Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Jonas grinned. "You inherited something from me — and from your grandfather. You — you wouldn't mind using the name Cord?"

"Here in Mexico, I am Cord. It is only in the States that they have that confused."

"And everyone knows you're my son?"

"Everyone."

Jonas closed his eyes for a moment. "Everyone but me. I didn't know I had a son. Are ... are you married?"

"No."

"Have a girl? A prospect?"

"Maybe. Not really, I guess. I thought I did, but she's a career woman."

"Meaning what?"

"I asked her to marry me, and she accepted. Then she was appointed an aide to a United States senator and went to Washington. Three years ago. I've seen her a couple of times since."

"I'm glad to hear there's some way in which you're a damned fool."

"Meaning what?"

"Either you were a fool to ask her to marry you in the first place, or you were a fool to resent her wanting a career of her own. Which was it?"

"It's personal," said Bat glumly.

"Fathers and sons tend to discuss personal things with each other," said Jonas.

"I wouldn't know about that."

"Neither would I," said Jonas. "My father never talked about anything personal with me, except to raise hell with me about something or other. It was only after he died that somebody told me he once said he loved me."

Bat took his eyes off the road and looked at Jonas. He frowned and shook his head.

"If I'd known I had a son —"

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't guess."

"It may be just as well," said Bat. "I'm not sure I could have coped with you."

"But you can now, hmm?" Jonas asked.

Bat smiled. "Well ... We'll see."

"Are you going to handle this business with the Mexican government for me? I mean, letting me stay in the country and so on."

"I'm a very new lawyer. My firm can handle it."

"All right. You've brought in a client. I'll have a variety of legal problems for your firm. But understand something. Anything that's personal and confidential, I want you to handle it. You have a stake in it, you know."

"What's that mean?"

"You're my heir , you damned fool. What did you think?"

"Heir?" Bat asked, tossing up his chin. "I learned in law school that you can't refuse a legacy, so that you have to pay inheritance taxes even if you don't want the inheritance. You have to accept the inheritance and pay the taxes out of it, before you can get rid of it. But don't do me any favors until I decide if I want them."

Mexico City was a city of startling contrasts. Downtown, high-rise office buildings rose above broad avenues. Out a little, people lived in what had to be the world's most squalid slums. The villa Bat had found was located in as pleasant a suburban neighborhood as Jonas had ever seen.

The house had a red tile roof above ocher stucco walls. In the Mediterranean style, it faced the street and its neighbors with windowless walls. All the windows opened on its central courtyard, affording views of a green pool inhabited by large goldfish that swam placidly among lily pads. The goldfish were so tame you could reach down in the water and pick one up. Chameleons scampered among the shrubs, wary of the sharp-eyed birds that watched them from branches and occasionally swooped down and caught one. The rooms were all large, with dark wood floors and white plaster walls. The furniture was heavy, most of it upholstered with leather of various colors, from black to coffee-with-cream tan. The villa suited Jonas very well.

A man and wife worked as household staff: the woman as cook, maid, and laundress, her husband as gardener and houseman. They lived in a suite of rooms at the rear of the house.

Bill Shaw stayed with him and occupied a room on the south side. He had brought Jonas's telephone scrambler, and they attached it to the house line, Jonas called for Angie, and she came down.

Bat came to see him nearly every day, so often that Jonas began to wonder if he came to see him or to see Angie. The young man was not subtle about his admiration for his father's woman. He stared at her legs. It amused her, and she would allow her skirt to creep up. When she noticed him staring at her breasts, she would shrug and thrust them forward. Their little game amused Jonas at first, then ceased to amuse him.

Bat suggested they go to a bullfight on Sunday afternoon. "It's not one of my favorite spectacles, but everybody should see it once."

He bought them good seats in the shade, where they were surrounded by happy aficionados. A noisier and more exuberant crowd sat in the sun on the opposite side. The spectacle was, as Bat had said, something everyone should see once, for the color and the horses and the brassy music, if not for the killing of bulls.

Angie sat between Jonas and Bat, drawing honest stares. She wore a white dress and a white picture hat. She sat with her legs crossed at the ankles, the way finishing schools taught; and no one, especially not Bat, guessed that her finishing school had been a women's reformatory. She studied her program for some time, then turned to Bat and said, "I hope the score is matadors seven, bulls one. I think the bulls should be entitled to win occasionally."

After the first fight, a group of American tourists got up and left. One of the women had fainted — or pretended to — when the bull's blood gushed from its neck. One of the men, wearing a panama hat, a light-blue suit, and white shoes, proclaimed indignantly that bullfighting was no sport and was brutality practiced to entertain brutes.

" ¿Que quiere usted decir? " Bat asked innocently: What do you mean? He judged his group looked norteamericano , too, and he wanted the angry Mexicans seated around them to think they weren't. The tourist in the panama hat shot him a hard look as he bustled by. Bat turned to the Mexicans sitting around them, turned up his palms, turned down the corners of his mouth, and shrugged. The people laughed.

In the second fight, Angie got her wish. The matador was gored and thrown. The bulls did win occasionally.

"It's no secret that I'm in Mexico City," Jonas said to Bat as they waited for the third fight. "Someone knew how to find me."

"Who?" Bat asked.

"A man by the name of Luis Basurto. Ever hear of him?"

"I've heard of him," said Bat. "What's he want?"

Their conversation was interrupted by the cry of a boy selling chewing gum and candy. " ¡Chicle! ¡Chocolate! " — Cheek-leh, Choco-lawt-eh.

"He wants to interest me in investing in a Mexican hotel deal."

Bat shook his head. "Basurto is a crook."

"That simple?"

"That simple. Are you interested in investing in a Mexican hotel?"

"Well, I bought The Seven Voyages," said Jonas. "I'm going to make it pay, too. I'm looking for at least one more."

"There's no legal gambling in Mexico."

"Well, that's what —"

" ¡Chicle! ¡Chocolate! "

"— that's what Basurto says he can take care of."

"I expect he can," said Bat dryly. "But it would be damned risky. What would happen is, you'd invest in the hotel and pay him a fee to do whatever he does to get officials to look the other way; and then as time went by he'd up the fee and up it again, claiming the locals were demanding more. He'd take a percentage off you. If you didn't pay him what he wanted, he'd have you raided. He'd have you closed down. That's the way he works. He invests nothing, but he takes a percentage."

"I imagine there are ways of handling him," said Jonas.

"He'd have you at a disadvantage. This is his turf, you know. Anyway, why buy into trouble?"

"Well, he's coming out to see me. What do I say to him?"

"Say, 'This is my son Jonas Enrique Raul Cord y Batista, a lawyer with the firm of Gurza y Aroza. That firm will be advising me.' Basurto won't even make the proposition. He'll just pass the time of day and say he's pleased to have met you. And good-bye."