Trump Tower Read online

  “What?”

  “Hattie is still going to treat you like you’re twelve.”

  6

  He played the conversation over again in his head.

  Is she qualified?

  She has a background in hotels.

  I mean, is she qualified to steal your job?

  It was a question Belasco had never even contemplated.

  “If you can handle Frank Sinatra,” Donald Trump had said to Belasco in Monte Carlo all those years ago, “you should be running a business for me.”

  “Thank you, but I’m not looking for a job, sir,” he’d responded. “I already have the best job in the world.”

  “You only think so because you haven’t yet heard my offer. I want you to run Trump Tower.”

  “Thank you anyway, sir.” He’d said it as diplomatically as he could, “But leaving here is the farthest thing in my mind right now. I’m in the hotel business. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”

  Although, Belasco had to admit to himself, if his first job as a sixteen-year-old assistant luggage porter at the Grand Hotel du Golf in his native ski resort village of Crans Montana, Switzerland, was one end of the spectrum, running Trump Tower was definitely the other.

  He’d taken the porter job because he’d not been happy in school. His mother saw it as demeaning. He assured her it was just the first rung on the ladder. And, within six months, he’d maneuvered himself to the front desk as a receptionist.

  A year after that, he was hired as a receptionist at the prestigious Baur au Lac Hotel in Zurich.

  Three years later, when the assistant manager there left to become manager of the Hassler in Rome, he brought Belasco with him to be assistant manager for guest relations.

  Three years after that, Belasco was recruited to become the youngest-ever food and beverage manager at the Danieli in Venice. He stayed there another three years, then moved on to be the assistant manager at the Crillon in Paris.

  It was another three years when, at the age of twenty-nine, he was hired as the youngest-ever general manager at the legendary Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

  From there he moved to London to run the ultra-stuffy Connaught Hotel and two years later, in 1991, he was hired by the Société des Bains de Mer in Monaco to be general manager for group hotels.

  Overseeing the Hôtel de Paris, the Hermitage and the splendid Old Beach, Belasco worked out of a mezzanine office off the lobby of the Hôtel de Paris.

  That’s where Frank Sinatra changed his life.

  During the five years that Belasco was there, Sinatra and his wife were frequent guests. There had been occasional incidents where Sinatra showed his displeasure with one thing or another—usually the paparazzi—but there’d hardly ever been anything like that Saturday night in 1996.

  The Sinatras were having dinner in the big, ornate Louis XV restaurant on the ground floor with Roger Moore and his wife. Donald Trump was in Monaco at the same time and he’d joined them.

  The bodyguards were at a nearby table.

  Over dinner, Barbara Sinatra said something—no one remembers exactly what it was, except that it seemed harmless at the time—but it set off Sinatra’s temper, and he started yelling and shouting at her.

  Moore tried to calm him down, which did no good, while Trump tried to pretend it wasn’t happening by turning his chair halfway around toward Roger’s wife and making small talk with her. “Is your dish good? How’s the wine? Isn’t the bread wonderful? What do you think we should have for dessert?”

  Sinatra’s tirade went on to everyone’s great embarrassment—especially Barbara Sinatra’s—until, just like that, he went back to eating. He looked at the others, “Eat, mangiate, it’s going to get cold.” But before the five of them got to dessert, Sinatra announced, “Let’s go shoot craps,” got up and left.

  The others decided not to stay at the table, so they followed him out to the lobby.

  The bodyguards dropped their knives and forks and rushed out too.

  Sinatra led the march to the front of the lobby where, in the right corner, there is a glass door.

  Hidden behind it is an elevator.

  The five of them crammed in and rode it down to a secret tunnel. The bodyguards arrived on the next elevator. But just as they all started making their way through the well-lit underground passageway, heading for the elevator at the far end that would bring them up inside the casino, a young couple in evening dress approached from the other direction.

  The man, holding hands with a pretty woman, stopped. “Excuse me, Mr. Sinatra, my new wife and I, we just got married and we’re on our honeymoon, and I want you to know how many romantic evenings we’ve had to your music. May I take a picture of you with my wife?” He pulled a little camera out of his pocket.

  He might as well have waved a red flag in front of a bull.

  Sinatra suddenly got furious, leaned back, and smacked the young man in the head, then screamed, “How the fuck dare you put your hand in my face?”

  The young man fell to the ground.

  His bride yelled.

  The bodyguards rushed forward as Sinatra kicked the young man.

  One of the guards grabbed Sinatra and pulled him away. The others got him into the elevator and to the Hôtel de Paris lobby, at which time Sinatra calmly announced, “The evening is over. Good night,” and went up to his suite.

  The young man, who had one black eye and several sore ribs, reported the incident to the night manager. Acting strictly by the book, the night manager alerted the general manager and the general manager alerted Belasco.

  Immediately, Belasco arranged for a doctor to come to the hotel to treat the young man, then comped the honeymooning couple’s entire stay. He insisted that there would be no bill and invited them to enjoy all of SBM’s facilities as his guest.

  The bride and groom said the only thing they wanted to do was go home.

  Belasco moved them into a big suite on the top floor and sat with them for several hours, eventually persuading them to stay so that he could arrange fabulous day trips with chauffeured limousines, helicopter rides, a day on a private yacht, several romantic meals, a private jet to Paris and Concorde tickets back to the States.

  On Sunday morning, Belasco told room service that he wanted to be notified as soon as the Sinatras ordered breakfast. He then went to speak to Moore and Trump about the incident. Both men admitted it might have been the most embarrassing night of their lives.

  He’d just finished with them when a room service order was placed for the Sinatra suite. Belasco hurried down to the florist, picked up a bouquet of thirty-six long-stemmed red roses and personally wheeled the breakfast cart into the suite.

  “Those for me?” Sinatra said, wearing a silk dressing gown. “I don’t usually get roses from guys.”

  Belasco smiled. “Do you mind if I give them to Madame, instead?”

  “Good idea, pal.” Sinatra said, “Maybe she’ll talk to you.” He walked into the hallway and shouted toward one of the suite’s two bedrooms, “How about breakfast and roses?”

  The door was shut and there was no answer.

  “I’ll put them in a vase,” Belasco said, then asked, “Dining room? Living room? Terrace?”

  While Belasco filled a vase with water and carefully placed the roses in it, Sinatra walked out onto the big terrace, which overlooked the harbor. “Weather’s great. Let’s eat out here.”

  “Have a seat, I’ll be right there.”

  He finished with the flowers, placed the vase in the living room with a note to Mrs. Sinatra that simply said, “We honor your presence—Pierre Belasco,” and brought a tray out to the terrace.

  “Grab a cup yourself,” Sinatra said. “You’re probably the only guy in town who’s still talking to me.”

  Belasco laid out Sinatra’s breakfast on a table next to his chair—the hotel specialized in fresh-baked mini-croissants and mini-pains au chocolate— poured coffee for him, and handed him a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.<
br />
  “Where’s your coffee?” he said. “Come on, sit down.”

  Belasco poured a cup for himself and sat down.

  “Ever been over there?” Sinatra pointed to the palace. “I used to stay there when Grace was alive. Ever meet her?”

  “I have been to the palace, yes . . . but unfortunately, I did not know the princess.”

  “Unfortunately is right. She was one classy dame, let me tell you. When we did that picture together, High Society, she was already engaged to Ray. We knew that after we finished, she was going off to get married, so we gave her an early wedding present. Guess what it was?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A roulette wheel.” Sinatra laughed. “What else? And in that picture, you know she’s supposed to be engaged to get married, so she’s wearing a big ring. That’s actually the ring Ray gave her. It’s real. No paste on her finger. Yeah,” he said, taking his orange juice, “one classy dame.”

  “She certainly is missed,” Belasco said. “I saw that as soon as I arrived here.”

  “What’s it now . . . fourteen, fifteen years? Something like that.” He finished his juice. “Speaking of rings . . . is Van Cleef and Arpels open today?”

  “Sunday? I’m afraid not.”

  “Too bad. Especially because she’ll know those roses are from you, not me.”

  Belasco understood what Sinatra was thinking. “If you’d like, I might be able to ring someone and make arrangements, not at the store, but for a visit here.”

  “Yeah,” Sinatra nodded several times. “Good. Tell them big. I want a whole selection. Diamonds. You can do that?”

  “I’m sure I can,” Belasco said.

  “Good . . . good.” He took a croissant and ate it whole, followed it with some coffee and then ate a pain au chocolate. “How’s the kid,” he asked while chewing, not looking at Belasco. “I guess I duked him too good, huh?”

  “I moved him and his bride into a big suite, and we’re arranging some special trips and meals for the rest of their stay. I’m also flying them home on the Concorde.”

  “How bad was he hurt?”

  “Black eye . . . and his ribs are tender.”

  “Is he really on his honeymoon?”

  “Yes.”

  Sinatra stayed silent for the longest time. “Yeah . . . Van Cleef . . . I need them.”

  Belasco pointed toward the telephone in the living room. “May I?”

  “Yeah.”

  Going to the phone, he called the switchboard and asked a woman there to locate the manager of the local Van Cleef’s.

  She managed it quickly.

  When he got the man on the phone, Belasco explained that Mr. Sinatra wanted to make a purchase and the man agreed to come to the hotel.

  Hanging up with him, Belasco walked back onto the terrace. “Is an hour good for you?”

  Sinatra leaned over and patted Belasco on the face. “I love you, baby. Thank you.”

  When the Van Cleef and Arpels’ manager arrived carrying a large case—with two bodyguards in tow—Belasco accompanied him up to the suite.

  The roses were where he’d put them in the living room and Mrs. Sinatra was nowhere to be seen.

  He introduced the man to Sinatra, the bodyguards withdrew to the hallway, and Belasco left them alone.

  That evening, the young bride and groom asked to see Belasco. He went up to their suite and they seemed very confused.

  “Look,” the young man showed Belasco a diamond-studded broach. “He gives me a black eye and thinks he can buy off my wife with this.”

  Belasco hadn’t realized that Sinatra was including them on his shopping list. “I’m sure it is meant as an apology.”

  “Then why didn’t he apologize? No note. No nothing. Just this delivered in a box by some jewelry store guy who said this is from Frank Sinatra.”

  “It is very beautiful.”

  “We don’t want it.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I’m not going to give that asshole the satisfaction of thinking he can just waltz in . . .”

  His bride reluctantly agreed. “My husband is right.”

  Belasco suggested, “I’m sure that if you wanted to exchange it for something else . . .”

  “No,” the groom said. “We’re returning it.” Then he had a second thought. “And we’ll keep the cash.”

  Belasco almost smiled. “If that’s what you want, sir, I will make the suitable arrangements for you.”

  “That’s exactly what we want,” the groom said, looking at his bride, who put her hand on his black eye, and nodded. “We want the money.”

  On Monday morning, at Belasco’s request, the man from Van Cleef and Arpels handed the young couple a check for $62,500.

  Later that morning, Mrs. Sinatra came to Belasco’s office to thank him for the roses. She was wearing a brand new diamond ring which, Belasco eventually learned, had cost her husband $5 million.

  Then Sinatra himself showed up. “You’re my guy, Pierre. Thank you for taking care of everything.” He handed Belasco a small gift-wrapped package.

  “I couldn’t possibly, sir.”

  “The hell you can’t,” Sinatra grinned. “Turn me down, and I’ll give you a black eye too.”

  Belasco thanked Sinatra. “This is very generous. Shall I open it now?”

  “What the hell pal you going to wait for Chanukah?”

  Inside was a pair of gold- and diamond-studded cuff links.

  “These are magnificent. Thank you, very much.”

  He patted the side of Belasco’s face and without saying anything more, walked away.

  The Van Cleef manager confided in Belasco that Sinatra had paid $30,000 for the cuff links.

  Unlike the groom and his bride, Belasco kept his gift.

  An hour after Sinatra handed him the cuff links, Donald Trump appeared in Belasco’s office.

  “Frank tells me you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. Who the hell did you have to murder to make him so happy?”

  “Just doing my job, sir.”

  “If you can handle Frank Sinatra,” Trump said, “you should be running a business for me.”

  “Thank you, but I’m not looking for a job, sir. I already have the best job in the world.”

  “You only think so because you haven’t yet heard my offer. I want you to run Trump Tower.”

  “Thank you, anyway, sir. But leaving here is the farthest thing in my mind right now. I’m in the hotel business. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”

  “That’s why I need you.” Trump explained, “Until now, I’ve always had real estate people running Trump Tower. I need a hotel guy. But not just any hotel guy. I need you. And I want to do a deal with you right now.”

  “But sir . . .”

  “I’m a deal guy.” Trump leaned across Belasco’s antique French desk, took a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote down a number. “That’s for openers.”

  He shoved the piece of paper in front of Belasco.

  “There are also benefits and profit sharing. With various performance bonuses built into the deal, you could easily double that.”

  Belasco looked at the number and then at Trump. “You are serious about this.”

  He pointed to the paper. “That’s a serious number. I’m back in New York next weekend. I’ll FedEx a contract. Budget and personnel go through my director of operations. But you don’t. You report directly to me. We’ll move you from here and find you a great apartment somewhere in the Tower. I don’t know what’s available, but we’ll find something you’ll love.”

  “No, sir.”

  “What?” Trump couldn’t believe it. “This is the greatest job in the world.”

  Belasco stared at the number on the piece of paper. “In this business, it’s always better if the general manager doesn’t live in. Perhaps . . . something suitable downtown?”

  “Mr. Belasco?”

  Trump extended his hand. “You’re my guy.”

  “Mr
. Belasco, sir?”

  He snapped back to the moment. “Yes?”

  “Forty-two, sir.” Miguel the elevator operator said. “Your floor, sir.”

  “Oh . . .” He stepped out of the elevator. “Yes, Mrs. Essenbach’s floor . . . thank you.”

  Is she qualified?

  She has a background in hotels.

  I mean, is she qualified to steal your job?

  The elevator doors closed and Pierre Belasco said out loud, “Not in this lifetime.”

  7

  Carson Haynes didn’t mind getting up at five because, that way, he could get the running machine in the corner with the best views. And he always left the gym at 5:35 to go back to his apartment on the fifty-second floor to shower, dress and be at his office by six—First Ace Capital on the twenty-third floor—because, that way, he got there before anyone else.

  Past the big door with the tennis ball logo, there was a small reception area and behind that an open-plan office for two secretaries. To the right was a small trading room with terminals and huge screens—the four traders who worked First Ace’s little hedge fund usually staggered in by 6:30—and on the left of the open plan was a conference room, a bathroom, and a small kitchen.

  Two private offices—tiny by Wall Street executive standards—ran along the Fifty-Sixth Street side of the building and weren’t particularly private. Both had a glass wall looking back into the open plan. There was just enough room in each of those offices for a desk and a couch. But the day they moved in, Tommy Arcarro hung a framed sign on his glass door that read, “Size only matters if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  His office was on the left. He handled their institutional customers and the hedge fund.

  Carson’s office was on the right. He dealt with their four private clients and was rainmaker-in-chief.

  As always, the moment he stepped into his office, Carson turned on his computer, then went to make a latte on the espresso machine in the kitchen. By that time, the kid from the Greek’s place over on Fifty-Ninth Street was there with his daily breakfast order—fresh papaya juice and a buttered bialy—which he took back to his office.