Free Trump Tower by Jeffrey Robinson

failed to qualify for any of the big four majors.
    The next year he won three—Acapulco, Calgary and Helsinki—but failed to get to Wimbledon and lost handily in the first round in Australia. He did, however, make it into the second round in both the French and US Opens.
    The year after that, he won four tournaments around the world—Salt Lake City, Quito, Mumbai and Johannesburg for the second time—but still couldn’t progress past the second rounds of any of the big four.
    But by now, traveling fifty weeks a year was taking its toll.
    When he was beaten in the first round at Wimbledon in 2004 by Roger Federer—6–3, 6–3, 6–0—he shook the Swiss star’s hand at the net and said, “I think I’ve had enough.”
    In the locker room, Federer asked what he meant by that.
    â€œI’m tired,” Carson said. “Not of playing tennis, but of the circuit. I’m tired of bad hotel rooms, I’m tired of bad food, I’m tired of airports, I’m tired of bimbos looking to score their first black guy, I’m tired of promising my girlfriendthat I will make it big someday and that when I do, we’ll have a great life together . . . because it’s just not going to happen.”
    â€œYou going to quit?” Federer asked it as if he couldn’t imagine having any other life. “What are you going to do?”
    â€œI’ve made enough money and still have most of it, so I can live okay. But I don’t think I want this.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œNot what, who,” he answered. “The girl back home.”
    Federer stared at him, as if the answer was obvious. “So what are you waiting for?”
    Carson stared at him, “You’re right,” patted Federer on the arm, “Have a good life, mon ami ,” reached for his cell phone and dialed Miami.
    As soon as Alicia answered he said, “Warm up the coffee, mama, I’m coming home.”
    She said sympathetically, “You lost already?”
    â€œI did but you didn’t.”
    â€œYou did but I didn’t . . . what?”
    â€œI lost, you won.”
    â€œWhat did I win?”
    â€œMe.”
    He flew back to Miami the next morning, and the two of them were married a week later in a small church in Little Havana.
    The wedding made the front page of the Miami Herald .
    Alicia had cohosted the biggest local morning show in Miami, Today in South Florida , on the NBC station since 2000.
    Born and raised there—her father was a lawyer and her mother was a doctor—there wasn’t anybody in Little Havana she didn’t know, and there wasn’t any Cuban in the entire state who she couldn’t get to.
    In 2000 she led the country on the coverage of the immigration and custody battle for the young Cuban refugee Elián González. Two years later she made headlines around the world covering the hunt for and capture of Miami’s most powerful crack cocaine dealer, Ernesto “Machito” Faz.
    Tipped off that the DEA was going to raid his heavily fortified house at the end of a dead-end street off West Flagler, Alicia had talked her way inside his house, with a camera crew, before the DEA arrived with a SWAT team from Miami-Dade Police. She’d wound up trapped there with Machito during a two-day standoff, all the time broadcasting regular reports that made it onto the network. The standoff had ended when Alicia convinced Machito to surrender. She walked him out and handed him over to the DEA.
    She was a star.
    But being Mr. Alicia Melendez was not what Carson wanted. And just twomonths into their marriage he confessed to her, “I really don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.”
    That’s when, out of the blue, Warring phoned. “I saw you play once in Palm Springs.”
    Carson told him, “I lost.”
    â€œAnd I saw you play in Vegas.”
    â€œI lost there, too.”
    â€œI saw