Trump Tower

by Jeffrey Robinson

  Alicia watched Cyndi laughing and babbling away in French with people she’d known in some previous life.

  When Cyndi looked up and saw Alicia staring at her, she whispered, “And the laugh that wrinkles your nose . . .”

  Alicia thought she was going to cry.

  Before long, Cyndi whispered again, “We’ve got to go,” so Alicia motioned to the waiter for the bill.

  Immediately Monsieur Pelletier waved her off. “Not when you are here with my lovely Cyndi.”

  It took them nearly ten minutes of goodbyes to leave.

  From Deux Magots, Roland took them to Hermès on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

  The two of them walked through the front door, and suddenly there was a shriek. It sounded like someone was being stabbed. A woman of a certain age, elegantly dressed, came running through the room with her arms open. “Mon enfant”—my child—“Cyndi . . . mon enfant . . .”

  The woman threw her arms around Cyndi and began to cry.

  Now Cyndi was crying too.

  As the two women wept in each other’s arms, she introduced Madame Bergenoir to Alicia—“the legendary queen of Hermès”—and the woman insisted that they have tea with her.

  Cyndi said, “Of course, we would love to,” then pointed upstairs.

  “Yes, yes, good idea,” Madame Bergenoir nodded, took Cyndi’s hand and motioned for Alicia to follow.

  “You’ll like this,” Cyndi promised Alicia.

  Upstairs, Madame Bergenoir brought them into a good-sized room that overlooked the Faubourg Saint-Honoré and was filled with antiques, most of them in leather.

  The woman said that this was the private collection of Thierry Hermès, who founded the company—he was the official saddle maker to the Russian Czars—and his grandson Emile.

  Not surprisingly, there were several dozen saddles, including a rare Persian saddle in ten different colors and dripping in gems, and lots of bridles, even a pair of stirrups used by Napoleon. But there were writing desks, including Emile Hermès’ own large leather desk, and there was a rocking horse, and there were small carriages, and baby strollers, trunks, travel cases, purses, shoes and boots.

  There was also a large floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with leather-bound books. Except, when Alicia looked more closely, it turned out to be a false front to a secret passageway.

  “The Cossacks were everywhere.” Cyndi said.

  After tea in the private Hermès museum, Madame Bergenoir brought them into a private showroom off the main floor where the day’s shopping began.

  Alicia bought a pink crocodile Kelly bag and two pairs of shoes. Cyndi passed on a Kelly bag—“I have seven”—but bought half a dozen scarves because, “You never know when that’s all you want to wear.”

  As they left, Madame Bergenoir handed them both a small Hermès bag. “Some things for you and for the men in your lives.” There was perfume and eau de cologne and two Hermès leather notepads.

  They put their shopping bags in the trunk of Roland’s Mercedes and jumped in the backseat. Cyndi announced the next address. Roland took them down the Rue Royale, along the Champs-Élysées, around the Arc de Triomphe and into the Avenue Montaigne, stopping right in front of Dior.

  “This was their very first store,” Cyndi said. “Bring your new bag,” and after Alicia took it from the trunk, Cyndi led her inside.

  “Why do I need the bag?” Alicia asked, but didn’t get the question answered because walking into Dior with Cyndi was the same as walking in everywhere else with her. There were screams and hugs and kisses and all sorts of people shaking their heads, “C’est pas vrai.”

  A tall man in his sixties, wonderfully overdressed for a Saturday afternoon, came rushing over to Cyndi and wouldn’t stop hugging and kissing her.

  When she introduced him to Alicia as, “The one and only Thibaut de Saint Marc.”

  He told Alicia, with his perfectly practiced British accent, “And this is the only woman in the world who has ever broken my heart.”

  “Oh, really?” Alicia said, getting the joke.

  “Oh, really. Cyndi came to Dior from . . . them,” he said with disdain, referring to Chanel . . . “and I was over the moon. Ecstatic. A young boy falling in love for the first time. But . . .” He made an elaborate gesture, “But . . . alas, she left me for . . . them . . . and I have never been straight since.”

  Cyndi got up on her toes and kissed the side of his face, then pointed to Alicia’s bag. “Lipstick to match.”

  He looked at the bag, “I know the color you want, but not here. It’s impossible to find.” He nodded to Alicia. “I shall have it made for you and send it to you. Nail polish, too.”

  “Custom-made lipstick?” Alicia had never heard of that before.

  “And custom-made nail polish.” He assured her, “When you’re with Cyndi, everything is possible.”

  “Black cocktail dress for Alicia and belts for me,” Cyndi said, “that is, if you don’t mind dealing with the public yourself.”

  “It has been a very long time,” he assured her, and showed Alicia a gorgeous black cocktail dress. She bought it and Cyndi bought two wonderfully ornate belts.

  “You can’t stop there,” Cyndi said to Alicia, and motioned to Thibaut, “Shoes for the dress, please.” But when he said to them, “Follow me,” Cyndi said something to him in French. He nodded and she told Alicia, “Be right back.”

  She assumed Cyndi was going to the ladies’ room.

  Alicia tried on several pairs and was torn between two, then realized it had been some time since Cyndi left.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s fine,” Thibaut said.

  That’s when Cyndi reappeared carrying a Jimmy Choo bag.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Next door.” She pulled out a pair of black-and-yellow catwalk sandals with plexi heels that had flashing lights inside them.

  “Fantastic,” Thibaut said, “model them.”

  Cyndi put them on and walked up and down the floor with them—“Once a catwalk girl always a catwalk girl,” Alicia said—and after Thibaut applauded, Cyndi studied the two pairs of shoes that Alicia was considering.

  “What’s the problem,” she asked Alicia. “They’re gorgeous.”

  “I don’t know which one . . .”

  “Alicia, this is Paris . . . these are shoes. When in doubt . . .” She looked at Thibaut, “She’ll take them both.”

  Thibaut escorted them back to the car and waved to someone inside the shop who came out with two Dior bags for them. “Something to remember me by,” he kissed them both.

  Inside each were two bottles of perfume, a beautiful enameled bracelet and a pair of pearl earrings.

  He helped them load their packages into the trunk.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia saw Thibaut hand a small package to Cyndi, which she quickly put into the Jimmy Choo bag.

  Roland asked, “Next stop?”

  Cyndi thought for a moment, looked down the block, and told Roland, “Don’t move.” She took Thibaut’s hand and Alicia’s hand and walked them into Vuitton.

  Thibaut called out to a woman in English, “Claude, my dear, look who the cat dragged in.”

  The woman, who was much older than Thibaut, turned around and said with a heavy French accent, “I do not believe my eyes.”

  She came to Cyndi and hugged her and sure enough—because, by now, Alicia was waiting for it—the woman shook her head with a huge smile, “C’est pas vrai.”

  Looking around, Alicia spotted a beautiful black leather attaché case and knew Carson would love that, so she bought it.

  What she didn’t see was that, while she was buying the attaché case, Cyndi was buying a suitcase.

  “What are you doing?”

  Cyndi shrugged, “How did you think we were going to get all this stuff home?”

  Thibaut helped them load everything into the trunk and then, with tears in his eyes—and Cyndi’s too—they said au revoir. />
  “Last stop.” Back in the car, Cyndi gave Roland an address, then warned Alicia, “Be prepared.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  As soon as Roland pulled up to the last stop, Alicia understood.

  It was Chanel.

  Now, the commotion Cyndi caused surpassed anything that Alicia had yet seen. It went on for almost fifteen minutes as one person after another came up to hug and kiss her. And before long, calls went out to other Chanel boutiques and people came by from there to hug and kiss her.

  It was starting to get late, but Cyndi insisted on buying a pair of aqua patent-leather-strapped shoes and talked Alicia into the same pair but in red. Cyndi bought two pairs of sunglasses for herself and one as a present to Carson.

  Alicia found a pair of light-blue jeans with a matching denim jacket decorated with jeweled buttons. She tried it on and wasn’t sure, so Cyndi asked a young woman working there to get something, and when she came back, it was a beaded shell and pearl belt.

  That clinched the sale.

  After that Alicia found a pink cruise dress with a matching top and loose knit shawl, which she loved.

  Then she found white slacks and a matching cotton top that looked kind of like a judo costume, with a big black velvet belt—that tied like a scarf—and was held tight with a large enameled pearl and glass broach.

  “Enough,” Alicia now declared. “Basta. That’s all. Done. Finished. Any more and we’ll need therapy.”

  Cyndi reminded her, “This is therapy,” and discovered a silk crepon see-thru ensemble—slacks and a dress-length top—decorated in multicolored candy patterns. To go with it, she took a pair of sandals with gold chains that strapped around her ankles and were decorated in pearls, but looked as if she wasn’t wearing any shoes at all.

  The entire staff accompanied them to the curb where the trunk filled up, and Roland had to put the overflow on the front passenger seat.

  A woman handed them both a large Chanel bag.

  “A little something . . .” she said.

  Inside each there was perfume, and two men’s ties, a Chanel silk scarf and a miniskirt-length silk bathrobe.

  After a long series of teary goodbyes, they made their way back to the Ritz.

  “This has to qualify for convoitise.” Alicia admitted to Cyndi, “We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.”

  Cyndi shook her head. “This is Paris so it isn’t convoitise. It’s débauche du samedi.” She translated, “Saturday debauchery.”

  64

  Even though it was Saturday, Belasco came uptown to check on Gabriella, Forbes and Carlos.

  He walked into Trump Tower from the Fifth Avenue entrance, went upstairs to nineteen, knocked on the door and was surprised when Rebecca opened it.

  “Good morning,” he smiled.

  “Gabriella told me . . .” she stepped aside to let him in . . . “how you and she have been plotting behind my back. I’m not sure I like that.”

  He forced a smile. “I think plotting is a bit harsh. But our intentions were honorable. Nothing was ever intended to be kept secret.”

  “Except that it was a secret. No one said anything to me . . .”

  “Until now,” he pointed out. “You haven’t exactly been in the mood . . .”

  She looked at him, then admitted, “I know,” and walked away.

  He followed her into the showroom.

  Forbes and Gabriella were sitting on the floor going through a mountain of files. Carlos was reconstructing some shelves.

  “Any luck?”

  “Depends on how you define luck,” Forbes said. “Sometimes finding something is lucky. Sometimes finding nothing is lucky. So far we’ve found nothing.”

  “Don’t find anything and we know,” Belasco said.

  Rebecca shook her head, “I’m not so sure.”

  Forbes looked at her. “I am.”

  BELASCO STAYED there with them for a little while, then announced that he was going to his office, but offered, “I’ll have lunch sent up in a few hours. Twelve thirty, okay?”

  He went back down to the main hall, then down the escalator to the lower-ground food court where he ordered four Caesar salads to be sent up to Scarpe Pietrasanta. He added some water, iced teas, and four slices of carrot cake to the order, and paid for the food himself.

  Turning back toward the escalator, he saw Odette at the pastry counter helping herself to three donuts then leaving without paying for them.

  He went over to her, “Bonjour madame,” and asked in French, “Is that breakfast or lunch?”

  “Silly of me,” she said handing him the napkin with the donuts on top. “I shouldn’t be eating between meals, you are quite correct.”

  “Quite right,” he said. “After all, you must keep your figure.”

  She was dressed in a pale blue flapper skirt, with her hair in a chignon. “Keep my figure?” She did a twirl. “I’ve tried my best.”

  “You’ve done very well.”

  “My public expects nothing less,” she said, then came close to Belasco and whispered, “I didn’t know that Mr. Cove even knew Mrs. Essenbach.”

  He was very curious. “Mr. Cove and Mrs. Essenbach?”

  She nodded with great assurance.

  “They must have met at some point,” he presumed. “Everybody in Trump Tower knows everybody else.”

  “Cher Monsieur Belasco,” she whispered, “does everybody who knows everybody else in Trump Tower have romantic little lunches together?”

  Bizarre, he thought. “You’re referring to Mr. Cove on forty-five and forty-six? Married to a young Chinese American woman?”

  “I am.”

  “And . . . romantic? With Mrs. Essenbach?” He couldn’t possibly imagine that.

  “There is more going on here,” Odette asserted, “than meets the eye.” She wished him, “A very pleasant Saturday to you,” and walked to the escalator to go up to the atrium.

  Looking down at the three donuts he was holding in the napkin, he went to the counter to pay for them—“No, sorry we can’t take them back once a client touches them”—then spotted a woman sitting at a table with two children. He took two extra napkins, wrapped each donut individually, and walked up to their table. “Mr. Trump himself would personally like you to have these donuts for being the best-looking children in Trump Tower today.”

  The woman was too startled to say thank you. The kids grabbed the donuts and started eating.

  Belasco smiled and walked away.

  Upstairs, he took the fire station shortcut into the residents’ lobby. Just as he got there, Mrs. Essenbach stepped out of the elevator.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Oh,” she smiled, “dear, sweet Pierre. How is everything? Are you well?” She put her hand on his left arm. “How nice to see you,” turned and left the Tower.

  Still standing there, he berated himself for not having said something to her—something like, why are you suing me when you know your story is one big lie—and wondered why she’d touched his arm like that, almost affectionately.

  “Is everything all right?” Schaune asked from the concierge desk.

  “Yes,” he said, “fine,” and headed for his office. Then he stopped, walked back to the spot where he’d been standing when she touched his arm and looked up at the CCTV camera.

  That angle would be the side view.

  Trying to imagine it, he saw himself saying something to Mrs. Essenbach and her coming over to . . .

  He suddenly understood.

  From that angle, it would look like she was calming him down.

  He told himself, there is no way she could have thought of that. No way she could have known.

  Yet, she touched his arm deliberately like that.

  And for the first time since this all began, he started to realize what, until now, he’d been denying—that Mrs. Essenbach could cost him his job.

  65

  Back at the hotel, it took two grooms to hel
p them bring all the packages and bags, plus the brand-new Vuitton suitcase, up to the suite.

  “Where do we begin?” Alicia asked, looking at the day’s shopping, which filled the living room. “Do we pack or unpack?”

  “C . . . none of the above.” Cyndi announced, “We go for a swim.”

  Alicia reminded her, “No swimsuits.”

  “In the Ritz pool?” Cyndi shrugged, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. But seeing as how you’re such a prude, I suggest matching underwear, and no one will know the difference.”

  “Oh . . . I’m sure they will.”

  “Oh . . . this is Paris, I’m sure they won’t.”

  “Vive la France,” Alicia said, and found a panty and bra that almost worked.

  Cyndi found something that almost worked even less.

  Wearing the terry cloth robes that were hanging in the bathroom, they went downstairs to the swimming pool. A dozen people were there, and Cyndi was right, when she and Alicia slipped off their robes, no one paid them any attention.

  They swam for half an hour, then went back to the suite and took a shower.

  “I’m going to be late,” Cyndi said. “Will you be all right? And you really don’t mind? It’s that I never get a chance to see him anymore, not since he got married again.”

  As Cyndi jumped into the silk crepon see-thru ensemble she’d just bought, Alicia asked, “Did he cheat on wife number one with you, too?”

  “It’s not cheating because I was there long before either of his wives. It’s only cheating if it’s new. You know, like when you take a book out of the library? When you renew the book, it’s not the same thing.”

  “I suppose that’s logical,” Alicia nodded, “but only if you’re Cyndi Benson.”