Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"What am I supposed to do now?" Jonas went on. "The next word I'll get, she'll be pregnant."

"It happens," said Bat. "People do live their lives. I don't like Ben Parrish. But we've got to face it; he's Jo-Ann's husband. And Jo-Ann is not to be taken for a dummy. I don't know what she thought she was doing, marrying that man. But there it is; she did it."

"She did it to defy me. And you."

"Well ... maybe. Why not?"

"Whose side are you on?" asked Jonas sullenly.

"Are there sides? Do there have to be sides?"

"I am placed — you are placed — in a hell of a position," said Jonas.

"You didn't have to send the story to the Sketch ."

"Who says I did?"

"Do you deny it?" Bat asked.

Jonas stiffened and flared with indignation. "I don't have to deny things," he said. "When did it get started that you hit me with challenges and I have to deny them?"

Bat shrugged. "Describe this hell of a position that we're in," he said.

"I didn't want her to have any part in the business," said Jonas. "Now she's married to that worthless son of a bitch, and anything she finds out he'll find out. Pillow talk. She's got to go."

"Why do you think she married him?"

"To shoot me a finger."

Bat grinned. "Why would she want to do that?"

"Why the hell do you think?" Jonas asked. "You know Parrish was trying to make a big deal with Consolidated. Well, I queered that for him. I let Goldish know I wouldn't take it kindly if Consolidated let Benjamin Parrish in on anything. So now where am I? The bastard is my son-in-law!"

"It'll have to be worked out," said Bat. "I've got a worse problem."

"Worse than that?"

"We've got one successful television production," said Bat. "The Glenda Grayson Show . It's showing a profit, and we're starting to get your investment back. But I've got one seriously unhappy star."

"You screwed the girl. It's a dumb dog that shits in his own bed."

"Forgive me," said Bat. "A chip off the old block."

"How much is it gonna take to make her happy?"

Bat nodded. "You have it figured."

"A word of advice," said Jonas. "Glenda Grayson is thirty-five years old and getting a little shopworn. Get your guys to write better stuff for Margit Little. Build her up. One of these days we can tell Glenda Grayson to go screw."

"Great minds run in one direction," said Bat. "If you'll forgive the cliché."

Jonas had stopped pacing and now he sat down. "Got something to show you," he said. He picked up a telephone and dialed a number. "Angie, have the guys wheel in that model." He spoke to Bat. "The new hotel."

Angie came in, and two young men wheeled in an architect's model of a new casino-hotel. "The Cord Intercontinental Vegas," she said.

Bat stood and looked at the model. Since he had last involved himself personally with the new hotel, his father had authorized a substantial increase in its size. He had obviously acquired more land, since this hotel would not stand on the land they had originally bought.

"Okay?" asked Jonas.

"Beautiful," said Bat. It would have been pointless to say anything else. Except— "But it looks like a hell of a lot of money." His thought was that it was his father's plaything, but it would have been a major mistake to suggest it.

"Sixteen floors," said Jonas as if he didn't detect Bat's thought. "The executive offices of the company will occupy the top floor, the way they do here — only four times as big. A stage that can accommodate the most spectacular nightclub shows in the world. I've been in touch with the Folies-Bergère in Paris. It may be that we can stage an authentic Folies right here in Las Vegas."

"Problems?" Bat asked.

"Oh, yeah. The problems are beginning to show up. Coincidences that don't make sense. Oh, yeah. We're going to have problems."

JONAS ENJOYED ASSEMBLING PEOPLE HE CARED FOR at the ranch at Christmas. It wasn't always possible. The year Nevada died, and the next year, he didn't feel like it. He couldn't imagine the party without Nevada. He invited Jo-Ann the next year. And he brought Angie. Bat had felt obliged to go to Mexico for Christmas. Four sat down at the table: Jonas and Jo-Ann and Angie and Robair. It wasn't enough. He had actually considered inviting Monica, to fill the house. Then last year he was just out of the hospital for Christmas, so they spent the holiday in the apartment in the Waldorf Towers — the same four, plus Bat. This year there would be more people but no Robair, who had died in August.

This year Bat would bring Toni again. Jonas asked Jo-Ann to bring Ben Parrish. He had to face the man sometime. So did Monica, so he had invited her, too, and her cartoonist friend Bill Toller, if she wanted to bring him — or whoever was sleeping in her bed this year.

Since the heart attack Jonas had let his pilot's license lapse. He had not taken the biennial physical, because he doubted they would pass him. Bill Shaw was technically pilot in command of the Beechcraft Bonanza they flew from Las Vegas to the ranch, but Jonas sat in the left seat and flew the airplane. He hadn't lost his touch and was exhilarated by having his hands on the controls of an airplane again.

He landed first at the Cord Explosives plant and went in to see once more the office where his father died. The plant manager didn't use it. It was kept as an office for the Cords, whenever one of them came to the plant. Jonas went out into the plant and shook hands with as many as he could of the workers, mostly Mexicans, who still operated this highly profitable seminal enterprise of the Cord empire. They hadn't seen him for a long time, and they didn't see Bat often either. His visit was good for their morale.

Bill Shaw carried Jonas's luggage into the ranch house and then took off in the Bonanza to be with his family in Los Angeles for Christmas. Angie was in the house, trying to do what Robair had always done: decorate for Christmas and organize the meals. She was a good girl and was doing her best, but Jonas realized she couldn't do what Robair had done, much less what Nevada had done; and he reached an abrupt conclusion that he would sell the ranch. This would be his last Christmas there.

Toni was dismayed by Jonas. She couldn't really like him, because she couldn't like his influence over Bat; but she was jolted by the change in the man. She remembered what Bat had told her when she came here for Christmas five years ago: that the household would live to Jonas's schedule, that probably consciously but even unconsciously he would dominate totally. He would be the center of everything. He still was, but not in the same way. Everyone gathered around him. Everyone deferred to him. But it was for a new reason — that they sensed he was a dying lion. What was worse he obviously sensed the same thing and had settled into the role. It was appalling. He was only fifty-three!

At Christmas in 1952 she had observed the immense energy of these people. Now she saw something else: that none of them loved Jonas, and he didn't love them. She was distressed by the thought that maybe they were incapable of love. They shared a sense of family, a stalwart loyalty toward each other; but it wasn't love; it was something else, a defensive family allegiance that inspired them to strike out at anyone who threatened the demesne. That was their only commitment to each other: to protect the turf. They would rush to each other's defense, not because they cared for each other, but to defend the empire.

Monica stood by the fireplace chatting with her friend Bill Toller, who had to have accommodated her to come here and be subjected to this evening. Monica patently didn't like any of the Cords, including her own daughter. She knew why Jonas had invited her here: to let her see what her daughter had married. Jonas was punishing her for something out of the past. He was succeeding. Monica was at no pains to conceal her antipathy for the Hollywood hustler her daughter had married, nor her indifference for the son Jonas had discovered.