Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"I told you last year to build her up, in anticipation that Glenda would jump. And you didn't do it."

"I had a few other things to do, if you recall. Anyway, we didn't announce a plan to build her up until the word was out that you and Margit— "

He paused for a moment. Senator Jacob Javits had come in, spotted Bat, and was coming toward their table. Bat introduced him to Jonas, and the three men chatted for a moment. When the senator moved on, Jonas and Bat picked up their conversation.

"There's more to this than just a performer with a wounded ego," said Jonas. "Sam Stein has been talking to Lennie Hirschberg about a new Glenda Grayson Show , for the '59 season. That's going to take a lot of money, and guess who's coming up with it."

"Who?"

"The Teamsters Union. Central States Pension Fund. Jimmy Hoffa."

"Yeah, and they're funding a Vegas hotel," said Bat.

"You have any idea how much money is in that fund?" Jonas asked. "Billions."

"But that's a trust fund," said Bat. "How can they invest it in a television show?"

"They play fast and loose with their fiduciary obligations," said Jonas. "Dave Beck did, and now Hoffa does. They don't invest just to make the fund grow; they invest to wield power. And they've formed an alliance with some damned unsavory guys."

"You think they approached Glenda Grayson, rather than the other way around?"

Jonas nodded. "And I hardly need tell you why. Problems are beginning to show up at the construction site. They don't want the InterContinental built."

"Strikes?"

"No. That would tip their hand too much. Delays in delivery. After three days preparation for pouring a concrete floor, we couldn't pour because one of the five mixer trucks failed to show up. You can't pour four and add one later; that would make layers and seriously weaken the structure. The driver said the truck broke down on the road. I suspect he made it break down."

"Well ... maybe," said Bat skeptically.

"If that was the only thing that's happened, I wouldn't be suspicious. Last week a load of steel fasteners disappeared from a warehouse in San Francisco, and our men had to stop work until we could get a load from another source. The warehouse said they'd accidentally delivered our fasteners to the wrong job. And so on and so on and so on. Too many coincidences. We're falling more and more behind. I don't need to tell you how much it's costing."

Jonas stood up to greet an auburn-haired woman who had literally trotted across the room to his table.

"Jonas, dah -ling!" she boomed in her all-but-patented smoky voice. "Back in town! And this is that mysterious son of yours who doesn't go where people go — which has deprived me of the pleasure of meeting him."

Jonas kissed her hand, then introduced her to Bat. "This is Tallulah Bankhead, in case you hadn't already figured that out."

"In the gossip columns again, naughty boy," she said, shaking her head. "Thank Gawd that wretched woman Lorena Pastor never found out about you and me! "

"Found out what, Tallulah?" Jonas asked, smiling and frowning at the same time.

"That we never did it! " She laughed. "That would have been a much more scandalous story than if we had." She turned to Bat. "Give me a ring, dah-ling. Come up to my place and play bridge sometime. Well ... ta-ta."

As she hurried back to her own table and Bat and Jonas sat down again, nearly every eye in the room was on them.

"Whatever you do, don't go to her apartment and play bridge with her," said Jonas.

"Any particular reason?"

"She takes off her clothes and plays bridge nude. Not always, just when the spirit moves her. She's casual about it, makes no big drama. She goes on playing bridge as if nothing were different. Sometimes it's embarrassing as hell — depending who's at the table with you. She did it in front of David Sarnoff one night. He's a man not easily embarrassed, but she took him completely unawares, and he began to cough and turned red, and I thought maybe he was having a heart attack."

"She mentioned the Lorena Pastor column," said Bat. "How did Angie react to that?"

"Angie's realistic," said Jonas. "And if your personal life is none of my business, mine's none of yours."

Angie loved the black Porsche that Jonas had given her for Christmas in 1952. The hotel garage kept it washed and waxed, and she liked to go for drives in the desert. She'd had it up to 125 miles per hour and had sensed it had more in it when she eased off on the accelerator. Once she'd been chased by a Nevada highway patrolman, and he had simply given up after a few miles. He was getting all he could out of his special police Ford, and she was opening more distance between them. He knew who she was and meant only to give her a warning anyway, so he pulled off the road, and when she passed him on her way back to town, he just blinked his lights, and she blinked hers playfully.

Usually she drove alone, though sometimes Jonas rode with her. Today Morris Chandler sat in the right seat.

"Haven't you got it figured out?" he asked her. "You can't trust him. Nobody can trust him."

"He can sleep with another woman if he wants to," said Angie, staring at the road, not glancing at Chandler. "He never said he wouldn't. He made no commitment of that kind."

"He's not a nice man," said Chandler. "Nevada Smith was a good man, a true friend. He asked me to take Jonas in to help him duck a subpoena, and the next thing I know he owns the hotel and I'm his employee. And so are you. And you're sleeping with him."

"He's been good to me," she said firmly.

"Yeah, but Jonas giveth and Jonas taketh away. Whatever you've got from him, he can take away any time he feels like it. You've got no security , honey. What are you, forty years old? His new girlfriend is barely twenty."

"Twenty-two," said Angie dryly. "Where you gonna be ten years from now?"

"What are you trying to say, Morris? Spit it out."

"I have friends who could do some very good things for you, Angie," said Chandler.

"Who are they? And why would they want to do anything for me?"

"Never mind who they are. They're the kind of people that, if you do something good for them, they'll take care of you for the rest of your life. Hell, that's what they've done for me. I'm gonna be seventy-six years old this year. If Jonas fired me, they'd take care of me. It's what you call loyalty."

"If I do 'something good for them,' huh? Just what do they have in mind?"

"They want information, that's all. Maybe copies of some papers."

"In other words, they want me to betray Jonas," she said coldly.

"The bastard has betrayed you! "

She shook her head. "No. He hasn't."

"Be realistic, Angie."

"The answer is no, Morris."

"Better think about somethin'. These guys I'm talking about are loyal and all that, but they're also the kind of guys you don't say no to. They have ways of getting what they want."

"That's a threat, I suppose."

"Angie, let's don't use bad words! You're being offered a good deal."

"The answer is no, Morris."

He sighed. "Jesus ... I suppose you'll tell Jonas about this conversation."

Angie shrugged.

Dr. Maxim was at the wheel of Maxim's III , taking the boat home at the end of a half day's fishing, during which nobody had caught anything but a bonito. Nobody was unhappy about that. They had come out to fish, but their real purpose, of getting to know each other better, had been accomplished.

Morgana Maxim had arranged the afternoon. As a prominent Democrat, she wanted to know all other prominent Democrats so far as possible and be influenced by personal judgment, not by what she read in the newspapers. Tanned and sun-bleached as always, she sat in the rear of the boat, relaxed and sipping from a gin and tonic.