Trump Tower (6 page)

“Not true,” the tall, heavy-set, nearly bald Lerner replied. “She likes me better, but not best. First, she likes her grandchildren.”

Hattie cut in, “If I'd known better, I would have had them first.”

“See?” Bobby continued, “Then comes your sister, your brother and me.
You come in a distant twelfth, after my wonderful, adorable and loving wife, your sister's idiot husband, your brother's have-you-seen-my-new-boobs-yet wife, your first wife, and Jay Leno.”

Hattie closed her eyes and turned away. “At least Jay Leno wouldn't steal money from his mother.”

“No one is stealing anything from you.” Zeke took a deep breath, “Here we go again.”

They were sitting at a table, under an umbrella by the huge swimming pool at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

Once the seventeen-acre private estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post—daughter of the man whose Post Toasties became the cornflakes staple of his cereal empire—when the house was completed in 1927, it had 115 rooms and its own nine-hole golf course. Then said to be the fifth-largest private residence in the country, today it is officially classified as a national historic landmark.

It sits on what might be the most unique and prime piece of property in all of south Florida, running from the Atlantic Ocean beachfront all the way to Lake Worth on the other side. In fact, the estate is so large that one night, after one of Merriweather Post's famously lavish dinner parties, there was enough room on the property for the entire Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus to entertain.

Heir to her father's fortune, which included cereals and other foods, plus oil-rich land in Texas, she married four times—husband number two was Wall Street financier E. F. Hutton, and their daughter, Nedenia Marjorie Hutton, grew up to be the actress Dina Merrill—and bequeathed Mar-A-Lago to the US government. Her idea was that it should be used as a guesthouse for foreign dignitaries and a winter White House for the president. Although no president ever lived there, the Kennedy family compound is down the beach, and JFK himself knew the house well.

When it became too expensive for the government to maintain, the estate was returned to the Merriweather Post family. Donald Trump bought it from them in 1985, modernized everything, and turned it into one of the most exclusive private clubs in the country.

Zeke Gimbel left Creative Artists Agency in 1999 to start his own agency, “Z.” He joined Mar-A-Lago five years later.

“The United States Senate is the most exclusive club in the country,” he once told the
Los Angeles Times
, “after Mar-A-Lago.”

By then he'd bought out two smaller firms, had orchestrated an audacious takeover of the much bigger, much more powerful First National Artists, and followed that by purchasing another two smaller firms.

Suddenly, he found himself fourth in the Hollywood agency pecking order,
after International Creative Management, William Morris Endeavor and CAA.

Now, he was looking to become an even bigger player.

“You want me out of your company?” His mother was still not looking at him. “This is how you show your appreciation?”

He tried, yet again, to reason with her. “I need you to sign these papers because if you don't and something goes wrong . . . I am showing you my appreciation . . . and my love . . . by telling you up front that your money is not going to be safe in the company because of the way Bobby and I have structured this deal and . . .”

“And, you want me out.”

“And . . . yes . . . I want you out.”

She turned back but looked at Bobby. “Did you ever hear of such a thing? A son throwing his own mother out of the family business?”

“Hattie . . . that's not what this is.”

She shook her head. “His brother the doctor wouldn't do this to his mother.”

Zeke told her, “My brother the doctor is too busy to phone his mother every day.”

“Of course, he's busy. He runs that whole department, and he has a wonderful practice and two gorgeous, gorgeous children.”

“And a wife you can't always stand.”

Hattie shrugged, “Maybe not my cup of tea two or three days a week, but she's been a good mother to those gorgeous little children.”

“Who are not so little and, frankly, not necessarily so gorgeous.”

“They're still my grandchildren.”

“So are Zoey and Max,” he reminded her. “But my brother's children can do no wrong. And my sister's children are royalty.”

“I never said anything of the kind. But when was the last time your children came to stay with their grandmother? In fact, when was the last time you came to stay with your mother?”

“I'm here with you now.”

“No, you're in some fancy place and you schlep me over to see you. Could it hurt to come and see me?”

He sighed in exasperation. “Mother, we can't keep going round and round with this. Right now, your money . . . your shares in the company . . . are not safe. If I blow this deal, you could lose a lot of money. We both could. So we're putting your shares, your money, into another company. I'm protecting you.” He begged, “Mother, please, sign the damn papers.”

She gave him an angry look, then said to Bobby, “Give me a pen,” and showed her total disdain by mumbling as she signed.

“Thank you.” Zeke leaned over and tried to kiss his mother.

She moved away. “So now what? I live on my social security?”

Bobby put his hand on Hattie's arm. “I promise you, everything is the same. Nothing has changed. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Of course not.” She stood up. “Because my daughter and her husband and my other son will always look after me, no matter what.”

“You're right, mother.” He stood up too, and signaled to a valet standing on the verandah that his mother needed her car. “As long as your daughter and her husband and your other son . . . the doctor . . . if they can remember your phone number, I'm sure they'll do what they can for you.”

She started walking toward the main house.

Zeke hurried up to her and took her arm. They walked like that, not speaking, through the house and out to the front driveway.

A Mercedes was already there with a chauffeur holding open the rear door.

Zeke leaned over and kissed her. “I love you. I'll talk to you tomorrow. And . . . I love you.”

She nodded and got into the car.

He gave her a little wave.

Just as the chauffeur was closing the door, she reminded him, “Jay Leno would never do this to his mother.”

Bobby walked up to Zeke and waved at Hattie as the car pulled away. “Call your sister. Maybe your mother will believe her.”

“I refuse to cater to her bullshit. I've got to go. Thanks for handling this.”

“That's what lawyers are for.”

“I wish she'd understand.”

“Mothers don't understand. They accept.”

Zeke sighed and nodded. “Speaking of accepting . . . when do we hear back on the Sovereign Shields buyout?”

“It's only now about numbers. They're close.”

“I hope it doesn't get in the way of this other thing. Deals coming from two different directions meet in the middle and . . . boom.”

“Stop worrying.”

“I'm my mother's son.”

Sometime after Zeke and Bobby started putting together the complex deal that could take Z from being just another big agency into the stratosphere as a global entertainment industry powerhouse, Zeke had been in negotiations to buy the Sovereign Shields Sports Agency, the last vestige of the once-famous Gerald Shields' sports empire.

Forty years ago, Shields had been a visionary, much like Mark McCormack, in realizing the marketing potential of athletes. Unlike McCormack, however, whose commercial success, beginning in the 1960s with golfer Jack Nicklaus,
really paved the way for the Federers, Beckhams and Woods of the modern era, Shields left the already-established pros to McCormack and waded into the amateur pools, looking for future stars.

He crisscrossed the country, sitting through thousands of high school and college basketball games, and football games, and baseball games, and track meets, and lacrosse practice, and inner-city gyms, and inner-city basketball courts, and even Saturday morning suburban soccer games in search of the next Tom Seaver, Edwin Moses, Joe Namath, Walt Frazier and Sugar Ray Leonard.

After two years of nonstop traveling, he'd discovered—and locked into iron-clad contracts—budding superstars like the Lakers' point guard Le-Vaughan Sylvester, Dodgers reliever Jovani San Pedro Santiago, Miami Dolphins all-pro receiver Longman Watt, Yankee second baseman Devontae “Crawfish” Perkins and world welterweight champion Filiberto “Kid” Cabrera.

Over the next ten years, any athlete not on McCormack's roster belonged—lock, stock and barrel—to Gerald Shields.

But by the time Tom Cruise came along as Jerry McGuire, and Cuba Gooding Jr. screamed, “Show me the money,” sports agents were running all over the country, in colleges and high schools and drilling down deep into junior highs in search of the next big name.

Suddenly there was Don Meehan and Drew Rosenhaus, Tom Condon and Arn Tellem, and of course Scott Boras. And they were into everything, not just working the three big ball sports, and golf, tennis, boxing and ice hockey, but motor racing, horse racing, wrestling, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, track, field, gymnastics, even cricket and bowling.

Wherever there were athletes who could sell something, there were agents trying to sell athletes.

Gerald Shields sold out to the Truman brothers—Alan and Adam—two lawyers from the Cincinnati suburbs, but the cutthroat nature of the business became too much for them. They had a few big stars, but mostly they had young athletes whose careers were stalled.

Now Zeke Gimbel wanted to enter the fray.

“As soon as they sign,” Zeke explained, “we hand the keys to the door to Perry and Monica.” They were two young hotshot lawyers who worked for Z in LA. “We move them into new offices and keep them ring-fenced so that nothing that happens there can affect anything else. If that goes wrong, I don't want it bringing us down. If our deal goes wrong, the sports side may be all we have left.”

“Compared to you,” Bobby said, “Hattie is an optimist.”

“Murphy's Law?” He looked at his old friend. “And it was Murphy who was the optimist.”

“I still have doubts about the deadwood.”

“Why?

“Because you think you can trade your way into a profitable business. Why would some other agency want the athletes you can't sell?”

“They're jocks, they get traded all the time. What's the difference if they go from Z to IMG, or from the Padres to the Cubs? Why do the Bears buy someone the Cowboys don't want?”

“Mr. Gimbel?” Giorgio, the resident manager, stepped outside. “You look well.”

“Hi there. You too.” He shook Giorgio's hand. “I got in last night . . . leaving today, right now, in fact.”

“Back to Los Angeles?”

“No. New York for a party. LA tomorrow.”

“Mr. Lerner?” Giorgio said, “Everything is arranged.”

“I'll just go upstairs and grab my bag,” Zeke said. Then he asked Bobby, “What's arranged?”

Giorgio held up his hand to show Zeke there was no need to go upstairs. “I'll have it brought down. And your car . . . to PBI?”

“The airport, yeah, thank you.”

Giorgio stepped back inside the house.

“What's arranged?” Zeke asked again, as he took his cell phone and speed-dialed his pilot's cell. “See you in half an hour.”

“Ready when you are,” the pilot told him.

Zeke hung up and looked at Bobby. “You want to come to New York?”

“Sorry. Everything's arranged.”

“Everything . . . what?”

Giorgio came back, said to Zeke, “Your bag will be right down.” Then he looked at Bobby, “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Time out,” Zeke gestured with both hands. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Being your friend is a hardship,” Bobby explained. “In fact, the only benefit is that, when I told Mr. Giorgio I'd be here with you, he got me a tee-off time at Trump National. In an hour.”

Zeke assured Giorgio, “I never saw him before.”

“That's all right, sir, I'll vouch for Mr. Lerner. He's welcome any time.”

“You're a gentleman and a scholar,” Bobby patted Giorgio on his shoulder, then told Zeke, “He's even putting the green fee on your bill.”

“A pleasure,” Giorgio said, shook Zeke's hand and added, “Have a safe trip, sir. We look forward to seeing you again soon.”

When they were alone again, Zeke put his arms around Bobby and hugged him. “I'm forty-five years old. I'm worth a hundred million dollars. I try to do the right thing for my mother, and she treats me like I'm twelve.”