Books |
Mouthpiece: A Life in — and Sometimes Just Outside — the Law
Edward Hayes, with Susan Lehman
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Memoir
Do you remember Bonfire of the Vanities, the late-’80s mega-bestseller by Tom Wolfe? In that novel, a Wall Street trader — a ‘Master of the Universe’ — has a car accident in the Bronx. And his life starts going radically…wrong. Who can save him? Tommy Killian.
Tommy Killian. The defense lawyer. As Irish as a potato. But dressed like a British gent. Custom-tailored suit. Custom-made shoes. Shirts in a pattern seen nowhere else. And then he opens his mouth, and out comes Irish bar, genius lawyer and Mafia don.
Reading the book, you always felt better when Tommy Killian was around. His Rolodex was the world. He kept score. He knew how to get things done. He was that ultimate attorney — the fixer.
‘Bonfire’ was satire. Tommy Killian is real. His name is Edward Hayes. You may know that name from ‘Bonfire’ — Wolfe dedicated the book to him. Or from television; he co-anchors ‘Cutler and Hayes’ for Court TV. Or, if you follow high-profile cases, you may even know him as a lawyer.
I know him in several of these contexts. And when I need a lawyer, I call Eddie. Once a publisher was trying to screw me out of a big payment. I hired Eddie. "Don’t tell them what I’m going to do," he said. "Just tell them you hired me." I had my agent deliver the message. And that’s all she had to do; in two days, I had a very satisfactory resolution. The publisher, it seemed, had no desire to deal with Eddie. Later, I fired my agent. Eddie? He’s a keeper.
‘Mouthpiece’ is, on one level, why Very Important People like Si Newhouse and Anna Wintour and Sean (‘Diddy’) Combs reach out for Eddie when they’re in trouble. And why lesser lights like me hope he has time for their problems. Because when you hire Eddie, he’s not just in your corner — he’s in your opponent’s face. It’s personal with Eddie: "You screwed my friend. And now you will pay."
Why is he like this? So charmed and amused is New York by Eddie Hayes that no one ever stops to ask. Now we have ‘Mouthpiece’ and no one will need to ask — a book that could have been only about cases and celebs is also an unflinching memoir of a goddawful childhood, a life spent trying to overcome it, and, at last, an effort to change.
How the book starts: Eleven-year-old Eddie in a dark basement. Why is he there? His father is drunk and raging. And now, in the gloom, Eddie is to shine his father’s shoes. The boy’s silent response: "I’ll show you." He’ll be the best, have the best. Including shoes.
That’s the Prologue. How the book actually starts: "I learned as a child not to expect to be loved for myself." Then what are you loved for? What you do for people. Your utility. A harsh-real-world philosophy. And, of course, the hole-that-can-never-be-filled philosophy of the abused child.
Thanks, Counselor, for sparing us the entire grim childhood — a little goes a long way. And then the changes start. The unaccountable admission to the University of Virginia. Learning to be a campus pol. Figuring out the favor bank (see the opening of ‘The Godfather’). Columbia Law. And then, instead of a corporate job, a stint in the prosecutor’s office in the Bronx. Eddie Hayes, as a young male adult. Frightening. The guy runs five miles each morning, does hundreds of pushups, works all day, chases Dominican women all night. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do drugs — no matter, this is one hopped-up guy.
In the Bronx and, later, as a defense lawyer, he comes to see that "most of the time, law is about power." Not justice. It’s who you know and how well you know him and can you reach out to him when you need him. And now we’re in the part of the book that’s a romp: the rise and rise of Edward Hayes, with one bigtime client after another and a great girlfriend who becomes an even greater wife and vacations with the likes of DeNiro.
And then the client from Hell. The Warhol Foundation. Which shows him just how much of the law really is about power and how Edward Hayes, a nobody Catholic pretender from Long Island, does not really have as much power as he likes to think. But does the phoenix rise from the ashes? A no-brainer. Eddie Hayes is a Terminator. You knock him down, you hurt him, he gets up. And then he makes you very, very sorry.
Fifty years of this — it takes a toll. And that’s the surprise of the book. Eddie Hayes deals with it. Yeah, he’s tough. Tough enough to get help. Tough enough to work on being a better husband and father. And still tough enough to kill for his clients.
Eddie Hayes pushes buttons. He’s an agitator. Prepare to have your expectations of the law challenged and your personal codes questioned. All in 280 pages.
To buy ‘Mouthpiece’ from Amazon.com, click here.
