Trump Tower

by Jeffrey Robinson

  Jackson tried to reel that back. “I meant that we were having this nice conversation, you know, just the three of us . . .”

  “That’s right,” Martin said. “We weren’t claiming you . . . not like Mount Everest and planting a flag . . .”

  “Planting your flag?” Alicia asked. “Have you always had a way with women?”

  “No . . . not that . . . nothing like that at all,” Jackson assured her. He turned to Carson, “Sure, if you want to have that drink with us . . .”

  “No problem.” He waved at the waiter. “Cancel that vodka please. I’ll take a bill. In fact, give me the whole bill for the table.”

  “That’s okay,” Martin said.

  “I insist.”

  When the waiter brought the bill, Carson paid it.

  “I’m sorry about interrupting. Anyway, I’m hungry. I’ve been flying all day.” He smiled at Alicia, “Would you like to join me for dinner?”

  Martin waved his finger. “We keep telling you the lady is taken . . .”

  Alicia wanted to know, “Shouldn’t the lady decide?”

  “Of course,” Martin said. “We were about to invite you out . . . there’s a great place we know . . .”

  “Thank you,” she said to them, then smiled at Carson. “I’d love to.”

  She stood up. “It’s been very nice talking to you.”

  Neither Jackson nor Martin knew whether to argue or just sit there.

  Alicia and Carson left the bar.

  “I am so turned on,” Alicia whispered.

  “Should we find a cloakroom?”

  “Like at Elliott and Linda’s wedding?”

  “I’m up for it if you are.”

  She pinched his arm. “Is up the right word? I hope so because I’m not wearing a single thing under this dress.”

  “Bonsoir madame, bonsoir monsieur.” The maître d’ greeted them. “This way monsieur . . . for you and for this exceptional woman.”

  Alicia nodded thank you as he brought them to their table.

  Carson slipped him fifty euros. “I told you she was a nana.”

  They sat down and as the champagne was poured, Alicia slipped one shoe off and ran it up the leg of Carson’s pants.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this meal,” he said.

  She assured him, “As horny as I am for you right now, we’re not.”

  “Plan B.” He signaled for the maître d’. When he came to their table, Carson told him, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll both start with the snails.”

  Alicia nodded.

  “And then . . . fish for you?” He asked Alicia.

  She nodded again.

  “The dorade for the lady and the maigret de canard for me.”

  “And how would you like your duck, sir?”

  “Rare,” he said. “For dessert, we’ll do the soufflé. Raspberry for the lady, strawberry for me.”

  “Yes, of course sir.”

  “But . . .” Carson looked at him. “It’s take-away.”

  He didn’t understand. “Sir?”

  “Send it up with room service.”

  The maître d’ almost smiled because he understood. “Certainly sir. The room number?”

  Alicia answered, “The Imperial suite.”

  “Yes, of course, madame . . . but it may take up to forty-five minutes.”

  “Give it a full hour,” Carson said, “don’t rush,” took the champagne bottle, stood up, pulled Alicia’s chair away from the table and slipped the maître d’ another fifty euros.

  In the elevator, Carson said, “Really? The Imperial suite?”

  “We may not get there in time.” She put her mouth full on his.

  While the elevator doors were still closing, she was already tugging at his belt buckle.

  “Wait till you see this place.” Getting off the elevator on the first floor, she fumbled with her key card, opened the door to the suite, dragged him by the belt along the private corridor, then opened the living room door.

  By that point she’d pulled down his trousers.

  “Jesus,” he looked around as he kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants. “We could live here.”

  “This is what happens when you travel to Paris with Cyndi Benson.” Now she was taking off his jacket and undoing his tie and pulling off his shirt.

  He let her undress him completely, and when he was standing there with nothing but the champagne bottle, she said, “Come with me.”

  Leading him out the living room door, she brought him back into the private corridor. “Wait here.”

  She shut the door, disappeared, then quickly reappeared on the little balcony that looked down on the corridor. “This is where the Cossacks used to stand guard for the Czar.”

  He looked up at her there. “That’s cool.”

  “But the Cossacks never did this.” Very slowly, she slipped out of the little black dress.

  She was wearing nothing but her red shoes.

  “How do I climb up there?”

  She pointed at him, “With that thing at full mast, I wouldn’t suggest climbing anywhere except on top of me. Meet you halfway.”

  She raced down the steps. He was waiting for her as she came out of the secret door. And they fell onto the floor together.

  By the time room service arrived, they were wearing terry cloth robes, finishing the champagne and filling the bathtub.

  “That was better than the time in Hong Kong,” he said.

  “Poor bastards from Texas . . .”

  They ate dinner in the tub.

  “Did both of them really think . . .”

  “If I’d have uncrossed my legs . . . I mean, one guy was already starting to breathe so heavy . . .”

  After they emptied a second bottle of champagne . . . “Here’s to ethanol,” Alicia toasted . . . they made love again, splashing water all over the floor.

  “Poor bastards from Texas,” she repeated.

  “Remember that time in Buenos Aires?”

  Getting out, they sort of dried off, and Carson carried their soufflés into bed.

  That’s when Alicia saw a small red box on the pillow.

  “Classy place,” Carson said, admiring the room.

  “Marie Antoinette almost slept here,” Alicia said. “Most hotels turn down your bed and then leave chocolates on your pillow.”

  “They did,” he pointed.

  The moment she picked up the box, she realized what it was.

  It was the box she’d seen Cyndi slip into her shopping bag at Dior.

  “Why don’t you open it?” Carson asked.

  She did.

  A little card read, “Thank you so much for bringing me to Paris. I love you. C.”

  Inside was a red, diamond-studded Dior cell phone.

  SUNDAY

  69

  The priest’s voice rang out. And the congregation answered in unison. That’s when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

  No one ever called him this early on a Sunday morning.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and saw that a text message had come in.

  Oh my God . . . dear Jesus . . .

  He crossed himself, hurried out of the church, found a cab right away, and told the driver, “Trump Tower.”

  TWO PATROL CARS and several unmarked police cars were parked on Fifty-Sixth Street in front of the residents’ lobby.

  Jumping out of the taxi, Belasco went to the front door, where a uniformed officer stopped him. “Sir?”

  “It’s all right,” David the relief doorman said, “he’s the boss.”

  Inside, four men in suits, each with a gold detective’s shield hanging on a lanyard, were standing in the lobby.

  “I’m Pierre Belasco,” he said to them. “General manager of Trump Tower.”

  Two of the men looked at each other—one was short and heavyset, the other was not much taller but shaved his head—and it was the short heavyset man who asked, “Is there some place
we can talk?”

  “My office.” Belasco brought them in.

  “Detective Lazaro,” he introduced himself. “My partner . . .” the one who shaved his head, “. . . Detective Stoyanov.”

  Neither offered to shake hands.

  “Yesterday afternoon,” Lazaro reported, “a body was found in Central Park. Victim was shot once through the head. Nine-millimeter automatic pistol. Close range. Shot through the right temple. Coroner only got around to identifying the body this morning. Name is . . .” he looked at his notepad, “Katarina Laszlo Bartok Essenbach?”

  “This is terrible,” Belasco said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “How long has she lived here?”

  “Many years. I don’t know exactly. At least twenty, maybe twenty-two, something like that. I can get you the exact dates. She has the entire forty-second floor and half of the forty-first.”

  “Was she well liked?”

  He shook his head. “Quite the opposite. I think it’s fair to say that she was universally disliked.”

  “So she had enemies.”

  He thought about that. “I don’t know that you could call them enemies. But she didn’t have . . . as far as I know . . . many friends.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “There was a strange incident last week. They must have had a fight about something, because she threw him out in his underwear.”

  Lazaro glanced at Stoyanov.

  “We have CCTV footage,” Belasco volunteered. “I can get it for you. Our head of security, Mr. Riordan . . .”

  “He’s on his way in,” Lazaro said. “I presume that there are plenty of CCTV cameras around here. A place like this . . .”

  “Yes,” Belasco assured him. “Security is very tight. It’s Fort Knox. I’m sure you can understand why.”

  “So there will be footage of her leaving the building?”

  “Yes.”

  “And people coming in?” He pointed to the lobby. “Camera out there? What about front doors? Elevators? On each floor? We’ll need to see whatever you’ve got.”

  “We’ll make everything available to you.”

  Now, Stoyanov spoke for the first time. “How did you and the victim get along? What was your relationship with her like?”

  “Relationship?” He told them the truth, “Strictly business but contentious.”

  “And when was the last time you saw her?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In the lobby. Early afternoon.”

  “Are you always in the office on Saturdays?”

  “Not always . . . but often. I came in yesterday because one of our commercial clients has a problem and I wanted to check on her. I bumped into Mrs. Essenbach when I came back downstairs. She was on her way out.”

  “Thank you. We appreciate your help,” Lazaro said. “We’d like you to come upstairs with us.” He motioned for Belasco to follow him. “Please.”

  The three men got into the elevator and went to the forty-second floor where a uniformed officer was guarding Mrs. Essenbach’s front door. He opened it and they stepped inside.

  Another detective came to greet them.

  “This is Mr. Belasco,” Lazaro said to him.

  “I’m Detective Wytola . . . I recognize you.”

  Belasco wanted to know, “From where?”

  “Follow me and I’ll show you.” Wytola led Belasco and the other two men around to the rear of the apartment and into a windowless laundry room where there was an industrial-sized washing machine and equally large dryer, a huge sink, a folding table, and two ironing boards.

  And taped on the walls were dozens of photographs of Belasco.

  He was speechless.

  Taken clandestinely, they showed him walking down the street, in the lobby, in neighborhood shops, in the atrium and in the main entrance to Trump Tower. There were also photos of him taken secretly in front of his apartment in the Village, and in various places around his neighborhood. There was even one taken of him sitting in church.

  “This is . . . beyond bizarre. It’s . . .” He couldn’t find the words.

  “Let’s talk about this photo right here,” Wytola pointed.

  Black and white, blown up and grainy, obviously taken from a hidden camera high up in Mrs. Essenbach’s study, it showed her sprawled out across the couch, wearing a fur dressing gown and Belasco pouring her a glass of champagne.

  BY THE TIME Bill Riordan arrived at Trump Tower, Belasco was back in his office with Lazaro and Stoyanov.

  They briefed Riordan on what had happened to Mrs. Essenbach. He and two other detectives then went to the CCTV monitoring room to begin reviewing footage.

  Now Lazaro wanted to know, “On Saturday, after you met Mrs. Essenbach in the lobby and she left the building, what did you do?”

  “I came here to my office.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “Not long.”

  “Where did you go from here? Specifically, where were you between, say, noon and five o’clock yesterday?”

  Suddenly, his offhanded remark to Carole Ann Mendelsohn flew into his head.

  How about if someone throws her off the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge?

  He shook his head, “Surely, you can’t think that I had anything to do with this?”

  Stoyanov asked point blank. “Did you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “But you had a personal relationship with her.”

  “No. Not a personal relationship. I did not. It was a strictly business relationship.”

  Lazaro suggested, “Champagne says otherwise.”

  “What you would see if there was videotape in her hidden camera is that I didn’t take a glass of champagne for myself. I didn’t stay there. She asked me to pour a glass for her, I did, then I left. I wasn’t in her apartment more than five minutes total. You’ll be able to see from the CCTV footage when I arrived and when I left. Not even five minutes. It was right after I left when her husband got thrown out in his underwear.”

  “What sort of a relationship did you have with him?”

  “Until recently, I didn’t even know she had a husband.”

  “Never met him?”

  “Never.”

  “Do you know anything about him, like where he’s from?”

  “No.”

  “He’s from Chile. Are you aware that there’s a warrant out for his arrest?”

  “No. What for?”

  Stoyanov disregarded Belasco’s question. “Are there many people living here for twenty or twenty-two years that you have never met?”

  “There is at least one,” he glared at the officer. “But what is he wanted for?”

  “It’s political,” Lazaro said. “Did you ever see Mr. and Mrs. Essenbach together?”

  “No.”

  “Did she ever mention her husband?”

  “No. Except that night. She said . . . I don’t remember, something that included the words, my husband.”

  The two detectives continued asking Belasco questions for nearly an hour, until Detective Wytola phoned and asked them to come back upstairs.

  Wytola met them carrying a large carton of photos. “This woman had more closets than most people have rooms. There are even closets inside other closets.”

  “Like secret closets?” Lazaro asked.

  “Yeah,” Wytola answered. “Like right out of some horror movie. We dig through a closet and find a door behind it leading into another closet.”

  “What’s she hiding?”

  “Mainly clothes. She had a lot of clothes. But then we found this.” He motioned for them to follow him, put the carton down on the big dining room table and asked Belasco, “Recognize any of these people?”

  They were photos of Mrs. Essenbach, mostly standing next to or with her arms around younger men.

  The first photo Belasco recognized was the same photo he’d spotted in her apartment—the snapshot that showed Mrs. Es
senbach in a black leotard with her arms cozily around a bare-chested Alejandro.

  “This one,” he handed it to Wytola. “He’s a personal trainer in our gym.”

  While Wytola looked at it, then passed it to Lazaro and Stoyanov, Belasco tried to remember her comment to him when he’d first seen it.

  A mere child . . . hardly the man that you are.

  But he didn’t volunteer that information to the police.

  “We’ll need to know his hours,” Wytola said to Belasco.

  “We can get you his time sheets . . . no problem.”

  “Anyone else?” Wytola asked.

  Belasco continued sifting through the box until he found another one. “This man’s name is Tomas Tejeda. He was an elevator operator. But he no longer works here.”

  Wytola said, “We’ll need an address for him.”

  “Sure,” Belasco said.

  Lazaro nodded toward Wytola, “Thanks . . . we’ll be in Mr. Belasco’s office,” and started to walk to the front door.

  “Just a second,” Belasco said to him, then turned to Wytola. “These closets inside closets. Can I see them?”

  Wytola looked to Lazaro for an answer.

  “Why?” Lazaro asked.

  Belasco asked Wytola, “You say the closets inside the other closets are filled with clothes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have found a vicuna coat, would you?”

  “What’s the significance of that?”

  Belasco told them the story of Carlos Vela and promised that looking in the closets would only take a moment or two. Lazaro shrugged, Wytola nodded okay, and Lazaro warned Belasco, “You don’t touch anything.”

  “No problem,” Belasco said.

  It was in the second hidden closet that he found Mrs. Essenbach’s vicuna coat.

  BACK DOWNSTAIRS, Lazaro wanted Belasco to answer more questions.

  “Where were you . . . and what did you do between . . . say, noon and five . . . yesterday?”

  He responded, “I ordered lunch for some people in the food court at twelve thirty or so, then came back here, which is when I bumped into her . . . Mrs. Essenbach. She was on her way out. That might have been . . . quarter to one? I stayed here until one thirty . . . no, probably not that late . . . then walked over to Madison Avenue. I poked my head into a few galleries.”