Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"We can buy a house," he said to Toni one afternoon in the spring. "Or lease an apartment in Boston." He grinned. "We can't go on living with Dave. I'm going to accelerate law school, go all summer and so on, and graduate six months earlier. Then — New York. Or would you rather live in Connecticut?"

"Bat ... What about my thing in Washington? I told you it's almost certain I'm going to be appointed an aide to Senator Spessard Holland."

He stiffened. "You mean, even if we are married, you —"

She nodded. "Of course. It's what I've wanted to do. I've planned for it, studied for it. Washington is where a person may be able to make a difference."

"What about children?" he asked.

"I don't want to have any children for a while. I want to see what I can do . Then ... There'll be time. I'm only twenty-two."

"The perfect time for children," he said.

"I didn't say I want to wait ten or fifteen years. But I didn't come to college to learn to be a housewife. That's what my mother and my stepmother are. There are more important things in this world than shopping for groceries and doing laundry and playing golf. An arrangement can be worked out, Bat. An element of it is that I'm not going to have children for a few years."

"And that's that," he said, his voice rising to a testy sneer. He got up and walked across the room. "That's the way it's gonna be, huh? You've decided."

"There is nothing we can't discuss," said Toni.

"Except that our marriage would be subordinate to your 'career'," he scoffed.

"Oh? Well ... hasn't your father's marriage — and his affairs — always been subordinate to his?"

"No. I'm not that contemptible norteamericano asshole!"

"Really? Tell me how you're going to be different."

"My ... 'father' — That man whose biology is in me, and nothing else? All right. From what I know of him, all his life he has subordinated everything to his career — his love for my mother, his love for his wife, his home, his friendships ... everything. Time says he has a daughter who never saw him until she was fourteen years old. He has a son who hasn't seen him yet. He wouldn't marry my mother. He married another woman, then walked away from her, and she divorced him ... and then he married her again. I love you, and —"

"I love you, Bat," she interrupted. "But I'm a person too. If we are going to marry, we'll have to work out something that recognizes that."

"I do recognize it."

"Then don't ask me to move into a house or apartment in Massachusetts and be there waiting for you every evening when you come home, with a roast in the oven. I'm going to Washington. I am going to Washington."

He sighed. "I guess we'd better put off marrying. For a while. Till I graduate from Harvard Law. Till you ... do whatever it is you think you have to do."

"If I didn't love you so goddamned much, I'd tell you to go to hell," she muttered. "I ought to. If I didn't love you, I would."

"I love you, too," he said.

Toni nodded. "So maybe it will work out some way. Listen, I have to be in Washington on June sixteenth. I'm going to be down there all alone, missing you so much. Come down that weekend. Promise me you'll come down that weekend."

"Sure. I'll try," he said.

She understood that meant he wouldn't. And he didn't.

BAT? WHY BAT? BECAUSE YOU'VE USED THE NAME Batista?"

Jonas and Bat were together in Bat's Porsche 356. Bat had told him that moving into a hotel floor in Acapulco was foolish, that he could live in a comfortable house in a good neighborhood here in Mexico City, for a fifth of the cost. Besides, privacy and security and communications would be easier from the city than from Acapulco.

Jonas had accepted the idea. It seemed to him that his chances of establishing a good relationship with his newfound son would be improved if he accepted the boy's suggestion about something important.

Using his contacts in the local real estate industry, Bat had found a place he thought suitable. He was driving Jonas out to have a look at it.

"I didn't make a choice of names," said Bat. "Here in Mexico I am thought of as Cord. In the States, where they don't understand the Spanish tradition of using both parents' names, I am thought of as Batista because it's the last name in the string."

Jonas sat as far as he could to the right in the somewhat cramped little car, so he could study this son of his. He found the boy bland. No, that was not right. He found him enigmatic. His life seemed to have left no mark whatever on him, and he stared at the road and the traffic ahead of them with the innocence of a young man who'd had no experiences in this world at all. Jonas looked for the mark of a soldier who had been grievously wounded, and he didn't see it. He looked for the curiosity, or maybe the resentment, an illegitimate son might feel toward the father who had abandoned his mother — and he didn't see that, either.

"You understand, I didn't know your mother was pregnant."

Bat glanced at him. "Would it have made any difference?" he asked.

"Yes — Yes, goddammit , it would have. It sure as hell would have made a difference."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Bat dryly. Neither the hard raised voice or the "goddammit" had penetrated his calm. He whipped the little car in and out in the heavy traffic.

Jonas changed the subject. "You know why I'm in Mexico, of course."

"Yes. I read the newspapers."

"I'm not a fugitive from justice," said Jonas.

"Maybe from injustice," said Bat.

"It's political."

"That's how I read it," said Bat.

Jonas nodded. "You understand about it, then?"

"I'm sure I don't have all the information. From what I know —"

"I'm probably pretty much what my reputation says I am," Jonas interrupted. "But I'm not a goddamn crook. I really am not."

"You don't have to convince me," said Bat dryly.

For a minute or so Jonas stared at the road. Then he said, "I treated your mother ill. I'm glad to see she's happy. She would not have been with me. You know? You know enough about me to understand that. Don't you?"

"Don't try to justify yourself," said Bat without taking his eyes off the traffic. "You don't need to. And if you did need to, you couldn't. She made up her mind about you a long time ago. Even now, you contacted her only because you think she might have some influence you can use, with her uncle."

"You've got your mind pretty well made up," said Jonas. "I couldn't justify myself with you, either. The fact I didn't know you existed makes no difference."

Bat glanced at his father. "Exactly," he said.

Jonas leaned against the right-hand door of the car and scowled at his son. The boy was more of a Cord than he had suspected.

"Changing the subject, I do have to ... hide."

"Why?" asked Bat. "Officially, the Mexican government doesn't know you're here. Unofficially, it won't acknowledge it. That can be arranged for very little money. Besides, I sense the American government has become bored with the chase. There have been editorials saying the government surely has something better to do than hound you. What did those editorials cost you, incidentally?"

"Jonas ... Bat. You know too fuckin' much."

Bat smiled at last. "A man can get along in this world knowing nothing. Or he can get along — maybe no better — trying to know everything."

Jonas stared at his son and nodded. "Like I said, you know too much. I didn't buy any editorials. I just fed those papers information."

"It would have been more direct to buy them," said Bat.

"So you're cynical, too."

"Cynical is another word for realistic."