JC2 The Raiders (11 page)

"It's a stupid risk to take with businesses that could make a
hell of a lot of money without skimming," said Jonas.

"There are partners they don't dare shove out," said Angie.

"You know a lot about this for a gal who's just a secretary,"
said Nevada.

"If you're around here awhile and watch, you see a lot of
things," she said.

"I want to talk to Chandler," said Jonas.

Morris Chandler came up for lunch the next day. Angie was not asked
to join Jonas and Nevada.

Chandler stood at the window for a while, looking down at the
swimming pool. He put his eye to the telescope and peered at
something, probably an exceptionally bare girl. Then he swept the
telescope up and began to look at something else. "You figured
this out yet?" he asked Jonas. "Well, I've looked at some
of the bathing beauties, but —" Chandler turned toward him
and grinned slyly.

"You're looking in the wrong direction. Take a look through it
now."

Jonas put his eye to the tripod-mounted telescope and looked at what
Chandler had focused on. He saw naked girls.

The penthouse atop the newest hotel had a terrace surrounded by
potted shrubbery that shielded the girls from the view of everyone
below. The top floor of The Seven Voyages had the only windows within
a mile that were high enough to afford a view of the sunbathers.
Several hundred yards separated the two hotels, and apparently the
owners of the penthouse and their girls thought the distance was
great enough to protect the girls' privacy. Morris Chandler had
bought the astronomy-class telescope to give his fifth-floor high
rollers a little something extra for their money. "The girls
work there," said Chandler. "That's their job: to sit
around naked."

"Tricks of the trade," said Jonas. He returned to the table
and their lunch. He sat down. "The first night I was here, you
started to give me some basic lessons in the casino business. Nevada
says you'd be willing to give me more."

"What do you want to know?" asked Chandler.

"How much do you skim?" asked Jonas.

Chandler's face stiffened. He hesitated for a moment, then asked,
"What if I say we don't?"

"Say it."

Chandler glanced at Nevada, who was watching him
gravely, interested in his answer. He took a deep breath and blew it
out. "I give
you
lessons," he said. "You should
give me. You know too much already."

"Well, I'm hardly a government spy," said Jonas. "Hardly
an informer."

"What was strictly illegal a hundred years ago is absolutely
legal now," said Chandler. "What was immoral fifty years
ago is acceptable now. And some things that used to be legal and
moral are illegal and immoral now. Some big American families built
their fortunes doing things the keepers of the public morality don't
tolerate today. Like importing slaves. Like keeping whorehouses. It's
just a matter of time. What goes around, comes around. Now we got
these crap politicians, like Kefauver, making hysterical accusations
for whatever political profit they can get. It's — "

"Who owns The Seven Voyages, Morris?" Jonas interrupted.

"I own eighteen points," said Chandler. "On the record
I own sixty-one points, but all except the eighteen I hold for men
who don't want their names associated."

"Men whose names you can't afford to have associated with the
operation," said Jonas.

"Have it your way. A point, you understand, is one percent."

"Does Lucky Luciano own any points, directly or indirectly?"

"Are you
kidding
? Luciano? No way."

"Frank Costello? Jimmy Blue Eyes?" Jonas asked.

Chandler shook his head emphatically.

"Meyer Lansky?"

"No. Meyer doesn't own any points. But he has a consulting
contract with us."

"What's he consult about?"

"The contract is in writing and has been
looked at by Justice Department snoops. It says he advises us on how
to do our accounting and keep the casino honest. Everyone
acknowledges he'd know. He's run plenty of illegal joints in his day.
The Justice Department found nothing wrong with the contract, nothing
wrong with our hiring him as a consultant. I don't know if you
understand this, but Meyer Lansky has
no
criminal record."

"In point of fact," said Jonas dryly, "he tells you
how to skim."

"In point of fact," said Chandler, "he tells us how to
distribute the profits."

"Officially a corporation owns The Seven Voyages," said
Jonas. "Seven Voyages Corporation owns the gaming license. You
own all the stock."

"You checked," said Chandler. "Okay. Officially,
legally, I own everything," said Chandler. "I'm like Meyer
Lansky in one respect. I'm clean. I have no criminal record. So I
make a perfect front man."

Nevada grinned. "Why, Maurie has never even had a ticket for
jaywalking."

"I'm not going to ask you who really owns the points," said
Jonas. "But I am interested in one thing. What does it cost to
put up a casino hotel in Las Vegas?"

Chandler sipped wine. "When we first came out here, say in 1946,
there was a rule of thumb," he said. "To set up a
decent-size hotel and casino, you spent one million dollars, max —
including the price of the land. By the time Siegel and his partners
got the Flamingo into operation, they had three million in it. It
cost five and a half to open The Seven Voyages."

"What would happen if you didn't skim?" Jonas asked.

Chandler shook his head. "You couldn't pay off your investors.
Banks would never have put up five and a half million dollars to
build a casino hotel in Las Vegas. We had to have investors."

Jonas nodded. "If you
had
the five and
a half million, you wouldn't need to sell points, and then you
wouldn't need to skim. You could run strictly legal and make a good
profit."

Chandler grinned. "You thinking of building a casino hotel,
Jonas?"

Jonas lifted his eyebrows and shrugged. "Well ... Suppose I
offered package tours from LA and Frisco. Round-trip flight to Las
Vegas, accommodations at a Cord hotel, with meals, at a fixed price.
I —"

"Your people will fly in here, swim in your pool, eat your food,
see your shows, and wouldn't gamble. Hell, they'll bring the kids."

"Okay. The price includes a chit, redeemable only in chips. Say
a hundred dollars' worth. So they've paid for their gambling in
advance."

"Smart guys will turn in their chits for chips, walk around the
room, and come back and turn in their chips for cash."

"Junketeers can always do that," said Jonas. "The
remedy is, you watch out for them. You don't let them do it to you
twice. But the great majority will gamble with their chips, lose
them, and buy some more. You get somebody hooked on casino gambling,
they stay hooked. The junket is an investment."

Chandler laughed. "I see why you're a multimillionaire. I also
see why you're holed up in The Seven Voyages ducking a subpoena."

When they had finished their lunch and conversation, Morris Chandler
left the suite. Angie came in. Jonas's four young men, who had been
working in the living room of Nevada's suite, came in.

Nevada stood with Chandler as he waited for the elevator.

"A word to the wise, Max," said Chandler
quietly. "Your boy's awful sharp.
Too
sharp. I hope he
has sense enough not to talk to other guys."

"Jonas has got brains he hasn't used yet," said Nevada.
"Well, tell him to use them. I like the guy. I don't want him to
get hurt."

The telephone rang as Jonas, Angie, and Nevada sat together on a sofa
and sipped bourbon as the sun set in the desert. She picked it up.
"Morris Chandler," she said.

"Problem," said Chandler grimly. "Guess who just
checked into the hotel? Mrs. Jonas Cord!"

"Damn," Jonas muttered.

"She had a reservation. My guys took it. They don't know you're
here. I couldn't refuse to accommodate her. She's in a room on the
fourth floor, right under you. How the hell did she find out you're
here?"

"Uh ... Maybe she didn't. Maybe she doesn't know."

"Even so, you can bet she's been tailed. If those subpoena
hounds really want you, they'll be tailin' your wife. The way their
minds work, they figure the divorce is just a cover."

"All right. We'll have to play it as smart as possible. My crowd
has got to stay in their rooms, out of sight. She'd recognize any one
of them."

"And so would the subpoena hounds, right?"

"Right. I'll get off the phone and get to each one of them."

Monica stripped and hurried into the shower. Alex followed her,
dropping his clothes on the floor. In a moment he was under the
shower with her, and they washed each other, running their soap-slick
hands over each other's bodies, hardly able to finish and dry before
their out-of-control carnal fervor overwhelmed them. They went half
dry to the bed, and in a moment he was on her and rammed himself into
her. Alex was like Jonas, she reflected for a moment — when he
was aroused he was in a hurry. But he never failed to satisfy.

They lit cigarettes when they were finished and lay on the bed,
satiated to exhaustion — never guessing that the management of
the hotel on which Chandler's telescope focused had returned the
favor, so that half a dozen men and women in the high-roller suite of
that hotel had amused themselves immensely by watching Monica and
Alex in their frenetic labors, through the window they had supposed
was too high and remote to give anyone a look into their room.

"The casino's gonna lose money on us," said Monica. "I
don't think I'll be able to spare five minutes after din-din before
we come back up here and do it again."

"It's a great place, isn't it?" said Alex.

"How'd you know about it?"

"It's got a reputation as a place where people can go that want
to be discreet."

"Well, we've been discreet. The reservation is in my name. The
room is in my name. Your wife will never know."

The phone rang again. Morris Chandler. "It may be nothing but a
coincidence," he said to Jonas. "She's got a man with her.
No big stud, I'd guess. But not a bad-lookin' guy."

"Monica could always pick 'em," said Jonas.

"If it would help you, I can bug her room while they're down to
dinner. They've just gone down."

"You mean I can listen to them when —"

"And we can tape it. Might be very useful when your lawyers sit
down to discuss settlement with her."

"Do it, Morris. Wire it so I can listen up here, and we'll tape
it, too."

When he put the phone down, Angie shook her head, smiled, and said,
"You can be a real bastard, can't you?"

"You'll enjoy it," he said.

She grinned. "Yeah."

The voices and the other sounds came through as clearly as though the
activity were taking place in the next room. Nevada went to his own
suite, unsubtle in expressing his disapproval of what they were
doing. Chandler remained, his cheeks drawn in between his teeth,
frowning. Angie listened soberly, and so did Jonas, sipping bourbon.

— "Careful! Careful! Like ... like that. Yeah!"

— (Laughing.) "I thought you told me
you were a virgin."

— "What the hell would you want with a
virgin?"

— "I don't know. I never had one."

— "
Jesus Christ
! Somebody's at
the door!"

— "Here. I'll wait in the bathroom."

The buzzer on the door had sounded clearly on the speaker. It would
be on the tape.

— "Who is it?"

— "United States marshals, Mrs. Cord."

— "What do you want?"

— "We're looking for Mr. Cord."

— "He's not here."

— "It will make everything a whole lot
simpler if you'll let us in."

— "For a minute. For just a minute."

No sounds came through for a moment, apparently as she opened the
door.

— "You're Mrs. Jonas Cord?"

— "Temporarily. The divorce is
pending."

— "You say Mr. Cord is not here?"

— "No, he's not here."

— "There is a man here. You don't deny
that, do you?"

— "I don't deny anything."

— "Who's the man?"

— "It's none of your business. He's not
Jonas Cord."

— "If you'll let us make sure of that,
it will make everything a whole lot simpler."

Another moment of silence. Then the man's voice:

— "Okay, guys. I'm not Jonas Cord,
okay?"

— "Nope. You're not Jonas Cord. Can we look in the
bathroom to see if anybody else is there?"

— "Look in the closet and under the bed while you're at
it, which will make everything a whole lot simpler, then get your
asses out of my room."

— "Do you know where Mr. Cord is,
ma'am?"

— "I don't know where he is.
Furthermore, I don't give a damn."

A long silence, punctuated by the slamming of a door.

— "Shit. You've lost your erection."

In the morning, while Monica and Alex slept at last, Jonas and Angie
ate breakfast, read the newspapers, and exchanged a few bland jokes
about what they'd heard last night.

When they had finished eating, Jonas called in Bill Shaw and sent him
off as a courier to Los Angeles, by way of the De Havilland junket
flight to Mexico City. He sent the tape with Shaw, to deliver to the
lawyer who would represent him in the divorce settlement
negotiations. He wrote a note and enclosed it with the tape: Use this
as you see fit, not at all if you don't have to. Notice that the talk
after the door buzzer eliminates all question about who we are
hearing.

Ten days later Jonas called Morris Chandler to a meeting in the
suite.

Three days before, Chandler had asked Nevada how much longer he
thought Jonas would want to occupy the entire fifth floor of The
Seven Voyages. The money Jonas was paying in rent was very generous,
Chandler said, but he'd decided he had made a bad deal. The rent he
would have received from high rollers who would otherwise have
occupied those suites, plus what they would have lost in the casino,
substantially exceeded Jonas's generous eight thousand a month.
Besides, some high rollers had complained about not getting their
usual deluxe suites.