Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “Silly bitch,” he said out loud as he switched off the light.

  After that night, Abel found that several more coffee stains appeared on the Persian rug during the next several months, some caused by compliant waitresses, some by other nonpaying guests, as he and Zaphia grew further apart. What he hadn’t anticipated was that she would hire a private detective to check on him and then sue for divorce. Divorce was almost unknown in Abel’s circle of Polish friends, separation or desertion being far more common. Abel even tried to talk Zaphia out of her decided course, only too aware it would do nothing to enhance his standing in the Polish community, and worse, it would put back any social or political ambitions he had started to nurture. But Zaphia was determined to carry the divorce proceedings to their bitter conclusion. Abel was surprised to find that the woman who had been so unsophisticated in his triumph was, to use George’s words, a little demon in her revenge.

  When Abel consulted his own lawyer, he found out for the second time just how many waitresses and nonpaying guests there had been during the last year. He gave in and the only thing he fought for was the custody of Florentyna, now thirteen, and the first true love of his life. Zaphia agreed to his demands after a long struggle, accepting a settlement of $500,000, the deed to the house in Chicago, and the right to see Florentyna on the last weekend in every month.

  Abel moved his headquarters and permanent home to New York, and George dubbed him “The Chicago Baron-in-Exile” as he roamed America north and south building new hotels, returning to Chicago only when he had to see Curtis Fenton.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The letter lay open on a table by William’s chair in the living room. He sat in his dressing gown reading it for the third time, trying to figure out why Abel Rosnovski would want to buy so heavily into Lester’s, and why he had appointed Henry Osborne as a director of the Baron Group. William felt he could no longer take the risk of guessing and picked up the phone.

  The new Mr. Cohen turned out to be a younger version of his father. When he arrived at East Sixty-eighth Street, he had no need to introduce himself; the hair was beginning to go gray and thin in exactly the same places as his father’s, and the round body was encased in a similar suit. Perhaps it was in fact the same suit. William stared at him, but not simply because he looked so like his father.

  “You don’t remember me, Mr. Kane,” said the lawyer.

  “Good God!” said William. “The great debate at Harvard. Nineteen twenty——”

  “Twenty-eight. You won the debate and sacrificed your membership in the Porcellian.”

  William burst out laughing. “Maybe we’ll do better on the same team if your brand of socialism will allow you to act for an unabashed capitalist.”

  He rose to shake hands with Thaddeus Cohen. For a moment they both might have been undergraduates again.

  William smiled. “You never did get that drink at the Porcellian. What would you like?”

  Thaddeus Cohen declined the offer. “I don’t drink,” he said, blinking in the same disarming way that William recalled so well. “—and I’m afraid I’m now an unabashed capitalist, too.”

  He turned out to have his father’s head on his shoulders. Clearly he was fully briefed on the Rosnovski-Osborne file and well ready to face William. William explained exactly what he now required.

  “An immediate report and a further updated one every three months as in the past. Secrecy is still of paramount importance,” he said, “but I want every fact you can lay your hands on. Why is Abel Rosnovski buying Lester stock? Does he still feel I am responsible for Davis Leroy’s death? Is he continuing his battle with Kane and Cabot even now that they are part of Lester’s? What role does Henry Osborne play in all this? Would a meeting between myself and Rosnovski help, especially if I tell him that it was the bank, not I, who refused to support the Richmond Group?”

  Thaddeus Cohen’s pen was scratching away as furiously as his father’s had before him.

  “All these questions must be answered as quickly as possible so that I can decide if it’s necessary to brief my board.”

  Thaddeus Cohen gave his father’s shy smile as he shut his briefcase. “I’m sorry that you should be troubled in this way while you’re still convalescing. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can ascertain the facts.” He paused at the door. “I greatly admire what you did at Remagen.”

  William recovered his sense of well-being and vigor rapidly in the following months, and the scars on his face and chest faded into relative insignificance. At night Kate would sit up with him until he fell asleep and whisper, “Thank God you were spared.” The terrible headaches and periods of amnesia grew to be things of the past, and the strength returned to his right arm. Kate would not allow him to return to work until they had taken a long and refreshing cruise in the West Indies. On the sea voyage William relaxed with Kate more than at anytime since their month together in London. Kate reveled in the fact that there were no banks on the ship for William to do business with, although she feared that if they stayed on board another week William would acquire the floating vessel as one of Lester’s latest assets, reorganizing the crew, routes, timings and even the way they sailed “the boat,” as William insisted on calling the great liner. He was tanned and restless once the ship docked in New York Harbor and Kate could not dissuade him from returning to the bank at the first opportunity.

  William soon became deeply involved again in Lester’s problems. A new breed of men, toughened by war, enterprising and fast-moving, seemed to be running America’s modern banks. President Truman had won a surprise victory for a second term in the White House after headlines in the Chicago Tribune had informed the world that Thomas E. Dewey had actually won. William knew very little about the diminutive ex-senator from Missouri, except what he read in the newspapers, and as a staunch Republican, he hoped that his party would find the right man to lead them into the 1952 campaign.

  When the first report came in from Thaddeus Cohen, it left no doubt that Abel Rosnovski was still looking for stock to buy in Lester’s bank; he had approached all the other benefactors of Charles Lester’s will, but only one agreement had been concluded. Susan Lester refused to see William’s lawyer when he approached her, so he was unable to discover why she had sold her six percent. All he could ascertain was that she had had no financial reason for doing so.

  The Cohen document was admirably comprehensive.

  Henry Osborne, it seemed, had been appointed a director of the Baron Group in May of 1946, with special responsibility for the Lester account. More important, Abel Rosnovski had secured Susan Lester’s stock in such a way that it was impossible to prove the acquisition went back to either him or to Osborne. Rosnovski now owned six percent of Lester’s bank and appeared to be willing to pay at least another $750,000 to obtain Peter Parfitt’s 2 percent. William was only too aware of what Abel Rosnovski could do once he was in possession of eight percent. Even more worrisome to William, the growth rate of Lester’s compared unfavorably with that of the Baron Group, which was already catching up to its main rivals, Hilton and Sheraton. William began to wonder again if it would now be wise to brief his board of directors on this newly acquired information, and even whether he ought not contact Abel Rosnovski directly. After some sleepless nights, he turned to Kate for advice.

  “Do nothing,” was Kate’s reaction, “until you can be absolutely certain his intentions are as disruptive as you fear. The whole affair may turn out to be a tempest in a teapot.”

  “With Henry Osborne as his hatchet man, you can be certain that the tempest will pour far beyond the teacup. I don’t have to sit around and wait to find out what he is planning for me.”

  “He might have changed, William. It must be over twenty years since you’ve had any personal dealings with him.”

  Kate said nothing more, but William let himself be persuaded and did nothing except keep a close eye on Thaddeus Cohen’s quarterly reports—and hope that Kate’s intuition would prove to