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 master 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.
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.