"The President wants Cord Hotels, Incorporated, to build a casino-hotel."
"Tell him you want to test the waters by investing in the Floresta," said Lansky. "If that's a winning proposition, you'll do something more. I can assure you he'll welcome an investment of one million."
"I want to see the Floresta," said Bat. "I'll want to talk to President Batista."
3
"How much of a commitment did you make to him?" Jonas asked. They sat over lunch at the Four Seasons. Bat had returned from Mexico and was reporting to his father on his talks with Fulgencio Batista and Meyer Lansky.
"I made no commitment," said Bat. "I had no authority to make a commitment."
"But you think it may not be a bad deal?"
"It may not. The Floresta is known for quiet, sumptuous rooms, good food, and an interesting swimming pool set partly in living rock and surrounded with flowering shrubs and palms. Americans stay there. They come back to it as a refuge after a night in the gaudy, flashy places. Lansky means to keep it that way. The casino and show room would be in a separate wing. He wants to do higher-quality shows than are done at most of the Havana clubs. And of course the gambling will be honest."
"Do you trust Lansky?"
Jonas lifted his glass and took a sip of Jack Daniel's Black Label. It impressed Bat as a strange thing to be drinking with the famous Four Seasons crab cakes, but that was not the only strange habit his father had.
"No, and I don't trust Great-Uncle Fulgencio either. But let me tell you something about Meyer Lansky. In this country his reputation is that he's a gangster and nothing but. You know — 'the Chairman of the Board.' He —"
"It's exaggerated," said Jonas.
"When the government wanted the cooperation of Lucky Luciano in 1942, they used Lansky as the go-between," said Bat.
"I doubt that."
Bat shrugged. "You can look it up. I did."
"Did your homework, huh?"
"In the States," Bat continued, "Lansky is known as a gangster. In Cuba he's thought of as a businessman. And not just by Fulgencio Batista."
"He couldn't get a Nevada gaming license," said Jonas. "But for all his reputation, he has no criminal record. In his entire life he's spent only three months in jail."
"He couldn't be a silent partner in the Floresta," said Bat. "It would be his reputation that would attract the high rollers."
"We wouldn't buy the hotel, I assume," said Jonas.
"No. We'd build the wing for the casino and show room. The owners of the hotel would lease the wing to us. But we'd pay no cash for the lease for, say, fifty months, until we got our investment back."
"Who owns the Floresta?" asked Jonas.
Bat grinned. "A real estate group in Havana. But if this deal goes through, ten percent of it will be owned by my Great-Uncle Fulgencio."
"Insurance?" asked Jonas.
"Whatever you want to call it. I'm glad I went to Cuba. It was worth the trip to meet Lansky. He told me something we are going to have to think about."
"What?"
"Our friend Morris Chandler has been talking to some pretty rough characters. For one, Jimmy Hoffa went to Vegas and met with him."
"I know," said Jonas. "Angie saw him and called me."
"That's not the half of it," said Bat. "Lansky says he's been in touch with men like Murray the Camel in Chicago and Anthony Provenzano in New Jersey. If he's working for us, why would he contact people like that?"
"Because Nevada Smith is dead," said Jonas. He put down a gulp of whiskey. "That's why."
"Meaning?"
"He and Nevada were close. Besides, I think Nevada had something on him. With Nevada gone — Chandler resented my taking over The Seven Voyages. He doesn't like the way I make him run it. I'd guess he wants to muscle us out."
"Buy us out?"
Jonas shook his head. "Muscle us out. Your assignment is to get out to Las Vegas and take over the hotel. The Cuban thing is a sideshow. Where I want you is Las Vegas."
Bat nodded as he lifted a forkful of crab cake to his mouth. "Las Vegas? What am I going to be doing in Las Vegas?"
"As of today you're a vice president of Cord Hotels," he said. "The corporate headquarters is the fifth floor of The Seven Voyages."
Bat shook his head. "Wait a minute. Our deal is that I learn the business, the overall business, not just the hotel business. In New York or Los Angeles."
"I ran the overall business from the fifth floor of The Seven Voyages for months," said Jonas.
"But —"
"What do you think I'm doing? Sending you into exile? We'll be in touch every day."
"About the hotel business."
"Right now, about the hotel business chiefly. Jesus Christ, you've got to start somewhere! Right now, that's where I need you. I'm running a business. You're my son, and I want you with me. But you've got to go where I need you. Learn the business? Okay, learn the hotel business first. Then — Well, each piece in time."
Bat shook his head. "This isn't the deal we made. Las Vegas, for Christ's sake?"
"As a vice president of Cord Hotels, Incorporated, your salary will be a hundred thousand," said Jonas as he lifted his glass to sip bourbon.
"You can be very persuasive," said Bat. "Said another way, you have ways of getting what you want out of people."
4
Bat arrived in Las Vegas on an Inter-Continental corporate Beech flown from Los Angeles. From the moment he saw the town, he didn't much like it. It was what Meyer Lansky had called it: a dusty desert town. Only Lansky hadn't added that it was a pretentious dusty desert town. Without Nevada's laws allowing casino gambling, it would be nothing.
Though he hadn't said so to anyone, he hadn't much cared for the Cord ranch either, or for the land around it. As somebody in the army had put it, "Y' seen one boondocks, y' seen 'em all."
The ranch house was in distinct contrast to the hacienda house near Cordoba. The hacienda house had style. The ranch house had fashion. Las Vegas had neither. The Seven Voyages was a plastic dump.
"I'll take over the top floor, all of it, for the company headquarters," Bat said to Chandler within five minutes after they met.
"I explained to your father, that'll cost money," said Chandler.
"I may need part of the fourth floor, too," said Bat.
Chandler shrugged. "You're the boss."
"I'm glad you understand that. Angie will be my father's personal and confidential assistant when he's in town, mine when he's not. The rest of my personal staff will be coming in from Los Angeles and Mexico City."
"Whatever you say, boss."
"Don't call me boss."
"What do you want me to call you?" Chandler asked.
"Until we know each other a little better, you can call me Mr. Cord," said Bat. Then he grinned and walked over to where Chandler was sitting and slapped him on the shoulder. "I figure we'll know each other better in about fifteen minutes, and then you can call me Bat."
As soon as Chandler was out of the suite and on the private elevator, Bat turned to Angie and said, "I'm hot. I want to go swimming. You have a bathing suit handy?"
"Uh ... Sure. In my room."
"See you at the pool in ten minutes," said Bat.
She appeared in a white two-piece swimsuit and white high-heel shoes. Swimsuits that exposed the navel and a little below were just beginning to appear in the States and were being called bikinis, and Angie attracted stares as she crossed the pool deck and sat down beside Bat at an umbrella table.
"You are a luscious woman," he told her. "If you didn't have a relationship with my father — "