spring in the far corner just outside of her bathroom. The couch, television and coffee table look like the ones I had in college that I shared with seven roommates. Like her, the apartment is well worn, but not well loved. Barbara wears a black-lace nighty.
“You still don’t have a girlfriend?” she asks as she takes my hand and leads me to the couch. “I don’t get it.”
“I’m having too much fun,” I say, as I pat down my hair.
Barbara was listed under “mature” on the Web site where I found her six months ago. Her photo was sexy: blond hair, really large breasts. But in person, she wears the truth of her age in her eyes. A bird’s nest of wrinkles sit on either side of them, and they have the tattered expression of a hard life filled with disappointment . . .
She asks if I want to take this party to bed, but I get the feeling she only says it because she feels obligated. She can tell that I’ve partied too much.
No thanks, I say. Instead, we stay on her couch and chat. I ask her how her business is going and she shrugs as if to say that some nights are better than others. “If only I’d invested some of my money,” she says, “then I’d be set.” The statement makes me wonder. I want to tell her that it’s a bear market and nobody’s making money. “Then I wouldn’t have to do this every night,” she says. “I could pick my clients and only hang out with guys like you.” Her comment makes me smile, but I now realize how similar we are.
I’m tired and feel dirty. Barbara asks if I’d like to take a shower with her. The hot water pelts my body. We take turns washing each other, and laugh as we do. Best 20 minutes I’ve had all day.
I’m dressed now, my hair still wet. I hug her at the doorway and hand her some money but she refuses. “Please, just take it,” I say . . .
On the street, I look at my phone, its 5:42 a.m. I need to go home and change my suit.
©2013 The Buy Side by Turney Duff, Crown Business