"Let me hear your straight question," Jonas muttered, his face glowering and red.
"The two seventy-five thousand cleared accounts between you and Virgilio, didn't it? It wiped the books clean. He married my mother, knowing she was pregnant by you. He brought me up in his household and treated me as if I were his son. He paid my tuition — well, part of it. Most of that was paid with Batista money, and we know how that is earned. But you and Virgilio. You're even, aren't you? My straight question is Can you tell me you didn't think of it that way? You hand over two seventy-five thousand and you feel no more obligation to Virgilio Escalante. Isn't that the way you figured?"
Jonas shook his head. "In the first place," he said, "you know nothing about casino gambling if you think high rollers like Virgilio have to pay a hundred cents on the dollar. I bought his markers from the Flamingo for fifty thousand. Morris Chandler would have sold him his markers at my hotel for a hundred ten or a hundred twenty. Your note is more than a hundred thousand too rich."
"That's not a straight answer to my straight question," Bat snapped angrily. "What the hell's the difference how much you paid? You paid him off! Didn't you?"
"If you've made up your mind to that, why should I even answer?"
Bat stiffened as he drew a deep breath. He stood for a full quarter of a minute breathing heavily. "Because," he said hoarsely between clenched teeth. "Because — All right. If you give me your word on it, I will believe you. I have no choice."
Jonas smiled, almost imperceptibly. So — His son. Formidable. He had backed his father — not just his father but Jonas Cord — into a corner.
Almost. "I will give you my word on a condition," said Jonas.
"Which is?"
"Which is that you take this money and this note back. Virgilio will repay me. If he doesn't, it's a business risk I took, for reasons that are sufficient for me — and which have nothing to do with you."
Bat nodded. "All right," he muttered. He reached for and accepted the envelope.
Jonas looked up and met Bat's eyes with his. "I did not pay off Virgilio Escalante for what he did for your mother, for you, or for me."
"What choice do I have, but to believe you? I used to think I didn't want to meet you until I was in a position to tell you to go to hell. So now I'm in that position."
"Are you telling me to go to hell?" asked Jonas. Bat shrugged scornfully. "'What's the difference?"
13
1
IN THE LAW FIRM OF WILSON, CLARK & YORK THERE WAS no Wilson and no York. There was a Clark: the great-grandson of Depew Clark. The founders were all long since dead, none of them having lived past 1930. The custom was to keep their names on the firm letterhead, giving the dates of their lives to solve any possible ethical problem that might arise if someone was naive enough to believe his law business might be handled by one of the founders.
The firm's twenty-nine active partners were listed in a column down the left margin of the letterhead. A column down the right margin listed the associates. One of these was Jonas E. Cord.
He was spending a year in the offices of Wilson, Clark & York by reason of the agreement between that firm and Gurza y Aroza in Mexico City to exchange junior associates for one-year terms. Two Wilson, Clark & York lawyers were in Mexico City. Two Gurza y Aroza abogados were in New York.
The fall crop of associates were traditionally welcomed at a cocktail party held at the Harvard Club. There they met all the partners and all the more senior associates and were welcomed into the fraternity of the firm. The partners kept keen eyes on their new associates. They wanted to see how much the boys would drink and how drunk they got. In point of fact, the test didn't work, and everybody knew it didn't. Among the senior associates there was invariably someone disloyal enough to warn the new associates, so the boys drank sparingly. Usually it was the partners who got drunk.
Occasionally, lawyers from other firms came to the party. They came to see how well Wilson, Clark & York had done with its recruiting, but they were welcome.
Dave Amory came. "Bat!" he exclaimed as he strode across the threadbare carpet that was an clement of the dignity and cachet of the Harvard Club and seized Bat's hand. "I heard these pettifoggers had got you. Welcome to New York!"
"Bat?" asked one of the firm's junior partners.
"Well, you aren't going to call him Jonas, for Christ's sake," said Dave. "Bat and I go back a long way. He was my platoon leader during the late unpleasantness."
"Dave saved my life," said Bat solemnly.
"Bull," said Dave. "If I had anything to do with it, it was only because he was fool enough to run across the Ludendorff Bridge as if it were the Brooklyn Bridge."
"I was in the Pacific," said the junior partner. "Anyway, we're glad to have another name for this guy, also to know we've got a genuine hero in the office."
"Hero — Oh, come on!" Bat complained. "Dave, you've got a big mouth."
A little later, as Bat and Dave stood at a window looking down on the street, Dave said, "Take the opportunity while you're in New York and get yourself admitted to the New York bar."
"I'm already admitted," said Bat. "I took the New York bar exam before I went back to Mexico."
"Good. Get all the admissions you can. And, hey, it's none of my business, but have you seen your father yet?"
Bat nodded. "He has an apartment in the Waldorf Towers, would you believe? I met him in Mexico, actually. He's not in town very often, but when he was here, a week or so ago, he invited me to dinner at '21'."
"How 'bout Toni?"
Bat drew a breath and sighed. "I suppose I ought to go down to Washington and see her."
"When did you see her last?"
"Well, it's been ... a year."
Dave shook his head. "Maybe you better stay away from her. After all that time, she's probably made other arrangements."
2
Toni had cheered herself hoarse, but when she sat down over a Scotch and soda later with Nick Gargagliano she shook her head and sighed and admitted, "We don't have a chance."
They had driven from Washington to Baltimore to be present at a campaign rally for Adlai Stevenson. She couldn't think of a man in public life that she admired more, but she knew he would not be elected President of the United States.
"It's not that bad," said Nick, who was always the optimist.
"Not? It's worse. The great war hero is going to be elected President — and that slimy little creature from California will be elected with him. There's not a goddamned thing we can do to stop it."
Nick had ordered a plate of steamers and a mug of beer. Toni didn't feel like eating and was sipping Scotch and glancing around for the waiter who would bring her another one. She had started smoking again since she didn't see Bat anymore, and she inhaled the thick smoke from a Chesterfield.
They sat side by side in a high-backed wooden booth painted with shiny red enamel, facing a table painted the same way but blackened with dozens of cigarette burns. They had privacy, and Nick was casually fondling her left breast. She allowed this. She allowed more, though she had never done with him some of the things she had done with Bat.
Nicholas Gargagliano was assistant to the director of the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, Department of Labor. He was an exceptionally handsome man, with dark curly hair, a long jaw with the blue shadow of a beard always showing, active brown eyes, and a puckish smile. He was about forty years old and came from a county in southern Oklahoma known as an Italian enclave where wonderful red wine was somehow made, to the amazement of the Oklahomans.