Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  The hotel did well in the first part of the year. Abel considered he was set fair to achieve his profit forecast of over $25,000 for 1929 and he kept Davis Leroy informed of progress.

  But when the crash came in October the hotel was half-empty. Abel placed a call through to Davis Leroy on Black Tuesday. The usually genial Texan sounded depressed and preoccupied and would not be drawn into making decisions about the laying off of hotel staff, which Abel now considered urgent.

  “Stick with it, Abel,” he said. “I’ll come up next week and we’ll sort it out together—or we’ll try to.”

  Abel did not like the ring of the last phrase.

  “What’s the problem, Davis? Is it anything I can help with?”

  “Not for the time being.”

  Abel remained puzzled. “Why don’t you just give me the authority to get on with it and I can brief you when you come up next week?”

  “It’s not quite as easy as that, Abel. I didn’t want to discuss my problems on the phone, but the bank is giving me a little trouble over my losses in the stock market and they’re threatening to make me sell the hotels if I can’t raise enough money to cover my debts.”

  Abel went cold.

  “Nothing for you to worry about, my boy,” continued Davis unconvincingly. “I will fill you in on the details when I come to Chicago next week. I’m sure I can fix up something by then.”

  Abel heard the phone click; his whole body was now sweating. His first reaction was to wonder how he could assist Davis. He put a call through to Curtis Fenton and pried out of him the name of the banker who controlled the Richmond Group, feeling if he could see him it might make things easier for his friend.

  Abel called Davis several times during the next few days to tell him that the situation was going from bad to worse and that decisions must be made, but the older man sounded more and more preoccupied and was still unwilling to make any firm decisions. When matters started getting out of control, Abel made a decision. He asked his secretary to get the banker who controlled the Richmond Group on the phone.

  “Whom are you calling, Mr. Rosnovski?” asked a primsounding lady.

  Abel looked down at the name on the piece of paper in front of him and said it firmly.

  “I’ll put you through.”

  “Good morning,” said an authoritative voice. “May I help you?”

  “I hope so. My name is Abel Rosnovski,” Abel began nervously. “I am the manager of the Richmond Chicago and wanted to make an appointment to see you and discuss the future of the Richmond Group.”

  “I have no authority to deal with anyone except Mr. Davis’ Leroy,” said the clipped accent.

  “But I own twenty-five percent of the Richmond Group,” said Abel.

  “Then no doubt someone will explain to you that until you own fifty-one percent you are in no position to deal with the bank unless you have the authority of Mr. Davis Leroy.”

  “But he’s a close personal friend——”

  “I am sure that is the case, Mr. Rosnovski.”

  “ … and I’m trying to help.”

  “Has Mr. Leroy given you the authority to represent him?”

  “No, but——”

  “Then I am sorry. It would be most unprofessional of me to continue this conversation.”

  “You couldn’t be less helpful, could you?” asked Abel, immediately regretting his words.

  “That is no doubt how you see it, Mr. Rosnovski. Good day, sir.”

  Oh, to hell with you, thought Abel, slamming down the phone, worried that he might have done more harm than good. What should he do next?

  He didn’t have long to find out.

  The next evening Abel spotted Melanie in the restaurant, not displaying her usual well-groomed confidence but looking tired and anxious, and he nearly asked her if everything was all right but decided against approaching her. He left the dining room to go to his office and found Davis Leroy standing alone in the front hall. He had on the checked jacket he had been wearing the first day he talked to Abel at the Plaza.

  “Is Melanie in the dining room?”

  “Yes, she is,” said Abel. “I didn’t know you were coming into town today, Davis. I’ll get the Presidential Suite ready for you immediately.”

  “Only for one night, Abel, and I’d like to see you in private later.”

  “Certainly.”

  Abel didn’t like the sound of “in private.” Had Melanie been complaining to her father? Was that why he had not found it possible to get a decision out of Davis during the last few days?

  Davis Leroy hurried past him into the dining room while Abel went over to the reception desk to check on whether the suite on floor seventeen was available. Half the rooms in the hotel were unoccupied and it came as no surprise that the Presidential Suite was free. Abel booked his employer in and then waited by the reception desk for over an hour. He saw Melanie leave, her face blotched, as if she had been crying. Her father followed her from the dining room a few minutes later.

  “Get yourself a bottle of bourbon, Abel—don’t tell me we don’t have one—and then join me in my suite.”

  Abel picked up two bottles of bourbon from his safe and joined Leroy in the suite on the seventeenth floor, still wondering if Melanie had said anything to her father.

  “Open the bottle and pour yourself a very large one, Abel,” Davis Leroy instructed.

  Once again Abel felt the fear of the unknown. The palms of his hands began to sweat. Surely he was not going to be fired for wanting to marry the boss’s daughter? He and Leroy had been friends for over a year now, close friends. He did not have to wait long to find out what the unknown was.

  “Finish your bourbon.”

  Abel poured the drink down in one gulp and Davis Leroy swallowed his.

  “Abel, I’m wiped out.” Leroy paused and poured them both another drink. “So is half of America, come to think of it.”

  Abel did not speak, partly because he could not think of what to say. They sat staring at each other for several minutes; then, after another glass of bourbon, Abel managed, “But you still own eleven hotels.”

  “Used to own,” said Davis Leroy. “Have to put it in the past tense now, Abel. I no longer own any of them; the bank took possession of them last Thursday.”

  “But they belong to you—they have been in your family for two generations,” said Abel.

  “They were. They aren’t any longer. Now they belong to a bank. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t know the whole truth, Abel; the same thing’s happening to almost everyone in America right now, big or small. About ten years ago I borrowed two million dollars using the hotels as collateral, and invested the money right across the board in stocks and bonds, fairly conservatively and in well established companies. I built the capital up to nearly five million, which was one of the reasons the hotel losses never bothered me too much—they were always tax deductible against the profit I was making in the market. Today I couldn’t give those shares away. We may as well use them as toilet paper in the eleven hotels. For the last three weeks I’ve been selling as fast as I can, but there are no buyers left. The bank foreclosed on my loan last Thursday.” Abel couldn’t help remembering that it was Thursday when he spoke to the banker. “Most people who are affected by the crash have only pieces of paper to cover their loans, but in my case the bank who backed me has the deeds on the eleven hotels as security against their original loan. So when the bottom dropped out, they immediately took possession of them. The bastards have let me know that they intend to sell the group as quickly as possible.”

  “That’s madness. They’ll get nothing for them right now, and if they supported us through this period, together we could show them a good return on their investment.”

  “I know you could, Abel, but they have my past record to throw back in my face. I went up to their main office to suggest just that. I explained about you and told them I would put all my time into the group if they would give us their backing, but the