Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

" ¡Chicle! ¡Chocolate! "

"There will be others besides Basurto," said Bat. "Some of them entirely legitimate. They will invite you to invest."

"Do you want to vet them for me?" asked Jonas.

"I'll be happy to."

After a week, Angie returned to Las Vegas. After she was gone, Sonja called, asking Jonas to come to Cordoba and spend a weekend at the hacienda. Bat would drive him. Jonas agreed, and on Friday afternoon Bat picked him up in the Porsche. He gave him an exciting ride, at speeds sometimes greater than 160 kilometers per hour.

The hacienda was actually some distance to the east of Cordoba. It was situated on a mountainside, and on clear days a very distant view of the Gulf of Mexico could be seen from the windows.

Sonja was the chatelaine of the hacienda, mistress over an extended family and a dozen servants. The mountain land had once been a working sheep and cattle ranch. In years past, Sonja explained, the family had sold the land cheap and on good terms to tenant farmers and farm laborers who now worked all but about fifty hectares of land immediately adjacent to the house. The family kept the house as a home, but the income to maintain it came from oil and other investments.

She showed Jonas the thickness of the outer walls: a meter and more. The dining room had once been a chapel. A pantry had once been an arsenal. The swimming pool had been dug out of the rocky land that had once been a courtyard enclosed by high walls, now torn down, and the well that supplied the pool with water had been inside those walls.

"The place was built to sustain a siege," she said. "Once in fact it was attacked by Zapatistas." She smiled. "And the people inside surrendered."

She gave him the bedroom suite that Fulgencio Batista used when he came to visit — which he occasionally did. Emiliano Zapata had slept two nights in that same room.

She introduced Jonas to one of Bat's half brothers and one of his half sisters. The others were away: the boy in school in France and the girl living with her husband in the States.

The half sister, whose name was Rafaela, told Jonas how Bat had saved her life by shooting a rattlesnake with a pistol.

"You lived in a handsome home," Jonas said to Bat as they stood on a stone terrace looking at the distant sea.

"I didn't live here long," said Bat. "I went away to school."

Over dinner, Jonas stared at Sonja as much as he could without being noticed. He was sure what he had said to Bat had been right: that she was living a better life than he would have given her. Still, he couldn't help reflect on what might have been. He might have lived his own life very differently if he'd known she was carrying his child and had married her. On the other hand, he might have resented her, as men tend to do when they marry women they have made pregnant without intending to.

He remembered her bright wonder as they crossed the Atlantic twice on the big liners. He remembered her gratitude. Painfully, he remembered the hurt he'd dealt her when he left her. He had been simply unable to believe she was as innocent as she was.

A rationalization. He had known.

Now here she was, still beautiful, and now sophisticated and dignified.

She'd brought the boy up wonderfully. It was going to be a pleasure to introduce him to Nevada Smith.

In the Old World tradition, the women left the table after dinner, and the men remained for coffee, brandy, and cigars — Bat and Jonas and Virgilio Escalante. Virgilio and Bat wore white suits. Jonas didn't have one and wore a summer-weight tan suit.

"The price of oil is down," Bat said to Virgilio.

"It will come back," said Virgilio.

"When the price of oil goes down," Bat said to Jonas, "they don't pump as much. Which means that not only do they get less per barrel but they don't sell as many barrels. It makes income fluctuate wildly."

"I never invested in oil," said Jonas. "It has always impressed me as a business in which a fool and his money are soon parted." He nodded at Virgilio Escalante and added, "I mean, señor, it is a business where a man should not venture unless he is knowledgeable about that business."

Virgilio smiled. He was a graying, compact man who could, so far as appearance was concerned, have been a native of the United States or any country in Europe. "I understood your meaning," he said.

"I've never invested in uranium either," said Jonas. "For the same reason. It's a legitimate business in which some men are making fortunes. But for those who don't know what they're doing —" He shook his head.

"You've invested in a casino-hotel," said Bat.

"I have an experienced, knowledgeable consultant on my payroll."

"When I was last in the States," said Bat, "I saw Cord television sets in the stores."

"We're not as successful in the field as RCA or General Electric," said Jonas, "but I think we can compete with Philco, Zenith, Magnavox, DuMont, Emerson, Sylvania, and the like."

"I am hoping to see television broadcasting in Mexico before too much longer," said Virgilio. "I am afraid the broadcasting will be government-controlled, however. It is in most countries."

They had no bourbon in the house, so Jonas carried half a bottle of brandy to his room. He took a bath, stretched out on his bed, and looked through an English-language book he had found in the library. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. He'd heard about it for many years but had never read it. He'd never had the time. Starting it now, he didn't find it terribly interesting and was about to put it aside when someone knocked on his bedroom door.

God! Not Sonja. Surely not ...

No, not Sonja. When he opened the door he found Virgilio standing there.

"May I come in?"

"Of course."

Two chairs faced the small fireplace, and the two men sat down. Jonas had undressed for bed. He hadn't brought a robe, so he'd pulled on his pants before he went to the door. Virgilio was still wearing the white suit he'd worn at dinner.

"I hope you will forgive the intrusion," said Virgilio. "I hope even more you will forgive the reason for it."

Jonas nodded. "Would you like some brandy?"

"No, thank you. I ... I am most embarrassed about what I am about to say. After dinner, when Bat spoke of the price of oil and the wide fluctuations we experience in oil income, he was not prompted by me, but he was explaining something that I would otherwise have had to explain."

Jonas knew what was coming. He was about to be touched for a loan.

"Even the past few months' diminished income would have been entirely sufficient ... but for one thing. I have been very foolish in Las Vegas. I am heavily indebted to the casinos, which of course expect payment. I need time. When the price of oil recovers, which it will, I shall be in a position to pay in full, with reasonable interest. For the moment —" He turned up the palms of his hands.

"How much do you owe?" asked Jonas.

"More than a quarter of a million dollars," said Virgilio glumly. "I owe the Flamingo a hundred ten thousand. I owe The Seven Voyages a hundred sixty-five thousand. Imagine my surprise and embarrassment when I learned that you own The Seven Voyages."

"You gamble badly," said Jonas. "Do you have other expensive habits?"

"No," said Virgilio humbly. "I am loyal to my wife — I mean, as loyal as any man; I have ventured but have never kept another woman. Like any man. No significant money."

Jonas was distressed that the man would bare himself this way. He demeaned himself, confessing his peccadilloes to a man who was almost a stranger to him. "You have what we call a cash-flow problem," he said to Virgilio.

"I believe that is the term."

Jonas's mind worked fast. This man had reared his son for him — and reared him well. He decided.