Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Bat?" asked one of the firm's junior partners.

"Well, you aren't going to call him Jonas , for Christ's sake," said Dave. "Bat and I go back a long way. He was my platoon leader during the late unpleasantness."

"Dave saved my life," said Bat solemnly.

"Bull," said Dave. "If I had anything to do with it, it was only because he was fool enough to run across the Ludendorff Bridge as if it were the Brooklyn Bridge."

"I was in the Pacific," said the junior partner. "Anyway, we're glad to have another name for this guy, also to know we've got a genuine hero in the office."

"Hero — Oh, come on!" Bat complained. "Dave, you've got a big mouth."

A little later, as Bat and Dave stood at a window looking down on the street, Dave said, "Take the opportunity while you're in New York and get yourself admitted to the New York bar."

"I'm already admitted," said Bat. "I took the New York bar exam before I went back to Mexico."

"Good. Get all the admissions you can. And, hey, it's none of my business, but have you seen your father yet?"

Bat nodded. "He has an apartment in the Waldorf Towers, would you believe? I met him in Mexico, actually. He's not in town very often, but when he was here, a week or so ago, he invited me to dinner at '21'."

"How 'bout Toni?"

Bat drew a breath and sighed. "I suppose I ought to go down to Washington and see her."

"When did you see her last?"

"Well, it's been ... a year."

Dave shook his head. "Maybe you better stay away from her. After all that time, she's probably made other arrangements."

Toni had cheered herself hoarse, but when she sat down over a Scotch and soda later with Nick Gargagliano she shook her head and sighed and admitted, "We don't have a chance."

They had driven from Washington to Baltimore to be present at a campaign rally for Adlai Stevenson. She couldn't think of a man in public life that she admired more, but she knew he would not be elected President of the United States.

"It's not that bad," said Nick, who was always the optimist.

"Not? It's worse. The great war hero is going to be elected President — and that slimy little creature from California will be elected with him. There's not a goddamned thing we can do to stop it."

Nick had ordered a plate of steamers and a mug of beer. Toni didn't feel like eating and was sipping Scotch and glancing around for the waiter who would bring her another one. She had started smoking again since she didn't see Bat anymore, and she inhaled the thick smoke from a Chesterfield.

They sat side by side in a high-backed wooden booth painted with shiny red enamel, facing a table painted the same way but blackened with dozens of cigarette burns. They had privacy, and Nick was casually fondling her left breast. She allowed this. She allowed more, though she had never done with him some of the things she had done with Bat.

Nicholas Gargagliano was assistant to the director of the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, Department of Labor. He was an exceptionally handsome man, with dark curly hair, a long jaw with the blue shadow of a beard always showing, active brown eyes, and a puckish smile. He was about forty years old and came from a county in southern Oklahoma known as an Italian enclave where wonderful red wine was somehow made, to the amazement of the Oklahomans.

"I just can't believe the voters would trust the country to those people," said Nick.

"Neither can my stepmother," said Toni. "But we have to face it."

"Toni ... I won't have a job if it happens. I think I can stay in Washington, though. I've talked with Reuther. I think there'll be a job for me with the United Auto Workers. I've got no promise, but I do have encouragement. I'm going to drive out to Oklahoma next week. I'll be back in two weeks. I was hoping you'd come with me. I'd like to introduce you to my family."

Toni stared at the table, smiled, and shook her head. "I'll be spending a lot of time in Florida between now and November. My senator is on the ballot, after all."

"Besides, I'm getting ahead of things, huh?"

"Nick, I didn't say that. I simply said I have obligations."

"Well — Yeah, sure. Of course. Obligations."

They didn't go back to Washington that night. They spent the night in a motel on the highway between Baltimore and Washington. She had to change clothes before she could go to the office, so Nick dropped her at her apartment, very early in the morning.

She went in. The two young women with whom she shared the apartment were asleep. She took a shower and stretched out on her bed in her panties and bra, thinking she might doze a little but not meaning to go to sleep. She did though.

"Hey, kiddo!"

She came awake and glanced at the clock. Oh, my god, it was after eight! Time to get moving.

"You had a call last night. You know a guy in New York by the name of Bat something? He wants you to call him. I left his number on the back cover of the phone book, the number in a heavy square. Okay?"

Bat's call to Toni had been prompted by an invitation from his father. It had been made over dinner in Jonas's apartment in the Waldorf Towers.

"I haven't yet congratulated you on the way you got the Senate subpoenas quashed," said Bat.

"Months ago," said Jonas.

"When we had dinner before, I knew they had been withdrawn, but I didn't know how you did it."

"Phil Wallace is a good lawyer," said Jonas, "but in all modesty, the way we got the Senate politicians off our back was my idea."

"A triple-damages anti-trust action," said Bat, nodding.

"Right. I figured all along that the senators didn't care about gate positions for Inter-Continental Airlines. The problem was that certain senators were in the back pockets of certain airline executives. Hell, I've got a couple on the string myself. So I had Phil and his co-counsel dig around a little, looking for evidence of collusion on the part of three airline companies. They found enough to justify the suit. I don't know if we would have won, but for the next three or four years we'd have been dropping subpoena after subpoena on them and digging through their files. Besides, their attorney fees —"

"What about your own attorney fees?"

"I don't pay fees," said Jonas. "I pay retainers. Phil Wallace and his partners get a flat one million dollars a year from me, whether they do any work for me or not — though I always have plenty of work for them. I've got other firms on smaller retainers, like Wilson, Clark and York and Gurza y Aroza. Besides which, I've got a dozen staff lawyers on my payroll. The antitrust suit wouldn't have increased my legal costs much."

"Anyway, you scared them off," said Bat.

"Anyway, I scared them off. They asked the senators to drop the investigation, which the senators were glad to do."

"Everybody in the office talks about it," said Bat. "With a certain amount of — Awe, I guess I'd call it."

"I guess you're entitled to congratulations yourself, in a sense," said Jonas. "Your great-uncle is President of Cuba again."

"I'd like it better if he'd been elected," said Bat. "It was a military coup d'etat, or as the Germans would call it, a putsch. He'll loot the country."

"That's the way things are done in Latin America, isn't it?" Jonas asked.

"All too often," said Bat.

They were served at the table by a tall, spare black man named Robair. Jonas had explained earlier that Robair had been houseman to the first Jonas, so had served the family for something like forty years. Now, as Robair was pouring wine, Jonas remarked that he knew more about the Cords than the Cords knew about themselves.

"No man is a hero to his valet," said Bat.

"Lord Chesterfield," said Jonas.