JC2 The Raiders (12 page)

When Chandler came into the suite, he found Nevada and Angie and Len
Douglas with Jonas. The three men wore golf shirts and slacks —
Nevada looking incongruous in his. Angie wore a raspberry-colored
golf shirt and white slacks.

"You know everybody, Morris," Jonas said. "Coffee?"

"Yes, thank you," said Morris Chandler. He was not wearing
one of his usual dark suits today but wore instead a
cream-and-brown-checked jacket and dark-brown slacks. He was visibly
nervous, as if he anticipated that the call for this meeting presaged
something ominous.

"Take a look through the telescope," said Jonas. "I
checked them five minutes ago, and they were up there."

Chandler sat down and put his coffee on the table.

"Nevada tells me I'm costing you more than I'm paying you,"
said Jonas.

Chandler nodded. "It's just a business fact,
Jonas. Nothing personal. You've been fair. I'm sure you had no idea
I'd come out short.
I
didn't."

"We'll take care of that one way or another," said Jonas.
"I want to talk to you about something else."

"Still thinking of building a hotel of your own?" asked
Chandler.

"I've got something better in mind," said Jonas. "I'm
thinking of buying this one."

Chandler jerked up his chin and shook his head. "It's not for
sale."

"It might be," said Jonas. "The men who own the points
just might be interested, if they got the right offer."

"You don't even know who owns the points," said Chandler.

"Most of them, I do," said Jonas.

"How could you find out? How could you find out when the feds
can't find out, when the State of Nevada can't find out?"

Jonas glanced at Nevada. Both men had amused gleams in their eyes. "I
hired a consultant," said Jonas. "He doesn't know who he's
working for, but he likes his fee."

"Who? Who would tell you?"

Jonas grinned. "Meyer Lansky," he said.

Morris Chandler got up and walked to the telescope. He leaned against
the eyepiece and was silent for a full half minute as he seemed to be
staring at the girls atop the neighboring penthouses but was actually
taking the time to compose himself and think through the implications
of what Jonas Cord was saying.

"They call Meyer the Chairman of the Board," said Jonas.
"But money doesn't stick to him. It seems to have a way of
flying from him. In spite of all his connections and all his smarts,
he's not rich. He didn't jump for my offer. He's too smart for that.
But he took it."

Chandler sat down. He glanced at his coffee cup but did not pick it
up. "Do you mean to tell me you actually know — "

"Who owns the points," Jonas interrupted. "I do. With
a few exceptions. And I know who'll sell. For the right money, I can
pick up seventy-two points tomorrow. My consultant will help me buy
seventy-two points, you've got eighteen that you'll sell me. That
leaves just ten points out, and I figure you know who has them."

Chandler's face turned red, and his voice rose thinly. "I'll
sell you mine? You think I'll sell you mine? What makes you think
I'll sell you mine?"

"There's something in it for you, Maurie," said Nevada. "I
said to Jonas, 'There has to be something in it for Maurie.' You
stay. You manage. You get a share. Of stock. No points. There'll be
no more points."

"I'm an easier guy to work for than the guys who have the
points," said Jonas.

Chandler calmed down a bit. "What do you figure on paying for a
point?" he asked.

"My accountant will tell me."

"Accountant! No accountant will ever figure out how a place like
this works. No accountant will ever figure out what a point is
worth."

"My accountant already knows," said Jonas. "Meyer
Lansky."

"You put a hell of a lot of confidence in Lansky," said
Chandler.

Jonas shrugged. "He's got no criminal record. He likes money.
Better than just any old money is money paid by check, that he can
report for taxes. Now, the way I want to do this, I'm going to buy
your stock in Seven Voyages, Incorporated. You distribute the money
to the points holders. You'll have a capital gain. I'll take care of
that with a bonus I'll pay you for your services as manager of the
hotel."

"What if some guys don't want to sell their points?"

"As soon as I take over, I'm stopping the skim," said
Jonas. "Anyway, they're in no position to make noise. They're
tax evaders at best. Besides, I'm going to pay a good price."

"Some guys you can't shove around," warned Chandler.

"Maurie, you're looking at one," said Nevada, nodding
toward Jonas.

Four days later Jonas sat down on the couch, surrounded by files and
papers that Angie had assembled for him, and began a long telephone
conversation with Phil Wallace in Washington.

Angie listened. She was astonished by what she heard — and very
pleased that Jonas trusted her so much as to discuss his businesses
in great detail within her hearing.

The telephone was equipped with a squawk box, so she heard both
halves of the conversation.

"I'm going to move out of Las Vegas. Once it's known that we're
buying a casino-hotel here — "

"They'll be all over the place looking for you,"
interrupted the metallic voice of Wallace. "So, where you going?
Mexico City?"

"Acapulco. Top floor of a hotel. Shaw has worked it out."

"Well, that brings up something. You have a friend in Mexico. In
fact, you have a friend in Mexico who comes up to Las Vegas on
junkets to The Seven Voyages. She's been in the hotel since you've
been there."

"Who the hell are you talking about, Phil?"

"Sonja Batista."

Angie saw Jonas's face whiten. "Where'd you hear that name?"
he demanded of Phil Wallace.

"It was in the files I inherited from
McAllister. None of my business. Nothing to do with anything. But her
name came up in a news story in
The Washington Post
Tuesday.
The rumor from Cuba is that her uncle may take power again. Fulgencio
Batista. You've heard the name?"

"Of course I've heard the name."

"He's connected, if you know the meaning of the word. He's got
friends in the States who'd like him to take over in Havana."

"I know why," said Jonas. "But say why."

"He'll turn the country into a paradise for those people and
their interests. Casinos. The world's greatest whorehouses. The
works."

"Sonja," Jonas mused.

"Escalante," said Wallace. "She's married to a guy
named Virgilio Diaz Escalante. He's got money from oil."

"Sonja," Jonas murmured. "Jesus Christ! Phil. Get me
her address and phone number. Discreetly. Okay?"

Angie licked the last of his fluid off Jonas's penis. She rolled over
on her back.

"You're not taking me with you, are you?" she asked. "To
Mexico. You're leaving me here. What could be so important — ?"

"There are better things for you in this world," he said.

"Name one," she whispered, on the verge of tears.

"We're forming a new corporation: Cord Hotels, Incorporated.
Temporarily, the fifth floor of The Seven Voyages is corporate
headquarters. Nevada Smith will be president of the new company. He's
staying here to watch things for me. I'm making Morris Chandler a
vice president. Nevada may trust Morris too much. I'm not sure, but I
think he might. I want you to stay here, keep an eye on things, and
report to me. I'll make arrangements for you to have a direct
communications channel to me. I'd make you a vice president, too, but
I can't. You know why I can't."

She closed her eyes and nodded. "Making me an officer would risk
the gaming license. I have a criminal record."

"Right."

"How long have you known?"

He shrugged. "Pretty soon after you came here."

"You could have thrown me out."

"I don't want to throw you out. You can be valuable to me.
Besides, I like you. I'll pay you twenty thousand a year."

"
Jonas
!"

"Plus bonuses. You'll earn it. Anyway, I won't be gone so long.
I'll be back. The biggest thing is, I trust you. That's on instinct,
mine and Nevada's. You already know more about my business than
Monica ever did. I trust you, Angie. Don't let me down."

She bent forward and kissed his penis, then sucked it in between her
lips and teeth. "When you trust a woman not to bite you,"
she muttered, "that's trusting her more than you do when you
tell her about your business." She looked up and grinned
playfully. Then she was solemn again. "I want to go with you
wherever you go. But — " She shrugged. "I know
better. I know that can't be. So ... You can trust me, boss. If for
no other reason ... because I love you."

JONAS HAD SENT BILL SHAW AHEAD TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS. Colonel William
Shaw had come with Cord Aircraft immediately after his discharge from
the Army Air Corps in 1946. He was a useful man to have on a staff.
He had proved to be a capable administrator, a man not daunted by
details. Besides, he had been a test pilot and was a skillful flyer
and navigator. He had picked up a Beech Baron from Intercontinental
Airlines in Los Angeles and flown to Mexico. Since there was nothing
unusual in a flight by Colonel Shaw from Los Angeles to Mexico City,
the subpoena hounds had taken no notice.

Not so the newspaper stories telling that a new corporation, Cord
Hotels, Incorporated, had bought The Seven Voyages casino-hotel in
Las Vegas. Jonas had known the marshals would arrive with their
subpoenas in hand as soon as that word got out. Shaw's mission to
Mexico City and Acapulco had not been to afford Jonas a pleasure
jaunt but to arrange a new hiding place.

Angie helped him to disguise himself as Al String. He left for the
airport in one of the hotel's Cadillac limousines, in the company of
a group of Mexican junketeers who had spent three days at The Seven
Voyages and had undoubtedly dropped several fortunes. At the airport,
the limousines drew up to the De Havilland. The junketeers, plus
Jonas, climbed the steps into the sixteen-passenger airplane, and
shortly it took off.

When the plane had reached cruising altitude and was flying smooth
and level, Jonas went to the head in the rear, waited his turn, and
went inside. There he killed off Al String. The wig and the wax went
in the trash. He used wet paper towels to scrub the silver-gray from
his eyebrows and hair. When he returned to his seat he was not the
man who had boarded the plane. He was the man whose name and picture
appeared on his passport.

Returning to his seat, all but unnoticed by the Spanish-speaking
junketeers, he took time to observe his fellow passengers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had taught
norteamericanos
to be embarrassed by conspicuous consumption, but it did not
embarrass Mexicans. Mexican businessmen wore gaudy gold jewelry:
heavy rings with star sapphires, glittering diamonds, emeralds, also
gold wristwatches set with gems, even gold chains hanging just inside
their open collars. Their women wore furs, necklaces, bracelets,
rings, anklets. They also wore — Jonas had heard this sworn to
but could not confirm it — exquisitely jeweled but wholly
non-functional chastity belts.

Their party continued on the plane. Two hostesses in short skirts
served champagne and caviar to the roistering Mexicans.

It was inconceivable to Jonas that Sonja could have become one of
these shallow, talky, befurred, bejeweled women — or that she
could have married one of these greasy gambling-junket men.

He shook his head at the oner of champagne. He asked for bourbon
instead, and when the young woman brought it he turned and stared out
the window. They had crossed the Mexican border by now. In the
distance ahead and to the right he could see the Sierra Madre.

In early afternoon the De Havilland settled onto the runway at the
Tialpan Airport, a satellite airport for Mexico City. The Mexican
officials at this airport recognized the De Havilland and knew who
was aboard. None of them would suggest that these wealthy and
influential citizens should identify themselves to immigration
control or make a customs declaration. Those functions simply
disappeared, and the junketeers — Jonas ignored and moving with
the crowd — moved directly into the airport terminal building.

Bill Shaw was there waiting to drive him to La Plaza Real, where he
would stay for a few days before he moved on to the top floor of a
hotel in Acapulco.

Jonas sat down on the couch in the living room of his suite. Though
the Mexican government would pretend not to know he was in the
country, the hotel knew who he was; the suite was fragrant with fresh
flowers, and the bar was equipped with champagne, brandy, and with
the liquor it was understood that Señor Cord liked best:
Tennessee sour mash bourbon.

"Communication is not all it might be," said Shaw. "When
we get to Acapulco — "

"I can make local calls?"

"Oh, sure. It's the taps on the other end, in the States, that
I'm worried about."

"We have a directory?" Jonas asked.

Shaw nodded and retrieved a telephone directory from a drawer in the
Louis XV writing table where the telephone waited.

"Well, thanks, Bill. Suppose I see you later."

Sitting on the couch, sipping a small shot of whiskey, Jonas flipped
through the fat Mexico City telephone directory, half expecting not
to find the number he needed and to have to hire someone to locate —

But there it was: Escalante, Virgilio Diaz, listed at the address
Phil Wallace had wired him.

He went to the writing table and dialed the number.

"¿Quién habla?"

"Do you speak English?"

"Momenta, señor."

The moment was more than a moment, but eventually another voice came
on the line. "I speak English."