Last Dance, Last Chance

Virginia. Her name was Moira * and she was an “exotic dancer” in polite terms but a “stripper” in reality. Her chosen career demanded full and nondrooping breasts. She came to Anthony for her surgery. He found her stunning as she was, and irresistible after he inserted saline implants that increased her bust by two cup sizes. In a way, he felt like her Pygmalion.
    Moira was an attractive if bizarre-looking woman. She had a tattoo on her back from the nape of her neck to below her waist. Anthony had always favored anything that smacked of the upper class—private schools, country clubs, exclusive restaurants, and fine cars—but he quickly became besotted with Moira. She was different from any woman he had ever known.
    Moira was delighted with her surgery and appreciated Anthony as her doctor, but she wasn’t initially attracted to this married man with the strange—if well-fitting—toupee.
    Anthony pursued Moira for a year, only tantalized by her coyness. He bought a new car, a red Lamborghini, and he lavished gifts on Moira.
    Debbie had no idea that Moira existed.

7
    B y 1996, Anthony was not only a faithless husband but an oblivious father. Debbie knew that he had never learned how to be a father; Dr. Ralph had always been working when Anthony was growing up. Anything Anthony learned about playing ball or sports he learned from the elder Pignataros’ neighbors. The family pattern was repeating itself. Anthony had no time for Ralph or Lauren.
    “He wasn’t what I’d call a ‘hands-on father.’ He grew so cold,” Debbie recalled. “There was no love or affection for me—or for the kids.”
    But Anthony had never been known for his warmth. Debbie thought his removed attitude was due to his involvement in his practice. Ralph was almost 10, and Lauren was 7. They were very nice, smart kids. They didn’t lack for things that money could buy. They were attending the Nichols School, the exclusive private school Anthony had gone to when he was a boy. Debbie drove them to all their extracurricular activities. Lauren studied gymnastics, and Ralph was active in sports—ice hockey in the winter and football in the autumn. He was a natural. Aside from bragging about his children’s victories, Anthony didn’t seem to care about their daily lives. His eyes clouded over with disinterest when Debbie tried to share their experiences with him.
    He continued to express his temper when he didn’t get his way. On June 15, 1996, he was driving his Jeep in Depew, New York, when he cut off a Pontiac Firebird driven by a woman from Cheektowaga, New York, forcing her to the shoulder of the road. When both cars stopped for a red light on Transit and Broadway, a male passenger from the Firebird got out and confronted Anthony, who claimed later that the man had hit him in the face several times.
    Anthony grabbed the .380 caliber handgun that he always carried with him, walked over to the car, and fired one shot at the Firebird. Fortunately, neither occupant was hit. Still outraged, Anthony called the police from the nearby home of a patient. He was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm.
    “Maybe I was right—maybe I was wrong—for shooting at him,” Anthony said. “But when you get punched in the face…I was only protecting myself. I didn’t shoot at him. I could have easily got him, but I just shot to scare him off.”
    The reckless endangerment charge was dropped, but Anthony lost his pistol permit for a year: harsh punishment for a man who loved guns and hunting.
    It was one more humiliation for Debbie, but she swept it under her conscious mind, where she had swept so many other disturbing incidents.
    By now, Debbie didn’t resent being virtually a single parent; she loved being with her children. But she began to have health problems that made it difficult for her to be responsible for everything around the house. During one of their trips to Florida to spend time with Anthony’s brothers, she was injured in a boating accident. Antoinette’s then husband, Allan Steinberg, was driving the boat while Debbie held Lauren and Anthony held Ralph. When Allan had to swerve suddenly, Debbie pitched toward the deck. “I could have broken my fall if I’d let go of Lauren, but she would have been hurt, so I held on to her and hit so hard that I broke my ribs,” she said. “But there was more damage to my neck. In the three years between 1996 and 1999, I had to have five surgeries