Trump Tower (11 page)

“Thank you, Madame. I will indeed speak with Mr. Advani.”

“I know I can count on you,” she smiled. “And, Pierre . . . my husband need not know anything about this.”

He looked at her, hoping not to give away his surprise. “Your husband, Madame?”

“There is no reason for him to know anything at all about . . . us.”

“No,” he assured her. “Of course not.” He bowed. “Madame, I will let you know about both of these matters as soon as possible.”

She nodded. “I will look forward to that.”

He let himself out of the library and one of the maids let him out of the apartment.

Now, in the hallway, he took a deep breath. “Her husband?” He said to himself, “What husband?”

D
OWNSTAIRS
on the nineteenth floor, next to the hand-painted logo that said “Scarpe Pietrasanta,” there was a small sign that read, “Please ring the bell.” But the door was already open. So Belasco poked his head in and said, “Good morning?”

No one answered.

Stepping inside the small suite of offices on the east side of the Tower, he tried again, “Good morning? Anyone home?”

Still no one.

There was a reception area and behind that a showroom filled with displays of designer shoes. Off to one side was a large conference room with a built-in stainless steel kitchen and a very long table surrounded by a dozen chairs. On the other side, there were three small offices.

The doors to the first two were open, and Belasco could see they were empty.

But the door to the third office was shut. “Hello? Anyone home?” He knocked softly on it. “Hello?”

“Oh,” a woman said inside and opened the door, surprised to find someone there. “I'm sorry . . . excuse me . . . may I help you?”

He guessed she was in her early- to mid-forties. She had a pleasant face and short auburn hair that had been lightened just a bit. He thought that she looked a little like the British actress Emma Thompson.

But her eyes were red.

“I'm Pierre Belasco,” he held out his hand and smiled, “general manager of Trump Tower.”

That's when he realized she'd been crying.

“Are you all right?”

She shook his hand quickly. “Rebecca Battelli.”

It took him a few seconds. “Mr. Battelli's wife. My deepest condolences. I was shocked when I heard that your husband . . .”

“Me too,” she said, and walked back into the small office.

He followed her in. “Of course, if there is anything I can do for you . . .”

She fell into the high-backed chair behind a desk covered in folders and papers piled high. “Can you give my husband back to me?”

He stood there. “If only I could, Madame . . .”

“Rebecca,” she said. “I guess . . . I mean, as of two weeks ago . . . I'm no longer Madame anybody.” Tears now poured out of her eyes.

He stood there, feeling helpless. “Perhaps this is not the best time . . .”

“Please,” she motioned that he should sit down in one of the two chairs facing the desk, and took a tissue to dry her face. “I'm sorry, it's just . . . this is very new to me.”

“I understand.” He did not sit down. “Perhaps if I could get you some water or coffee or tea . . . anything?”

She shook her head. “It comes and goes. The first few days I couldn't stop. By the second week I was only crying twenty-three hours a day. Now . . .” she tried to smile . . . “now I'm only crying when I'm awake.”

He motioned toward the empty showroom. “When do you expect everyone to come back to work?”

“I don't.”

“You don't?”

“My husband's cousin . . . the business was started by my husband's grandfather,” she explained. “He was a shoemaker in Italy. He left the business to his two sons. They left the business to their two sons. A few years ago my husband, Mark . . . Marco was his real name . . . he bought out half his cousin's share, so he controlled it. But Mark allowed his cousin . . . his name is Johnny . . . to work here. Johnny is now saying that the business should be his, and he wants to take it back. The staff . . . they don't think I can run it and are siding with him. They've left and gone away.”

Belasco stared at her, then sat down. “Are you going to run it?”

She sighed, “I don't know if I can. I don't know anything about the business, except what Mark told me. I don't even know if there's any money left in it. Johnny might have already stolen everything out of it.”

“Stolen it?”

“I don't know.”

He took a deep breath. “I think the first thing you need is to get someone in here who can look at the books and tell you what's what.”

Her eyes welled up again. “Be my guest.”

“No, not me . . .” He leaned forward, “Who's your accountant?”

“I don't know. I presume we have one, but . . .”

“There must be records somewhere. Isn't there anybody who works here . . . or used to . . . you can trust?”

“Mark kept everything to himself. I was never a part of . . .” Now she started to cry again.

“Please . . .” He wanted to make her understand, “It's going to be all right.”

“I feel like . . .” Tears poured down her cheeks . . . “I feel like a bird with a broken wing.”

He hesitated, then slowly reached over and put his hand on hers.

She pulled it away and started crying again.

After a while he said, quietly, “I wish there was something I could do.”

She stared at him with big, red eyes and repeated what she'd said to him earlier. “Can you give my husband back to me?”

H
E TOOK
the elevator up to twenty-four—
a bird with a broken wing
, he kept hearing her say—and crossed over to the residents' elevator.

The door opened, the elevator operator Alex said, “Hello, sir,” and Belasco stepped in to find Odette.

“Monsieur Belasco,” the elegantly dressed ninety-three-year-old said, “
Quel plaisir de vous voir
.” What a pleasure to see you.

He smiled at her, took her right hand and almost kissed it. “You are earlier than usual this morning,” he said in French.

“It's Friday,” she continued in French, “my busiest morning.” Now she leaned forward and, so that Alex did not hear, asked quietly, “Did you hear the news?”

“What news, Madame?”

She whispered, “Michael Jackson is dead.”

“Ah yes . . . I heard,” Belasco said.

“I used to see him here all the time.”

He didn't have the heart to tell her that Jackson was dead quite a while now. “He lived on sixty-six. Next door to Mr. Trump.”

“Poor Michael.” She shook her head. “How did he stand the noise?”

“Mr. Jackson?”

“No, Mr. Trump. Do you know how many times he told me, ‘I like you so much'?”

“Mr. Trump?”

“No, poor Michael. He said he'd seen my movies. He said he thought I was the most beautiful star in the French cinema.”

“I agree.”

“You know,” she nodded proudly, “he used to let me ride up in the service lift with him. I was the only one. He hated anyone seeing him bandaged like that. His face and all. But whenever he saw me, he would say,
would you like to ride with me?
He even learned to say it in French. I was the only one.”

The elevator doors opened on the ground floor and Alex turned to Odette. “Madame.”

“I was the only one,” she said in French to Belasco. Then, in English, she asked Alex, “Please don't tell anyone about Michael Jackson.” She got out.

“I won't,” Alex promised.

Belasco followed her out of the elevator.

Odette walked into the residents' lobby and pointed to the small, unmarked door next to the concierge's desk. “May I?”

“Yes, of course,” Belasco opened the door for her, then helped her down some steps into the tiny fire control office. He said, “Excuse us, please” to the man sitting there watching a bank of monitors, then opened another small door, this one leading into the atrium.

Odette stepped out, looked at the Trump Grill to her right, then spotted some tourists standing nearby taking photos. She walked straight up to them and greeted them, as if they should have recognized her.

Belasco returned to his office, took his Rolodex, found the card he was looking for and dialed the number.

A woman answered, “Ronald Rose and Company, how may I direct your call?”

“Is Ronnie there, please, it's Pierre Belasco.”

She put him through.

“Pierre?” Rose said, “Audit or refund?”

“Neither,” Belasco said. “A favor. Have you got a junior person in the office who could run through some books and figure out where a company stands?”

“Trump?”

“No. There's a company in the Tower . . . the owner died, and the widow is up to her neck in problems. I thought if someone could stop by . . .”

“When?”

“Monday? After lunch? Say, three?”

“Yep,” Rose said. “I'll have someone there at three.”

“Thank you.”

“Who do we bill?”

“For the time being . . . me.”

“Still pretending to be the Red Cross?”

“Just trying to help a little bird fly again.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Thanks,” and hung up.

He addressed a handwritten note to Mrs. Battelli. “I have arranged for my personal accountant to send someone by Monday at 3. I hope he will be able to help you make sense of your books.” He signed it, “Pierre,” looked at that for a long time, then added, “Belasco.”

He asked one of the concierges to take it up to the nineteenth floor.

When a note came back that simply said, “Thank you. Rebecca,” he asked himself why she hadn't signed it with her last name.

That's when he realized he'd completely forgotten to mention to her that Scarpe Pietrasanta was behind in the rent.

I
t was one of those unforgettable evenings.

Antoine de Maisonneuve, the interior designer whose fortieth birthday had been celebrated with cover stories this month in
Vogue, Vanity Fair
and
Harper's Bazaar
, was having his party.

His long-time partner, Bobby Baldwyn, who'd once been called the great black hope of American ballet, rented the Beacon Theater on Broadway at West Seventy-Fourth Street, removed all the seats, leveled the floor so that it didn't slope and put in tables for 250 people.

Alain Ducas created the appetizers and Joel Robuchon cooked the meal.

A floor-to-ceiling ice sculpture portrait of de Maisonneuve sat in the middle of the wonderful Art Deco room, where everyone who has ever been anybody in the world of rock has played. From the Stones, Jerry Garcia and Aerosmith, to Michael Jackson, James Taylor, Radiohead and Queen—they all appeared on the Beacon stage. So has Bill Clinton. So has the Dalai Lama.

Now the stage was set with forty chairs and forty music stands to accommodate the string section of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In front of that was a grand piano where, for seventy-five minutes, Elton John played his heart out. The music ended with “Happy Birthday,” a duet by Elton and Madonna, who wheeled out a twelve-layer black currant mousse and marzipan cake created by Anne-Marie Pradel-Besson, who'd been flown in from Paris just for this.

“I could not eat another thing,” Tina Lee Cove said to Donatella Versace. Karl Lagerfeld blew them both kisses and went to say goodnight to the birthday boy,
who was telling Wendi Murdoch, Rupert's wife, that she looked more beautiful than ever. Charlize Theron held on to Mike Bloomberg's arm as he asked Corice Arman if she'd had enough to eat. “Anyone for a late night snack?” the mayor joked.

Diane Kruger groaned at the thought of more food, but Sarah Jessica Parker pointed to her husband, Matthew Broderick. “He does killer Eggs Benedict. Anyone up for breakfast?”

Elton kissed Lizzy Tisch, who was talking to Brian Williams and Alicia Melendez, while Daphne Guinness was chatting with Dylan Lauren.

Marc Jacobs was saying goodbye to Christina Hendricks, who was kissing Spike Lee goodbye, while David Beckham was telling a dirty joke to Kate Moss.

Across the room, Victoria Beckham never took her eyes off her husband, all the time assuring Neil Patrick Harris that he was better looking than Nacho Figeras, who happened to be standing right there, insisting that she was wrong.

Zeke Gimbel was explaining to Katie Couric how he was putting together a mega studio deal and bragged that he would soon own the world.