She said she had to go, but managed to punch my number into her cell.
“I’m going to call you,” she slurred.
As she walked away, I thought about stopping her. I wanted to tell her everything right then and there: that I was sorry for getting her into all of this and for being the world’s worst mentor; that I knew about her getting busted; and that if she had talked, I didn’t blame her—I would have done the same thing.
But, I didn’t.
* * *
I was at a friend’s apartment on the Upper East Side. I’d taken to hanging out with the underground crowd of the city, including criminals, gamblers and drug addicts. This particular friend ran a poker room in Chelsea but lived in a fancier neck of the woods. He used the thousands he earned from the card room to fuel his thousand-dollar-a-day freebase habit and had no problem supporting mine as well. We had the best bongs to smoke it out of, plus butane-torch lighters—the whole nine yards.
We’d been partying for a few days, and my body was tired and hurting. By the end of our run, I couldn’t see properly and couldn’t stand up. When I finally passed out, I felt my body twitching and going into convulsions like it did every time I fell asleep. My seizures had come back—it had been about two years since I was with Paul, but they were back, and I was pretty sure this time was it. I wasn’t going to get any more chances.
This particular night, I was asleep and dreaming. Apparently, I got up and started sleepwalking and did a hit. Normally this would wake me up straight away, but I stayed unconscious. I woke up screaming in the bathroom, my face covered in blood. My friend rushed in the bathroom. His face was pale, his eyes wide. He picked me up, brought me back to the bed and turned on all the lights. He felt my head, checking for blood then focused on the rest of me. He breathed in quickly when he saw my mouth.
“What?” I started crying.
I wasn’t really in pain. I couldn’t feel anything, but the blood was freaking me out.
“You’re okay,” he told me, then he hugged me.
He made me lie down in bed and quickly grabbed some towels. I saw him cleaning the bathroom—he wrapped up the bloody towels and threw them in the laundry. He sat down and did a hit, breathed out and said, “You scared the shit out of me. Why were you standing on a chair in the shower?”
I looked at him like he had three heads.
“Right, well, you’re okay. Go to sleep. I’m going to stay up and make sure you’re okay.”
By the time I woke up the next day, my party friend, clearly traumatized by my antics, was still up and not the least bit sober. I did a few hits to get myself straight and called a car service, taking my parting gift (an eight ball of the city’s finest blow) with me.
My clothing-designer friend, Morgan, came over to my apartment. Someone had called her and told her to check on me. She had a key and walked in to find me freaking out. She partied, but not hard—she couldn’t handle my level of excess. She’d been through everything with me—from sitting with me back when I was still addicted to heroin to make sure that I didn’t burn down my apartment by nodding out with a cigarette in my hand, to an accidental Special K overdose (someone had left a water bottle full of liquid K on my counter and, thinking it was water, I’d taken a big, I mean big, swig of it).
When she arrived, I was shaking. I couldn’t find a lighter.
She tried to sit me down. I told her I would, but I needed to find a lighter first…I needed to do a hit. She knew me well enough to know how to help me. Forcing me to sit down wasn’t going to work. She found a lighter, I did a hit, and we sat down on the bed.
“Natalia, you’re not okay.”
I didn’t answer. “Natalia, you’re not okay. Show me your mouth.”
I started crying. I did another hit. I showed her my mouth, and she said, “Look in the mirror.”
I went over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My front tooth was broken in half. I looked like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. My tooth had cut right through the skin below my lower lip. I was confused. I got up to change. I was sweating hard now, the last two hits made my body temperature shoot up. I pulled off my pants and grabbed some shorts. I did another hit and lay back on the bed.
“Oh my god! Your legs!”
I looked down: my legs were covered in black-purple bruises.
“Natalia, where have you been?”
I told her, and then I told her that I had no idea how or when I’d gotten home.
“Natalia, you’re shaking, you have to go to the hospital.”
I was shaking. I did have to go to the hospital. My mind was clear enough to recognize that I might die. We took a cab to Beth Israel. I didn’t even do another hit before I left. We got to the emergency room, and they put me in a bed immediately. They gave me a sedative to calm my nervous system, which was going haywire, and checked my vitals. Morgan came back to my side and told me she’d been talking with the doctor. She was going to stay with me for a few hours, then she’d be back in the morning. I told her I loved her and told her I was sorry. She touched my face and said that she loved me more—I was Natalia, I was the best, the best friend, with the best spirit, the best heart, and that it was okay that I wasn’t okay right now. But nothing she could have said could reassure me that I was going to get better. I couldn’t breathe. I was confused. Where was I? The nurse got the doctor, and they gave me more sedatives. Finally, I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up. I wasn’t in emergency…I remembered that much. I wasn’t in a normal hospital room. I tried to sit up, but my arms and legs got stuck. I was in restraints and not the ones I liked to use on Scott and his girlfriend. I screamed, and a nurse came running in. She put her hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me back down.
“I’m going to get the doctor.”
She returned ten seconds later with a female doctor in her thirties.
“You’re awake.”
I just looked at her.
“You’ve been sleeping for three days in that bed. And two days before that in emergency.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to ask her how I’d gone to the bathroom, but I really didn’t want to know. All I knew was I had to get out of there. Where was my cell phone? I couldn’t even think of whom to call. I told the doctor I wanted to go home. She said she didn’t think that was possible, at least not yet. I would have to meet with the department’s doctors so they could determine if I needed to be committed.
Committed?
I was in the psych ward.
The word snapped me into reality. The defiant little girl in me came roaring back.
“When can we do that?” I asked.
“Lunch is in ten minutes, so right after lunch. Let me gather your file, and we’ll come for you when we’re ready.”
The doctor and a colleague came in with a clipboard and asked me a series of questions. They asked me about my drug use. I told them I did use drugs, but that I was seeking treatment. I gave them the name of the doctor who’d helped me kick heroin. They told me my behavior had been erratic. I must have been erratic if I’d been restrained while I was sleeping and wasn’t able to move. I told them I suffered from night terrors and was a sleepwalker. A couple more questions…they checked some boxes…jotted down some notes. Then it was over. They had no choice but to let me go. I rocked the interview, and I did it all with half a tooth. I walked out the door once again impressed with myself for beating the system.
I called my dentist, a former client, and arranged to see him at his office near Carnegie Hall on 57th Street in a few hours. Then I called Morgan and told her the good news. She was not happy. “Natalia, we worked really hard to get you in there.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me, Ron, Jordan. You know how many phone calls we had to make, how many favors we called in? C.B. had his dad call the director of Beth Israel himself to get you in there.”
Wait a minute, I said. “You guys sent me to the psych ward! Do you think I’m crazy?”
&n
bsp; “No, not at all, honey. But it would have meant free treatment. Don’t you get it? You’ve got no money. You can’t afford rehab right now, and you need to fix this. What are you going to do, Natalia?”
She started crying.
I had to hang up the phone. I couldn’t deal with this.
I couldn’t deal with anything. I didn’t have anything left in me.
* * *
A week later, I had another court date. I’d been clean a week since getting out of the psych ward—a record for this period in my life. If anyone from my past, friends or family from Canada had seen me, they would have freaked out. I was super skinny, my skin was bad, and I had no energy. But to the people who had seen me during my heroin days, I was doing better. So I dressed to kill. I knew there’d be a few dozen photographers camped outside 100 Centre Street. I’d grown used to it, and I knew how the reporters would spin my outfit into their articles. So I picked out a gorgeous, knee-length silk skirt I’d picked up at the Bellagio in Vegas, modest, yet sexy Gucci heels and what I thought was a demure, long-sleeved black sweater.
I arrived at court on time. My previous appearances had all been before Judge Budd Goodman, who’s famous, or infamous, depending on which side of the courtroom you’re sitting on, for being New York’s strictest judge. Officially, every defendant is supposed to be in court at 9:30 a.m., but most judges don’t enforce the rule. Your lawyer tells the bailiff when you’ve arrived, and your case is called on a first-come basis. Judge Goodman, however, did a roll call at 9:30 sharp every morning, and if you weren’t there when he called your name, he would revoke your bail and immediately issue a warrant for your arrest. A few times I got stuck in traffic, cursing in the backseat of my cab the whole way downtown to Centre Street and had to get out of the taxi and run to the courthouse, up the eight flights of stairs and down the long hallway to the courtroom to make it on time. As I clanked down the hallways, I had flashbacks to mad dashes across hotel lobbies.
Judge Goodman allegedly had a special place in his heart for the New York Confidential crew. In fact, he’d come out of retirement just to try our cases, but once it became clear that none of the cases were going to go to trial, that there would be no dramatics, no moral and criminal codes challenged, he hung up his robe for good and went back to his Westchester Country Club. Needless to say, I was relieved when I found out that I’d be going in front of a new judge.
However, I was still really nervous. I wasn’t really feeling all there. It had taken a lot to convince the doctors that I was okay to go home. On the surface I was trying to maintain some semblance of calm, but this latest incident set off blaring warning alarms in my brain. If I’d landed in a psych ward, even if it was just for three days, something was very wrong. Had I done so many drugs that I’d lost my grip on reality? Or was I always imbalanced, and the drugs had acted like a catalyst to finally tip me over the edge?
I tried to find comfort in my lawyer, to feel more secure in the man with his yellow Hummer. Six-five with a shaved head, he exuded power. He was the newest partner at one of the city’s top criminal defense firms, but he somehow seemed to have more juice inside the system than even Mel Sachs. But I hadn’t paid him yet, and we’d been through half a dozen court dates and just as many meetings with the Assistant District Attorney handling my case. That’s a lot of hours. The month or two following my arrest, he called me his new favorite client in front of his partners numerous times and returned every phone call within half an hour. Every time I felt scared or uncertain, he’d talk me down or have me come in to meet with him or meet for drinks at the Four Seasons just to decompress.
But then he disappeared—a coincidence I’m sure had nothing to do with my lack of payment! All of a sudden, he was out of town or in meetings. The last time we managed to have a conversation, he seemed to have no idea what was going on with my case. I told him I was a little worried, but he assured me that my next appearance was nothing to worry about.
“Nat, this is just a formality,” he had said. “Don’t get worked up about it. We’ve been through this before. Just be on time and wear something sensible.”
I was on time, but he wasn’t. I waited in the hall but he didn’t show.
I finally had no choice. I walked into the courtroom without representation. The new judge wasn’t as scary looking as Judge Goodman, but he didn’t look super friendly either. He had what looked like a permanent scowl on his face, like someone had just run over his dog and then backed over it again. He gave me a long, hard stare and then looked down, raising his eyebrows to himself, but I saw it. He clearly was not a libertine, or a libertarian. But this was the law, right? I thought to myself. This was a court of law. The fact that he obviously had some personal moral issues with prostitution wouldn’t matter, right? I tried to reassure myself.
The minutes ticked by, and my lawyer still hadn’t shown up. My bad feeling about the day that had begun when I’d woken up was growing much darker. I began noticing all of these details I hadn’t in my previous appearances. The gun on the bailiff’s waist. The seal of the state of New York behind the judge’s head. Then I tried to concentrate on the details of my case, but I couldn’t as I didn’t know them. I had been so high over the last few months that I was barely paying attention to the details of my case.
I’d put absolute trust in what I thought was another strong man who would save me. Now he was nowhere to be found. And, once again, I only had myself to blame. I still only vaguely knew what money laundering and promoting prostitution meant, let alone understand what exactly the government had to prove to convict me. The best-case scenario would have been if they had decided I was a victim, or not that important, and had dropped the case against me. No such luck. I’m guessing everyone else they arrested started pointing fingers, and I was the name on everyone’s lips, right after Jason’s.
Josh finally showed. Two fucking hours later. I thought we’d probably have to wait around for the afternoon session, but the bailiff announced that they were working straight through the cases in order to wrap the day early. The judge was probably taking a long weekend at his house in Sag Harbor and wanted to beat the traffic.
Being sober for a week meant my mind was pretty sharp, but I didn’t really understand all the legal mumbo jumbo droning on. I was only half-listening when the words “bail” and “two hundred and fifty thousand” came out of the judge’s mouth. My head snapped up like someone had shocked me with a live wire, and I looked at the judge, then my lawyer. What happened to my pit bull? My protector?
“Did I just hear correctly?” I turned to my lawyer, panicking, and whispered in his ear.
His face was white. He started shuffling papers in a sort of random, look-busy sort of way. He was completely caught off guard. The wheels of justice had just kicked into gear, and my lawyer was left on the side of the road with a bike and a flat tire.
The judge had set bail at $250,000.
“What does that mean? I don’t have that money! What can we do?” I asked.
He was trying to look calm, but I could see he was sweating bullets.
He didn’t answer. He was frantically jotting down notes and rifling through the indictment.
Finally, he stood up and tried to make the case that such a high bail was unnecessary. He told the court that it was absurd to think I was a flight risk. I had ties to the community and was getting my life together, I had very little money, and the authorities had taken my passport—where could I go? I’d seen it all before on Law & Order a million times. But this was no TV show. This was my life, and my lawyer was drowning in his own words.
The judge wasn’t hearing it.
I felt myself breaking down. My ears felt like they were full of water. Even though I was taking deep breaths and hyperventilating, I felt like I was about to pass out from lack of oxygen.
My lawyer summed up his case. “Your honor, she has been ROR for the past three months and has adhered to all the court’s specifications. There is no need to set bail
at this point.”
The judge paused for a second. But then with a flick of his wrist, his gavel made a cracking noise.
“Bail is set at $250,000.”
I felt the wind sucked out of my body. I was hysterical and crying loudly. I couldn’t breathe. An officer approached me, and I almost collapsed on the floor. My lawyer steadied me and tried to calm me down.
“You have to stop crying,” he said. “They are going to take you into a cell. I’ll be right there to see you.”
I wanted to run. Everything inside of me was screaming to escape, to jump out the window, to shoot myself in the head, to do anything but be put in handcuffs and locked away in a jail cell. I had never felt so alone. I felt like my soul was being ripped from my body.
I connected the dots in my head—I had no shot at raising even the 10% needed to pay a bondsman. My mother was in Canada. I had no friends who had assets. The only people I could think of were my clients. Imagine that call?
I was headed straight to jail—do not pass go. I was being held until my trial, the date of which had not been set. I had an open-ended sentence.
They took me to a little holding area down a short flight of stairs. Within a few minutes, my lawyer appeared. He looked frazzled. The confident protector had become a frazzled paper-shuffler, scrambling to find the right words to ensure the freedom of his “favorite client.” I didn’t have time to get mad at him, to scream, “Why didn’t you tell me this could happen? Why the fuck didn’t you know this could happen?”
He didn’t apologize. I think “never admit to your client you screwed up” is what they teach you the first week of law school.
My hands were cuffed behind my back, and I was ushered into an empty cell.
An officer announced there was a bus leaving for Rikers in ten minutes, and they were putting me on it. I hugged my lawyer and cried. They gave me a second before they pulled me away.
The Price: My Rise and Fall As Natalia, New York's #1 Escort Page 22
