JC2 The Raiders Page 6

  He met many of them. Lucky Luciano, the greatest of them. Frank Costello. Albert Anastasia. Joe Profacci. Carlo Gambino. Frank Nitti. They weren't all Sicilians. Murray the Camel Humphries, in Chicago. Meyer Lansky. Bugsy Siegel.

  Max didn't want to know them. He wouldn't come near one of Maurie's joints if he knew any of them were there.

  5

  1

  MORRIS CHANDLER ASSURED JONAS THAT EVERYTHING was being arranged: the telephones with scramblers, the relay through San Diego, new locks ... everything. And he hoped Jonas and Nevada would be his guests for the show that evening.

  Shortly they sat around a table in a glass-fronted box overlooking the stage. The glass tipped forward at an angle, so as to cast bright reflections on anyone looking up from the dining floor or the stage, rendering anyone inside invisible. Their table was covered with heavy white linen. It was set with heavy silver and crystal glasses. A bottle of bourbon and one of Scotch sat in the middle. A bottle of champagne sat in an ice bucket to one side.

  A special bottle, label soaked off, sat at Chandler's place. He poured a little green liqueur from the bottle into a glass and added a touch of water. The clear liquid clouded. "Absinthe," he explained. "Illegal. I have to get it from Asia. Taste I acquired in New Orleans before it was banned. You're welcome to try it. It's said to damage the brain."

  "I've tasted it," said Jonas, "and I'll have another taste. My grandmother made cookies with that taste: anise."

  "Licorice," said Chandler.

  "I'll pass it up," said Nevada.

  The box was like the airport where they had landed: an accommodation for men who wanted to enjoy some of the pleasures of Las Vegas without being seen.

  The first show opened a few minutes after they sat down in the box. It opened with energetic dancing by twenty chorus girls wearing brightly colored feathers. Gypsy Rose Lee followed, delivering a series of quick one-liners to the audience as she danced and stripped all but naked. As she took her bows and departed stage left, a spotlight focused on a man standing stage right, his arms folded, his chin dropped. "Well!" he said. He was Jack Benny, and he took the stage for a thirty-minute monologue. Gypsy came out to join him at the end.

  "Uh, Miss Lee, I want to ask you. ... Do you feel ... I mean ... embarrassed to be out here on the stage in front of all these people ... naked?"

  "No, Jack. Do you?"

  The show closed with another appearance by the chorus girls.

  Dinner was on the table. Having had steak at the airport, Jonas had ordered fish, which he ate with glasses of the champagne. He ate sparingly. He felt himself running down. Except for the brief sleep he got at Nevada's, he had been on the move without sleep for twenty hours. He was only forty-seven years old: too early for a man to begin losing his stamina.

  "That's a fine show," said Jonas to Morris Chandler.

  "Costs a fortune," said Chandler. "But let me tell you why places like this make money the old Western-style gambling joints never dreamed of. When we get people in here, we get 'em for days. They gamble. They swim in the pool. They gamble. They eat and drink. They gamble. They see a show. They gamble. They sleep a few hours in a very nice room and start the whole deal over. It's a vacation. And let me tell you, we take a whole lot more money off people who come for a vacation than we do off professional or compulsive gamblers who come in here and go nowhere but the tables. They're smart. They know how to play. They usually don't drop much. But the house builder from Milwaukee brings the little lady, settles into The Seven Voyages, and they do all the stuff. She plays the slots, he plays the tables, and they drop a bundle. And you know what else? They leave here feelin' good about it. They had a good time."

  "Sounds good," said Jonas noncommittally.

  "Let me tell you something else," said Chandler. "If the builder from Milwaukee loses too much, he may come around asking for credit. He wants to sign a note. At this point we ask him how much he's lost and how much he can afford to lose. We usually find out he brought with him all he can afford to lose. So we tell him no. Sometimes I've given a guy a couple hundred to get him and the little lady home."

  "So next year he comes back," said Jonas.

  "Besides which, I want him to tell all his friends back home what a swell bunch of guys we are."

  "Short course in how to run a casino," Jonas laughed.

  Though he hadn't intended to, he found himself liking this man, this curious combination of craft and calculation with ingenuous enthusiasm. He wondered where and how Chandler and Nevada had become friends. It had to go back long before anyone had so much as imagined The Seven Voyages. Nevada Smith did not extend his friendship readily. If he trusted a man, that should be a man anyone could trust.

  "There are tricks to every trade," said Chandler.

  "But what deal can we make about the top floor?"

  "Happy to accommodate you, Jonas," said Chandler. "The top floor has two suites, each with a nice big living room, two bedrooms with bath, and a kitchenette. The elevators won't take anybody up there unless they have a key. Likewise, we keep the stairway door locked. Ordinarily, high rollers occupy those two suites, but from time to time we help out a man in a position like yours."

  "Nevada says you can make special telephone arrangements."

  "We got a telephone hookup that switches your calls through San Diego, which puzzles the hell out of anybody trying to trace. We've got scramblers available. Course you have to put a descrambler on the other end. The bottom line is, we're set up to give privacy to a man who wants privacy."

  "What's the rent?" asked Jonas.

  "Look at it this way," said Chandler. "Each of those suites rents for fifty dollars a night. That's fifteen hundred a month. Two of them is three thousand. We got expenses in the special telephone stuff and in keeping security guys around to make sure nobody tries to invade you. Frankly, Jonas, I usually get nine hundred a week or thirty-five hundred a month for those two suites, when I rent to a man in your situation."

  "I'll pay you eight thousand a month," said Jonas. "Two months in advance, though I may not stay two months. The sixteen thousand is yours if I move out sooner."

  Morris Chandler smiled and nodded. "Jonas, you are a gentleman and a scholar," he said.

  2

  Arrangements had to be made. Jonas realized he could not telephone Monica that night. What could he tell her? What she wanted to know was where he was and when he would come home. He hadn't promised he would be in touch within twenty-four hours. So he didn't call.

  The suites were comfortable, furnished unimaginatively like most hotel rooms everywhere. The bar was stocked. In the living rooms, picture windows overlooked the pool, and someone who had lived in the suite Jonas chose for himself had equipped the place with a big telescope on a tripod, maybe for watching the girls around the pool, maybe for checking out who arrived in the parking lot.

  Chandler had suggested he could send up a girl, but Jonas had declined for tonight. He took a final slug of bourbon and went to bed.

  In the morning, Morris Chandler arrived not long after Jonas and Nevada had finished breakfast. Both of them ate big breakfasts: ham and eggs, fried potatoes, buttered toast, and coffee. Jonas poured coffee for Chandler.

  "I can help you with some things, if you want," said Chandler. "To start with, you brought no luggage. Give me your sizes, and I'll send up some clothes. Also shaving stuff and so on. But something more important. Twice a week I send a plane to Mexico City to pick up high rollers and bring them in for a couple days' gaming. I send a man down there on each flight. He can post letters, send telegrams, and so on."

  Jonas nodded. "I'd like to send two telegrams."

  The first telegram from Mexico City was to Monica: EVERYTHING IS OK STOP WILL BE IN TOUCH AGAIN IN A FEW DAYS STOP MY LOVE TO YOU AND JO-ANN STOP

  The second was to Philip Wallace, Attorney, Washington, D.C.:

  TELL LA AND NEVADA NEW YORK OFFICES TO INSTALL IMMEDIATELY ON MY PRIVATE LINES DESCRAMBLER EQUIPMENT AS FOLLOWS
STOP VERICOMM MODEL NUMBER ONE DASH FOUR TWO FOUR STOP THESE LINES TO BE MONITORED BUSINESS HOURS STOP SUGGEST YOU INSTALL SAME YOURSELF STOP EXPECT TO CALL NO LATER THAN FRIDAY SO EQUIPMENT MUST BE IN PLACE STOP

  A shop downstairs delivered clothes chosen by Morris Chandler, and Jonas sent the suit he had worn from Bel Air down to the dry cleaner. His new clothes were resort wear: light-colored slacks and golf shirts, also after a couple of days for tailoring a royal-blue jacket. Chandler sent up similar things for Nevada. Nevada accepted them, knowing he could not venture downstairs in the hotel in jeans and a buckskin shirt.

  On Friday Jonas placed a telephone call to Phil Wallace in Washington. Phil answered and could understand him, so Jonas knew the descrambler was in place.

  "Somehow I guess," said Phil, "that you're not really in Mexico City."

  "You guess right. How much heat is on?"

  "Well, you're not on the Ten Most Wanted List, but if your whereabouts is discovered you'll be served with the subpoena. A couple of senators are pissed. Counsel for the committee is pissed."

  "And the competitors who want my ass are pissed," said Jonas. "I don't give a damn."

  "Monica is pissed," said Phil. "She called and demanded to know where you are. Demanded. She said she knew damned well you're not in Mexico City."

  "Monica's not stupid."

  "You didn't order a descrambler for her."

  "The only reason would be to tell her where I am, and I don't want to do that, not yet anyway. I'm not sure she could hold out if they pressured her to talk."

  "You got a problem there. Monica's not just a little pissed. She's big pissed. She's going to New York."

  "Well, she's got her job in New York. She travels to New York — "

  "She's taking Jo-Ann with her."

  "Jo-Ann's in school. She — "

  "She's taking her out of school, transferring her credits to some school in the East."

  "I'll take care of the Monica problem. Don't worry about it."

  "I'm not. I'm just telling you what she said."

  "Okay. You want to know where I am?"

  "If I need to know. Otherwise I don't. I've told people I don't know. I'd like to continue doing that."

  "Do you mind passing along some orders?"

  "Not at all."

  Jonas stood looking down on the swimming pool, convinced now the man who had brought the telescope to the suite had brought it to do some plain and fancy girl watching. Two-piece bathing suits were in style, and some of the girls around the pool were spectacular. Looking at them made a man horny.

  "Okay," he said to Phil. "I want some people to join me. I'd like to have Sheila." He meant his personal and private executive secretary, in the Los Angeles office. "But I'm afraid that, apart from Monica, she's the one person they might follow. Besides, she's got a child, and I can't ask her to leave it."

  "Do you want her to know where you are?"

  "No. I want her to communicate through you. As my lawyer, you have privileged communication with me. No. The guys I want to join me are Buzz Dalton from Inter-Continental, Clint McClintock from Cord Electronics, Bill Shaw from Cord Aircraft, and Len Douglas from Cord Explosives."

  "I get you," said Phil. "Second-level men from each company. None of your top executives."

  "Bright, knowledgeable young fellows," said Jonas. "None with family obligations that would prevent their spending some time with me. Tell them to bring along the paper about pending stuff. They'll know what that is."

  "Okay, but where do they go?"

  "Make notes," said Jonas. "They come one at a time. Dalton first, Shaw next, then McClintock, then Douglas. On Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon there's a flight from Mexico City to where I am. It does not go from the Benito Juarez International Airport. They'll have to get to the Tialpan Airport. A sixteen-passenger De Havilland comes in about noon. Tell them to identify themselves to the agent that comes with the De Havilland. From that point they can relax. They'll be brought to me. Tell them to bring summer-weight clothes. They'll only need one suit. Do I have to tell them not to talk to the people they meet?"

  "It sounds like you're settling in for a long stay," said Phil.

  "Long enough to screw the bastards that are trying to screw me," said Jonas.

  3

  Jonas quickly grew bored with living in the suite. He could only call the offices that had installed the descramblers. He could think of a thousand other calls he wanted to make, and he gave orders to his people at the offices with descramblers to telephone this person and that, saying they had heard from him and he had ordered them to relay a message. It was not a satisfying way to do business.

  On his fourth night in the suite, Morris Chandler offered to be host for dinner, which he would have room service bring up.

  "What you need up here is a cute girl," he said to Jonas.

  "What I need is an executive secretary," said Jonas.

  Chandler laughed. "A horizontal secretary."

  "No, seriously. A secretary. I can't bring in my executive secretary, and I need a woman who's competent and I can trust."

  Chandler glanced at Nevada and shrugged. "If you say so," he said.

  They ate lobster, which were flown in on ice and were kept live in a tank in the hotel. Chandler and Nevada talked a little about old times in New Orleans. Jonas guessed that was where they had met, in Storyville, in one of the celebrated old whorehouses. At least, both of them had been there in the early years of the century. Both remembered a whore who had always worn a black satin mask trimmed with lace and received her callers while reclining nude on a red plush settee. The rumor had been that she was the wife of a prominent New Orleans cotton broker.

  They remembered musicians: a pianist named Ned and a trumpet player named Charley. They spoke of something called herb sainte, which Jonas deduced was a fiery liquor as destructive of a man's mind as the wormwood-tainted absinthe the French used to make, which was now illegal in every country in the world. They laughed about how it had got them in trouble.

  Abruptly Chandler broke off the reminiscences and spoke to Jonas. "You want an executive secretary? Trustworthy and competent, you said. How 'bout one that's honest and competent and you can trust — and would probably be glad to sleep with you, too?"

  "They don't make 'em like that," said Jonas.

  "Trust me," said Chandler. "I'll send somebody up for you to interview in the morning."

  He did. She arrived at half past nine, and she was more of a surprise to him than Morris Chandler had been.

  "Mr. Cord? My name is Mrs. Wyatt. Mr. Chandler sent me up to be interviewed as a possible executive secretary."

  She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, and Jonas formed a quick determination that he would take her to bed as soon as he possibly could. Golden-blond hair surrounded the perfect features of her face. She was flawless. He couldn't see anything wrong with her, unless maybe it was that her eyebrows were distinctly darker than her hair. She wore a putty-colored linen pullover and a tailored knee-length dark-gray skirt, white shoes with thin high heels, and smooth, sheer nylon stockings on long, sleek legs. She was no girl. She was probably thirty-two or -three. She wore on her face a look of worldliness, even of world-weariness, that suggested she had seen a lot and had a few things to regret.

  "Come in, Mrs. Wyatt, and sit down," he said. "I just sent the table back down, but I can order us another pot of coffee if you'd like some."

  "You needn't," she said.

  "I think I will anyway. I could use some myself."

  She sat down gracefully, crossing her legs below her knees the way girls in finishing schools were taught to do. Her skirt crept up a little, but she had it under control and showed no more leg than she wanted to.

  Jonas picked up the telephone and ordered coffee, knowing a few small pastries would come with it.

  "I'll be blunt, Mrs. Wyatt," he said. "Why did Morris Chandler recommend you?"

  "He told me what your requirements are," she
said plainly. "He judged I could meet them, and so do I."

  "What is your experience?" he asked.

  "I was a secretary with Boise-Cascade Corporation. The last four years I was there I was an executive secretary. Then I got married, and then I got divorced."

  "Do you have any children?"

  "No, sir. After my divorce, I worked again as an executive secretary, in the office of the state auditor of the State of California. I've had eleven years of secretarial experience, six of them as a confidential and private secretary to an executive."

  "What are you doing in Las Vegas?"

  "I'm stranded here," she said.

  "How so?"

  "I came here on a romantic trip with a friend. He wanted to gamble. So did I. I signed a chit to buy some chips. He promised me he'd pay my chit, just as soon as a check he'd given the hotel cleared. He lost everything he had with him, panicked, took off, and left me with an unpaid chit. I'm working it off as a waitress."

  "How much is it?"

  "Five hundred dollars. I've paid off sixty-five."

  Jonas shook his head and picked up the telephone. He dialed Morris Chandler. "Morris, this is Jonas. Put the balance of Mrs. Wyatt's chit on my account."

  "You hired her, then," said Chandler.

  "We'll talk about that later."

  He put down the phone and looked up to see her frowning at him, her chin high.

  "That's how you do things, I imagine," she said. "Quick decisions. The only thing is, now I owe you four hundred and thirty-five dollars. That's how I do things."

  Jonas grinned. "I guess I have to hire you, then. Otherwise, you can't pay me."

  "Well ... You're not a Las Vegas casino. You don't hold people prisoner until they pay off their chits. Do you? You don't break legs either, I imagine."