Kristmas Collins (4 page)

Goldfish would have sufficed, but when it comes to Wainwright gifts this was downright frugal. Libby and her brothers were all bought a thoroughbred racehorse as children, costing well into the six figures each. So as long as it won’t require Daddy to be scooping up pony poop on the weekend, I was on board with it … not that I had much of a choice. And Libby and the kids had plenty of space at the house in Pound Ridge to keep them, including a barn. We bought the place right before the twins were born. But I spent most of my time those last few years in Manhattan, schmoozing my celeb clients and writing a cautionary tale.

As if they had an internal alarm clock that beeped every time we discussed their Christmas gifts—for all I know, there might be an Apple app to do that these days—all four of our kids suddenly joined us.

Gathering everyone in the same place had never been an easy task with the Collins clan, so it was a nice moment … until Franny exclaimed, “Look, Daddy—I got a candy cane.” She proudly held up her striped sugar stick up for me to see, as did Zooey.

Just as she said it, as if orchestrated, Celine-Lite began singing with gusto, “O Come, all ye Faithful.”

A few of the guests had the nerve to send a dirty look in my direction. In this room, I was squarely in the top percentile of faithfulness, having had just one affair, albeit, a very public one.

“I’m sorry about that,” I whispered to Libby.

“It was bound to come up. Especially this time of year.”

I meant I was sorry about everything, but now was hardly the time for such mea culpas, especially ones that were already understood, and frankly, were too late.

When my public mocking concluded, the kids dispersed to prepare for the Nativity play—a requirement for all Wainwright children each year. I jokingly slipped Taylor the “Get out of Jail Free” Monopoly card that she’d given me during one of her prison visits, and that I’d carried in my wallet since being released. She’d always hated performing in these plays.

But she surprised me with her enthusiasm. “I’m playing the lead this year—the Virgin Mary—it can’t go on without me!” she exclaimed, before heading off to Wardrobe.

I’d given up on trying to figure out teenagers, so I didn’t give the change of heart much thought, and my mind wandered again to my return trip to the city. Libby caught me glancing at my watch. “Not going to stick around for the play?”

“I’d like to—I hear it’s up for a Tony. But I have a train to catch.”

“Say hello to Zee for me,” she said, showing off her prognostication skills.

“I will.”

Before I left, she reached into her purse one more time and took out a folder. “Can you give this to Alyson when you go home tonight? It’s for the Morzetti case. We have a meeting coming up, and she’s off tomorrow, so she wanted to do some prep work.”

I looked at the folder, but didn’t say anything.

“You are going home tonight, aren’t you?” she asked with a suspicious look.

She always knew when I was up to something. And I was. But that wasn’t the reason for my silence. It was the realization that while I might be living with Alyson, home was a place that I’d never have again. So, no, I wouldn’t be going
home
tonight.

I took Metro North from Greenwich to Grand Central, and then hopped a subway to Penn Station. The journey ended an hour later with me standing outside a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only,” and watching weary holiday travelers pass by me without a second look.

After another half hour dragged by, Zee stepped through the door. He was wearing his Amtrak engineer uniform of matching blue jacket and pants, along with a winter hat over his shaved head. He had a red bandana tied around his neck like he was a cowboy, but its purpose was to cover his tattooed artwork, a company policy, not a fashion statement.

There was no emotional greeting. Or even an audible one. He just read my look and followed me through the train terminal. We had the ability to communicate solely through gestures and eye contact, as only people who’ve been connected at the hip since kindergarten could do. Using the touristy Christmas crowds as cover, we were able to avoid the New York media, which had been hounding Zee since it was discovered that the onetime prince of the city was now working as a train engineer—the technical word for the guy who drives the train. I could relate, as they followed me relentlessly when I first got out of prison, but like most people, they quickly grew tired of me. But this city had been fascinated with the ups and downs of Zee Thomas for over twenty years, and showed no signs of losing interest in him.

Train Wreck,
was the headline when his new career path was discovered. What didn’t appear in any of the articles—the ones with headlines like
Amtrak Going To Pot—
was that Zee has had a love affair with trains since we were little. That he worked day and night to build the most elaborate model train setup I’d ever seen when we were kids, and that trains were always as big of a love in his life as baseball. Or that he achieved a perfect score on the very challenging engineer test, and graduated at the top of his class at “Choo Choo U.”

But even I would admit that there was a more troubling side to Zee’s sudden career move. The Thomas family lived across the street from us in Tarrytown—his father, Vic Thomas, was a commodities broker, who commuted to the city each day. But no matter how late he got home, I would be able to look out my bedroom window to see the lights on in the Thomas’ backyard, and father and son playing catch.

To the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, Mr. T was the cool dad, and the Little League coach we all wanted to play for. He made us all feel like we’d be the ones who would be playing for the Yankees one day. But he was always different with Zee, and now with the perspective of thirty years of hindsight, I tended to think the way he pushed his son was more about his own failed dreams.

The thing that always stuck with me was that Zee never cried after he was told that his father had committed suicide during our senior year, but the burning I’d seen in his eyes hasn’t left since that day. Instead of taking the train to the city, as he had done each workday for twenty years, his father had leaped in front of one that day. It was why the “train thing” had all those who care about Zee very concerned.

We made it out of Penn Station unscathed, onto Eighth Avenue. Zee was spotted right away. Like always, he didn’t have much to say, but he was accommodating with the fans and politely signed a few items, using his once-famous left arm.

Just a year removed from high school, Zee took the mound in Yankee Stadium. Armed with a 99mph fastball, the teenager led the Yankees to an improbable playoff appearance. But his rise was like a shooting star. A severe arm injury and a legendary fall from grace sent him on a journey to Milwaukee, San Diego, and even a stint in Japan, as he carved out a fifteen-year baseball career. He was never a star again after the injury, and I think he liked it that way. But New Yorkers never forgot the thrills he brought to them that one summer. They would always have his back, no matter how many indiscretions and court appearances there had been since.

The adversarial media was a different story, and they soon had us surrounded. A photographer snapped shots right in his face, blinding us with the flash. The scene reminded me of when Zee and I would walk up the court steps each day during his murder trial, which became the catalyst for my career.

But Zee remained calm, continuing his methodical stride as if they weren’t there. Chaos was Zee’s natural habitat—he’d literally been surrounded by it since the day he was born. His father was forced to deliver him while they were stuck in traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge, desperately trying to get to the hospital. Mother and child survived the ordeal, and thankfully they didn't name him Tappan, but it would be a harbinger of things to come.

A police officer stepped in to play interference, allowing us to break from the hungry pack. We chose walking over a ten-dollar cab ride. Times Square was only eight blocks away and Zee preferred to stretch his legs after his trip to and from Vermont, driving the scenic train-line aptly named “the Vermonter.”

As we walked up Eighth Avenue, and the snow started falling harder, we had one of our usual conversations. In other words, I did all the talking. I told him about the party, getting the information to the Amigos, and bemoaned how fast my daughter was growing up.

Zee listened intently, adding something only when necessary. Similar to Alex, it wasn’t as if he was incapable of talking—he actually gave passionate speeches to schools about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. It was like watching a different person.

He was equally passionate about his involvement in my plot, even though I had reservations about his participation. I didn’t doubt he was perfect for the job—the main requirements were loyalty and the ability to keep one’s mouth shut. Who better embodied those qualities than Zee? But if things were to go wrong, there would be a lot of collateral damage, and it had always been my instinct to protect Zee. I think this time he believed he was returning the favor.

We soon arrived at the glitzy lights of Times Square, and just like a lot of folks this holiday season we headed to Temple.

We walked into Temple of Duma’s. The combination of the loud music, laser-show lighting, and gorgeous naked women left me dizzy, and searching for my bearings.

If you like your strip clubs dark and dingy, with a permeating haze of cigarette smoke, then this place probably wouldn’t be your cup of tea. It more resembled the theme-park motif of most of the current occupants of the modern Times Square. The place even had a gift shop. Sometimes I missed the sleaze of yesteryear in New York City—it had a certain authenticity to it.

Just as I was about to fall over, I felt a large paw on my back, steadying me. I turned to see the club’s owner, and former Jets defensive lineman, Justin Duma—all six-four and three hundred pounds of him.

I was no longer Duma’s best customer, but I was a big reason why he was still in business. He first hired me to represent him when the NFL tried to force him to shut down Temple of Duma’s, based on a very subjective “morality clause” in his contract.

But that was just the warm-up. The next opponent was a former mayor of New York, who’d made it his mission to clean up Times Square. As a business owner in the area, Duma found this commendable. At least until they tried to shut him down as part of the clean-up plan.

We argued that besides being the owner of a
legal
business, Justin Duma had courage to invest in the seedy, pervert-filled area known for its peepshows, and had been bringing upscale clients into Times Square long before the mayor’s grandstanding began. He was one of the few who’d been trying to upgrade the area on the 364 days a year when Dick Clark didn’t show up to count down the New Year. The fight went on for years, but in the end, Temple of Duma’s was still here, the mayor was long gone, and Times Square, by any definition, had been scrubbed clean.

Duma spoke over the music, explaining that he needed to attend to some business in his office, and we could meet there in about an hour. In the meantime, he suggested we do some window-shopping, and he wasn’t talking about the storefronts on Fifth Avenue.

He called over a girl named Jade, one of the few women in the place wearing clothes. She led us passed smaller stages that were scattered throughout the club like islands. They were surrounded by tables of gawking men, who appeared desperate to get their lifeboat to land.

Our destination was the VIP area right in front of the large rotating stage in the center of the room. It reminded me of sitting in the front row for Fashion Week, as a favor from a supermodel that I’d represented on cocaine charges. But I’m the first to admit that her winks at the jury played a bigger role in her acquittal than my lawyering.

There appeared to be a Christmas theme tonight, as the dancers gyrated to seasonal music, uniformed in Santa hats and not much else. A slow, rhythmic version of “Santa Baby” accompanied the bumping and grinding.

The uniformity was typical, as Duma ran a tight ship that more resembled boot camp than your usual strip club. Every dancer must be enrolled in college or grad school, and be passing their classes. There was no fraternization with customers outside of work, and there was a zero policy for drugs, which included weekly testing.

Some have called Duma a Father Flanagan figure who saved girls from the street, just as his own mother had gotten him and his siblings out of their crack infested neighborhood in Oakland, California, by stripping. And maybe the son of one of these dancers would turn out like this Berkeley educated, financially independent businessperson, who once inspired seventy thousand fans to chant
Doooooma!
when he’d sack the quarterback.

Others would say that’s a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit—that he’s profiting off naïve girls who flaunt their naked bodies in front of men, many of whom should be home with their wives and families.

But having worked with Justin Duma over the years, I knew that the only thing he cared about is the bottom line of his business, and having disciplined, reliable, and upwardly mobile employees was good for business. It was this emotionless business sense that made him a perfect partner for my plan.