Trump Tower (3 page)

He agreed, “Good idea,” and checked the little box next to “An extra set of keys.”

D
avid Cove carefully lined up his putt. “Hundred bucks. Y'all okay with that?”

Gavin agreed, “Hundred bucks.”

“Hundred bucks . . .” David gripped his Scott Cameron Tour Titleist triple black putter—“See, it's signed Scott, not Scotty,” he pointed out to prove it was handmade—pulled the putter back ever so slowly, then moved the perfectly weighted club face right through the ball, sending it straight for the cup.

Suddenly, Barry put the G-4 into a sweeping left bank.

“What the fuck?” David bellowed.

The ball swerved sharply, hit the storage unit, then bounced into the little galley up front where Wendy, the stewardess, was already starting to clean up for landing.

“Sumbitch!” He shouted to the cockpit. “Y'all did that on purpose.”

“Hundred bucks,” Gavin put out his hand.

“Sorry,” Barry called back from the cockpit.

“I get a mulligan,” David insisted.

“Hundred bucks.” Gavin held out his hand.

“On our way down,” Barry said. “I need Gav up here ‘cause there ain't no such thing as a mulligan landing.”

“Sumbitch,” David tossed the putter onto the cream leather couch, then bent down to pick up the little aluminum putting cup. “Sweetheart?” He asked Wendy, “Can y'all find that golf ball. Don't step on it, now, and tumble. It's down there at your feet, somewhere.”

Gavin was still standing there, with his hand out.

David glared. “What?”

“Hundred bucks, boss. Beat you fair and square.”

“You call that fair and square?” David reached into the front pocket of his golf slacks and pulled out a wad of bills. He peeled off $100. “How much of this does Barry get for sucker-punching me?”

Gavin handed the money to Wendy—“This is a tip from Mr. Cove”—then went into the cockpit and climbed into the right seat.

“Thank you,” Wendy said, found the golf ball, brought it back to David, hesitated, then showed him the $100. “This isn't really mine.”

“Y'all buy yourself something nice.” He sat down, buckled up, checked his watch—it was after seven—grabbed his iPhone and went through some e-mails.

“Copper wire,” he noticed. “We love copper wire.” Then he spotted, “Fasteners. Good.” He scrolled quickly through some others. “Airplane parts. Love airplane parts.”

Reaching for the phone on the table in front of him, he got a connection and dialed his apartment.

Inside the large duplex that took up the entire eastern half of the forty-fifth and forty-sixth floors, a phone rang once, then stopped.

The apartment was dark.

No one was home.

T
INA
L
EE
C
OVE'S
cell phone picked up the forwarded call, rang once, then a second time.

She opened her eyes.

It rang a third time, and now she hurriedly leaned across the bed and grabbed it. “Where are you?”

“Landing in twenty.”

“How'd you do?”

“Good. Wait ‘till you hear what I won off Trump.”

“Okay, I'm getting into the shower . . .”

“See you when I see you. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said, hung up and looked at the big, dark eyes on the weathered face of the skinny guy lying there next to her. “I have to go.”

Ricky Lips reached for her. “One more . . .”

She moved away from him, swinging her legs off the bed, turning her back to him, stretching and yawning. “No way.”

“Don't be so mean, luv. It's not only me who likes you . . . look at Little Ricky.” He pointed to himself.

“Little Ricky needs to be . . .” She leaned over, put her middle finger on her thumb and flicked at it.

“Ouch,” he said.

“. . . little again.”

Now she noticed that on his night table there was a strange kind of clock. It was a square, black metal box with a red LED face and three columns—hours, minutes, seconds—that seemed to be counting down.

It read, “244 hours, 41 minutes, 50 seconds.”

Then it read, “244 hours, 41 minutes, 49 seconds.”

Then it read, “244 hours, 41 minutes, 48 seconds.”

“What's that?”

“I got it from NASA,” he said. “Awesome, isn't it?”

“But what is it?”

“It's a launch clock. See . . . two hundred forty-four hours, forty-one minutes, and forty-two seconds to launch . . . forty-one seconds . . . forty seconds . . .”

She pointed to him. “If you're planning to launch Little Ricky, you need to put wings on it.”

“Not that.” He pointed to his ankle bracelet. “That. Comes off in . . . two hundred forty-four hours, forty-one minutes, and thirty-five seconds . . . thirty-four seconds . . . thirty-three seconds . . .”

“How long has it been on?”

He said, “Six months, minus two hundred forty-four hours . . .”

“I get it,” she said, standing up and going to the full-length mirror on the back of his bedroom door. She studied herself in the mirror, then turned to look at herself over her shoulder. “Bastard . . . look what that thing did to me.”

He sat up on his elbows, stared at her, pointed to her, then pointed to himself. “Look what that thing is doing to my thing.”

She inspected the small red welt on her upper back. “Why don't you take that thing off when you're home?”

He stretched his right leg into the air and stared at the electronic bracelet attached to his ankle. “I can get it off. Easy. But the bloody thing sends a signal when I take it off. They know. Something to do with body heat.”

“Body heat?”

“Some sort of thermometer or something in there, and when it gets too cold, you know, too cold ‘cause it's not attached, it sends a signal.”

“What about when it is attached and gets too hot?”

“That too. It tells them my temperature.”

She started shaking her head. “So they see your body temperature go up, and they know you're fucking.”

He grinned. “Never thought of that.”

She moved away from the mirror, picked up her clothes from the floor, and went into the bathroom to shower.

When she came out fully dressed, Ricky was still lying in bed, naked, looking at his ankle bracelet. “You got me thinking, luv, maybe they can hear, too.”

She glared at him. “There's a microphone in there?”

“Dunno. Maybe one of them little video cameras.”

“It's your ass if there is.”

“When are you coming back, luv?”

“Next time I'm feeling charitable.” And, with that, she left the apartment.

“Me visiting shag-the-nurse service,” he said to himself, got out of bed, and walked naked—except for his electronic ankle bracelet—into the living room.

The place was a mess. The couch cushions were on the floor, and there were empty pizza boxes and beer bottles scattered around. Some guy was sleeping on his couch, but he couldn't see who it was.

Large paintings of himself and the band looked down from the walls.

“Got to get me a housekeeper replacement.”

Whoever that was on the couch, stirred.

Ricky leaned down and tried to look at the man's face. But it was buried in a cushion. “Who the fuck are you?”

The man didn't answer.

Just then Ricky heard some noise down the hall. He followed it to the second bedroom, opened the door, and saw a naked guy on top of a naked girl. He didn't know either of them.

“Oy.”

The guy looked over but didn't stop. “Hey Ricky, I'm Bugs. She's Shari.”

“Don't mind me.” Ricky stood there.

Shari looked up, half-waved, and brought her feet up. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He watched them for a moment, then stepped into the room and got into bed with them.

“When you're done with him, luv,” Ricky said to Shari, “you get on top of me. Just be careful this bleeding ankle bracelet don't leave no marks.”

I
N HIS SENIOR YEAR
at Texas Tech, David Cove moved from safety to defensive end and was a runner-up on the ESPN All-America team.

Nephew of the legendary oilman, R. D. Cove, he might have had a shot at the NFL but never wanted it enough. He was a better golfer than he was a football player, and anyway, “Uncle RD”—as everyone in the family called him, even his own brothers and sisters—promised that he was going to make David the best damn spot-oil trader in the country.

“Y'all gonna make my All-America team,” he bragged, and for the next five years, Uncle RD trained him well enough to keep his promise.

By the time David was twenty-six, in 2004, he headed his own spot-oil trading team at Lehman's.

That's where he met Tina Lee.

A year older than him, she was born in San Francisco, grew up speaking Mandarin and Cantonese, and graduated summa cum laude from Stanford.

Courted by the US State Department and just about every business in the Silicon Valley—all of whom were looking for “power women” fluent in Chinese—she opted instead to learn the foreign exchange business. She spent three years in Hong Kong, another two in Shanghai, then one at Harvard getting her MBA. Lehman recruited her there and brought her to New York to trade currencies where, at the age of twenty-seven, she quickly became known as “Princess FOREX.”

In 2007, when David and Tina saw that Lehman was in a tailspin and about to crash and burn, they opted for an early out. They got married the day before officially walking away with a package worth a couple of million dollars between them—it was tax-efficient to marry first—then set themselves up in Trump Tower.

For a while he played only in oil, and she played only in currencies, but then they discovered “garbage.” And when it came to garbage trading, the Coves were everyone's first-choice All-America team.

B
ARRY PUT
the old G-4 smoothly down on the runway.

Five minutes later he had the wheels chocked and the engines off at the hangar.

Wendy opened the door and lowered the steps, and before either Barry or Gavin could even stand up, David shouted, “See y'all . . . leave the clubs on the plane . . . thanks . . .” and was gone.

He climbed into his latest toy—a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti with a special 1950s dark red
vinacci
trim and
sabbia
beige interior—and made it to I-95 in no time. But he got stuck in morning traffic and had to sit on the 495 for over an hour waiting to get into the Lincoln Tunnel.

By the time he pulled up to the front door on Fifty-Sixth Street, it was after nine o'clock.

The tall Puerto Rican kid from the garage was waiting for him. David gave him his usual “Y'all be Goddamned careful with that car” warning as he handed him the keys, said hello to the doorman Roberto and to Tanya behind the concierge desk, and rode upstairs in the elevator with Jaquim.

“How's the baby doing?”

Jaquim pulled a photo out of his pocket and showed it to David. “Seven kilos already. That's the clothes you and Mrs. Cove bought for him. He like a lot.”

“Seven kilos. Good.” David had no idea if that was good or not, but he knew he had to say something nice.

Jaquim pointed to his chest and nodded, “He like his mama's titties a lot.”

They arrived at forty-five. “Y'all have a good day,” he said, getting out, then turned to tell Jaquim, “Great-looking baby.” Jaquim smiled proudly as the elevator doors closed.

David mumbled, “I'd probably like his mama's titties, too,” and, instead of using his key, he rang the bell.

Tina opened the door wearing shorts and a tank top. “How come you're still in your golf clothes?”

“Had a couple of drinks, then flew home.” He stepped inside, kissed her, and shut the door. “Didn't have time to change.”

Tina called to Luisa. “Please put Mr. Cove's filthy clothes in the wash this morning.”

The maid came running out of the kitchen. “Yes, Madame,” and stood there, as if she was waiting for David to get out of his clothes.

“I'll leave them on the hamper,” he promised.

“Yes, sir,” she nodded and went back into the kitchen.

“What's happening?” he asked Tina.

“Everything is dead.”

“Copper wire? We like copper wire.”

“Nothing.”

“One of my e-mails said there was copper wire. And I saw something about fasteners.”