Free Trump Tower by Jeffrey Robinson Page A

you win in Punta del Este.”
    â€œSee how far we both had to travel for a runner-up cut-glass vase?”
    â€œI’ll offer you a better trophy, and it’s a lot closer. Come play in Omaha.”
    â€œWhoever you are, you’re too late because I’ve hung up my Keds.”
    â€œIt’s a charity event,” Warring said. “Last year I raised three mil. This year I’m gonna raise four. Give me an address, and I’ll FedEx you all the bumf. Also, I read somewhere that you just got married. I’ll send you a pair of first-class tickets. Maybe Omaha isn’t much of a honeymoon destination, but I promise you’ll have a good time.”
    The next day when a FedEx envelope arrived from Warring, Alicia Googled him, read several entries about him, and announced to Carson, “He’s known as the other one.”
    â€œThe other one what?”
    â€œThe other one other one,” she said. “There are two in Omaha, and he’s the other one.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œGazillionaires. There’s Warren Buffett, and there’s Kenneth Warring.”
    Carson didn’t want to know. “Just another rich guy.”
    â€œNo,” she insisted, “an extremely, very rich, rich guy . . . who likes you enough to invite us to Omaha for the weekend.”
    â€œHe can’t like me that much because he’s inviting us to Omaha.”
    â€œYou ever been there?”
    â€œI have. And it was closed.”
    â€œI think we should go.”
    â€œExcept you can’t get there from here.”
    â€œHe said he was sending us tickets . . .”
    â€œWhat he didn’t say was that we’ll have to change planes nine times.”
    A week later, when Alicia opened the next FedEx from Warring, she told Carson, “He booked us on a direct flight.”
    â€œThere is no direct flight from Miami to Omaha.”
    â€œOn his airline there is.” She said Warring was sending his plane for them, and hoped they could be there for lunch on Saturday.
    Carson still wasn’t sure. So Alicia mentioned on-air that she and Carson were going to the event and promised to report back on Monday’s program.
    That settled it and on that Saturday, Warring’s G-5 whisked them off to Omaha.
    Expecting a chauffeured limo to meet them, they were surprised to find Warring himself waiting for them, driving his own car.
    Somewhere in his late sixties, he was short and robust, with a smallish head, large shoulders, no waist, a big grin and surprisingly large hands.
    He brought them to a spectacular twelve-bedroom, 1930s mock Tudor home sitting on four acres in northeast Omaha, backing onto Carter Lake. Right away, he took them upstairs to introduce them to his third wife, Anita, who was in the final stages of the disease.
    Alicia spent most of the weekend upstairs with her.
    However, Anita did come down for lunch, so they were five. The other guest for lunch was Warren Buffett.
    At dinner that night, under a huge marquee, everyone who was anyone in Omaha attended. So did a bunch of people Warring called “Non-Omers,” including tennis greats Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, boxer Smokin’ Joe Frazier, actresses Morgan Fairchild and Rue McClanahan, actors Dick Van Dyke and John Spencer from the West Wing —it was just a year before he died—NBA star Karl Malone, Daunte Culpepper from the Minnesota Vikings and the inimitable Willie Nelson.
    Warring got up at the end of the meal and announced that at this year’s event, they’d raised $5.2 million.
    Everyone stood up and applauded him, while he blew kisses to Anita.
    Then Willie stood up.
    Just like that, unplanned and unannounced, he walked to the front of the marquee, borrowed a guitar from a guy in the band, said, “Anita darlin’, this is for you,” and sang “On the Road Again,” “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,”