Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Toni Maxim, although she was a political reporter and not a business reporter, covered the story for The Washington Post , writing in part:

The third Jonas Cord — Jonas Enrique Raul Cord y Batista — is anything but the All-American Boy. He is his father's illegitimate son and was born and reared in Mexico. He was educated in the States, though — at Culver Military Academy, Harvard, and Harvard Law. His education was interrupted by a stint in the United States Army, during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and two Purple Hearts.

He continues a family tradition begun by his grandfather and father, in that he is a ladies' man of note. He is frequently seen with nightclub and television star Glenda Grayson and recently took her with him on a visit to Cuba, where he inspected a Cord investment in a gambling casino and renewed his acquaintance with his great-uncle, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

When Toni came to New York, Bat showed her the wire he had received from his father.

I HAD SUPPOSED THIS GIRL WAS OUR FRIEND. SHE KNOWS TOO MUCH AND SHE TALKS TOO MUCH. REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT TELLING YOUR WOMEN ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.

She sat across from him at his desk in the Chrysler Building. His desk was a big table, actually, and behind it, instead of a credenza, sat two handsome rolltop desks. It was in Bat's nature to live with clutter on his desk but also to like to hide the clutter by closing the rolltops. The teletype machine his father used to send him messages from Las Vegas stood in a corner. It was chattering away now, printing some query or complaint from Jonas. He seemed not even to notice it. When it stopped he didn't get up to see what message had arrived.

Toni was more beautiful than ever. At thirty-one, she had gained no weight; she was if anything maybe slightly thinner than before. Her heavy breasts swelled provocatively under the white silk of her blouse. He hadn't touched them for a very long time. The thought made him draw a deep, tense breath.

"I didn't mean to offend your father," said Toni. She said it with a sly little smile that contradicted her words.

"His heart attack has made him more curmudgeonly," said Bat. "The doctor warned me it might."

"Brush with death," she said.

"Something more than that. Something about the blood supply to the brain."

"I didn't stop by to talk about your father," she said. "I'll be interviewing the mayor this afternoon and wondered if you would like to meet for dinner."

"You bet," said Bat. He flipped a page on his calendar. "I'll cancel a couple of things."

"Fine. Where shall I meet you?"

"Where are you staying?" he asked.

"At the Algonquin."

"There's a fine dining room in the hotel. But, uh ... why are you staying in a hotel? You know, I've got the place in the Waldorf Towers."

"How would Glenda react to my bunking in with you?" she asked.

"It's none of her business," said Bat.

"That's right — any more than it's any of mine that you've been sleeping with her. I mean, if we only see each other once every few months, I can't expect you to be celibate in the meantime. And, for that matter, you can't expect me to be either."

"Now that I'm on the East Coast we can see each other a lot more often," he said.

Toni nodded. "I'd like that. I still care for you, you know."

"Well, I care for you, too. We — "

"Let's don't get into a deep discussion," she interrupted. "I'll come to the apartment. When will you be there?"

He opened the center drawer in one of the rolltop desks and handed her a key. "Come as soon as you can," he said. "If I'm not yet there you can let yourself in. Keep the key. You don't ever need to go to a hotel in New York."

It was like it had always been when he was with her. On nights after long separations, they did not sleep at all. He would drop away from her exhausted, then quickly recover under her ministrations and return for something more. She denied him nothing. He denied her nothing. Twice they went in the bathroom and showered together, to rinse off their sweat and other fluids. Afterward they returned to the bed, straightened the tangled sheets, and gave themselves to each other again.

At four in the morning the telephone rang. Bat hesitated but then answered it, knowing that nothing but something urgent would generate a call on his unlisted number at that hour.

"Jesus Christ!" Toni muttered.

"It's my father," Bat whispered. "Calling from Las Vegas."

"You heard from your sister?" his father asked.

"No. Should I have?"

"You can't guess where she is!"

Jonas was excited. Too excited. "Where is she?" he asked quietly, trying to communicate calm.

"She's in jail , for Christ's sake!"

"Where? And why?"

"Los Angeles. For drunken driving. She was in some kind of little accident, nobody hurt, thank God, but they hauled her in and gave her the test, and she didn't pass."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. Go to LA and see what you can do about it."

"I'll call you from Los Angeles," said Bat.

Jo-Ann, her face flushed and her eyes puffy from crying, sat behind a screen of wire mesh. She wore the gray cotton uniform of Sybil Brand Institute, the Los Angeles County women's jail.

"It's just three days," said Bat. "That's the mandatory minimum sentence for operating under the influence, and there was no getting you out of it. So ... Thursday, Friday, and Saturday."

"So goddamned humiliating ," she sobbed.

"We've posted a bond that allows you to drive, though your license is technically under suspension for one year. You don't know how lucky you are. You might have killed yourself. Or someone else."

"I might have been better off."

"Forget that kind of talk."

"Have you talked to Ben?" she asked.

"Yes."

"He hasn't come to see me."

"He can't. You're allowed to see family members and lawyers, no one else. We could get an exception, but you'll be out of here before it would come through."

"I don't want him to see me in here anyway."

"Now, I've got something else to tell you. I've checked you into the Sunset Hills Clinic. I'll pick you up when you're released and take you there."

"A drying-out clinic," said Jo-Ann despondently. "I don't ... want to go there. I'll be locked up as much as I am here."

"If you don't go, our father will cut off your allowance."

She sobbed. "The goddamned allowance! Always the goddamned allowance! I have to do what he says, no matter what, to keep the goddamned allowance! And you have to do whatever he says to keep your goddamned job. You think you're independent of him? No more than I am, big brother. Nobody's independent of Jonas. How long do I have to stay in that place?"

"At the end of the month they'll evaluate your case."

She blew a loud sigh. "You drink. He drinks. Why do I have to be warehoused in a psycho ward because I drink?"

"I don't have to tell you why. You know why."

"And when I get out, how different is anything going to be?"

"When you get out, I'm going to give you a job with Cord Productions."

"He won't let you."

"I'm going to do it whether he likes it or not."

Glenda sat down on the bed in the room Ben Parrish had rented in the Golden Evenings Motel. She had come off the set half an hour before and was still tense and sweaty.

"So, let me see this notorious tool of yours," she said.

Without hesitation Ben unzipped his fly and pulled out his penis.

"Oi!" she cried. "The biggest one in California, right?"

Ben smiled. He let it hang out, making no move to put it back inside his pants. "Well, I haven't seen all the others in California, have you?"