Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Your father tells me you are having an affair with Glenda Grayson."

"That's true."

"She's older than you are."

"She's a wonderful woman. The world has not always been kind to her."

Sonja shook her head. "That is a very bad reason to fall in love with a woman."

"She's very outgoing, very loving."

"Worse reasons," said Sonja. But then she smiled. "I thought you meant to marry the little girl from Florida."

"She wants a career."

"And Glenda Grayson does not? If you should decide to marry her, which God forbid, would she give up her career and become a wife?"

"Things haven't come to that state yet," said Bat.

Sonja glanced around the room, as if to make sure their fellow diners could not overhear their conversation. "I need to talk with you about something. How much money have you and your father committed to Cuba?"

Bat, too, glanced around before he answered. He leaned a little toward his mother and said, "A little over a million dollars. In the Floresta casino."

"What about the hotel being built by Meyer Lansky? Don't you have money in that?"

"So far, we don't have any money in that. Lansky has secured financing through others. He'd like for us to buy out one of his partners. It would give him more respectability."

"Your father asked me to contact our Uncle Fulgencio and ask him to be certain Lansky gets all the necessary licenses and permissions."

"That might be helpful," said Bat. "Lansky has a good relationship with Uncle Fulgencio, but I'm not sure it's good enough."

Sonja took a sip of the icy vodka. "I will fly to Havana on my way back to Mexico," she said. "I am going to tell you something, however. I'll put in a good word for your friend Lansky. I strongly advise you, even so, not to invest any more money in Cuba."

"Why?"

"You'll lose it."

Bat touched his mouth with one finger. "You take seriously the — "

She nodded. "The whole thing is a house of cards. Our uncle may be dead in a year. If he's lucky, he'll be in exile. He is not bright. He steals too much. Cuba looks brilliantly prosperous. It isn't. A few miles from those beautiful new casino-hotels, people live in squalor. The rebels in the mountains are growing stronger. More of them all the time. And they're getting weapons from the Soviet Union. Our uncle's regime — " She shrugged. "He was driven from power before. It can happen again. It will happen again."

"Meyer Lansky has committed every dime he has to his hotel."

"He will lose it."

"The new regime, whatever it is, will need the casino-hotels just as much as the present regime does," said Bat. "And they can't run them themselves."

"The British thought the Egyptians couldn't run the Suez Canal," she said. "Anyway, they will close the casinos. Those people in the mountains are Communists. They don't want the tourist trade."

"You paint a gloomy picture," said Bat.

"It's a gloomy situation," said his mother.

Bat watched the waiter stir raw eggs and herbs into the raw ground beef. He wished he had ordered steak tartare.

"Tell me about your father," she said.

Bat sighed. "It's difficult to know what to say. One day he's a thoughtless egomaniacal tyrant, scornful of anything I suggest; the next day he promotes me and increases my compensation. You know— He's clever as hell. Little by little, he's drawn me within his orbit. It's a game. When he gets me to where I'm seriously thinking of chucking the whole thing, he makes a concession. He doesn't make them short of that. The longer I stay, the more difficult it is to tell him to go to hell and walk out."

"Do you have any personal feeling for him at all?" she asked.

"Uh ... Well, he can be— He's a man . I don't know if you can understand what I mean by that."

"Do you think he has any personal feeling for you?"

Bat shrugged, then nodded. "Yes. I know he does. But do you know why? He's afraid. And what's he afraid of? Not of dying, not any more than any other man is afraid of dying. No, what Jonas is afraid of is that he'll die and everything he's spent his life building will fall into the hands of strangers. He thinks of himself as a king, and he wants the kingdom to survive him in the hands of— In the hands of a son."

"And that's all it amounts to, you think?"

"I don't know," he admitted quietly.

"You may be right," she said. "I'd think about it if I were you. There is something about you that is very much like him. You are a very generous man, except of yourself. You don't give of yourself. You're afraid to commit yourself. That's your Cord inheritance. That's an inheritance you've already got. You don't have to wait for him to die to inherit that."

Invitations to attend the grand opening of Meyer Lansky's Riviera Hotel were sent to Jonas and Bat. Jonas was not sufficiently recovered to make the flight from New York to Havana; but Bat flew from Los Angeles, taking Glenda with him, explaining to curious reporters — and through them to Toni — that his star might do a show at the Riviera between television seasons.

The Riviera was the paradigm of new casino-hotels. It was a turquoise-colored high-rise building in the shape of a curved Y, and every room had a view of the sea. Inside, it was more gaudy than tasteful; the effect was in fact overwhelming; guests were submerged in bright modernistic decor. The casino was in a golden dome outside the hotel.

Meyer Lansky personally welcomed Bat and Glenda. He escorted them to their suite, where he handed them tickets to the grand opening show in the Copa Room and told them they would be seated at his table.

They dressed for dinner: Bat in black tie, Glenda in a black gown glittering with gold sequins. They left their room early enough so they could look around a little before they went to the Copa Room. Bat was especially interested in seeing what the casino looked like. He liked what he saw. Jackets and ties were required of men. About half the players wore black tie. The big room was quiet except for the hushed calls of the croupiers and dealers. It was obvious that big money was at stake on the tables.

When they left the casino, Bat and Glenda stepped outside for a breath of the gentle tropical air, warm and heavy with moisture and the odors of tropical flowers. The strident beat of cacophonous Latin music drifted to the Riviera from a club not far away, Then suddenly a jarring sound came to their ears: the sharp, harsh crack of gunfire, followed by the signature rip of an automatic weapon. The firing lasted about ten seconds, then the night was quiet again except for the persistent music.

"What do you suppose that was?" Glenda asked.

"The policia are gun-happy," said Bat. "They're nervous."

They went to the Copa Room. Meyer Lansky was at his table. He introduced Glenda and Bat to the man who would be their dinner companion, Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo. Bat knew that Jimmy Blue Eyes was a partner in the Riviera. He was not the man Meyer Lansky hoped the Cords would buy out.

It was Lansky's theory that a good casino had to have a good kitchen. His official position in the hotel was director of food-service operations; and though that was only a front, he did take a personal interest in the kitchen, the preparation of food, and the way it was served.

President Fulgencio Batista arrived. He paused on his way to his table to salute Meyer Lansky, and when he saw Bat he came across the room with his hand outstretched. "¡Sobrino!" he said — nephew. "¡Jonas Enrique Raul! ¡Bienvenida!"

''¿Puedo presentar a la Señorita Glenda Grayson?" said Bat.

"Es una muchacha bonita," said Batista — She is a beautiful girl. Then with a sly smile he asked, "¿Es ella su hija?" — Is she your daughter?