Trump Tower (2 page)

Tomas nodded, “Good morning, sir,” but that was all either man said until they arrived on the floor.

Belasco stepped out, waited for the doors to close again, then went down the dark, carpeted hallway to his left. Now there were two large, darkly painted doors. Neither of them had a number. In fact, none of the apartments in the Tower was numbered.

He knocked on the door to his right.

No one answered.

He knocked again, waited a few seconds, then took the two keys out of his pocket and let himself in. “Miss Benson? It's Pierre Belasco.”

There was no answer.

“Miss Benson?” Still nothing.

From the marble-floored vestibule he walked into the large living room that looked west over Fifth Avenue and south to the Empire State Building, where a fabulous palace-sized silk Kasan rug, circa 1900, covered the floor and where designer, modern furniture covered the rug. On the far wall there was an enormous painting that looked exactly like Manet's
Olympia
, except the nude woman lying on the couch was Cyndi Benson.

“Miss Benson?”

He peered into the dining room, which lined the Fifty-Sixth Street side of the building, where a beautiful Tabriz rug lay on the floor. There was a huge Italian refectory table, that he liked very much, and on the wall six large Warhol prints—two soup cans, one Elvis, one Jackie, one Marilyn, and one Mao—which he could have done without.

“Miss Benson?”

He moved back toward the vestibule, then along the marbled hallway.

“Miss Benson . . . it's Pierre Belasco.”

That's when he thought he heard a whimper.

The door to the second bedroom was open—the room was so filled with clothes that you couldn't see any furniture—but the door at the end of the hallway, leading to the master bedroom, was shut. He went to the door and knocked on it twice. “Miss Benson?”

Now he heard her very clearly—whimpering.

Slowly opening the door—“Miss Benson?”—there she was, completely naked and gagged, her arms above her head, handcuffed to the top of the brass bedstead, with her legs tied to the bottom of the bedstead, stretched wide apart . . .

“Miss Benson . . .”

She began cursing, with the gag in her mouth, struggling helplessly to get free.

He picked up the black silk sheet that had spilled on the floor and covered her, but not before noticing she had a new, tiny tattoo near her bikini line on the left side—it looked to him like a ripe tomato on a vine—to go with the small double-C Chanel symbol that she had on the other side from her Paris days.

Removing the gag from her mouth, he said, “Miss Benson.”

“That fucking bastard,” she screamed. “Fucking bastard Tommy fucking Seasons . . .”

“Miss Benson . . .” He sat down on the side of the custom-made, extra-large king-sized bed, deliberately leaving her still handcuffed.

“I'll kill that fucking Tommy . . .”

Hanging on the wall behind the bed was a giant Lucien Freud nude portrait of Cyndi. Above the bed was a soft, gold-tinted, smoked-glass-mirrored ceiling.

“. . . fucking bastard Seasons . . .”

At seventeen, standing five-foot-eleven and weighing 116 pounds, she'd been the hottest fresh-faced American model on the Parisian catwalks. At nineteen she was the face of Chanel. By the time she was twenty-one she had her own clothing line and perfume, “À Poil,” which means “naked.” At twenty-three she left Chanel to become the five-million-dollar face of Dior. Two years later she was lured back to Chanel with a $10 million bonus.

When she was twenty-seven, Hugh Hefner offered her a meager $1 million to do a centerfold. She refused. Instead, she posed nude for free for PETA, the animal rights group, as part of its “I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign. But when His Excellency Sheikh Ali Mohammed Khalifa Bin Salman al Khalifa—a minor but extremely rich member of Kuwait's ruling family—offered to buy her a two-bedroom apartment in Trump Tower if he could visit six weekends a year, she bargained him down to four and accepted.

A month after that, Count Giacomo Albarco di Livenza, patriarch of a Venetian fortune and the future finance minister of Italy, paid for the same apartment in Trump Tower so that she would become his American mistress. She accepted him, too. But he never bothered showing up.

Later, His Excellency bought her a fabulous A-frame at Breckenridge, in Colorado. He went there once, decided he hated snow and never went back. But she always spent Christmas and New Year's there with friends.

When the Count realized he couldn't see her over the holidays, he bought her a beach house in Jamaica, where she stayed with friends every February. She never told His Excellency about the beach house, and the Count never visited there, either.

Now at thirty, she had one Trump Tower apartment in her name, the money for the same apartment in her Cayman Islands bank account, two other homes, and checks from each man averaging fifteen grand a month to cover apartment maintenance and charges.

She also still had her career, commanding $150,000 for a catwalk show, more if she did underwear, and up to a quarter of a million for a standard photo shoot.

Although she'd lately added blonde mesh highlights to her dark hair, her big, hazel eyes were the same as when they helped to make her famous, and her high cheekbones were the same, and her legs were the same but, as Belasco had already discovered—being two or three pounds heavier than she'd been as a teenager—she now had absolutely gorgeous breasts.

“I'll murder that fucking bastard son of a bitch prick . . .”

“Miss Benson.”

“. . . cut off his balls and stuff them in his mouth . . .”

“Miss Benson.”

It was several minutes before she finally calmed down.

“Miss Benson,” he said to her once she stopped screaming and looked at him with those eyes. “This really must stop.”

“I don't . . . it wasn't . . . he . . . oh Belasco . . .” She sighed and shook her head sadly. “Thank you, yet again.”

He nodded, got up, went to the foot of the bed, and untied her legs.

“I hope you didn't mind the view.” She pretended to blush.

“Miss Benson . . .” He gave her his best disapproving look, then pointed to the handcuffs. “Do you have the key this time?”

“No.”

“We discussed this last time.”

“This time he swallowed it.”

“What?” Belasco wasn't easily shocked, but that stopped him. “Last time he simply . . .” Shaking his head, he mumbled “
bon appétit
, indeed,” and said softly, “This must stop.”

Her eyes opened wide like a child who's thought of a good idea. “We could ban him from the Tower, the way we banned Babaloo Facinelli.”

“Who's Babaloo Facinelli?”

“The reggae singer.”

“Miss Benson . . .” He took the small, brown leather pouch from his pocket, found an oddly shaped, very thin, cold steel instrument inside—like something a dentist might use—and went to the head of her bed. Taking the handcuffs, he fiddled with them, using the instrument to pick the lock. “. . . the Tower has never banned anybody named Babaloo.”

“It wasn't him? You sure? Then it must have been George because he and I . . .”

“George who?”

“George Timothy Daniels.”

“And who is George Timothy Daniels?”

“The astronaut,” she said, as if it was obvious.

“No, not Mr. Daniels, either.”

The handcuffs snapped open.

“Damn things . . .” she grabbed her wrists and rubbed them . . . “they hurt.” She showed him the marks they left. “Someone stole my mink-lined handcuffs . . . the blue mink . . . I loved those . . . remember them? And Tommy . . . that fucking bastard, I will kill him . . . he said he got these from a cop . . .” She looked at Belasco. “Maybe it was Tony Curtis . . . poor Tony is dead . . . maybe he was the one who stole my blue mink . . . are you sure we didn't ban George?”

“I'm absolutely positive,” he said, “that we have never banned any astronaut.”

Pulling the sheet around herself, she sat up, crossed her legs Indian style, clasped her hands and said to him tenderly, “Poor Belasco, I am afraid that you have become my faithful knight in shining armor.”

“You will need more than a knight in shining armor if His Excellency finds out about this.”

“Hah.” She agreed, “I'll need twenty-four-hour bodyguards.”

He asked delicately, “And . . .
Il Conte
?”

“Pussycat,” she assured him. “I never see him. Sometimes he phones late at night and we have . . . well, you know . . . and I keep telling him that if he put a camera on his computer then we could have Skype sex . . . but he can't figure out his computer.” She shrugged, “Anyway, Italian men are cool about these things. He has his wife, and he has at least one mistress that I know of . . . she's in Venice . . . and come to think of it there might be another somewhere else. I suppose she's in Rome. After all, he's a very good-looking man.” She thought for a moment, then decided, “But you're right, if His Excellency ever finds out . . . Arabs, you know, are born possessive. Especially Kuwaitis. It must have something to do with the water they drink. All that seawater after they take out the salt. He told me once that when he had this mistress in Brazil . . . she was a stewardess he picked up on a flight to somewhere, or from somewhere, I don't know . . . but he started showing up there regularly, which is how he found out that she was also sleeping with some soccer player. Let's face it, Belasco, every Brazilian girl I know is always sleeping with soccer players. Anyway, he found out and had the poor guy beat up by his bodyguards.” She made a face. “Kuwaiti princes aren't as cool as Italian counts. In Kuwait they don't do
non c'è problema
. . . that's what the Duke says all the time,
non c'è problema . . .
no problem. In Kuwait they do,
Imma gonna breaka you legs
.” She giggled, “Did that sound more Italian than Kuwaiti?”

Belasco smiled politely, then headed to the door. “These little peccadilloes with Mr. Seasons . . . they really must stop.”

“Peccadilloes? Is that Swiss for fucking?” She looked at him and grinned shyly, like a child caught saying a dirty word. “Whoops.” Then she nodded several times, “I suppose I do need to call Tommy and tell him it's over.” She stopped, nodded again, and added in a deep voice, “
Imma gonna breaka you legs
.”

“You suppose wisely,” he agreed.

“Thank you, Belasco.” She gave him a little wave goodbye. “Can you believe he swallowed the key?”

He headed for the door.

“Oh, Belasco?” She called after him. “I thought it was George, but even if it wasn't him, or poor Tony . . . maybe we should put Tommy on the list?”

“If that's what you want.”

“Because you're right . . . if His Excellency ever finds out . . .”

“I will notify security and Mr. Seasons won't be back to see you . . . unless you change your mind.” He turned again to leave.

“Oh . . . Belasco?”

He stopped and looked at her again. “Miss Benson?”

She paused, then said quietly, “If I am ever found dead . . . you know, murdered in my bed . . . beaten up and bloodied or stabbed or shot or strangled or all of those things . . . if someone kills me, it won't be
Il Conte
.”

B
ACK IN
his own office, Belasco added Tommy Seasons to the long list of people who, for whatever reason, were banned from coming into the Tower.

Their names and faces were circulated to everyone on the security staff. Tommy would be easy for them to recognize because his face was on billboards and in all the subway stations. There was no worry about preventing him, or anyone on the list, from coming up in the elevator because no one could get into an elevator without first being cleared and, even then, invited guests were always escorted upstairs. The idea was to prevent these people from hanging out in the atrium or in the immediate vicinity of the building and, perhaps, causing an incident there.

“We do not need another Chapman,” Trump himself once warned his chief of security, referring to the man who waited for John Lennon on the sidewalk outside his apartment at the Dakota and murdered him.

So from now on, if Tommy Seasons was spotted anywhere near Trump Tower, a “Chapman Alert” would be sent to everyone on staff.

Belasco replaced the keys to Cyndi's apartment in the armoire safe, locked it, then sat down and opened his laptop. Looking through his long list of bookmarked pages, he located the one he wanted—a company called B&L Loomis—and logged onto its site. He found what he was looking for—one set of blue mink-lined handcuffs—and ordered them.

When he clicked the button, “Take me to checkout,” a small pop-up appeared. It read, “Perhaps you would also like . . .” and listed a few additional items.