JC2 The Raiders (37 page)

"Why not, if you want to?"

Jonas ignored that. "On the whole," he said, "I like
the architect's design for the Intercontinental Vegas Hotel. But I
don't think you've got the slot-machine arcade placed right. The
people who play the slots are small-timers. We don't want them
walking around in the casino just to gawk. Put the arcade near an
outside door, so they can come in and play the slots without even
entering the rest of the hotel. Also, the plan shows the arcade with
windows. No windows, none in the casino, none in the arcade. The idea
is for players to forget what time it is, which they won't do if they
see the light changing outside."

"Okay," said Bat.

"I've been going over a lot of stuff," Jonas went on. "I
see you haven't restructured the business. I wondered if I might come
back and find my name wasn't on the letterhead anymore."

"Oh, sure," said Bat.

"You really think we ought to quit making TV sets? You never
give up on that, do you?"

"I've given you my reasons."

"Yeah. Well, you've got me by the short
hairs. Okay. Phase it out.
Your
job.
Phase
us out, so
we don't look like we've been beat. Also, you're saying we ought to
quit making airplanes."

"You're a pilot," said Bat. "Would you fly a Cord 50?"

"It's a good little plane. For a trainer."

"So's a Piper," said Bat. "So's a Cessna 150. And the
Beech. Look at the sales numbers."

"What do you want me to do, give up Intercontinental Airlines,
too?"

"Hell, no. Inter-Continental is competitive. It holds its market
share very nicely on its routes. It's a prestige property. Maybe
someday we'll want to sell it. If we do, we'll get a big piece of
cash for it — or a strong position in the stock of the buyer
airline."

"Why would you ever want to sell it, for
Christ's sake? Am I going to have
anything
left?"

"The airline business is going the way of automobile
manufacturing," said Bat. "The trend is to fewer and fewer
companies. Only the really big operators will be able to survive. But
that's years down the pike."

"I can hear the wheels going around in your
head," said Jonas. "Okay. So no Cord TVs, no Cord
airplanes. But
phase
them out, not too fast. We don't want it
to look like we gave up on something or were forced out. What else?"

"I think we ought to consolidate Cord Explosives and Cord
Plastics. They're the same kind of business: chemicals. I don't see
the point in keeping two sets of management on the payroll, two sets
of accountants, two sets of lawyers, and so on."

"I'm damned if you're not telling me I haven't run things very
efficiently!"

"I'm not telling you that," said Bat. "It's for you to
decide if you have or haven't. I do have another suggestion, though.
Cord Explosives. I think there's some disadvantage in calling the
parent company of all the other enterprises by the name Explosives.
In some quarters it brings a negative reaction. I suggest we give it
a new name: Cord Explosives Division of Cord Enterprises. Then Cord
Plastics and Cord Productions and Cord Hotels are also divisions of
Cord Enterprises."

"You didn't restructure, but you were sure as hell thinking
about it," said Jonas ruefully.

"Also," said Bat, "I recommend we call Cord
Enterprises CE and design a distinctive company logo for it. General
Electric is GE, International Business Machines is IBM, Trans World
Airlines is TWA, and so forth."

"My father is spinning in his grave," said Jonas.

"If he were alive, he'd do things like this," said Bat.

"If he were alive he'd be in a rest home," said Jonas.

"They're not such big changes. They don't threaten your
control."

"Okay, then," said Jonas. "Make your changes. I'll
make you vice president and a director of this CE, which will be the
parent company, as you say. I want frequent and detailed reports. I'm
going to stay here and run Cord Hotels myself. I'm going to see to it
that the Intercontinental Vegas gets built. Also, I'm going to ride
herd on that son of a bitch Chandler. He's getting a little
independent."

"He keeps bad company," said Bat.

"Doesn't he? Listen, is your lawyer friend Amory coming aboard?
We'll need a corporate lawyer to make these changes."

"What about Phil Wallace?"

"Phil Wallace is my personal attorney, though he's handled a lot
of company business. Dave Amory will be general counsel to Cord
Enterprises. That is, he will if you think he's good enough."

"He's good enough."

"Then that's settled. He should be in New York, which is where
you should be. Why'd you take our TV star with you to Havana? She
that good a lay?"

"She and I — "

"Yeah. But if she's around too much when things are happening,
she'll get to know too much about our business. I don't want her to
know anything. From a lifetime's experience, I tell you: Keep your
business life and your sex life separate. Okay?"

"What if I told you I might marry her?"

"I'd think you'd lost your mind," Jonas said, total scorn
in his voice. "Like your sister. She says she might marry that
bum Parrish. I tried to talk her into going into a drying-out clinic,
and she won't do it. Hey! I can't cover all these bases. Use the kind
of smarts in your personal life that you do in business."

"What Jo-Ann needs is a job," said Bat. "She doesn't
want to live on an allowance. She needs responsibility ... and
purpose. I'd like to give her a job with Cord Productions, say in
advertising or maybe public relations."

"No," said Jonas. "Not if she marries Parrish. Not
until she dries out."

Bat shrugged. "You're the boss," he said.

Jonas looked away from Bat for a moment, stared at
the window where the telescope still stood on its tripod. "Don't
you even
think
of marrying that bitch," he said. "You've
told me not to meddle in your personal life, but a man's judgment
about his personal affairs reflects on his judgment in business
affairs. Are you telling me you're
infatuated
with Glenda
Grayson?"

"You asked if she's a good lay. I'm gonna
tell you, she's a
hell
of a lay."

"Let me tell
you
something," said
Jonas. "In my time I've humped a lot of women. I've had children
by two of them, just two. And let me tell you, neither of them was a
woman I'd have had to be ashamed of. Your mother is a fine woman.
Monica is, too, in her way. If you married Glenda Grayson, or if she
became the mother of a child by you, you'd be
ashamed
of her
sooner or later, embarrassed to have your business associates and
your personal friends meet her. She was a goddamned stripteaser, Bat!
She's
coarse!
"

"Okay, okay. You've made your point," Bat muttered
resentfully.

"Anyway, how could you do anything like that to the smart,
beautiful little girl in Washington? Use your fuckin' brains, Bat!"

"You know what he said to me? 'You're the boss.' I just make the
boy vice president of the main company, and when he disagrees about
something, he just shrugs at me and says, 'You're the boss.'"

"Why does that offend you?" asked Angie. Jonas was supposed
to take an hour's rest in the afternoon. The doctor said that meant
taking off his clothes and going to bed. Usually, Angie joined him.
Usually, she could distract him from the racing thoughts that
monopolized his mind and denied him the rest he was supposed to be
getting. Right now she lay beside him, gently massaging his penis and
scrotum, hoping he might relax and maybe even go to sleep.

"I don't know," he said in a voice that
suggested maybe he was beginning to relax. "Damnit, I — I
didn't think he'd get hostile if I overruled him on something. My
god, I'd accepted all kinds of big changes he wanted to make; and
when I said no to one thing, to just one goddamned thing, he shrugged
me off, telling me I'm the boss.
Of course
I'm the boss. What
the hell did he think?"

"Maybe it was because it was about a personal thing, his
newfound sister."

"I want the boy to be a success. I want him
to be ready to take over when the time comes. But
not yet
."

"Just how big a success do you want him to be?" asked
Angie.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to suggest how big," she said. "Big —
but not quite as big as you. Right?"

Jonas kept silent for a quarter of a minute. "You're like Bat,"
he said then. "You're too damned smart for your own good."

"I was warned," said Bat to Glenda. "People told me
I'd become his errand boy."

"Damned highly paid errand boy, I'd say," Glenda commented.

They were in bed at the beach house.

"I'm like a dog on a leash. I can run out a certain distance;
and then, whenever he wants to, he jerks me back. I won't be your
producer anymore, incidentally. He dropped that one on me this
afternoon."

"You won't? Who will be?"

"I don't know yet. I don't know if it's my call or his. I'll be
executive producer but I won't be in charge of day-to-day operations.
I'm going to have to spend a lot more time in New York."

"In other words, I won't be seeing you so much anymore."

"I'll come to LA as often as I can. And you can come to New
York."

"Not until a season of shows is in the can," she said.

"Well, I'll get out here. Often. It's just that we won't be
together every day."

"Every
night
," she said quietly.
"You won't need the beach house anymore. I can — "

"Of course I need the beach house.
We
need the beach house."

"So the old man's going to have his way, after all," she
said dully.

"What makes you say that?"

"You've got to go to New York. I've got to stay in California.
He seems to be arranging things so as to keep us apart."

"I'm my own man," said Bat grimly.

"Sure you are," she sneered.

The
Wall Street Journal
published the story
of the reorganization of what it, like many other newspapers, chose
to call the Cord Empire.

NEW "CEO" CORD EMPIRE

Jonas E. R. Cord, the son of Jonas Cord II, has been assigned broad
responsibilities in the restructured Cord conglomerate.

While the thirty-one-year-old Jonas Cord III is obviously being
groomed to succeed his formidable father and grandfather at the head
of the Cord Empire, it is apparent that the real reins of power
remain in the hands of the fifty-three-year-old father, who has
retained his positions as chairman of the board and chief executive
officer of what is now to be called CE — this in addition to
owning a majority of the common stock.

Toni Maxim, although she was a political reporter
and not a business reporter, covered the story for
The Washington
Post
, writing in part:

The third Jonas Cord — Jonas Enrique Raul Cord y Batista —
is anything but the All-American Boy. He is his father's illegitimate
son and was born and reared in Mexico. He was educated in the States,
though — at Culver Military Academy, Harvard, and Harvard Law.
His education was interrupted by a stint in the United States Army,
during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and two
Purple Hearts.

He continues a family tradition begun by his grandfather and father,
in that he is a ladies' man of note. He is frequently seen with
nightclub and television star Glenda Grayson and recently took her
with him on a visit to Cuba, where he inspected a Cord investment in
a gambling casino and renewed his acquaintance with his great-uncle,
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

When Toni came to New York, Bat showed her the wire he had received
from his father.

I HAD SUPPOSED THIS GIRL WAS OUR FRIEND. SHE KNOWS TOO MUCH AND SHE
TALKS TOO MUCH. REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT TELLING YOUR WOMEN ABOUT
YOUR BUSINESS.

She sat across from him at his desk in the Chrysler Building. His
desk was a big table, actually, and behind it, instead of a credenza,
sat two handsome rolltop desks. It was in Bat's nature to live with
clutter on his desk but also to like to hide the clutter by closing
the rolltops. The teletype machine his father used to send him
messages from Las Vegas stood in a corner. It was chattering away
now, printing some query or complaint from Jonas. He seemed not even
to notice it. When it stopped he didn't get up to see what message
had arrived.

Toni was more beautiful than ever. At thirty-one, she had gained no
weight; she was if anything maybe slightly thinner than before. Her
heavy breasts swelled provocatively under the white silk of her
blouse. He hadn't touched them for a very long time. The thought made
him draw a deep, tense breath.

"I didn't mean to offend your father," said Toni. She said
it with a sly little smile that contradicted her words.

"His heart attack has made him more curmudgeonly," said
Bat. "The doctor warned me it might."

"Brush with death," she said.

"Something more than that. Something about the blood supply to
the brain."

"I didn't stop by to talk about your father," she said.
"I'll be interviewing the mayor this afternoon and wondered if
you would like to meet for dinner."

"You bet," said Bat. He flipped a page on his calendar.
"I'll cancel a couple of things."

"Fine. Where shall I meet you?"

"Where are you staying?" he asked.

"At the Algonquin."

"There's a fine dining room in the hotel. But, uh ... why are
you staying in a hotel? You know, I've got the place in the Waldorf
Towers."

"How would Glenda react to my bunking in with you?" she
asked.

"It's none of her business," said Bat.

"That's right — any more than it's any of mine that you've
been sleeping with her. I mean, if we only see each other once every
few months, I can't expect you to be celibate in the meantime. And,
for that matter, you can't expect me to be either."