It was at the time that Larry Hoffman started to get very rich that he started to drink.
Larry had always been a drinker to a degree; he might have one during lunch, or two during dinner. That was quite literally part of the job.
But the excessive drinking started when the money began coming in, and that was no coincidence, because that’s when he started feeling the pressure.
As a managing director at Causeway Capital, an asset manager and hedge fund with more than $25 billion, it’s not like Hoffman was starving. But the day he got one particular phone call, which led to one particular meeting, everything changed.
His income almost tripled literally overnight, and the effect was even greater than that because he was not paying taxes on the new money. When money comes from the places and people that Hoffman was dealing with, you don’t mention it to your accountant.
There wasn’t a day that went by that Hoffman wasn’t sorry he went down that path. The money was incredible and intoxicating, but the fear of detection, and of so much else, didn’t make it worthwhile.
It was also ruining his relationship with his fiancée; he could tell that his ever-present fear was slowly driving her away. And added to his panic was the knowledge that if everything fell apart, it could bring her down as well. She was a lawyer, and guilt by this kind of association could be career killing.
He wanted to get out, but didn’t want to give up the money. Then the desire to get out became overpowering, which led to a horrifying realization.
He no longer had the option of getting out.
So that led to other decisions, and those led to more fear, which led to more drinking. Hoffman didn’t think it was noticeable to his work colleagues; maybe he had one more drink than usual at lunches and dinners, but so did some of them. His fiancée knew; he was sure of that.
He lived alone, so there was no one there to watch him polish off bottles each night. And he would go to bars in the city where no one he knew hung out, and he drank quietly and alone.
Hoffman even switched bars nightly. There were so many of them on Second Avenue that he could go to a different one each night for weeks without ever having to return to one. He liked to keep it as close as he could to the Eighties, since he lived at Eighty-fourth Street and York Avenue.
It was an easy walk home, even when Hoffman wasn’t in great walking condition.
On this particular night Hoffman was drinking at Monahan’s, at Eighty-sixth and Second Avenue. He liked the place, because it was dark and comparatively quiet. He could sit and drink anonymously, and think about what it was he had to do.
By the fourth or fifth drink, the fear and panic would start to abate, and he could believe he had the guts to move forward. In terms of his state of mind, sobriety was the enemy.
At ten thirty, Hoffman left the bar and started walking home. He walked east along Eighty-sixth toward York. Even in his intoxicated state, he walked without staggering; no one who saw him would realize how drunk he was. He thought his doorman could tell, but was discreet enough not to say anything, except possibly to his fellow doormen.
Like every other night, Hoffman obeyed the electric signs signaling when pedestrians had the right of way to cross the street. No sense taking chances. So he did have the sign in his favor when crossing First Avenue at Eighty-sixth.
Perhaps if he were sober he would have reacted before the speeding car hit him, sending him flying more than thirty feet before landing on a parked car. The car then continued heading down the avenue at high speed, turning left and working its way toward the FDR Drive and vehicular anonymity.
Larry Hoffman was dead before his body landed on the car.
I dated Jenny Nichols in high school.
That’s something I haven’t mentioned a lot over the years, mainly because there was no reason to. We only had a few dates, she decided that was a few too many, and she started going out with someone else. It was fairly typical of my high school romantic life. My relationships started slow and then faded.
But once her Eastside High School days were over, Jenny followed a dream and became an actress, and about two years ago she got the lead role in a hit movie and immediately became a major star. She is both beautiful and talented, and the world seemed to discover those facts all at once. Even though she was living in Los Angeles, she became the pride of Paterson, New Jersey, where she and I grew up, and where I still live.
So, suddenly and coincidentally, I began mentioning our dating history. It’s not that easy to work into a conversation without looking like a name-dropper, and early on I was a little clumsy about it.
For example, one day I was in the local delicatessen and I said, “Give me a pound of corned beef.”
“Anything else?” the guy asked.
“You mean besides the fact that I dated Jenny Nichols in high school?”
I have yet another connection to Jenny, though it’s not as cool as the dating thing. She was here about a year ago to visit her ailing mother in Englewood Cliffs; Jenny had bought her a home there. She must have heard that I, along with my partner, Willie Miller, run a dog rescue foundation. It’s called the Tara Foundation, named after my extraordinarily wonderful golden retriever.
Jenny was anxious to adopt a dog, so she came down to the foundation and fell in love with Mamie, a seven-year-old miniature French poodle. Mamie had been turned in to the foundation when her owner died and her family had no interest in taking care of her.
Personally, if I had a family like that, I would rather spend my life surrounded by strangers.
Jenny stepped in and took Mamie back to California with her, and from that point on they seemed to be inseparable. Mamie made it to just about every magazine cover that Jenny was on, and she was on a lot of them.
As with all beautiful actresses, there is huge media speculation and reporting on Jenny’s love life. I sometimes notice it when I see a story on a magazine cover at the supermarket, but I’m not that interested.
I’ll occasionally skim through them, but to my knowledge they have yet to mention the fact that she dated Andy Carpenter in high school. It’s a sad commentary on the state of American journalism that no reporter has dug out that fact, especially since I would be willing to give interviews.
While Jenny was here last year, my wife, Laurie Collins, and I had her and the newly adopted Mamie over for dinner. Laurie has absolutely no jealousy about Jenny, nor should she. For one thing, she trusts me.
For another, she does not have to take a back seat to anyone, in any way, and I’m including physical beauty in that. Let’s put it this way: if Laurie and Jenny were ever competing in a beauty contest, Jenny would have to settle for Miss Congeniality.
We saw Jenny again about five months ago. Her mother had died, and Jenny was in town for the funeral. I personally had never seen paparazzi cover a funeral before, and it was pretty annoying. I’ve had my share of publicity because of some high-profile cases that I’ve handled, but it pales in comparison to the attention that Jenny gets.
Right now Jenny is in New York shooting a movie, and she has taken elaborate measures to evade the spotlight. The word has gone out that she’s living in a midtown hotel, the Michelangelo, on Fifty-first Street. To maintain the ruse, she’s even gone in there a few times, only to be shuttled out the back door by a helpful bellman named Henry.
The cloak and dagger aspect of it all, in my view, is a little over the top. Jenny’s personal assistant, on the current film and previous films, is Linda Ivers. She has been in charge of keeping the media hordes away from Jenny, and Jenny says she is great at it.
In fact, according to Jenny, Linda is amazingly resourceful, can get anything done, and loves doing it.
The truth is that Jenny is actually staying in her mother’s home in Englewood Cliffs, and using the opportunity to go through her things and get the house ready to be sold. The media is so far unaware of this, and Jenny has been able to stay there in total anonymity.
Tonight Laurie and I are having dinner with her again, this time at my all-time favorite restaurant, Charlie’s Sports Bar, in Paterson. We’ve taken the private upstairs room, so hopefully the word will not get out that Jenny is there.
A bunch of our friends wanted to meet her, and Jenny was fine with that, so we’ve made it a small party, with everyone sworn to secrecy about her attendance. Laurie and I offered to pick her up, but Jenny declined and said she would meet us here. She’s going to call when she’s close, and we’ll come down and bring her up through the back entrance, so she won’t be seen.
At the dinner, besides Laurie and me, are Corey Douglas and his girlfriend, Dani Kendall, Marcus Clark and his wife, Julie, and my foundation partner, Willie Miller, with his wife, Sondra. Also here are Sam Willis, who serves as both my accountant and our cyber investigator, and Vince Sanders, the editor of the local newspaper and one of my sports bar buddies.
I told Vince about the party and in the process extracted a promise that there would not be a word about it in his paper. Even if I hadn’t told him about it, he would have found out—he has an incredible nose for free food.
Another reason Vince is here is because I don’t think he really believes that I dated Jenny in high school, even though I’ve probably mentioned it to him about four or five thousand times. He wants to see for himself, and thereby retain the right to mock me if it turns out that I was bullshitting.
We’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes when my cell phone rings. “I’m parked out front,” Jenny says.
I smile at Vince as I say, “I’ll be right down.”
Twenty-five minutes into what passes at Charlie’s for a dinner party, it’s going really well.
Everybody is having a good time, and that seems to include Jenny. She’s been laughing a lot, and though her phone rings a couple of times, she ignores the calls and finally powers it off.
She obviously wants to leave the real world of her career behind for a while, and she actually says something about how nice it is to spend time with normal people.
That would be us.
Vince has so far held his drooling down to a minimum, which is a pleasant surprise. Laurie and Jenny have rekindled an easy and clearly obvious friendship, even though their backgrounds and current life are very different.
Laurie is a former cop in the Paterson Police Department and part of a private investigative team with Corey and Marcus. Jenny’s life is far more glamorous, but you would never know the difference watching them interact. They just seem to click together.
Of course, I am a connection between them. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I dated Jenny in high school.
Jenny, Laurie, Willie, and I are sitting at a table and are about to order food when the door opens. I notice Jenny react to it, and I look over and immediately recognize the person who has entered. His name is Ryan Griffin, and he is a famous actor in his own right.
He’s not Jenny’s level of famous but is well-known, and he is costarring with her in the film they’re shooting in New York. There have been publicity stories about them dating, but I cannot confirm that one way or the other. I don’t really know anything about Jenny’s personal life, other than that she and I were something of an item in high school.
Griffin does not look happy, and his eyes scan the room until he finds Jenny, and he strides toward us. He’s also not alone; there are two large guys in tight-fitting suits with him who look like security/bouncer types. They walk toward us also, but stay about five feet behind Griffin.
“What are you doing here, Ryan?” Jenny asks in a challenging way, clearly not happy to see him.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he says, a fake smile on his face. “I thought we were having dinner together tonight.”
“You thought wrong. I’m having dinner with friends.”
“You were supposed to have dinner with me,” he says, not really advancing the conversation any. The smile has already left his face; this does not seem to be a pleasant or innocent dating mix-up.
“I told you that I was not interested,” she says. “You need to learn when to take no for an answer, Ryan. Because if you keep bothering me you’re going to be hearing it a lot.”
Apparently he’s not in the mood to learn, because he says, “We can discuss this later, when we’re alone. Let’s go.” It’s not a request; it’s more in the form of a demand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jenny says. Even in high school she was not the type to be pushed around.
“You’re going with me,” Griffin says.
As the host, it seems time for me to intervene, even though I’m not anxious to. I’ve never been much of an intervener. “No, she isn’t,” I say. “She’s going to stay and finish her dinner, but it’s time for you to leave.”
“You shut your mouth and mind your own business,” he says to me, not the first person to voice those sentiments. My mouth has a tendency to get me in trouble.
Then he says, “Come on,” and goes to grab Jenny’s arm.
Big mistake.
Laurie is the first one to react. As Griffin reaches out and touches Jenny’s arm, Laurie stands and grabs it, twisting it to the point where he goes down to the table, face first. He doesn’t smash into it, but screams in pain at what Laurie is doing to his arm. It is not designed to bend in the direction that she is bending it.
The security guys react quickly and move toward the table.
Big mistake number two.
Willie, who is a black belt in karate and an all-around dangerous guy, stands up and chops one of them on the side of the head, sending him moaning to the floor. The second security guy moves toward Willie.
Mistakes come in threes.
Marcus Clark, who has been across the room, grabs the second guy from behind by the collar. Marcus, it should be noted, is the scariest, most dangerous human currently inhabiting this planet. He makes Willie look like a feeble weakling.
Marcus literally lifts the guy by the collar and throws him against the wall, headfirst. The wall seems to win the confrontation, and the guy joins his colleague on the floor.
“Come on, let go!” Griffin pleads, as Laurie has continued to twist his arm. Laurie seems unmoved by his begging.
“Please let him go,” Jenny says, so Laurie does.
Copyright © 2023 by Tara Productions, Inc.
