Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Glenda understood nothing of the exchange and looked puzzled.

"I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Grayson," said Batista in English. "I know your name well. We receive American television in Havana. You would do well, Meyer, to book Miss Grayson to star in a show here in the Riviera."

"Yes. I mean to discuss just that with her this evening," said Lansky.

The star of the opening show was Ginger Rogers. Lansky told them that Abbott and Costello would play the Copa Room soon. Other major stars were being booked. He would indeed like to arrange an appearance by Glenda Grayson.

When the show was over, Glenda said she would be happy to put her agent in contact with Meyer Lansky. She said she had never seen a nightclub show so elaborately and expensively staged.

Lansky was ebullient when he accompanied Bat and Glenda to their suite after the show. They were trailed by waiters wheeling carts laden with champagne on ice, caviar, lobster salad, coffee, and Danish. Billy Blue Eyes Alo came, too, attracted by Glenda even though he knew he did not dare touch her.

"You see?" he said to Bat. "It is how a casino should be run."

Bat nodded. "And you'd like for us to put some money in it, hmm?"

Lansky grinned. "Only if you see in it the very great likelihood of very great profit. I'm asking you to invest, not to shoot money into a speculation."

"Meyer ..." said Bat. "Let's step out on the balcony. I'd like to talk with you alone."

From the balcony, twenty floors above the street, they had a view of the Straits of Florida — "You can almost see across," said Lansky — and of a part of Havana. The city was alive. President Batista had put out an invitation for everyone in the world to come to Havana; there was no limit to what they could enjoy there — the most honest casinos, the most luxurious tropical hotels, the most spectacular shows, the finest food, the youngest but most wanton whores, music, dancing, everything to amuse and arouse. (In one show room a man called The Giant laid out twelve silver dollars edge-to-edge on a table, then laid his penis on them to demonstrate that he could cover all twelve.) From the balcony, the vitality of the city's nightlife was evident. At midnight, traffic was heavy, as music floated up on the warm, scented air, as did the sound of laughter, somehow carried over a long distance.

"Meyer— "

And then they heard a random burst of gunfire, just as Bat and Glenda had heard it earlier.

"Do you know what that is, Meyer?"

"The police," said Lansky. "They're too quick to use their guns, but they fire in the air almost always."

Bat shook his head. "No," he said somberly. "That is the sound of war. Civil war. The rebels from the mountains. You are going to hear a great deal more of it."

Lansky turned his eyes away from Bat and out across the city. "Batista will take care of that. When he turns the army loose— "

"The army is already loose, and they can't stop it."

Lansky drew a deep breath. "You are saying you won't invest here."

"More than that," said Bat. "I am advising you to save what you can and get out."

"You have to be crazy. Everything I have in this world is tied up in the Riviera. Look at it! The world's finest casino-hotel ... The world's finest! "

"Meyer, I know I can trust you," said Bat. "You can guess the source of my information. My suggestion to you is to bail out as much as you can."

Lansky shook his head. "No. No," he said. "I'm a professional gambler. I should have known better than to bet everything on one throw, but I did. I have to believe you're wrong."

"Fine," said Bat. "I hope I am, too."

"You've spoiled my evening," said Lansky dolefully.

As soon as Meyer Lansky and Jimmy Blue Eyes Alo left the suite. Bat turned off the lights and pulled back the drapes. Moonlight off the ocean, plus the warm orangish glow of the city, gave the room plenty of light for anything but reading.

As he stood for a brief moment looking at the ocean, he felt Glenda pressing against him from behind. He reached back, touched her, and was not surprised to feel that she was already naked. As he turned, she grinned impishly and handed him two lengths of coarse hempen rope.

"Where'd that come from?" he asked, laughing.

"I packed it, of course," she said.

"All right. Turn around."

She turned and offered her hands behind her back.

He tied her wrists together with tight hard knots. He tied the second length of rope around her chest, just under her breasts, to pinion her arms at her sides. She went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. "Hurry," she murmured as he began to undress.

The rope had been her idea. At first, he had been reluctant to bind her, especially to pull the ropes and knots so tight she could not possibly escape, but she insisted that he must bind her not just symbolically but rigorously. He had to admit the effect was powerfully erotic, stimulating to both of them.

With her hands bound behind her, she could not lie on her back. So they coupled the way she enjoyed better than any other: she atop him and astride, her hips writhing. She loved doing it that way, whether she was bound or not. It put him in her deeper than any other way, and it made possible a greater variety of movements. Twice she lost her balance and started to topple off him. With her hands and arms bound she couldn't stop herself. Expecting this, because it had happened many times before, he reached up quickly to brace her. Each time she laughed.

She closed her eyes and wore a contented smile as she worked. She gasped and moaned, and he knew she had reached a climax. Then she reached a second one and maybe a third; he wasn't sure.

"Ready to come, lover?" she asked finally.

"Any time," he said.

He put his hands on her hips to steady her, and she began more vigorous thrusts, forcing him deeper and deeper into her and squeezing him almost painfully. His orgasm was powerful, enervating.

She lifted herself, then rose and walked out to the living room. Bat remained on the bed, satiated and exhausted. From where he lay he watched Glenda use an elbow to shove the sliding glass door open. She stepped out onto the balcony and stood staring moodily at the ocean — confident apparently that no one could see her, though he was not so sure. Maybe the idea that she could be seen occurred to her, because she turned abruptly and hurried back into the room.

"Bat — "

"What, baby?" he asked, still not rising.

She came to stand in the bedroom door. "What's going to become of us?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"For god's sake, if I have to tell you — "

"I don't know, Glenda," he interrupted. He rolled off the bed and stepped toward her, meaning to untie her.

She turned and walked back to the open sliding door. "There's nothing for us, is there? In the long run." She stared out over the moonlit sea. "I mean, anything permanent. We fuck. We fuck good. But that's all there is. Right? We say we love each other, but — "

"Glenda — "

"You wouldn't want me to bear a child for you, would you?"

"Are you telling me you're pregnant?" he asked.

"No. I've never been pregnant. I'm not going to get pregnant. I can't afford to be pregnant. I don't want to carry a bastard."

"My mother did."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bat. Bad choice of words. I am truly sorry. But — "

He began to untie her.

"The whole deal," she said quietly, "is that we don't have any future. The biggest reason is, your father— "

"My father has nothing to do with — "

"No? Your father doesn't like me. Oh, I'm fine as a cash cow, but he wouldn't want his son to marry one."

"My father doesn't control my personal life!"