Trump Tower (74 page)

She shrugged then started to laugh.

“Three strikes. I'm out. Mr. Farmer . . . and all you little Finfolkmen out there, somewhere, farming and Finfolking,” she pushed the handwritten notes aside and shut down her computer. “I have to go to my day job now. I'll get back to you one of these days. Maybe. Just don't tell Carson he's sort of right.”

T
WENTY-NINE FLOORS
below her, in the twenty-third-floor offices of First Ace Capital, a delivery boy arrived with a large box. “For Carson Haynes?” He opened it and the note that came with the huge strawberry shortcake read,
“Okay, okay, gloat. But when you're finished with the fucking cake, get back to me with the next deal.”

N
INE FLOORS
above those offices, Ricky Lips stepped into his thirty-second-floor apartment where he found forty people singing, “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow . . .”

Ricky went around the room, planting a big wet kiss on the mouth of every woman there, who'd come to celebrate what they'd thought would be his release, and the return tour of Still Fools.

Little by little, the singing ended as more and more people in the room realized the bracelet was still on his ankle.

Ricky looked at them and simply shrugged, “No one knew how to get the bleeding thing off.”

S
EVEN FLOORS
higher up, in his thirty-ninth-floor living room, Zeke was on a conference call with Lenny Silverberg, Bing O'Leary and Carl Kravitz.

“Don't go back to him,” O'Leary said.

“I wouldn't either,” Kravitz said.

“We can do the deal without this asshole,” Silverberg agreed.

“Okay,” Zeke said. “I thought if we needed Farmer's money . . .”

“We don't,” Silverberg reiterated. “And anyway, what the fuck are Finfuckers?”

O
N
F
RIDAY MORNING
, Forbes walked into Pierre Belasco's ground-floor office at Trump Tower and told him, “You're out of jeopardy.”

“What happened?”

“Mainly . . . time ran out on the investigation. Murders get forty-eight to seventy-two hours. If they're not done and dusted by then, they get put on the back shelf until something new comes up.”

“They just stop?”

“They don't just stop, they move on to the next one.”

“So that's all?”

“Where you're concerned, yes. They've written you off. You won't end up becoming a reality show on some cable channel . . . life on death row.”

“Don't joke about that.”

“I'd thought you'd be pleased.”

“That I'm not being investigated for a murder I had nothing to do with? I would have been pleased if I'd never gotten involved in the first place.”

Forbes patted Belasco on the back. “Call me if you need me.”

“Thanks,” he said as Forbes walked out. “I will.”

Suddenly he heard some odd beeps. He went to his desk and found that it
was his BlackBerry telling him the battery had run down. He found the charger he kept in the office, put it on a shelf and hooked up his phone.

That's when Gabriella Battelli called. “My mom's going away for about ten days. An old family friend has a house in Tuscany . . . she's leaving tonight and . . .”

“Please tell her I said I hope she has a good trip.”

“I will. In the meantime, Carlos is still cleaning up. I'll stop by next week to see how he's getting on and maybe when she comes back . . .”

“The accountant?” Belasco told her, “I hope so.”

“No . . . well, yes that too . . . but what I was really going to say was that . . . you know, maybe when she comes back, if you phoned her and suggested something like . . . maybe lunch some Sunday . . .”

N
EARLY THREE THOUSAND
miles away, David Cove sat in his suite at La Quinta, the Palm Springs hideaway in the shadow of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Although his flight plan had originally been filed for Houston, David changed it in midair, hoping that way no one could follow him, and flew instead to Kansas City, where he boarded a commercial flight for San Diego. From there he rented a car and drove the rest of the way. He'd played La Quinta for years and knew the manager well enough that he was allowed to check in under a false name.

The first thing he did was get Regis on the phone.

And Regis announced, “I think I found your guy.”

“That's great. Grab him and I'll get in the plane and meet you wherever.”

“Don't bother. Miami police found a body yesterday meeting his description.”

“Oh shit.”

“What was the MO of the old lady?”

“What old lady? You mean, Essenbach?”

“How'd she get killed?”

“Papers said it was a single bullet to the temple.”

“What caliber?”

“Ah . . .” David tried to remember. “Nine mil?”

“Which side?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“Presumably the right.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“Same thing with your guy. Single nine mil to the right temple.”

“Oh fuck. What do I do now?”

“My advice?” Regis said. “Don't look to your left.”

B
ACK AT
Trump Tower, Zeke was on the phone with Alicia. “I meant to call you yesterday. This Isbister guy won't talk to you.”

“I got your note. Is he afraid I'll find something?”

“He's a schmuck.”

“Do you think he lives in the building?”

“Frankly . . . no.”

“Hey, where are you going to be at six thirty tonight? Anywhere near a television set?”

“No. I'm flying home today. Why?”

“Thought I'd ask. Oh well, listen, thanks, anyway.”

“See you guys next time through.” He hung up, checked to make sure that everything was turned off, locked the door, took his shoulder bag and rang for the elevator.

The elevator doors opened, Jaquim said, “Good morning, Mr. Gimbel,” and from behind him came a familiar voice. “As I live and breathe.”

Mikey Glass was standing there.

Zeke reminded him, “You're like a bad check that keeps bouncing back.” Mikey pointed to Zeke's shoulder bag, then down to his own. “You wouldn't by chance be flying back to LA today in that gorgeous airplane of yours, would you?”

Jaquim closed the doors and they headed down to the ground floor.

“You on the run again?”

“Not this time,” Mikey bragged. “In good graces with the old lady . . . and I even paid my bill at the Commodore. I'm trying to get those circus performers booked into the hotel's cabaret.”

“What circus performers?”

“At the Commodore. They love me there.”

He nodded, “Someone has to.”

“What time we taking off?”

Zeke shook his head and took a deep breath. “They're fueling up now.”

The doors opened and the two of them walked through the lobby.

“Your car is waiting,” Roberto the doorman said to Zeke.

Mikey put his arm around Zeke and did his best Bogart imitation. “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

M
UCH LATER
that afternoon, seven and a half blocks south of Trump Tower, in Studio 3C at 30 Rockefeller Center, Michael Douglas' voice introduced
NBC Nightly News
with Brian Williams.

But it was Alicia sitting in Williams' place behind the big desk.

“Good evening,” she said straight to camera, “I'm Alicia Melendez in for Brian Williams. On our broadcast tonight . . .”

Carson sat in the control room thinking to himself,
it's as if she's been doing this all her life
.

A
T THE SAME
time, on the sixty-first floor of Trump Tower, in a large living room with very little furniture, a woman in her early sixties who spoke almost no English sat on the couch with Cyndi, who was trying to tell her in Spanish that Alicia, the woman on the television, “
la mujer en television
,” was her best friend. “
Mi mejor amigo
,” and like her mother, “
como mi madre
.”

Roberto Santos' mother nodded several times, smiled and pointed to Alicia, then asked, “
Su madre
?”

“No,” Cyndi said, pouring another cup of tea for the woman. “Not my mother.
Como mi madre
, like my mother.”

She nodded several times. “
Su madre
.”

B
ACK AT
NBC, when the final story ran, Alicia smiled warmly to camera. “That's our broadcast for this evening. Brian looks forward to seeing you back here on Monday night. For all of us at
NBC Nightly News
, thank you for watching . . . have a wonderful weekend. Good night.”

The theme music came up.

Alicia looked down at her notes.

The on-air monitor in the control room went to commercial.

And someone said, “We're clear . . . thanks, Alicia . . . great job.”

Carson applauded.

A woman in the control room turned, looked at him, and shook her head. “Bad form.”

He shrugged, “I'm new at this.”

The woman pointed to Alicia on the studio monitor. “But she's not.”

And in that monitor Carson could see Alicia was still sitting at the big desk, grinning from ear to ear.

P
IERRE BELASCO
turned off the evening news and handwrote a note to Alicia. “You were wonderful.”

He slipped it into an envelope, sealed it, addressed it and handed it to Shannon at the concierge's desk.

“Ms. Melendez?” She put it into the pigeonhole mailbox with the name Melendez/Haynes written on it. “You off, sir?”

“I am. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

He said good night to David, the on-duty doorman, and stepped out onto Fifty-Sixth Street.

It was one of those balmy New York spring evenings, so instead of looking for a taxi downtown, he started walking.

Sunday lunch
, he thought.
Maybe. Or, maybe I'll just happen to pass by the showroom one afternoon . . .

He smiled because he knew where to find her.

It was an hour later when he realized he'd actually walked all the way home.

First time in a long time for that
, he reminded himself.

Reaching for his key to the front door, he also realized something was missing.

He had his keys. He had his wallet. Then he remembered.
My BlackBerry
. He'd left it charging in the office.

He asked himself,
is it worth going all the way uptown for it?

Without thinking twice, he said out loud, “No.”

After all, what's that BlackBerry about?
He answered his own question.
It's about managing Trump Tower. It's a tool. But it is not the end-all
.

He told himself,
I don't need my BlackBerry to hook me into my job twenty-four hours a day. Whatever comes in to me through that BlackBerry can wait another day. How do I know that?

He said, out loud, “Because Donald Trump only
thinks
he rules Trump Tower . . . I do. So whatever it is, I will decide. And I have decided it can wait until Monday.

T
he BlackBerry still sitting in the charger in Pierre Belasco's now-darkened office at Trump Tower beeped and suddenly lit up.

An e-mail arrived addressed to Pierre Belasco and Anthony Gallicano.

The sender was “DJT.”

And the message read, “Given all that her grandfather did for my father, I have decided not to accept Antonia Lawrence's letter of resignation.”