The Heritage Paper (43 page)

Music was being pumped out through speakers—“Winter Wonderland” was currently playing.
The weather outside is frightful,
the lyrics informed me. And while I would agree that it was a tad on the frosty side, I found it downright delightful compared to the much more frightening scene awaiting me inside.

I walked past elaborate ice sculptures, then an empty tennis court and pool house, before I began to smell the real party. I trudged through another frozen acre until I arrived at the Lake House.

It actually sat next to a pond, not a lake, and it would be more accurately described as a mansion than a house. Like most things on this property, it was more about perception than reality. As a former attorney, who was once known as the “lawyer to the stars,” the one thing the Wainwrights and I could agree upon was that the mantra “perception over truth” had served us both well, at least financially. And now it was likely the only thing keeping me alive.

Outside the Lake House, sitting in lawn chairs on a brick patio in front of a fireplace, were the self-proclaimed Amigos—Tomás, Gustavo, and Roberto—enjoying their final Christmas on the Wainwright property.

Alexander Wainwright had always referred to them as “the Mexicans”—his name for all those of Spanish descent—but they actually emigrated from Peru as children. And what I’ve learned over the years about these Peruvian house parties, called
tanos,
is that you don’t arrive
manos vacias
—empty handed. So after exchanging hugs with the Amigos’ wives and large extended family, I handed over a panettone cake to Tomás’ wife, Mia.

When the lengthy greetings concluded, Tomás pointed for me to take a seat beside them on the patio. There would be no hugs and hellos from him or his partners—today was all about business.

But before sitting, I handed each of them an envelope containing a Christmas card. Inside the card, was the final information for a certain project of mine that the Amigos had agreed to lend their considerable talents to. I’d been plotting it since my time in prison, and now we were just days away from the big moment.

When I sat, Gustavo, the pony-tailed rock star of the group, said, “I’m surprised your ass isn’t too sore to sit, after doing three years in the joint.”

This led to a round of laughter at my expense. Prison humor never gets old … unless you’ve actually been incarcerated. But the fun was quickly extinguished, at least temporarily, when Roberto’s wife yelled out that the food was burning on the barbeque, and he ran to save the day. Roberto was barely five feet tall, but was built like a pickup truck. He looked like a jockey on steroids as he bolted toward the burning meat. Besides being the CEO of the barbeque, he was known for being the muscle of the group.

“It’s a Peruvian specialty,” Gustavo said, pointing toward the barbeque area. “You can’t leave until you’ve had some,
Señor
Collins.”

“I don’t have much time,” I cautioned. “I need to make an appearance at the big-boy party. Then I have a few more rounds to make tonight.”

“If that’s the case, you’re going to need a drink,” Tomás said with a laugh. He got up and poured me our traditional Christmas drink—Mountain Dew and tequila, hopefully heavy on the latter.

“I’m surprised you didn’t get an invite to the party this year … sort of a going away present,” I said, but wasn’t really surprised. The Amigos hadn’t been invited in the thirty years they’d lived here.

“We didn’t fit the ‘white Christmas’ theme they got going this year,” Gustavo said with a chuckle.

“Same theme as every year … the Wainwrights are traditionalists,” Tomás added.

Roberto returned with a plate of food.
“Feliz Navidad,
Señor Collins,” he exclaimed as he handed me his masterpiece. I was fairly certain that a cheeseburger and tater tots was not a Peruvian specialty, but I wasn’t about to argue.

The volume of the surrounding festivities drowned out our voices, which was why this was the perfect place to go over the final preparations. Children were ice-skating on the pond, while the teenagers were shooting off fireworks like it was the Fourth of July. Gustavo’s college-age son, Angel, headed up a salsa band that had attracted a group of dancers on an adjoining patio, many of them were attractive girls in outfits that didn’t appear to be weather-appropriate.

I pointed at the envelopes. “The disc in the card contains a complete route of all the houses and their floor-plans.” As great as technology was for communication, it also left proof, which is why the old-school drop was the still the best way to transfer information.

I viewed the large house in the backdrop, along with all their friends and family who were reveling in the holiday spirit. Things had changed a lot since they’d first arrived here. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to go through with it. You have a lot more to lose these days.”

“What’s the point of having our gifts, if we can’t share with others on Christmas,” Gustavo responded with a sly grin. The others nodded.

The Amigos were the children of Peruvian immigrants, living in squalor in the neighboring town of Port Chester, New York. It looked like poverty would be their destiny, until the three young friends discovered a way to take advantage of this land of the opportunistic called America … they possessed an ability to rob houses like few who’d come before them. And not just any houses—the biggest and wealthiest estates on the gold coast of Connecticut and Westchester County. The string of robberies became the stuff of legend that year … until they just stopped. The untold reason for the sudden stoppage was that Alexander Wainwright’s security team had apprehended the Amigos. The Wainwrights always ruin the fun—I rest my case.

But luckily for them, eleven-year-old Libby Wainwright was convinced that there was good in all people, and just as importantly, had her father wrapped around her finger. She convinced him not to turn them over to the police. Instead, a compromise was reached in which they would live on the Wainwright property and pay for their crimes by living as indentured servants—performing tasks ranging from keeping up the fourteen acres, to serving as the Wainwright’s personal chauffeur.

I’m an admitted skeptic of most things Wainwright, so I doubted this agreement with the Amigos was completely about granting a daughter’s wish, or saving a few bucks on lawn care. It would be very convenient for an institution like Wainwright & Lennox to have access to the Amigos’ talents, if they were in need of gaining certain information from their competitors. I have no proof of such, and the Amigos never speak of their past work, which was one of the reasons I sought them to assist in my current venture.

But their working agreement with the Wainwrights took an unexpected turn this year. And they were being kicked to the curb so that the Lake House could be turned into a Revenue Stream. This was supposedly due to W&L’s 600 million dollar loss in a business deal with Kerstman Publishing a few years back that went horribly wrong.

This was not news to me, since I represented Diedrich Kerstman’s at his trial. That didn’t sit well with the general public, since Kerstman had become the poster-child for corporate greed, but went over even worse with my former father-in-law. When the smoke cleared, my client was dead, I was in jail, and Alexander Wainwright was still out over half a billion dollars. So it went without saying that I was surprised to receive an invitation to this year’s Christmas party. Although, the more I thought about it, it became clear that the case was still pending. And I was the one on trial.

With each bite of the cheeseburger and sip of my drink concoction, I came closer to blowing off the Wainwright bash and remaining here for the evening. Libby and I attended a couple of these
tonos
back in the day, usually held on
Noche Buena
—the night before Christmas. They often went until four or five the next morning, and really picked up after the children were put to bed.

But just as I grew comfortable in my rickety lawn chair, I noticed a female in a fancy party dress awkwardly trudging over the snow in a pair of heels. It was still hard for me to believe that she was this grown up. It seemed like just thirty seconds ago she was crawling around the floor in her diapers.

Since Taylor will always be six-years-old in my mind, this womanly stuff was a big adjustment. While attending her high school basketball game last week, I was seated near some of her male classmates, who were admiring certain parts of her body. In other words, being normal teenage boys. I wanted to turn around and introduce them to one of my body parts—my fists. But besides ending up back in jail, I figured that my daughter would hit me with that look of embarrassment only a seventeen-year-old girl can—a much tougher punishment. So I chose restraint, which had never been my first instinct.

I noticed Gustavo’s son, Angel, whom I’ve heard is no angel, staring at her. I gave Gustavo a look to let him know there were a few things I was willing to go back to prison for. He just shrugged and smiled.

When Taylor reached the Lake House, many of the women circled around her. She let out a big smile—as amazing as her mother’s—and pirouetted to show off the dress. They analyzed and admired everything from her purse to her heels. Taylor had always been like family to them—her first couple of years of life were spent on Wainwright Manor, and frankly, I thought she’d pick up less bad habits hanging out in this section of town than being around her grandparents, so I made it a point to bring her down here at every opportunity.

After the fashion show came to a close, Taylor made her way to the patio area. Roberto commented, “You’re getting so big. I remember when you were just this high,” holding his hand at his waist.

“You still are, Berto,” she replied, leading to laughter. I’m proud to say that she’s always had more Collins in her than Wainwright, and definitely inherited my smart-ass gene.

But she then turned serious. “Dad—I’ve been ordered to bring you to the party … ASAP.”

“And this order came from?”

“Grandmother wanted to call the FBI and demand that they revoke your parole for storming past the party police, but I talked her off the ledge. She gave me ten minutes to bring you back, before she sends in the troops.”

It would be no surprise if the FBI had already found their way onto the property. Not only would it allow them to monitor my moves, as they’d been doing since my release, but they could kill a whole flock of birds with one stone, considering the white-collar-crime festival inside … and that was just the Wainwright clients. But I decided to keep this information to myself.

Taylor plopped in the lawn chair next to me. Like her father, she didn’t appear eager to return—she was going to use the entire ten-minute allotment. She yanked at her dress. I could tell that she couldn’t wait to shed it in favor of a sweatshirt and jeans when she got home. In that way she was very different from her mother.

After a few minutes of reminiscing about the “good old days” spent at the Lake House, most of which Taylor was too young to remember, we said our goodbyes, and my bounty hunter daughter dragged me back for my public flogging. The good news was that the walk provided another opportunity for some father/daughter bonding.

As strange as it might sound, we grew much closer during my stint in prison. In the prior years, I’d been too busy with my career, hobnobbing with celebrities, and cheating on her mother. Taylor visited me almost every week, and to prove her Collins family sense of humor, she’d often bring me a gag gift like a Hostess cupcake with a nail file stuck in it like a birthday candle. The guards didn’t always find it as funny as I did.

“Thanks for my Christmas gift, Dad … it’s the best gift ever! At least until you buy me that private jet I’ve had my eye on,” she said with a smile.

I looked at her with surprise, which she read. “Mom didn’t mean to give it away, but the camp called to confirm this week and I answered. I’m so excited to go!”

“Well, now that your grandparents are claiming to be destitute, you’re going to need to get that field hockey scholarship if you want to go to college.”

“Yeah, they’ll probably have to sell their kidneys just to scrape by.”

Or sell mine.

“And Dad,” she flashed me her teenage look of disappointment. “It’s lacrosse camp, not field hockey. You only went to like ten of my games last fall.”

“Lacrosse—that’s what I meant.” The T-shirt she often wore popped into my head. “Chicks with sticks, right?”

“Ewe … when you say it, it sounds like tranny porn.”

You haven’t lived as a parent until you hear your little bundle of joy utter the term ‘tranny porn.’ “Your mom said this camp is the one you really wanted to attend, and it fits perfectly into your winter break from school.”

“The coach from Clemson is going to be instructing there. I really want to impress her … and get that scholarship. That’s where I really want to go.”

“Clemson? I thought Syracuse was your top choice?”

“It was … like last year! Do you ever pay attention?”

I thought it was obvious that I didn’t.

“I’m thinking I wanna go to a warm weather school. And it’s only like a few hours from Grandpa’s place in Hilton Head—he said I can use the place when I’m on break.”

That didn’t sound like a good idea, but I couldn’t quibble with the warm weather part. I took notice that Taylor was shivering, so I removed my suit jacket and placed it over her bare shoulders. If I were a better parent, I would have thought to do it about an acre ago, but I was making progress, and I think she respected that I was giving an honest effort. At least that’s what her smile told me.