It was 1994 and the land once known as "Trump City" was an embarrassing boondoggle, crumbling at the feet of an erratic namesake who took out $400 million in loans and seemed all too willing to default on more. Chase realtors could not see a path to black for debt king Donald Trump.

Tom Barrack could.

"We're going to really, really attack Donald on this and take him down -- or you can help us," one Chase honcho told Barrack, a Los Angeles-based real estate titan with no ties -- beyond friendship -- to the deal. "You're the person who could solve it."

Over the next seven days before Christmas, Barrack and his lieutenant, Bill Rogers, would jet from New York to Los Angeles, Taiwan, London and Saudi Arabia, begging billionaires to buy the loans and keep the bankers from Trump's throat.

"He nearly killed me that week," Rogers says now, recounting the frenzied middle-of-the-night flights that kept the $4.5 billion West Side Railyards site from being Trump's burial ground. "There's one person in this world who has historically had a non-fighting way of working with Donald -- and being successful."

Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts. Trump is joined by his wife, Melania, and his five children: from right, Tiffany, Eric, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Barron. See a panoramic Gigapixel from his inauguration Hide Caption 1 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Barack Obama takes the oath of office in 2009. His wife, Michelle, is holding the Bible, and they are joined by their daughters, Malia and Sasha. An estimated 1.5 million people attended the inauguration as Obama became the nation's first African-American president. Hide Caption 2 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 George W. Bush takes the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2001. Standing with Bush, from left, are daughter Jenna, wife Laura and daughter Barbara. Bush, the eldest son of former President George H.W. Bush, served two terms. Hide Caption 3 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Bill Clinton addresses the crowd at the US Capitol after being inaugurated in 1993. He was re-elected in 1996. Hide Caption 4 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 President George H.W. Bush, left, shakes the hand of his son George W. Bush after being sworn in to office in 1989. The elder Bush had been vice president under President Ronald Reagan, whose two terms were up. Hide Caption 5 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 President Ronald Reagan delivers his inaugural address at the US Capitol in 1981. As the ceremony was being held, Iran was releasing 52 American hostages. Hide Caption 6 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Jimmy Carter is joined by his wife, Rosalynn, as he takes the oath of office in 1977. He was the first president to walk from the Capitol to the White House in the post-inauguration parade. Hide Caption 7 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Gerald Ford takes the oath in 1974 next to his wife, Betty. He became president in August of that year after Richard Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal. Hide Caption 8 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Richard Nixon delivers his inaugural address in 1969. He was re-elected in 1972 but resigned two years after that. Hide Caption 9 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Standing on the right is Kennedy's widow, Jackie. Hide Caption 10 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 John F. Kennedy is sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1961. Kennedy, at 43, was the youngest ever to be elected president. This was the first inauguration ceremony to be televised in color. Hide Caption 11 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 A crowd watches the inauguration ceremony of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Eisenhower, who served two terms, recited his own prayer after taking the oath of office. Hide Caption 12 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Harry S. Truman holds the Bible as he takes the oath of office in 1945. Standing beside him are his wife, Bess, and his daughter, Margaret. Truman was the vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died in office. Truman won re-election in 1948. Hide Caption 13 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for his first term in 1933. He won four presidential elections and served in office until his death in 1945. The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, ensured that he would be the last US president to serve more than two terms. Hide Caption 14 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 People attend the inauguration of Herbert Hoover in 1929. Later that year, a stock market crash led to the Great Depression. Hide Caption 15 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Calvin Coolidge takes the oath of office in Plymouth, Vermont, in August 1923. President Warren G. Harding had just died, and Coolidge was vice president. Coolidge's father, John, administered the oath. He was a notary public. Hide Caption 16 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 President Warren G. Harding waves to the crowd from the US Capitol's east portico in 1921. It was the first inauguration where an automobile was used to transport the president-elect to the Capitol. Hide Caption 17 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Woodrow Wilson gives his inaugural speech in 1913. Wilson broke with tradition and did not host any inaugural balls. Hide Caption 18 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 William Howard Taft stands on the inaugural platform after taking the oath of office in 1909. His inauguration was held indoors because of a blizzard the day before. Hide Caption 19 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Theodore Roosevelt takes the oath of office in 1901. He was vice president to William McKinley, who died in office. Roosevelt, a distant cousin of future President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the youngest president in history at 42 years of age. He was re-elected in 1904. Hide Caption 20 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 William McKinley delivers his inaugural address in 1897. His inauguration was the first to be recorded on a movie camera. He died in office shortly after being re-elected in 1900. Hide Caption 21 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 This engraved illustration of Benjamin Harrison's inauguration appeared on the cover of Harper's Weekly in 1889. It was raining during the ceremony. Hide Caption 22 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Grover Cleveland was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. He was inaugurated in 1885 (seen here) and 1893. Hide Caption 23 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Chester A. Arthur became the nation's 21st president after the death of James A. Garfield. There have been eight times in US history when a vice president has assumed the presidency because the president died in office. Hide Caption 24 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 President James A. Garfield views the inauguration ceremonies in 1881. He was the first to watch the parade from a stand built in front of White House. Hide Caption 25 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite administers the oath of office to Rutherford B. Hayes. The usual inauguration day back then, March 4, fell on a Sunday in 1877. So the public ceremony was held on a Monday. Hide Caption 26 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Ulysses S. Grant takes the oath of office in front of a large crowd in 1869. Grant, the former Army general who helped the Union win the Civil War, served two terms. Hide Caption 27 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency in a Washington hotel in 1865. Hide Caption 28 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Abraham Lincoln gives his inaugural address in 1861. The nation was on the brink of the Civil War, so Lincoln was heavily protected during his procession to the Capitol. Hide Caption 29 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 The 1857 inauguration of James Buchanan was the first inauguration ceremony known to be photographed. Hide Caption 30 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Military units precede Franklin Pierce's carriage down Pennsylvania Avenue during his inauguration day parade in 1853. Pierce broke the tradition of kissing the Bible during the swearing-in ceremony. He placed his left hand on it instead. Hide Caption 31 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Millard Fillmore, seen here, became president after Zachary Taylor's death in 1850. Hide Caption 32 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Zachary Taylor delivers his inaugural speech on the steps of the Capitol in 1849. Hide Caption 33 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 People gather for the inauguration of James K. Polk in 1845. It was the first inauguration ceremony to be reported by telegraph and shown in a newspaper illustration. Hide Caption 34 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 John Tyler, seen here, took the oath of office after the 1841 death of William Henry Harrison. Harrison died after just 32 days in office. Hide Caption 35 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 This lithograph shows the inauguration of William Henry Harrison in 1841. Harrison delivered the longest inaugural address in history (about 8,500 words). He caught a cold and died from pneumonia a month later. Hide Caption 36 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Martin Van Buren was inaugurated in 1837. For the first time in history, the president-elect and the outgoing president rode to the inauguration together. Hide Caption 37 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Andrew Jackson was inaugurated at the US Capitol in 1829. He was re-elected in 1833. Hide Caption 38 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 John Quincy Adams, son of former President John Adams, was inaugurated in 1825. He is one of only three presidents who did not use a Bible at his inauguration. He opted for a volume of law. Theodore Roosevelt used no Bible or book at his first inauguration in 1901. Lyndon B. Johnson used John F. Kennedy's Roman Catholic Missal during his hastily arranged swearing-in aboard Air Force One. Hide Caption 39 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 James Monroe's inauguration in 1817 was the first time that the swearing-in ceremony was held outside. The Capitol building was still under repair from its damage in the War of 1812. Hide Caption 40 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 James Madison, the fourth US president, was inaugurated in 1809 and was the first to hold an inaugural ball to celebrate. Hide Caption 41 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 Thomas Jefferson arrives on horseback for his inauguration in 1801. It was the first one held at the US Capitol. Hide Caption 42 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 John Adams, the second US president, took the oath of office at the House Chamber Congress Hall in Philadelphia. Hide Caption 43 of 44 Photos: Presidential inaugurations since 1789 George Washington delivers his inaugural address at New York's Federal Hall in April 1789. It was 13 years after the Declaration of Independence and more than a year and a half after the Constitution was ratified. Hide Caption 44 of 44

Two decades later, that lifesaver is playing his most prominent role yet. Barrack is overseeing Trump's inauguration in two weeks -- a project that has so far raised close to $90 million. Once the festivities are over, Barrack, 69, is poised to wield enormous influence in Trump's Washington as the person perhaps closest to the new president outside of his immediate family.

Over the next four years, a dozen people close to Barrack and Trump observed in interviews, Barrack is almost certain to reprise the middleman job he played during that West Side crisis -- as an inimitable powerbroker to the set of elites desperate to control him, and as a calming guardrail to the man who doesn't want to be controlled.

"Most of the people around him are all vying for his attention, his acknowledgment or his approval," Barrack said during an interview this week at Washington's new Trump International Hotel, where he is recognized by name by staff and well-wishers who interrupt him with meeting or favor requests for Trump's team.

That's his life these days: "It's like being the concierge or the sommelier of choice."

Unlikely surrogate

With the 6-foot-2 build of a shooting guard and the aphorisms of an inspirational speaker, Barrack admits he is not the likeliest Trump surrogate. With his refined, almost patrician image and the sensibilities of a Renaissance Man, the Arabic-speaking Barrack cuts a striking visage in the populist orbit that is ushering Trump to the White House.

But friends and rivals alike note that Barrack, with a net worth of $1 billion and a network that includes Qatari princes and France's Nicolas Sarkozy, offers something that so few of the people battling for Trump's ear today can match: trust that, as his financial peer, he looks out for no one but Trump.

It is a friendship forged in both the tumble of deals gone awry and the triumph of a shocking political upset. At every turn over the last two years, when Trump found himself against the world, Barrack on the other end of the line, dispensing frank truths while pleading to the offended that Trump meant no harm.

When scores of women emerged to allege sexual misconduct by Trump this past October, Barrack asked him to write down what exactly made him upset in private, and at the same time promised to vouch for his integrity in public. When in need of a way to soften his image with Mexico, Barrack encouraged Trump to take a last-minute secret trip to Mexico and show he could blunt his rhetoric on the world stage. And when Muslim monarchs rang alarm bells at a policy meant to forbid their 1.6 billion adherents from immigrating to the US, Barrack urged Trump to retool his abrasive posture -- while back-channeling soothing words to his own Rolodex.

By now, word of his influence has gotten around: Barrack serves as the connective fiber between his elite circles and the insular, Breitbart-infused Trump Tower. He brokered a meeting on climate change between Leonardo DiCaprio and the President-elect, and fields phone calls and emails from worried investors and ambassadors seeking reassurances from the next leader of the free world: "Tell me we're going to be OK," they implore Barrack.

In a city full of lobbyists eager to play connector, it is the cabal of longtime Trump associates -- from Barrack to Roger Stone to Carl Icahn -- who are the new set of Washington greasers.

"The way it used to be, you go to a lobbyist, you pay the lobbyist a bunch of money, and he takes care of politics," said Gary Winnick, a close friend to Trump and Barrack who now spends much of his time making similar introductions.

But Trump campaigned vigorously against the lobbyist culture, and would care for something different, Winnick stressed.

"Tom was there when Donald was getting his a-- kicked in the 80s and 90s," he said. "I don't think Donald has ever forgotten that."

Born to immigrants

Born to immigrants who owned a tiny Lebanese grocery store, Barrack made his fortune in distressed assets, or what he saw as low-risk, high-reward properties desperate for rehabilitation. He and Trump argued, bartered and caroused together. Barrack now fondly remembers deals where Trump "took me to the cleaners."

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And over time, the two indulged in elements of celebritydom: Trump as a fixture of the New York socialite scene; Barrack as an investor in Hollywood film companies and as a Mr. Fix It for distressed celebrities -- he is credited with saving Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, and counts Rob Lowe as one of his best friends.

But it was in the 1990s when Trump grew attached to Barrack, born just a year after him and with the emotional composure that even Trump's allies say he lacks. Over the years, the two would share tales of their marital struggles, friends say, and bond over their moments as classic tough guys.

"They used to like to arm wrestle together," cracked Doug Manchester, a longtime Barrack pal. "Not literally -- but maybe."

The stories are ripped from movies: When two intimidating men barreled down Park Avenue one spring day after pick-pocketing a woman's purse, Rogers recalls, Barrack delivered a rugby tackle he learned in college and held one of them down for 20 minutes. Soon after, the other culprit's half-dozen friends socked him in the nose, spilling blood over his cream-colored suit.

"He's a man. He falls off horses going full speed, surfs waves. He's a stud," Laird Hamilton, a well-known professional surfer in Hawaii who rides aggressive waves with Barrack, said from his boat in Hanalei Bay. "We like the feeling of challenging the impossible."

Barrack, many of his associates recounted, offers an eclectic spin on the quintessential "guy's guy." He jeers friends when they appear out of shape at the gym, but has chosen competitive polo -- not Trump's golf game -- as his sport of choice. He drinks alcohol, but grows his own wine at a 1,300-acre ranch he built near Santa Barbara, California, and spends his summers lavishly near Cannes in the French Riviera.

His aggression doesn't extend to politics. A moderate Republican, Barrack has little interest in partisan combat and said he was occasionally dispirited by Trump's most corrosive rhetoric.

His extemporaneous prime-time speech at last summer's Republican National Convention -- most memorable for awkwardly deeming his speech preceding that of Trump's daughter to be the "anchovy on Ivanka's caesar salad" -- featured another surprising moment. He told the crowd of Republican activists, who had encouraged speakers all week to "lock her up," that he had nothing negative whatsoever to say about Hillary Clinton.

"Donald used Tom at the beginning to bounce ideas off of him. Tom didn't get into it for political reasons," said Nick Ribis, a top Trump casino executive who later worked for Barrack. Ribis marvels at how the two personalities co-existed. "Egos tend to get in the way — jealousy and egos. It wasn't that way with Donald and Tom."

Despite his total lack of political experience, Barrack volunteered to hold Trump's first major fundraiser at his home, raising $7 million in a show of force that attendees at the head table describe as an emotional moment for the old friends. Some associates recall having never once before heard Barrack discuss politics before that evening.

The soft-spoken Barrack describes the campaign as his own personal metamorphosis.

"This is where I come from. That's me," Barrack, now the head of a $60 billion company, Colony Capital, said he thought as he soaked in Trump crowds across the country. "This is more me than the me now."

Fundraising stumbles

Barrack's adventure in cash-collecting was not without stumbles. Trump fundraisers say he dropped off the map after that event and for most of the campaign. And despite broadcasting widely that a super PAC he helped organize, Rebuilding America Now, had made a splash and took in $32 million this summer, that money was slow to materialize -- if it did at all. Barrack, over-extended and overwhelmed by looming campaign finance restrictions on what he'd be able to legally discuss with Trump, suddenly distanced himself from the group, which never lived up to its hype as Barrack watched Trump be massively outspent on television for nearly the entire race.

Part of the trouble was that despite Barrack's place in the firmament of high society, sources said, he offered none of traditional fundraising relationships that Trump desperately needed. He knew nothing of the network assembled by Charles and David Koch, and though he scored a meeting with Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, he was unable to secure his confidence and a donation to his super PAC.

The inauguration grants him something of a path to fundraising redemption. This time, Barrack won a $5 million check from the Adelsons, according to a person familiar with the donation. Barrack now talks to Trump every day about the ceremony, and it's that confidence of the President-elect that inauguration planners say gives him wide latitude over every last detail of the day, which will emphasize the military and "inclusiveness" rather than the traditional focus on celebrities.

And for all Trump's fundraising struggles during the campaign, the inauguration is surprisingly well funded. The $90 million figure revealed to CNN came in large part from what Barrack called "a lot of low-hanging fruit" from Trump gadflies eager to make amends for their past stinginess.

"Many of the establishment Republicans who were not involved in Trump Victory have now unified," said Elliott Broidy, one of the Trump campaign's most elite fundraisers and a vice chair of the Inaugural Committee. "That can be credited to Tom doing a phenomenal job articulating our President-elect's vision."

He expects to keep at it well after the ceremony concludes. While Barrack has leaned into his role as Trump's filter to the outside world, he still dreams of an even bigger role. Perpetually sleepless and rarely in the same city for multiple nights, Barrack envisions himself making frequent trips to the Middle East on behalf of the administration's interests. He is already calling upon his far-flung network to help place US ambassadors in capitals overseas.

But as Trump loyalists know, there is always the looming danger of overplaying your hand in Trump World. It's a lesson that Washington is soon to learn.

"There's nobody bigger in Donald's eyes than Donald -- and don't try to compete with that," warns Winnick. "I'm not sure everybody else knows that, but Tom does."