Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Toni had done a little research into the life and character of Benjamin Parrish. She had a word for him. Slick. She had anticipated slick, and he was slick. He was a bulky man, ten years older than Jo-Ann, and he was all but absurdly protective of her. He was also playing a transparent game of deference toward Jonas and Bat. He smoked only when he stood by the fireplace, where the draft would carry his smoke up the flue.

Jo-Ann had matured since Toni last saw her at her graduation two years ago. Matured? No, she had deteriorated. At twenty-three, she was a damaged woman; heavy drinking and constant smoking had marked her. She had been an unhappy girl when Toni first saw her at the 1952 Christmas party ... a bitter, cynical young woman at the graduation ... a scarred woman now.

And, damn it, they were all responsible for it, except maybe Bat. Jonas had expectations of her, and he let her know she didn't meet them. Monica didn't want to acknowledge she had a daughter who looked nearly as old as the mother. The mother and father weren't proud of their daughter and had let her know it. What the hell did they expect of her?

Toni could see that Angie was devoted to Jonas, perhaps pitiably so. It looked as if Jonas accepted her devotion the same way he accepted the devotion of employees — he would reward it, but he thought it was no more than his due. Angie was realistic and probably comfortable.

Bat. He was of course the one most interesting to Toni. She had watched him change. He had always been a Cord, she understood. Some of the combined elements of his character and personality — the relentless drive, the focused and endless span of attention, the calm and unaffected egocentricity, all coupled with an unremitting erotic appetite — had been enigmatic until she met Jonas and saw the same combination of traits in him. In Bat, all but the last had been tempered by what he was of his mother, as Toni judged, but under the continuing influence of his father he was more and more a Cord, with the tempering influence diminishing. It was said of Jonas that he was not a man to be crossed, that he was remorseless when crossed. She wondered if Bat had not acquired that trait, too.

Bat had developed a slight farsightedness and carried in his breast pocket a pair of eyeglasses with dark horn rims, which he pulled out from time to time and settled on his nose, giving him an owlish aspect that was almost always submerged in his facile, active smile. He paid more attention to tailoring than his father did and wore clothes his New York tailors cut precisely to fit him. Time had not ravaged him the way it had Jo-Ann; to the contrary, it had caressed him; he was, if anything, more handsome than he had been before.

They were thirty-one years old. If they were going to marry and have a family, the time was now. But it was anything but certain it was going to happen. She was not certain, in fact, it was what she wanted. The demand he had made in Lexington, Massachusetts, nine years ago still stood. He wanted his wife to be a homemaker and mother. He wanted his wife to be an ornament to his life. He said he'd learned better, but she was not confident he had.

She had said she was willing to be wife and home-maker and ornament, in time. She had said she would in time give up her career and spend twenty years rearing children. And no man she had ever met matched Bat Cord. Still— He had too much Jonas in him. He seemed to be filling up with it.

Jo-Ann sat beside her father on a couch and drank Scotch. She was pleased with herself. Both her parents were pissed. She had married the man with the biggest cock in California and had made it plain to him that he had better, by God, cleave to her like the Bible said or she would, by Christ, cut it off. She was a Cord. He had better understand that. Jonas might not like it that she was a Cord, but she was, and she was just as much a bitch as he was a son of a bitch, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He was counting her drinks. So was Monica. So was Bat. To hell with all of them.

She was a Cord, but she didn't need the Cords. She had every quality they had, and she was married to a highly competent flimflam artist. Jonas wanted to destroy Ben but obviously was not so sure he wanted to destroy his daughter's husband. Anyway, the hand of Jonas did not reach everywhere.

His body rarely reminded Bat of the shattered rib and ripped flesh he had suffered on the Ludendorff Bridge. But occasionally it did: with sharp spasms, then throbbing in his right side. The pain came at odd times, usually not more than once every few weeks. He felt it tonight, and he related it to having lifted a heavy suitcase with his right arm as he left the plane that had delivered him and Toni to the ranch landing strip.

He moved to the fireplace and exchanged idle words with Bill Toller and Ben Parrish, studying the others in the room with the same intensity with which they were observing him and each other. He wore a gray tweed cashmere jacket and charcoal-gray slacks, a white shirt, and a narrow regimental-stripe tie.

He saw his father often, not less frequently than once every other week, and he had seen him at his worst, depressed and probably frightened. He had seen him snatch a nitroglycerine pill from a bottle and jam it into his mouth. Lately, though, he had observed distinct improvement. Jonas had lost one-third of his heart capacity, the doctors said. He should moderate his activity, they said. Bat had watched him closely and knew what he was doing. Jonas was testing himself. He knew what he cared about, what counted for him; and he knew how much he was willing to give up to survive. He was the kind of man who wouldn't value life without bourbon, rare steaks, a lot of vigorous sex, and, above all, the satisfaction of challenging, competing, and winning.

"You know what?" he had said to Bat one day in the suite atop The Seven Voyages. "I get it up just fine. I didn't lose a bit of that. In fact, I had her go down on me before I left the hospital. The doctors would have— "

"How would she have felt if— "

"I know, I know," Jonas had said impatiently. "We talked about that. I told her it was okay with me. What a way to go!"

Bat had grinned. "You are irrepressible," he had said.

Jonas had laughed. "Damn right."

His father had given him authority to make the changes he had recommended; but, as he had expected, the older man looked over his shoulder every minute and intervened regularly. He won his father's approval often, but it was never unqualified approval. There was always some little thing that could have been done better.

For example—

"You passed up an opportunity. Lucky I saw it."

"What are you talking about?" Bat asked.

"Cord Aircraft."

"What the hell? You agreed to phase it out. I got eight million five for the plant and machinery, most of it obsolete. Sold the whole works to Phoenix Aircraft. Everybody I know says I got a damned good deal. We're out of the airplane business, and we got eight and a half million cash."

Jonas shook his head. "Well, you don't know anything about airplanes. You know what I did with the eight and a half million?"

Bat shook his head. "I'm afraid to ask."

"I bought twenty-five percent of Phoenix."

" Why? We were getting out of the airplane business. You agreed— "

"I asked the guys from Phoenix to stop by and show me what they were planning. I discovered I was talking to some aviation geniuses. They're gonna build a sleek little low-wing two-seater configured with the seats fore and aft, to be flown with a stick instead of a yoke. That little airplane will sell . I offered them their eight and a half million back, for twenty-five percent and a seat on the board of directors. God, were they happy!"