The Raiders

1

JONAS ADOPTED A NAME FOR THE GRAY-HAIRED JOWLY man who played blackjack: Al String. It was a play on the name Cord. He gambled night after night for a week in The Seven Voyages and lost eighteen hundred dollars. He moved from there to the Flamingo, where he played four nights and won three hundred. He moved on to some of the older howdy-pardner gaming rooms. Angie went with him every night. Nevada, dressed in a suit that would have looked right on a Texas oilman, complete with champagne-colored Stetson, went with him to the old places.

"I'm beginning to figure this thing out," Jonas said to Nevada and Angie one night when they sat down over a late supper in the suite. "The beauty of casino operations is that most of the money that passes through them is in cash. That's what attracts the kind of operators that are running this town. Think about it! Think of the opportunities."

"Like?" asked Nevada — though he was not so innocent that he didn't know what Jonas was about to say. "The simplest element of it is tax evasion," said Jonas. "What part of the take do you guess they report? Fifty percent? Seventy-five percent? In those back rooms they count cash. How much of it slips out of the hotel without being accounted for?"

"There's more to it than that," said Angie. "The casinos are owned by partners, most of them back East. They fly out here on junkets and gamble. They fly home with briefcases full of cash, which is their share of the partnership profits. If the tax boys happen to find out about their cash, they say they had good luck and won a lot of money. They never admit they own a part of the casino and get a regular distribution of the profits. The cash they get is skimmed off the take every night."

Their late-night snack was club sandwiches. Angie and Nevada drank beer with theirs. Jonas drank bourbon. He had pulled off his wig and had of course pulled from his mouth the wax which for some odd reason made him thirsty.

"A lot of the partners can't afford to be identified as partners," Angie went on. "They have criminal records, and the State of Nevada would lift the casino license if it were known that they own shares. So they come out here and play the tables, go home with 'winnings,' and no one's the wiser ... so they think."

"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.

2

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."

3

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."

4

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."

5

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."

6

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."

7

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.

8

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.

When Chandler came into the suite, he found Nevada and Angie and Len Douglas with Jonas. The three men wore golf shirts and slacks — Nevada looking incongruous in his. Angie wore a raspberry-colored golf shirt and white slacks.

"You know everybody, Morris," Jonas said. "Coffee?"

"Yes, thank you," said Morris Chandler. He was not wearing one of his usual dark suits today but wore instead a cream-and-brown-checked jacket and dark-brown slacks. He was visibly nervous, as if he anticipated that the call for this meeting presaged something ominous.

"Take a look through the telescope," said Jonas. "I checked them five minutes ago, and they were up there."

Chandler sat down and put his coffee on the table.

"Nevada tells me I'm costing you more than I'm paying you," said Jonas.

Chandler nodded. "It's just a business fact, Jonas. Nothing personal. You've been fair. I'm sure you had no idea I'd come out short. I didn't."

"We'll take care of that one way or another," said Jonas. "I want to talk to you about something else."

"Still thinking of building a hotel of your own?" asked Chandler.

"I've got something better in mind," said Jonas. "I'm thinking of buying this one."

Chandler jerked up his chin and shook his head. "It's not for sale."

"It might be," said Jonas. "The men who own the points just might be interested, if they got the right offer."

"You don't even know who owns the points," said Chandler.

"Most of them, I do," said Jonas.

"How could you find out? How could you find out when the feds can't find out, when the State of Nevada can't find out?"

Jonas glanced at Nevada. Both men had amused gleams in their eyes. "I hired a consultant," said Jonas. "He doesn't know who he's working for, but he likes his fee."

"Who? Who would tell you?"

Jonas grinned. "Meyer Lansky," he said.

Morris Chandler got up and walked to the telescope. He leaned against the eyepiece and was silent for a full half minute as he seemed to be staring at the girls atop the neighboring penthouses but was actually taking the time to compose himself and think through the implications of what Jonas Cord was saying.

"They call Meyer the Chairman of the Board," said Jonas. "But money doesn't stick to him. It seems to have a way of flying from him. In spite of all his connections and all his smarts, he's not rich. He didn't jump for my offer. He's too smart for that. But he took it."

Chandler sat down. He glanced at his coffee cup but did not pick it up. "Do you mean to tell me you actually know — "

"Who owns the points," Jonas interrupted. "I do. With a few exceptions. And I know who'll sell. For the right money, I can pick up seventy-two points tomorrow. My consultant will help me buy seventy-two points, you've got eighteen that you'll sell me. That leaves just ten points out, and I figure you know who has them."

Chandler's face turned red, and his voice rose thinly. "I'll sell you mine? You think I'll sell you mine? What makes you think I'll sell you mine?"

"There's something in it for you, Maurie," said Nevada. "I said to Jonas, 'There has to be something in it for Maurie.' You stay. You manage. You get a share. Of stock. No points. There'll be no more points."

"I'm an easier guy to work for than the guys who have the points," said Jonas.

Chandler calmed down a bit. "What do you figure on paying for a point?" he asked.

"My accountant will tell me."

"Accountant! No accountant will ever figure out how a place like this works. No accountant will ever figure out what a point is worth."

"My accountant already knows," said Jonas. "Meyer Lansky."

"You put a hell of a lot of confidence in Lansky," said Chandler.

Jonas shrugged. "He's got no criminal record. He likes money. Better than just any old money is money paid by check, that he can report for taxes. Now, the way I want to do this, I'm going to buy your stock in Seven Voyages, Incorporated. You distribute the money to the points holders. You'll have a capital gain. I'll take care of that with a bonus I'll pay you for your services as manager of the hotel."

"What if some guys don't want to sell their points?"

"As soon as I take over, I'm stopping the skim," said Jonas. "Anyway, they're in no position to make noise. They're tax evaders at best. Besides, I'm going to pay a good price."

"Some guys you can't shove around," warned Chandler.

"Maurie, you're looking at one," said Nevada, nodding toward Jonas.

9

Four days later Jonas sat down on the couch, surrounded by files and papers that Angie had assembled for him, and began a long telephone conversation with Phil Wallace in Washington.

Angie listened. She was astonished by what she heard — and very pleased that Jonas trusted her so much as to discuss his businesses in great detail within her hearing.

The telephone was equipped with a squawk box, so she heard both halves of the conversation.

"I'm going to move out of Las Vegas. Once it's known that we're buying a casino-hotel here — "

"They'll be all over the place looking for you," interrupted the metallic voice of Wallace. "So, where you going? Mexico City?"

"Acapulco. Top floor of a hotel. Shaw has worked it out."

"Well, that brings up something. You have a friend in Mexico. In fact, you have a friend in Mexico who comes up to Las Vegas on junkets to The Seven Voyages. She's been in the hotel since you've been there."

"Who the hell are you talking about, Phil?"

"Sonja Batista."

Angie saw Jonas's face whiten. "Where'd you hear that name?" he demanded of Phil Wallace.

"It was in the files I inherited from McAllister. None of my business. Nothing to do with anything. But her name came up in a news story in The Washington Post Tuesday. The rumor from Cuba is that her uncle may take power again. Fulgencio Batista. You've heard the name?"

"Of course I've heard the name."

"He's connected, if you know the meaning of the word. He's got friends in the States who'd like him to take over in Havana."

"I know why," said Jonas. "But say why."

"He'll turn the country into a paradise for those people and their interests. Casinos. The world's greatest whorehouses. The works."

"Sonja," Jonas mused.

"Escalante," said Wallace. "She's married to a guy named Virgilio Diaz Escalante. He's got money from oil."

"Sonja," Jonas murmured. "Jesus Christ! Phil. Get me her address and phone number. Discreetly. Okay?"

10

Angie licked the last of his fluid off Jonas's penis. She rolled over on her back.

"You're not taking me with you, are you?" she asked. "To Mexico. You're leaving me here. What could be so important — ?"

"There are better things for you in this world," he said.

"Name one," she whispered, on the verge of tears.

"We're forming a new corporation: Cord Hotels, Incorporated. Temporarily, the fifth floor of The Seven Voyages is corporate headquarters. Nevada Smith will be president of the new company. He's staying here to watch things for me. I'm making Morris Chandler a vice president. Nevada may trust Morris too much. I'm not sure, but I think he might. I want you to stay here, keep an eye on things, and report to me. I'll make arrangements for you to have a direct communications channel to me. I'd make you a vice president, too, but I can't. You know why I can't."

She closed her eyes and nodded. "Making me an officer would risk the gaming license. I have a criminal record."

"Right."

"How long have you known?"

He shrugged. "Pretty soon after you came here."

"You could have thrown me out."

"I don't want to throw you out. You can be valuable to me. Besides, I like you. I'll pay you twenty thousand a year."

"Jonas!"

"Plus bonuses. You'll earn it. Anyway, I won't be gone so long. I'll be back. The biggest thing is, I trust you. That's on instinct, mine and Nevada's. You already know more about my business than Monica ever did. I trust you, Angie. Don't let me down."

She bent forward and kissed his penis, then sucked it in between her lips and teeth. "When you trust a woman not to bite you," she muttered, "that's trusting her more than you do when you tell her about your business." She looked up and grinned playfully. Then she was solemn again. "I want to go with you wherever you go. But — " She shrugged. "I know better. I know that can't be. So ... You can trust me, boss. If for no other reason ... because I love you."