Kane & Abel (1979) (35 page)

Matthew gazed at his companions in dismay. Thaddeus Cohen had turned a dull red, and stood with his head bowed. William’s lips were drawn together in the same tight, cold fury that had been apparent when Crosby had made his reference to the
Titanic
.

Matthew touched his arm. ‘We’d better leave.’

The three trudged off to William’s rooms and silently drank some indifferent brandy, and exchanged stories that no one listened to.

When William woke in the morning, an envelope had been pushed under his door. He tore it open to find a short note from the chairman of the Porcellian Club, informing him that he hoped ‘there will not be a recurrence of last night’s unfortunate incident’.

By lunchtime the chairman had received two letters of resignation.

After several studious months, William and Matthew were almost ready - no one ever thinks they are entirely ready - for their final examinations. For six days they answered questions and filled pages and pages of the little blue examination books, and once they had written their last line they waited patiently, but not in vain.

A week after the exams it was announced that William had won the President’s Mathematics Prize. Matthew had managed a ‘gentleman’s C, which came as a relief to him, and as no great surprise to anyone. Neither had any interest in prolonging their education, both wishing to join the ‘real’ world as quickly as possible.

William’s bank account in New York edged over the million-dollar mark eight days before he left Harvard. For the first time he discussed with Matthew his long-term plan to gain control of Lester’s Bank by merging it with Kane and Cabot. Matthew was enthusiastic about the idea, and confessed, ‘That’s about the only way I’ll ever improve on what my old man has achieved in his lifetime.’

In June 1928, Alan Lloyd, now in his sixtieth year, travelled to Harvard for graduation day. How William wished his father was alive to witness the presentation ceremony.

Afterwards, he took Alan for tea on the square. The banker looked at the tall young man with affection.

‘And what do you intend to do now that you’ve put Harvard behind you?’

‘I’m going to join Charles Lester’s bank in New York. I want to gain some more experience before I come to Kane and Cabot in a few years’ time.’

‘But you’ve been practically living in Lester’s Bank since you were twelve years old, William. Why don’t you come straight to us? We would make you a director immediately.’

No reply was forthcoming.

‘Well, I must say, William, it’s most unlike you to be rendered speechless by anything.’

‘But I never imagined you’d invite me to join the board before my twenty-fifth birthday. My father …’

‘It’s true that your father was twenty-five when he was elected. But that’s no reason why you shouldn’t join the board before then if the other directors support the idea, and I know they do. In any case, there are personal reasons why I’d like to see you take your place on the board as soon as possible. When I retire from the bank in five years’ time, we must be sure to elect the right chairman. You’ll be in a stronger position to influence that decision if you’ve been working for Kane and Cabot during those years, rather than as a glorified functionary at Lester’s. Well, my boy. Will you join the board?’

It was the second time that day that William had wished his father was still alive.

‘I should be delighted to accept, sir.’

‘That’s the first time you’ve called me “sir” since we played golf together, and I didn’t win on that occasion.’

William smiled.

‘Good,’ said Alan, ‘that’s settled, then. You’ll be a junior director in charge of investments, working directly under Tony Simmons.’

‘Can I appoint my own assistant?’ asked William.

‘Matthew Lester, no doubt?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. I don’t want him doing to our bank what you intended to do to theirs.’

William didn’t comment, but he never underestimated Alan Lloyd again.

I
T TOOK
A
BEL
about three months to appreciate the full extent of the problems facing the Richmond Continental, and why the hotel was losing so much money.

The simple conclusion he came to after twelve weeks of keeping his eyes wide open and his mouth shut, while at the same time allowing the staff to believe he was half asleep, was that the hotel’s profits were, quite simply, being stolen. The Richmond staff were working a cooperative on a scale that even Abel had not previously come across. The system did not, however, take into account a new assistant manager who’d had to steal bread from the Russians to stay alive. Abel’s first problem was not to let anybody know how much he knew until he’d had a chance to check on every department in the hotel. It didn’t take him long to figure out that each one of them had perfected its own system for stealing.

Deception started at the front desk, where the clerks were registering only eight out of every ten guests, and pocketing any cash payments from the remaining two. The routine they were using was a simple one. If anyone had tried it at the Plaza in New York, they would have been found out within minutes, and fired the same day. The head desk clerk would select an elderly couple from another state who had booked in for only one night, and who had never stayed at the hotel before. He would then discreetly make sure they had no business connections in the city, and then simply fail to register them. If they paid cash the following morning, the money was pocketed. Provided they had not signed the register, there was no record to show that they had ever stayed at the hotel. Abel had long thought that all hotels should be required to register every guest, as the Plaza did.

In the dining room the system had been refined. All cash payments from any non-resident guests for lunch or dinner were immediately siphoned off. Abel had anticipated this, but it took him a little longer to check through the restaurant bills and establish that the front desk was working with the dining-room staff to ensure there were no restaurant bills for those guests they had already chosen not to register. In the bar it was even more blatant. The barman was bringing in his own bottles of liquor and pocketing the cash while the hotel’s own bottles remained unopened. Over and above all this, there was a steady trail of fictitious breakages and repairs, missing equipment, disappearing food and lost bed linen - even an occasional mattress had gone astray. Abel concluded that more than half of the Richmond’s staff were involved in the conspiracy, and that not one department had a completely clean record.

When he’d first arrived at the hotel, he had wondered why the manager, Desmond Pacey, hadn’t noticed what was going on under his nose. He wrongly assumed that the man was just lazy, and could not be bothered to follow up minor peccadilloes. Even Abel was slow to realize that the manager was in fact the mastermind behind the entire operation, and the reason it worked so well. Pacey had been employed by the Richmond Group for more than thirty years. There was not a single hotel in the group in which he had not held a senior position at one time or another, which made Abel fearful for the solvency of the entire chain. Moreover, Pacey was a close friend of Leroy, and had become his most trusted lieutenant. Abel calculated that the Chicago Richmond was losing more than $30,000 a year in theft alone, a situation that could be remedied overnight by firing a large portion of the staff, starting with Desmond Pacey. This posed a problem, because in thirty years Davis Leroy had rarely fired anyone. He simply tolerated their indiscretions, hoping that in time they would leave. As far as Abel could determine, Richmond Group staff went on robbing the chain blind until they reluctantly retired.

Abel decided that the only way he could reverse the hotel’s fortunes was to have a showdown with Davis Leroy, but not until he had all the details documented. On his next free weekend Abel boarded the Great Express from Illinois Central to St Louis and on, via the Missouri Pacific, to Dallas. Under his arm was a 200-page report that had taken him three months to compile in his attic room in the hotel annexe. When Davis Leroy had finished reading through the mass of evidence, he sat staring at Abel in disbelief.

‘These people are my friends,’ were his first words. ‘Some of them have been with me for thirty years. Hell - there’s always been a little pilfering in the hotel business, but now you tell me they’ve been systematically robbing me behind my back?’

‘In one or two cases, I suspect every day for the past thirty years,’ said Abel.

‘So what am I expected to do about it?’

‘I can stop the rot if you’re willing to sack Desmond Pacey, and give me the authority to remove anyone who has been working with him.’

‘Well now, Abel, I wish it was as simple as that.’

‘It’s just that simple,’ said Abel. ‘And if you won’t let me deal with the culprits, you can have my resignation before I get back on the train to Chicago, because I have no interest in being a part of the most corruptly run hotel in America. I’m only surprised Al Capone isn’t a director.’

‘Couldn’t we just demote Desmond Pacey to assistant manager? Then I could make you manager and the problem would simply go away. After all, he’s due to retire in a couple of years’ time.’

‘Just long enough to bankrupt you,’ said Abel. ‘And what’s worse, I suspect all your other hotels are being run in the same cavalier way. If you want things to change in Chicago, you’ll have to make a firm decision about Pacey right now, or you can go to the wall on your own, because I’ve got better things to do with my life.’

‘Us Texans have a reputation for speaking our mind, Abel, but we’re sure not in your class. Okay, okay, I’ll give you the authority to sack Pacey, which means you’re now the manager of the Chicago Richmond. Congratulations, my boy,’ continued Leroy, standing up and slapping his new manager on the back. ‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful. You’ve done a swell job in Chicago, and from now on I’ll look upon you as my right-hand man. To be honest with you, Abel, I’ve been doing so well on the Stock Market I hadn’t even noticed the losses in the group, so thank God I have one honest friend. Why don’t you stay overnight and join me for dinner?’

‘I’d be delighted, Mr Leroy. I was hoping to spend the night at the Dallas Richmond so I can find out what they’ve been up to.’

‘You’re not going to let anyone off the hook, are you, Abel?’

‘Not if I find out they’ve been educated at the same business school as Desmond Pacey.’

That evening, Abel and Davis Leroy ate two huge steaks, and drank a little too much whiskey, which the Texan insisted was no more than southern hospitality. He also admitted to Abel that he had been considering inviting someone to take charge of the Richmond Group, so that he could take life a little easier.

‘Are you sure you want a dumb Polack in charge?’ slurred Abel.

‘Abel, it’s me who’s been dumb. If you hadn’t smoked out those thieves, I might have gone under. But now that I know the truth, we’ll lick the bastards together, and I’m going to give you the chance to put the Richmond Group back on the map.’

Abel shakily raised his glass. ‘I’ll drink to that - and to a long and successful partnership.’

‘Go get ‘em, boy.’

Abel spent the night at the Dallas Richmond, giving a false name and pointedly telling the desk clerk he would be staying only one night. In the morning, he watched the hotel’s only copy of the receipt for his cash payment disappear into the wastepaper basket. His suspicions were confirmed. The problem was obviously not Chicago’s alone, but had permeated the entire group. He decided he would have to get Chicago sorted out before he could take on any other Desmond Paceys, and called Davis Leroy to tell him that the disease had spread to more than one limb.

Abel travelled back the way he had come. The Mississippi Valley lay sullen beyond the train windows, devastated by the floods of the previous year. Abel could only think about the devastation he was going to cause once he was back at the Chicago Richmond.

When he walked through the revolving doors of the hotel, there was no sign of the night porter, and only one clerk was on duty. He decided to let them all have a good night’s rest before he bade them farewell. A young bellboy opened the front door of the annexe for him.

‘Have a good trip, Mr Rosnovski?’

‘Yes, thank you. How have things been here?’