JC2 The Raiders (27 page)

"I made no commitment," said Bat. "I had no authority
to make a commitment."

"But you think it may not be a bad deal?"

"It may not. The Floresta is known for quiet, sumptuous rooms,
good food, and an interesting swimming pool set partly in living rock
and surrounded with flowering shrubs and palms. Americans stay there.
They come back to it as a refuge after a night in the gaudy, flashy
places. Lansky means to keep it that way. The casino and show room
would be in a separate wing. He wants to do higher-quality shows than
are done at most of the Havana clubs. And of course the gambling will
be honest."

"Do you trust Lansky?"

Jonas lifted his glass and took a sip of Jack Daniel's Black Label.
It impressed Bat as a strange thing to be drinking with the famous
Four Seasons crab cakes, but that was not the only strange habit his
father had.

"No, and I don't trust Great-Uncle Fulgencio either. But let me
tell you something about Meyer Lansky. In this country his reputation
is that he's a gangster and nothing but. You know — 'the
Chairman of the Board.' He —"

"It's exaggerated," said Jonas.

"When the government wanted the cooperation of Lucky Luciano in
1942, they used Lansky as the go-between," said Bat.

"I doubt that."

Bat shrugged. "You can look it up. I did."

"Did your homework, huh?"

"In the States," Bat continued, "Lansky is known as a
gangster. In Cuba he's thought of as a businessman. And not just by
Fulgencio Batista."

"He couldn't get a Nevada gaming license," said Jonas. "But
for all his reputation, he has no criminal record. In his entire life
he's spent only three months in jail."

"He couldn't be a silent partner in the Floresta," said
Bat. "It would be his reputation that would attract the high
rollers."

"We wouldn't buy the hotel, I assume," said Jonas.

"No. We'd build the wing for the casino and show room. The
owners of the hotel would lease the wing to us. But we'd pay no cash
for the lease for, say, fifty months, until we got our investment
back."

"Who owns the Floresta?" asked Jonas.

Bat grinned. "A real estate group in Havana. But if this deal
goes through, ten percent of it will be owned by my Great-Uncle
Fulgencio."

"Insurance?" asked Jonas.

"Whatever you want to call it. I'm glad I went to Cuba. It was
worth the trip to meet Lansky. He told me something we are going to
have to think about."

"What?"

"Our friend Morris Chandler has been talking to some pretty
rough characters. For one, Jimmy Hoffa went to Vegas and met with
him."

"I know," said Jonas. "Angie saw him and called me."

"That's not the half of it," said Bat. "Lansky says
he's been in touch with men like Murray the Camel in Chicago and
Anthony Provenzano in New Jersey. If he's working for us, why would
he contact people like that?"

"Because Nevada Smith is dead," said Jonas. He put down a
gulp of whiskey. "That's why."

"Meaning?"

"He and Nevada were close. Besides, I think Nevada had something
on him. With Nevada gone — Chandler resented my taking over The
Seven Voyages. He doesn't like the way I make him run it. I'd guess
he wants to muscle us out."

"
Buy
us out?"

Jonas shook his head. "Muscle us out. Your assignment is to get
out to Las Vegas and take over the hotel. The Cuban thing is a
sideshow. Where I want you is Las Vegas."

Bat nodded as he lifted a forkful of crab cake to his mouth. "Las
Vegas? What am I going to be doing in Las Vegas?"

"As of today you're a vice president of Cord Hotels," he
said. "The corporate headquarters is the fifth floor of The
Seven Voyages."

Bat shook his head. "Wait a minute. Our deal
is that I learn the business, the
overall
business, not just
the hotel business. In New York or Los Angeles."

"I ran the overall business from the fifth floor of The Seven
Voyages for months," said Jonas.

"But —"

"What do you think I'm doing? Sending you into exile? We'll be
in touch every day."

"About the hotel business."

"Right now, about the hotel business chiefly.
Jesus Christ, you've got to start somewhere! Right now, that's where
I
need
you. I'm running a
business.
You're my son, and
I want you with me. But you've got to go where I need you. Learn the
business? Okay, learn the hotel business first. Then — Well,
each piece in time."

Bat shook his head. "This isn't the deal we made. Las Vegas, for
Christ's sake?"

"As a vice president of Cord Hotels, Incorporated, your salary
will be a hundred thousand," said Jonas as he lifted his glass
to sip bourbon.

"You can be very
persuasive," said Bat. "Said another way, you have ways of
getting what you want out of people."

Bat arrived in Las Vegas on an Inter-Continental
corporate Beech flown from Los Angeles. From the moment he saw the
town, he didn't much like it. It was what Meyer Lansky had called it:
a dusty desert town. Only Lansky hadn't added that it was a
pretentious
dusty desert town. Without Nevada's laws allowing
casino gambling, it would be nothing.

Though he hadn't said so to anyone, he hadn't much cared for the Cord
ranch either, or for the land around it. As somebody in the army had
put it, "Y' seen one boondocks, y' seen 'em all."

The ranch house was in distinct contrast to the hacienda house near
Cordoba. The hacienda house had style. The ranch house had fashion.
Las Vegas had neither. The Seven Voyages was a plastic dump.

"I'll take over the top floor, all of it, for the company
headquarters," Bat said to Chandler within five minutes after
they met.

"I explained to your father, that'll cost money," said
Chandler.

"I may need part of the fourth floor, too," said Bat.

Chandler shrugged. "You're the boss."

"I'm glad you understand that. Angie will be my father's
personal and confidential assistant when he's in town, mine when he's
not. The rest of my personal staff will be coming in from Los Angeles
and Mexico City."

"Whatever you say, boss."

"Don't call me boss."

"What do you want me to call you?" Chandler asked.

"Until we know each other a little better, you can call me Mr.
Cord," said Bat. Then he grinned and walked over to where
Chandler was sitting and slapped him on the shoulder. "I figure
we'll know each other better in about fifteen minutes, and then you
can call me Bat."

As soon as Chandler was out of the suite and on the private elevator,
Bat turned to Angie and said, "I'm hot. I want to go swimming.
You have a bathing suit handy?"

"Uh ... Sure. In my room."

"See you at the pool in ten minutes," said Bat.

She appeared in a white two-piece swimsuit and white high-heel shoes.
Swimsuits that exposed the navel and a little below were just
beginning to appear in the States and were being called bikinis, and
Angie attracted stares as she crossed the pool deck and sat down
beside Bat at an umbrella table.

"You are a luscious woman," he told her. "If you
didn't have a relationship with my father — "

"If I didn't have a relationship with your father, I'd be glad
to have one with you," she said soberly. "Let's understand,
though, what that relationship is. I love your father. I don't
suppose he loves me, at least not the way I love him, but I do love
him; I don't just sleep with him."

He put a hand on hers. "I asked you to meet me down here because
we have to establish some new rules. I've hired a company in Los
Angeles to come here and sweep the hotel for hidden microphones and
the like. Until that's done, no business talk in the offices or
rooms. Also, none on the telephones until I have new lines
installed."

"Someone said you're tougher than your father."

"Not at all. Not a question of tough. Question of realistic.
When you called my father and told him Hoffa had been here, he was
grateful. I have to wonder if Chandler doesn't know you made that
call."

"If he did?"

"It puts you on his shit list," said Bat.

"I'm on it anyway."

"It's something more than just personal," Bat said. "Las
Vegas is immensely attractive to organized crime, and they're moving
in more and more. In times past, guys were making money by skimming
the casino take. Now it's something more. Have you heard of the term
money laundering?"

"I've heard of it," said Angie.

"A lot of secret money from a variety of rackets is laundered in
Las Vegas. Some of it is being laundered in Cuba now. Money
laundering makes casinos all the more important to the rackets."

Angie nodded. "You know I did time in a federal pokey, don't
you?"

"I do know that, Angie. If my father doesn't worry about it
— which obviously he doesn't
— then I don't either. So far
as I am concerned, we can forget all about it."

"Thank you, Bat," she said softly. "Anyway, I learned
more about this kind of thing than I wanted to know."

"Anyway," said Bat, "we are going to have to watch
out."

"Bat ... they are dangerous," she said solemnly.

When Bat's bug sweepers worked the fourth and fifth floors of The
Seven Voyages they did find hidden microphones. Several of them were
hidden in the telephones. Others were behind pictures, in the bases
of lamps, in the upholstery of chairs, and in the box springs of
beds. The telephones were tapped, as he had expected. The bug
sweepers killed all the bugs and removed all the taps. They left
devices that would detect new ones. Bat contracted with them to
return at irregular intervals to sweep again.

He said nothing to Chandler about the bugs and
taps, and Chandler said nothing to him. It was remotely possible —
very
remotely possible — that Morris Chandler didn't
know. Bat considered having Chandler's office swept but decided not
to.

He settled into the fifth-floor suite his father had occupied two
years before. Toni flew out from Washington to spend a week with him.
She disliked Las Vegas as much as he did.

"It's about as
cheap
a place as I've
ever seen."

"Actually, it's one of the most expensive places I've ever
seen."

"How long will you be here, Bat?"

"Only as long as I have to be."

He saw Morris Chandler every day, but in October Chandler asked for
an appointment and came up to talk with him.

"A couple of guys coming in from the East want to meet with
you."

Bat shrugged. "I'll meet with just about anybody. Who do you
have in mind?"

"A couple of men with money to invest," said Chandler.

"Do you want to tell me who they are?"

"Mr. David Beck and Mr. James Hoffa," said Chandler. "Mr.
Beck is the president of —"

"Dave Beck is president of the International Teamsters. Jimmy
Hoffa is his bag man. I know who you mean."

"The union has hundreds of millions of dollars in its pension
fund," said Chandler. "It is looking for investments.
Knowing that you and your father want to build another casino-hotel
in Las Vegas — "

"They want to be partners," said Bat. "Not likely.
I'll meet with them. But partnership ... Not likely."

Bat called New York, and four days later, Jonas arrived. The next
day, Beck and Hoffa arrived and were taken up to the fifth floor.

Bat had no difficulty in seeing Jimmy Hoffa for what he was and would
have recognized him for it if he had read nothing about him. He'd met
the type in the army: scrappy, cocky little street bullies. Some of
them had smarts, too. Hoffa did. Hoffa was a street tough, and he was
short-tempered and quick with his fists, but he was shrewd. Dave Beck
was something else: a fat thug, a straw-hatted waddling hunk of
grease.

Morris Chandler treated them with oily respect. He introduced them to
Bat and suggested which chairs they might like. He had already
ordered a cart of liquor and snacks.

Little time was wasted on small talk. Beck came to the point.

"Your company is operating what is probably the most profitable
hotel-casino in town," he said, speaking directly to Jonas. "We
understand you want to build another one and maybe a third one.
Obviously you have expertise. You have the connections that get the
gaming licenses. We have capital. The Central States Pension Fund is
looking for secure investments with more than conservative return.
Some of your money ... And some of ours ... Some of your savvy ...
And some of ours ..."

"I control my businesses," said Jonas.

"I control my union," said Beck. "Like, you've never
had any problem with drivers refusing to back trucks up to your docks
because they don't exactly meet safety standards. Inter-Continental
Airlines has some real problems with non-standard loading docks, but
we've never made an issue of it. You see what I mean? One hand washes
the other."

"One hand washes the other," Jonas agreed. "Before we
could do business, though, you'd have to wash your hands."

"What the hell's that mean?" barked Hoffa.

"To start with, Tony Pro," said Jonas.

"Whatta ya mean by that?"

"Tony Provenzano," said Jonas. "He may be a great guy,
but I don't want to do business with him. There are others."

"Are you gonna tell me who I can associate with?" asked
Beck angrily.

"Not at all. But I'm gonna tell you who
I'll
associate with."

Beck looked at Chandler. "I don't think Mr. Cord has been
listening."

"Why bother?" asked Bat.

They stood, and Hoffa strode up to Bat. "Who
the hell are you,
sonny
?" he asked, his saliva spraying.

"I'll tell you who I'm not," said Bat. "I'm not a
cheap little street punk. That's who I'm not."

Hoffa danced like a boxer and threw a punch. It glanced off Bat's
left cheek, stinging but not hurting. Hoffa danced some more, his
fists up, ready to try again. Bat smiled faintly and kicked him
sharply on the shin. Hoffa yelled and was distracted for the instant
it took Bat to drive a fist hard into his solar plexus. Stunned,
Hoffa dropped his hands, and Bat flattened his nose with a left jab,
then broke his front teeth with a right cross.