We arrived at a table along the back wall. “What’s your name?” I asked, sitting down.
“Tiffany,” she answered.
“Like the pretty blue box?”
She smiled, her eyes shining like gems. “Exactly.”
That was for you, Grandpa Charles. Hope you were watching and getting a laugh.
Tiffany turned, leaving me on my own – and that’s how I remained for the next ten minutes. Then twenty. Then half an hour. What was this all about?
Thankfully, of all the restaurants in which to be stuck waiting for someone, Lombardo’s Steakhouse ranked near the top, thanks to its truly sublime people watching. It was easy to pass the time counting the Botoxed foreheads or, for the truly cynical, playing Hollywood Hamlet with the tabloid celebrities sprinkled in the mix.
Rehab or not rehab? That is the question.
I guess that’s why I had been a little surprised that Dwayne Robinson would agree to meet me here, let alone be the one to actually choose the place.
Sure, he was as famous as they come in the world of sports. Or maybe infamous was a better word these days. But even way back when he was the toast of New York – make that America – he never would’ve eaten at Lombardo’s. That’s how bad his anxiety disorder was.
So maybe he’s cured now. Maybe that’s one of the hooks of this interview, that he’s “going public” in more ways than one.
Or maybe not.
As I glanced at my watch again, I wondered if perhaps nothing had changed about him and my flying halfway around the planet with barely a minute to spare was all for naught. Dwayne Robinson was now an hour late.
What’s the deal? Where the hell is he? What an asshole this guy is.
I rang Courtney, who called me right back after getting in touch with his agent. The agent was equally as baffled, especially since he had confirmed the interview with Dwayne earlier in the morning. Now he couldn’t reach him.
“I’m so sorry, Nick,” said Courtney.
“You and me both. Well, at least Robinson hasn’t lost anything over the years. He’s still a no-show. What a chump.”
After another fifteen minutes, I finally gave up waiting. Dwayne Robinson was officially MIA – just like when he was scheduled to pitch that seventh and deciding game of the World Series and flat-out disappeared.
All of a sudden I felt like the kid who confronted Shoeless Joe Jackson on the steps of the Chicago courthouse during the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
Say it ain’t so, Dwayne.
Say it ain’t so…
But… it was so.
And Robinson wasn’t the chump – that would be me.
Chapter 8
CALL ME LAZY AND SHIFTLESS, but on the heels of being chased by a gang of bloodthirsty, trigger-happy militiamen, leaping from a speeding Jeep, and flying a gazillion miles for a career-making interview that didn’t happen, I decided to play hooky the next day. I didn’t trek into my office at Citizen magazine nor did I plan to work out of my apartment, something I do from time to time with decent results.
Instead I spent the morning in bed relaxing with some coffee (cream, no sugar), the New York Times (Sports section first, then Arts, then News in Review), and one of my favorite Elvis Costello albums (My Aim Is True).
And by records I mean, literally, the record. Nothing against CDs and MP3s, but I’ve yet to hear anything that quite captures the pure sound of a needle against vinyl. So yeah, I’m afraid I’m one of those people, a purist who still swears by his LP collection.
Anyway, at a little past noon I finally ventured out to my go-to neighborhood eatery, the Sunrise Diner, a few blocks south of my apartment. I was just being served my lunch (cheese omelet, sausage, black coffee) when Courtney called.
“Where are you?” she asked in a near panic.
“About to bite into a delish-looking omelet at the Sunrise.”
“Don’t!” she said. “Step away from those eggs!”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re already late.”
For what?
I had no idea what she was talking about. Then it suddenly clicked without her saying another word. “You’re kidding me,” I said.
“No, I’m not. I just got a call from his agent. Dwayne Robinson is sitting inside Lombardo’s at this very moment waiting for you.”
“He thought our lunch was today?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly hang around for the excuse,” said Courtney. At least I thought that’s what she said. I was already clicking off the phone.
“Check, please!”
“Is anything wrong with the omelet, Nick? I’ll get you another one, honey.”
“No, no, it looks great, Rosa. I just have to run. Sorry.”
Luckily I had my shoulder bag with me – the same beat-up brown leather bag I’ve had since I graduated from Northwestern. Tucked inside as always was the one thing I absolutely needed to conduct the interview: my tape recorder. It’s actually a “digital voice recorder,” but thanks to that purist streak in me I’ve yet to get comfortable calling it that. Probably never will.
Bolting out of the Sunrise, I snagged a cab heading south and offered the driver five dollars for every red light he ignored. Eight minutes and twenty-five dollars later, we were screeching to a halt in front of Lombardo’s.
For the second day in a row, I was walking into the same bustling steakhouse for lunch. As my favorite Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Fittingly, the same hostess – “Tiffany, right?” – was there to greet me. She took the leather jacket I was wearing and led me to the same quiet table in the back.
And there he was, in the flesh. Dwayne Robinson. The legend. The fallen legend. And definitely the greatest sports mystery ever.
“I’d just about given up on you,” he said.
Right back atcha, buddy.
Chapter 9
I HONESTLY DIDN’T know what to expect next as I sat down across from him. I knew my job was to be objective, but sometimes it’s pretty hard, if not impossible, to completely shut off your feelings. There had been a time I had revered Dwayne Robinson, but that was ages ago. Now he was just some guy who had squandered an amazing Hall of Fame talent, and if anything, I resented him for it.
Maybe that’s why I was so stunned at my reaction to the man now.
After just one look into his eyes, the same eyes that used to stare down opposing batters without an ounce of fear, I could feel only one thing for him: sorry as hell. Because all I could see in those eyes now was fear.
Cue Paul McCartney and the Beatles: I’m not half the man I used to be.
“What are you drinking?” I asked, eyeing the three knuckles’ worth of what appeared to be whiskey in front of him.
“Johnnie Walker,” he answered. “Black.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Rumors of Dwayne Robinson’s drug use had begun by his third year of twenty-win seasons in the majors. Mind you, this was back when the worry wasn’t all about performance-enhancing drugs. Supposedly, he was doing cocaine and sometimes heroin. Ironically, when you shoot those two together it’s called a “speedball.”
But if the persistent rumors were true, the two-time Cy Young Award winner wasn’t letting it affect his performance on the field. And whatever erratic behavior he displayed else-where was explained away by his social anxiety disorder.
Then came the famous “Break-In.”
With the World Series between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers tied at three games apiece, Dwayne was scheduled to take the mound in the Bronx for the decisive game seven. He had already won two games in the series, allowing only a single run. In other words, he seemed unhittable and therefore unbeatable.
Only this time, he never showed up for the game.
He disappeared for something over seventy-two hours. Hell, it would’ve been longer had the super in his Manhattan luxury high-rise – a die-hard Yankees fan, no less – not used his m
aster key to enter the star’s penthouse apartment. Inside he found Dwayne Robinson lying naked on the floor, barely conscious. According to insider stories the irate super actually kicked the star a couple of times.
From a hospital bed at Mt. Sinai, Dwayne told the police that two men had forced their way into his apartment and drugged him, probably to increase their odds on a huge bet they’d made on the game. So that’s why his blood tested positive for a nearlethal dose of heroin. Because of the “Break-In.”
Naturally, it became one of the biggest stories in sports – no, make that one of the biggest news stories, period. After Watergate, it was the second most famous break-in in history, I quipped at the time, writing for Esquire.
Of course, the difference was that Watergate had actually happened.
While Dwayne Robinson had his supporters, the prevailing sentiment was that he was lying – that no matter how vehemently he denied it, the ugly truth was that he had overdosed on his own.
The fact that the two thugs – whose descriptions he provided to the police – were never found didn’t exactly bolster his case.
Within a year, Robinson was banned for life from the game of baseball. His wife left him, taking their two young children and eventually winning full custody of them. If you thought about it, and I did, it was the worst bad dream imaginable. Everything he lived for was gone. It had all disappeared. Just like him.
Until now. This very moment. The first interview in a decade.
I reached down and slid my tape recorder out of the brown leather bag on the floor. Placing it in the center of the table, I hit record. My hand was actually shaking a little.
“So how’s this work?” asked Dwayne cautiously as he leaned forward in his white button-down shirt, his enormous elbows settling gently on our table. “Where do you want me to begin?”
That part was easy.
What really happened that night, Dwayne? After all these years, are you finally ready to tell a different story? The real story? Solve the mystery for us. Solve it for me.
But before I could ask my first question, I heard a horrific scream, one of the most wretched, guttural, god-awful sounds I’d ever heard.
And it was coming from the next table over. We couldn’t have been any closer.
Chapter 10
MY HEAD SNAPPED sharply to the left, my eyes tracing the horrible sound to its source. As soon as I saw what was happening, I wished that I hadn’t. But it was too late and I couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t do anything, actually. It was over so fast, I couldn’t even get out of my chair to help.
Two men.
One knife.
Both eyes!
A chorus of shouts and screams flooded the restaurant as the man wielding the knife let go of the other man’s head, the blood spouting from his eye sockets as he collapsed onto the table. A little spark was triggered in the back of my brain. I know him. I recognize him.
Not the man with the knife, not the killer. He didn’t look familiar; he didn’t even look human.
He moved lightning fast – and yet there wasn’t a trace of emotion coming from him. He coolly tucked away the knife in his jacket, then bent down to whisper something in his victim’s ear.
I couldn’t hear it… but he definitely whispered in the dying man’s ear.
For the first time, I glanced over at Dwayne, who looked exactly as I felt. In complete shock. I could tell he hadn’t heard the killer’s whisper either.
What came next, though, everyone in Lombardo’s clearly heard.
The killer began walking toward the door to the kitchen when a man behind him shouted, “Freeze!”
I turned to see two men with guns drawn. Cops? If they were, they were out of uniform.
“I said, freeze!” the one repeated.
From twenty feet away they had the killer dead in their sights. At least that’s the way it looked.
Plates, silverware, and entire tables went crashing as people scrambled for their lives to get out of the way of whatever might happen next.
The killer stopped, turning to the two men and their guns. Sunglasses blocked his eyes.
He said nothing. He barely moved.
“Put your hands up slowly!” the second man barked. They certainly sounded like cops.
The killer just smiled. It was a sick, twisted grin that seemed tailor-made to the crime he’d just committed. His hands, however, remained at his sides.
“Put your fuckin’ hands up!” came the second warning.
My eyes pinballed back and forth between the killer and the two men. It was a standoff so far. But something had to give. Or someone. And everything, including the barrels of two guns, was pointing at the killer.
Suddenly his hands jolted up, but not before first taking a detour. As fast as you can say Travis Bickle, the killer reached into his jacket, removing two guns of his own.
You talkin’ to me? Are you talkin’ to me?
Who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to?
Dwayne’s reflexes were still there, and he dove to the floor. I was right behind him, closing my eyes as sheer pandemonium broke out above our heads. There were countless gunshots. People screaming.
People dying.
Finally, when it all stopped, when all I could hear were the horrified sobs and gasps of everyone down on the floor around me, I opened my eyes again.
And I nearly threw up.
There, in a pool of blood on the polished hardwood floor of the restaurant, was one freshly carved-out eyeball staring up at me.
Chapter 11
MY LEGS WERE rubbery and my stomach rolled as I slowly stood, gazing at a sea of overturned tables and chairs, smashed plates, scattered silverware and food. Shocked and bewildered, everyone was asking everyone else the same question.
“Are you okay?”
The answers were quickly drowned out by the piercing sound of sirens. I barely had time to grab my tape recorder as the New York police descended on the restaurant, blocking off all the exits and corralling us like sheep in the bar area.
Soon, everyone was asking a different question.
“Haven’t we been through enough already?”
A few ambitious cops fanned out among us, quickly trying to get as much information as they could before turning the investigation over to the detectives. What they didn’t want to get in return was lip and blowback from a high-class clientele that just wanted to get the hell out of there.
“Tough shit,” I actually overheard one officer say to some red-faced stuffed shirt complaining that he had to be at an important board meeting all the way downtown.
The officer’s anger made all the more sense as word got around fast that the two men who confronted the killer had indeed been off-duty cops. Their precinct, the nineteenth, was nearby and they had been grabbing a quick beer and hamburger at the bar after working the graveyard shift together.
Now they were dead.
How could that be? I had been there – and it almost hadn’t seemed possible. They had had the guy covered like white on rice!
Clearly the killer knew what he was doing, and that was the King Kong of understatements. As fast as lightning he’d taken down two of New York City ’s finest, and not with lucky shots, either. I’m talking about dead center to their foreheads, twice over. The cops never knew what hit them.
Then – poof! – the killer was gone. He had apparently escaped unscathed through the kitchen and out a back door.
All told, he left behind three dead, four wounded, and dozens who were really, really shaken up about what they had just – unfortunately – witnessed.
Few more so than Dwayne Robinson, who now stood by my side. I almost felt like his bodyguard at this point. Or his sports agent. Someone there to take care of him.
“Here, drink this,” I said, handing him some Johnnie Walker Black that I grabbed from behind the bar. Technically, I was looting. Officially, I didn’t care.
“Thanks,” Dwayne mumbled, reaching for the glass. Th
at’s when I saw that his hands were trembling badly. Is there a Valium in the house?
Or maybe it was his anxiety disorder kicking in. He had that look, like the restaurant walls were caving in on him. Better make that two Valium…
It didn’t help matters that people were beginning to recognize him. You didn’t need any poker skills, though, to read his body language. It basically screamed, Back off!
Unfortunately, one idiot couldn’t help himself. He walked right past Donald Trump, Orlando Bloom, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, heading straight for us.
“Hey, aren’t you Dwayne Robinson?” he asked, removing a slip of paper from inside his suit jacket. “Do you think maybe you could sign -”
“Now’s not really a good time,” I interrupted.
The guy turned to me, raising his tweezed eyebrows. He looked like a real slickster, maybe from Madison Avenue. “Who are you?” he asked.
Good question. Who was I to Dwayne Robinson at this moment? But the answer seemed to come easily. “I’m a friend of his,” I answered. Then I channeled my best tough-guy imitation. “And like I said, now’s not really a good time.”
I must have been convincing enough, because the guy backed off. He even mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Thanks,” Dwayne said again.
“You’re welcome. So what brings you here?” I said, and grinned so he’d know I was trying a joke to ease the tension. Not a good joke, just a joke.
Dwayne took a big gulp of the Johnnie Walker and finally managed to find his voice. “Man, I don’t know if I can do this,” he said. “How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
It was another very good question. I was about to tell him I had no idea when some guy with a badge hooked to his belt stood on a chair and introduced himself as Detective Mark Ford. That was followed by a bit of good news, if you could call it that. He and his partner wanted to take statements from people according to how close they had been sitting to the initial murder.
“We’ll do this table by table,” he said. “As soon as you’re done, you can go.”
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