Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Not at all. But I'm gonna tell you who I'll associate with."

Beck looked at Chandler. "I don't think Mr. Cord has been listening."

"Why bother?" asked Bat.

They stood, and Hoffa strode up to Bat. "Who the hell are you, sonny ?" he asked, his saliva spraying.

"I'll tell you who I'm not," said Bat. "I'm not a cheap little street punk. That's who I'm not."

Hoffa danced like a boxer and threw a punch. It glanced off Bat's left cheek, stinging but not hurting. Hoffa danced some more, his fists up, ready to try again. Bat smiled faintly and kicked him sharply on the shin. Hoffa yelled and was distracted for the instant it took Bat to drive a fist hard into his solar plexus. Stunned, Hoffa dropped his hands, and Bat flattened his nose with a left jab, then broke his front teeth with a right cross.

"Open the door, Chandler!" Bat yelled. When Chandler hesitated, Bat yelled again.

Chandler opened the door. Bat grabbed the reeling Hoffa by the nape of the neck and seat of the pants and threw him into the hall. Hoffa rolled across the floor and against the elevator doors.

Dave Beck, crimson-faced, shrieked at Jonas, "You'll regret this till the day you die!"

Jonas snapped a punch against his nose, splattering blood. "That's just a sample of what you'll get if you try calling a strike on me, you sleazy tub of lard," he said. "You get out of town. I don't want to see you here again."

TONI SOMETIMES FORGOT ABOUT THE TIME ZONES AND phoned Bat as soon as she arrived at her office. Her calls woke him.

"Can you keep a secret?" she asked at six-fifteen in the morning.

"Yeah ... Yeah, sure. What you got in mind, honey?"

"Is this phone line clear?"

"Clear. Clear. What you got in mind?"

"A federal grand jury has returned a secret indictment. It will be announced this afternoon. They've charged Dave Beck under enough specifications to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life!"

"What about Hoffa?"

"Not Hoffa. But the whole damned gang will be tied up in knots, trying to keep their boss out of the slammer. I don't think you have to worry about them for a while, Bat. That is ... until Beck is gone and Hoffa takes over."

"Well, thanks. I guess there's nothing like having a girlfriend in the Senate."

"That's something else, Bat. In the spring I'll have been a Senate aide four years. I'm leaving. I've given the senator my resignation."

" And ... ?"

"I'm going to work for The Washington Post. As a political reporter."

"I see."

"For a while, Bat. For a while."

"Okay."

"Bat, I —"

"I couldn't ask you to come and live in Vegas," he interrupted. "You hate it more than I do."

"Bat ... We're not yet thirty years old! There's time !"

"Sure, babe. When will I see you?"

"If you don't come East in the next month, I'll come out there. Deal?"

"Deal," he grunted. He turned over and went back to sleep.

During her spring break in 1954, Jo-Ann flew to Las Vegas. She said she would like to drive her Porsche, and she didn't care if she ever went back to Smith College, but Jonas, Monica, and Bat all discouraged her from that plan and insisted she fly.

"You bastard," she said. "Oops! Sorry, Bat. I mean, you son of a — Well, that's not so good either. Why in hell did you have me put in a suite on the second floor, when ..."

They were standing in the living room of the suite he used as an office, embracing, kissing. "Little sister," he said. "Get this straight. We are not going to sleep together." He ran a hand through her silky dark hair and down her cheek. "I'm not saying I wouldn't like to. But I told you the one time was all the times, and that's the way it's got to be. You're my sister , goddammit!"

"Pretty good piece of pussy, too, aren't I?"

Her warm young body, bound up in nylon and rubber bra and panty girdle, was firm and pointy and all but irresistible. But he resisted it. "Ruin your life, ruin mine," he said. "I'm glad we were together once, but we can't do it anymore."

"Coward."

"Jo-Ann ... You drink too much."

"I'm the daughter of Jonas and Monica. If that didn't make a girl drink, what would?"

He sighed. "We'll talk about that later. I've got an agent and his girl dancer coming in for an audition. Why don't you sit down and watch?"

"Audition?"

"For the show. In the show room downstairs. I've started booking the shows myself. You know how it is. I was supposed to be a company lawyer. Instead I find myself managing a hotel."

"What about Chandler?"

"Chandler does his job. Booking talent isn't part of it. I took that away from him. Relax. Sit down and have a light Scotch. An agent named Sam Stein is bringing up a dancer named Margit Little. The girl is going to show us what she can do."

Sam Stein was a small man, wearing a faultlessly tailored gray double-breasted suit. He was bald, and his face was cherubic and looked as if it had been drawn in sharp, unshaded lines by a skillful cartoonist.

As he had promised, Margit Little was cute. Her big round blue eyes spoke wondering innocence. Her light-brown hair was tied down tight. She was probably nineteen years old, maybe only eighteen.

"Margit has real talent," said Stein. "I don't want for her just a place in the chorus. She should be a featured dancer. She can sing a little also, nothing too challenging. She has brought a record. You have a player?"

Bat had a high-fidelity record player in the suite. He put the seven-inch record the girl offered on the turntable. She removed her skirt and shoes to dance, and danced barefoot in black leotards cut high on her hips. Her first number was classical, akin to ballet. When she was finished she asked Bat to turn the record over, and she danced then to a fast, rhythmic jazz number.

When she finished and bent over to retrieve her skirt and shoes, Stein rubbed his hands together. "She has talent, yes?"

"She has talent, yes," Bat agreed.

"When did you become a judge of talent, big brother?" asked Jo-Ann.

Bat smiled at the little girl and said, "You don't have to be a judge to know talent when you see it." He turned and spoke to Stein. "I'd like to have her in a show, Mr. Stein. My only problem is, I'm not sure where I put her. She can't dance in the bar. I can only use singers there. In the show room I've got a revue. I can't slot her into it, I don't think."

"I have a bigger proposition for you, Mr. Cord," said Stein. "Your revue has been running a long time. Have you thought about a new production?"

"Proposition," said Bat.

"Glenda Grayson," said Stein. "And Margit. An unforgettable show."

Brother, sister, and Sam Stein sat at a table in The Roman Circus in Los Angeles watching a loud and colorful production number on the big stage. A brash blonde wearing a rhinestone-studded pink dress was energetically belting out a song, dancing at the same time. She was Glenda Grayson.

"Jonas won't like her," said Jo-Ann flatly. "She's too frenetic. She bounces around too much."

"He's given me authority — "

"Which he'll withdraw in a moment, if he wants to," she said. "Don't count on him to give you a free hand. There are guys lying bleeding on the floor who thought they had a free hand from our father."

Bat did not respond. He turned his attention to Glenda Grayson.

The show ended. The lights came up. Bat reached for the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and poured for himself and Jo-Ann. He and his father shared a habit: They poured for others without asking if they wanted any more.

Sam Stein had overheard the exchange between brother and sister. "I also represent Doug Howell," he said. "He's looking for somebody to produce a series of Westerns, hour-long shows probably. He wants to do realistic Westerns — no singing, no guitars, no comic sidekick, no embroidered shirts. Actually, he's thinking of shows along the lines of the old Nevada Smith films."