Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Jonas was with him and stayed at the hospital through ten days of tests, going to the Waldorf Towers only at night. Monica came to visit Nevada. Robair came. Morris Chandler. Angie. Bat, who had known Nevada only for a little while but had impressed him favorably. And Jo-Ann, and he forgave her.

The prognosis was not good. The doctors talked of radiation therapy and chemotherapy — and six months, maximum.

Nevada said no to all of it. "Y' cain't fight nature" was the way he put it. "Anyways, why should y'? Who knows what's next? Y' fight it off, maybe y' just postponin' somethin' awful good. In all my life I only took stock in one writer. Mark Twain said he warn't afraid of where he was goin'. He'd been there before, and it didn't hurt."

A Cord company plane flew Nevada back to his ranch. He sat in his old rocker on the porch, in his buckskins, sheepskin coat, and a stained old hat; and he stared at the desert and the mountains. He told Jonas to go on about his business. He promised to call if he felt the end was near. Meantime, he would just sit and wait. He was content just to wait.

Jonas knew Nevada would never call. He promised to come back to see him, but he left him with a sense he would never see him again.

When Nevada died, Jonas called Jo-Ann.

That afternoon she left Northampton in the black Porsche he had given her for Christmas, bearing the Nevada license plate cord two. She drove to New York in three hours. And having reached the city she was not sure why she had come or what she would do. She had driven mindlessly, probably assuming she would go to the apartment on Fifty-ninth Street. Then she realized she would face a mother who would demand to know why she had left Northampton — or a mother so absorbed in whatever man was there with her that she would hardly notice that her daughter had come home. She drove past the apartment and did not stop.

She put the Porsche in a garage on Fifty-seventh Street and had dinner in a Hungarian restaurant she had learned to appreciate. When she came out and retrieved the car, it was after ten o'clock and she had to face it that she could not drive back to Northampton that night and could not cruise through the streets of Manhattan in an expensive sports car much longer. She had drunk a whole bottle of rich red Hungarian wine. A sense of urgency, not panic but approaching it, seized her.

She drove into the garage at the Waldorf Towers.

"Miss?"

She showed the garage attendant her key to the Cord apartment. She didn't know what her mother had done with hers, but Jo-Ann had never surrendered her key. The man glanced at the license plate on the Porsche and opened her door. She got out, and he drove the car down into the garage.

The key gave her access to the elevator, too. She went up. At the door she pressed the bell button before she used the key. No one responded, so she unlocked the door and entered the apartment.

When Bat came home a little before midnight he found Jo-Ann sitting on a couch in the living room. She was smoking a cigarette and had taken off her dress and her stockings and garter belt and shoes. She sat in a white silk slip.

"It's a family apartment," she said.

He nodded. "Of course. The garage man told me you were here. I'm glad to see you."

Jo-Ann nodded. A bottle of Scotch sat on the coffee table before her. The ice in her glass had long since melted, and she had been sipping Chivas Regal neat. "Nevada died," she said.

"I heard. Our father called from California. I didn't know the man as well as you did, but I understand what a great loss it is."

Jo-Ann picked up her glass and drank the little that was left of the warm whiskey. "I feel as if I'd lost a father. He was more of a father to me than Jonas ever was."

"I understand," said Bat. He sat down on the couch, at the opposite end.

"I don't think you do, but it's all right."

"I know something of the family history," said Bat.

"You grew up in odd circumstances, too. Did you have anybody to talk to?"

"My mother," he said. "My grandfather."

"Lucky you," she said despondently. She crushed her cigarette. "Jonas is nobody's father, you know."

"He's a great man."

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at him. "Do you think so? Or is that a Cord employee talking? Congratulations on your job, anyway."

He got up and went to the bar to get a glass. "A little more Scotch?" he asked.

"A splash."

He brought back two glasses, both with ice. As he poured, he glanced at her and said, "I wish we'd known each other sooner. I have two other little sisters: Rafaela and Mercedes. I was away from home during most of the years when they were growing up."

"Do you love them?" Jo-Ann asked.

Bat nodded. "Of course."

Jo-Ann scooted across the couch to sit close to him.

She reached for his hand. "You and I would have loved each other."

"Yes."

"Still can," she said.

He squeezed her hand. "Of course."

"Nevada gave me some advice," she said softly. "He told me to give my love to a man I could trust. A man who would accept responsibility for the consequences."

"That was good advice."

She lifted his hand and kissed it. "Nevada and I weren't talking about the kind of love you're thinking about."

"Jo-Ann ... ?"

"A man I can trust," she said simply, directly. Then her voice rose, and she said, "I'm a virgin , goddammit!"

Bat frowned. "You've had too much to drink."

Jo-Ann snatched up her glass and drank the Scotch he had poured. "Drunk! You think I'm drunk. No. Let me tell you what I am. I'm Jonas Cord's daughter. I'm the granddaughter of another Jonas Cord. When I heard about you, I wondered if you were a Cord at all, or some kind of fraud. There was never a Cord by the name who'd turn down a shot of whiskey or a piece of virgin pussy!"

She grabbed at the hem of her slip and pulled it up and over her head. She was wearing panties but no bra.

"Jo-Ann," he murmured.

"C'mon, big brother. You a Cord, or you not?"

"My sister —"

"My brother. So what the shit? You're the man I can trust, if you've got the guts. Brother and sister. We're gonna love each other — brother and sister, for the rest of our lives. If I can't trust my brother, who can I trust? I need your help, big brother. Besides the fucking I need from you right now, I need a standard to compare with."

"Our father —"

"Jonas will laugh if he finds out, which he doesn't have to. He'd do it himself if he were here. Only I wouldn't let him. Him , I wouldn't trust. Hey, brother! Look at me! Toni have nicer tits than these?"

For a moment Bat closed his eyes. "Oh, Christ," he muttered.

"You wouldn't know maybe, but Nevada Smith was a great man," said Jo-Ann. "Greater than our father and grandfather in some ways. He said something to me — I wrote it down when I got back to my room, and I think I've got it exactly the way he said it. He said. This thing we're talkin' about, it's mine, it's your'n, it's his'n, it's her'n. It's nobody else's but. And it's not worth moanin' and groanin' and worryin' and hurryin' about. Live, little girl! Pee when you have to and fuck when you want to.' You bastard , I want to!"

" 'Bastard.' You used the wrong word, little sister. Okay, I'll fuck you outta your mind!"

Jo-Ann grinned. "Promise? Promise it's going to be everything I've ever heard about!"

Everything she'd ever heard about.

Jo-Ann had seen pictures but had never seen a male organ before. He guided her hand to it and let her examine it with her fingers before he brought it near her. She satisfied her curiosity. She had been told it would be hard, but it wasn't hard; it was just stiff. She had been told it would be cold. She had been told it would be hot. It was neither. She curled her hand around it and squeezed it gently. A drop of gleaming moisture appeared on the rosebud of its tip. She pinched the drop off between her thumb and finger and tested it. It was slippery.