Trump Tower

by Jeffrey Robinson

  The couch was turned upside down, and every desk drawer was spilled onto the floor. Shelves were tipped over. And there was glass on the floor.

  Glass? She looked at the little bookcase sitting in front of the window. The top shelf was empty. In a panic, she started pushing furniture aside.

  “Mrs. Battelli . . .” Riordan was right there. “Please don’t touch anything. Don’t disturb anything.”

  She ignored him and continued shoving things out of the way until she found a silver picture frame, crushed on the floor.

  The photo was gone.

  Frantically, she started looking everywhere for it.

  She found the bottom half sitting in the feed of her shredder.

  Someone had deliberately shredded the top half.

  It was a photo from her honeymoon. She and Mark were in Italy, holding hands and smiling at each other, leaning to the left in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was tilted to the right.

  It always made her laugh.

  And there were no other copies of it.

  “Bastard,” she screamed, and turned to Riordan. “Call the police. Yes, please, call the police.”

  TWO OF Riordan’s people showed up with a video camera and started filming. Then two uniformed NYPD officers arrived, followed by two detectives.

  Belasco suggested that if the officers needed a place to talk to Mrs. Battelli, they were welcome to use his office. Riordan said no, it would be easier if they all sat down in the small conference room upstairs next to his office.

  So while Riordan’s two men documented the scene, and the two uniformed officers stayed there to protect it, Rebecca went with Riordan and the detectives upstairs.

  They did not invite Belasco to come along.

  IN HIS own office, he sat down to write an incident report, which he sent to Donald Trump and Anthony Gallicano and copied to his department heads.

  A little while later, he remembered the appointment with his accountant and phoned Ronnie Rose to cancel. “We’ll try again for later this week. Sorry about this, but . . . it’s not a good time, right now.”

  He also postponed his appointment with the lawyer, Carole Ann Mendelsohn, to talk about Mrs. Essenbach. “Can we do this tomorrow, please. Something’s come up.”

  Now what? He asked himself. And the only thing he really wanted to do was go upstairs to find Rebecca.

  She was sitting in the CCTV monitoring room with Riordan, the detectives, and Riordan’s guy Harry. They were running through the camera footage from the nineteenth floor. But now there was a young woman standing next to Rebecca, holding her hand.

  “This is my daughter, Gabriella.”

  She was around twenty, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, with long hair. She looked like her mother.

  “I’m very glad to meet you,” Belasco said.

  “We may have something,” Riordan told Harry. “Run it back.”

  Gabriella nodded politely, shook Belasco’s hand, then took her mother’s hand again.

  “There,” Riordan pointed to a monitor.

  The view was from one of the cameras in the Tower lobby. Two men walked in from Fifth Avenue—wearing raincoats—and went to the elevators. The security officer looked toward them, and one of the men appeared to flash him a pass.

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” Riordan asked, then answered his own question. “This is last night around eleven. They’re wearing raincoats.”

  Belasco didn’t get it. “So?”

  “So?” Riordan said. “It didn’t rain last night.”

  The two men stepped into the elevator.

  The shot on the monitor changed to inside the elevator, where the two men, their faces now clearly visible, stood not speaking.

  “It didn’t rain at all yesterday,” one of the detectives picked up on Riordan’s explanation, “and the reason that’s significant is because the raincoats are there to hide whatever it is they’re carrying.”

  Belasco asked, “Like what?”

  “Like burglar tools?” Riordan said. “Like weapons? Or, they’re not carrying anything in, but expect to carry something out.”

  Belasco turned to Rebecca, “Do you recognize either of those men?”

  The monitor showed them getting off the elevator on the nineteenth floor, then disappearing down the hall, out of the camera’s range.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  Harry sped up the playback, then slowed it down when the men reappeared.

  “This is eighteen and a half minutes later,” Riordan said.

  The cameras followed the men into the elevator, down and out through the lobby to Fifth Avenue.

  “So you’ve got your suspects,” Belasco said.

  “What we’ve got,” the second detective decided, “are two persons of interest.”

  “Are you sure you don’t know them?” Belasco asked Rebecca again.

  She shook her head. “I’m sure.”

  “What about your husband’s cousin? You said that . . .”

  “Johnny Battelli,” the detective said. “Florida. We checked. Been there all week.”

  Belasco thought out loud, “If it’s not him . . .”

  Riordan cut in, “Just because he isn’t in town doesn’t mean he isn’t involved. Remember our little talk about means, motive and opportunity?”

  “Except that he didn’t have the opportunity. He’s in Florida.”

  “According to Mrs. Battelli, he has a motive. And because they got into the building with a pass, and got into the office with a key, at least it looks like that, maybe he gifted them the opportunity.”

  “Does he have a building pass?”

  Riordan leaned back to hand Belasco an index card–sized copy of a security pass. “Apparently he does.”

  “These two guys . . .” Belasco looked at the detectives. “You can find them, right?”

  One of them answered, “How would you suggest we start?”

  “You’ve got their faces.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then . . . don’t you check them against other people’s faces? What do they say on television . . . find out if they’re in the system.”

  “Let’s say for the sake of argument,” the other detective proposed, “that these two guys were hired to trash Mrs. Battelli’s office. So go back to why they were wearing raincoats when it wasn’t raining.”

  Belasco thought about that for a moment. “I suppose . . . as Bill said . . . to bring something into the building. Or to carry something out. They wore raincoats because they didn’t want to be seen doing that.”

  “By who?” Riordan quizzed him. “Who are they hiding something from?”

  “Your people . . . or anyone else.”

  “When you say, anyone else, you mean the CCTV cameras?”

  “Okay,” Belasco said, “the CCTV cameras.”

  Now the first detective asked, “If these guys are involved with this in some way, then how come they don’t care who sees their faces? How come they don’t care about the CCTV cameras?”

  “Because . . .” Belasco offered, “they didn’t know there are cameras?”

  “Most criminals are dumb,” the detective went on. “But very few are that dumb. They know there are CCTV cameras everywhere in a place like Trump Tower. The reason they don’t care about their faces is because they know we won’t recognize them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re not from here. They flew in on Monday afternoon and they flew out Monday night or Tuesday morning.”

  “What do they do when they leave Trump Tower?”

  Riordan said, “Camera shows them walking out to Fifth Avenue, turning right, and disappearing up the block.”

  Belasco thought for a moment. “Okay, say they flew in . . .”

  “Or came in by train,” the detective said.

  “Or by bus,” Riordan said.

  “Okay . . . by plane or train or bus. There are CCTV cameras at the airports and at Penn Station and at
Grand Central and at the bus terminal.”

  “Sir?” The first detective stared at him. “Do you know how many people come into New York City every day?”

  Belasco conceded, “I guess it’s asking too much.”

  “Believe me,” the detective said, “we’re trying the best we can with what we’ve got.”

  “Have you got fingerprints?”

  “They wore gloves.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Sir,” the detective leaned forward, “I don’t know exactly what it is you do for a living, but this is what my partner and I do for a living. If they don’t care about their faces it’s because we won’t recognize them. But they do care about what we can recognize, which is their fingerprints. I guarantee they wore gloves.”

  “There must be something you can do,” Belasco said. “There must be some way of finding them.”

  “Pierre,” Riordan shook his head. “You don’t understand how these things work. No one’s been hurt. There’s been no physical violence. It may not even technically qualify as a burglary because unless we can identify something that was taken . . .”

  The other detective chimed in, “As a favor to Lieutenant Riordan, we’ll go ten yards beyond the extra ten yards. But the world you see on television, that’s not the real world of the NYPD.”

  “They make a report,” Riordan continued, “and the case stays open. Leads get followed up if there are leads. But right now . . .”

  “Of course, we’ll try to find out if anyone knows those two guys,” the first detective promised. “We’ll get Mrs. Battelli’s cousin-in-law on the phone and talk to him at length. If we need to, when he comes back up north, we’ll sit down with him, face to face. And, yeah, we’ll put out the pictures of these two . . .” he motioned toward the monitors . . . “as persons of interest. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Your best shot is luck?” Belasco was dismayed.

  “In this case,” the detective agreed, “‘fraid so.”

  Belasco looked at Rebecca who was still looking away. “May I speak to Mrs. Battelli and her daughter for a moment, please . . . alone?”

  Riordan said, “Be my guest.”

  The three of them walked out of the monitor room and into the conference room. Belasco shut the door. “I’m really sorry they’re not being more helpful.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I suppose they’re doing the best they can.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Go home,” she said. “Go away. Fall off the face of the earth.”

  “You’ve got to stop it,” Gabriella said to her mother, then said to Belasco, “I want her to fight back.”

  “What for?” Rebecca asked.

  “For everything my father tried to build. For us. For him.”

  “Where do I even begin?” Rebecca wanted to know. “You see the mess they left? That’s the mess they’ve made in my life . . . in our lives.”

  Gabriella said, “Then we begin by cleaning up the mess.”

  “If you need help . . .” Belasco offered.

  “Yes,” Gabriella said, “we need help. We need to hire people to help us clean up that mess, and we need help to stay in business. This was my father’s business. And his father’s business . . .”

  “And Johnny’s business,” Rebecca cut in.

  Gabriella was having none of it. “I refuse to let you walk away.”

  Rebecca sighed, “She’s too young to realize . . .”

  “I am not,” Gabriella said sharply. She turned to Pierre. “I graduate next year. I’m at Sarah Lawrence. I’m half an hour away. I will do what I can until then. I’ve got this summer to help. I’ll be here for her. But we need help.”

  Pierre thought for a moment. “You’re insured, right?”

  “I suppose,” Rebecca said.

  “You’ll have to check your insurance, but you should be covered, at least for a lot of it. I’ll find someone to help you clean up the place and put everything back together. My accountant will come in to go over the books . . . he was going to come in today . . .”

  “I forgot again, I’m sorry . . .”

  “That’s all right. We’ll put the place back together, go over the books, and I’ll also see what I can do about keeping the detectives on the case.”

  “Thank you,” Gabriella said.

  For the first time, Rebecca looked at him, reached out, and took his hands in hers. “Thank you.”

  He smiled at her, waited until she let go, then said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Outside the conference room he asked Riordan and the detectives, “Are you finished with Mrs. Battelli?”

  “Yeah,” Riordan said, then looked at the detectives to check. Both of them nodded. “At least for the time being.” He added, “She doesn’t understand.”

  Belasco admitted, “Neither do I.”

  He asked Riordan to make a copy of the CCTV footage of the two men in raincoats, and to let him also have a copy of the videotape his people made in Rebecca’s office. Then he went to find Little Sam, his human resources supervisor. He asked to see a personnel file, took a piece of paper, copied down a phone number from the file, wrote a name next to the number, and returned to the conference room, where he handed the piece of paper to Gabriella.

  “Call this fellow. Tell him I said it’s all right. Tell him if he has any questions, he can call me. Tell him that I suggested you hire him to help you clean up the place. He needs a job, and he’s a very good worker.”

  Gabriella looked at the paper. “Carlos Vela?”

  Belasco nodded. “I’ll vouch for him.”

  DOWNSTAIRS in his own office, Belasco dialed a number and waited for someone to answer.

  A man picked up the call on the fourth ring, and sounded still asleep. “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you? It’s Pierre Belasco.”

  “Yeah . . . that’s okay, what’s up?”

  “We had a break-in late last night. On the nineteenth floor. The police are here, but they’re . . .”

  “Not very helpful?”

  “Not much to go on, apparently.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Timmins asked.

  Belasco answered, “Call the cavalry.”

  37

  “Go get Billy,” Ricky pointed down the hall. “Quick. The cat. Go get him.”

  Amvi was too frightened to move. “What is it?”

  Hughie and Jules and the woman in Ricky’s underpants all ran to the door.

  “Where’d it go?”

  “Fucking music is too loud.”

  “Go get the cat.”

  “Turn down that fucking music.”

  And all the time, the chubby redhead was still screaming, “Help . . . help . . . help . . .”

  “Go on, go on,” Ricky begged Amvi, then poked his head out the door and called to the animal. “Here Billy . . . here Billy . . .” He looked at Amvi again, “Go on then, get the cat and bring it back.”

  “It’s not a cat.” She didn’t budge.

  “I can’t, luv,” he pointed to the ankle bracelet. “If I leave it goes off. I’ll get arrested again. But you can . . . go on . . .”

  She repeated, “It’s not a cat.”

  He looked up and down the hall. “Bloody hell. Where is it?” He turned to Hughie and Jules, “Go on, get the fucking cat.”

  Just then, a completely naked woman walked out of the second bedroom and into the living room, saw the commotion, said, “Pardon me . . . didn’t know you had company,” turned around, and went back inside.

  “Who was that?” Ricky asked.

  Hughie said, “Shari.”

  “Who’s Shari?”

  “Bugs’ girlfriend.”

  “Who’s Bugs?”

  “The other bloke banging Shari.”

  By now Amvi was shaking. “I must go. I must leave. Please . . .”

  “Wait till we find Billy . . .”

  That’s when the elevator door opened, and Joey stepped out with a very
short redhead. “What’s going . . .” He spotted Amvi. “Pocahontas?”

  The ocelot darted into the elevator.

  “Hey,” Miguel, the elevator operator yelled, “Get out . . .”

  “Wait!” Ricky screamed. “Don’t leave with my cat . . .”

  Joey picked up the ocelot and asked, “Pocahontas . . . what are you doing here?”

  “Nice cat,” the redhead said.

  “Who’s she?” Amvi asked Joey.

  “Who’s Pocahontas,” the redhead wanted to know.

  Amvi shouted, “Wait Miguel,” jumped into the elevator and the doors shut.

  38

  The moment she spotted Mrs. Essenbach getting out of her chauffeur-driven Jaguar, Antonia understood why this woman had sued several plastic surgeons. Her face was so tightly pulled back, Antonia worried what might happen if she tried to laugh.

  “Mrs. Essenbach?” Antonia went to the curb to greet her.

  “Miss Lawrence.” The woman stepped out of the backseat with some help from her chauffeur, then extended her hand to Antonia. “You must be . . .”

  “Yes, ma’am.” They shook hands. “I’m very pleased to meet you, and thank you for coming to see me.”

  She was dressed in a beige pantsuit and was wearing a flowery Hermès scarf around her neck. “I confess to being intrigued.”

  “Shall we go inside?” Antonia motioned toward the doors.

  The two of them walked through Chelsea Market.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” Antonia tried to engage Mrs. Essenbach in conversation.

  But the woman was having none of it. “This place smells of fish.”

  They went into a snack bar and ordered coffee—Antonia made a point of paying—then sat at a table as far away from the other customers as they could.

  “How quaint,” Mrs. Essenbach said, “paper cups.”

  Antonia didn’t know what to say, so she tried, “Do you ever shop here?”

  “Shop?” Mrs. Essenbach looked surprised. “I haven’t been inside a supermarket in . . . I can’t even remember. Maybe, twenty years. Do you shop?”

  “Here?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Yes.”