Kane & Abel (1979) Read online

  Three weeks later, Abel opened the Edinburgh Baron. The hotel looked quite magnificent as it stood on the hill dominating the Athens of the North. Long before Abel opened a new hotel, he would go over everything himself because he knew that it was the little things that annoyed customers. A small electric shock caused by nylon carpets when you touched a light switch, room service that took forty minutes to materialize or rubber pillows that curled around one’s ears.

  The press had expected Florentyna Rosnovski, the daughter of the Chicago Baron, to perform the opening ceremony, and a gossip columnist on the Sunday Express hinted at a family rift and reported that Abel had not been his usual exuberant, bouncy self. Abel denied the suggestion unconvincingly, retorting that he was over fifty - not an age for bouncing, his public relations man had told him to say. The press remained unconvinced, and the following day the Daily Mail printed a photograph of a discarded engraved bronze plaque discovered in a dumpster at the back of the hotel, that read:

  The Edinburgh Baron

  opened by Florentyna Rosnovski

  October 17, 1956

  Abel flew on to Cannes. Another splendid hotel, this time overlooking the Mediterranean, but it didn’t help him get Florentyna out of his mind. Another discarded plaque, this one in French.

  Abel was beginning to dread the thought that he might spend the rest of his life without seeing his daughter again. To kill the loneliness, he slept with some very expensive and some rather cheap women. None of them helped. William Kane’s son now possessed the only person Abel Rosnovski truly cared for.

  France no longer held any excitement for him, and once he had finished his business there, he flew on to Bonn, where he completed negotiations for the site on which he would build the first Baron in Germany. He kept in constant touch with George by phone, but Florentyna had not been found. And there was some disturbing news concerning Henry Osborne.

  ‘He’s got himself in heavy debt with the bookmakers again,’ said George.

  ‘I warned him last time that I was through bailing him out,’ said Abel. ‘He’s been no damn use to anyone since he lost his seat in Congress. I’ll deal with the problem when I get back.’

  ‘He’s making threats,’ said George.

  ‘What’s new about that? I’ve never let them worry me in the past,’ said Abel. ‘Tell him whatever it is he wants, it will have to wait until my return.’

  ‘When do you expect to be back?’

  ‘Three weeks, four at the most. I want to look at some sites in Turkey and Egypt. Hilton and Marriott have started building there, and I need to find out why.’

  Abel spent more than three weeks looking at sites for hotels in the Arab states. His advisors were legion, most of them claiming the title of Prince and assuring him that they had real influence as a cousin, or a very close personal friend, of the key minister. However, it always turned out to be the wrong minister or too distant a cousin. Abel had no objection to bribery, as long as it ended up in the right hands and in the Middle East baksheesh seemed to be accepted as part of the business culture. In America, it was a little more discreet but Henry Osborne had always known which officials needed to be taken care of. The only solid conclusion Abel reached, after twenty-three days in the dust, sand and heat with a glass of soda but no whiskey, was that if his advisors’ forecasts about the future importance of the Middle East’s oil reserves were accurate, the Gulf States were going to want a lot of hotels, and the Baron Group needed to start planning immediately if it was not going to be left behind.

  Abel flew on to Istanbul, where he immediately found the perfect site to build a hotel, overlooking the Bosphorus, only a hundred yards from the old British Consulate. As he stood on the barren ground of his latest acquisition he recalled when he had last been there. He clung onto the silver band that had saved his life. He could hear once again the cries of the mob - it still made him feel frightened and sick although more than thirty years had passed.

  Exhausted from his travels, Abel flew home to New York. During the interminable flight he thought of little but Florentyna. As always, George was waiting outside the customs gate to meet him. His expression indicated nothing.

  ‘What news?’ asked Abel as he climbed into the back of the Cadillac while the chauffeur put his bags in the trunk.

  ‘Some good, some bad,’ said George, touching a button which caused a sheet of glass to glide up between the driver and passenger sections of the car. ‘Florentyna has been in touch with Zaphia. She’s living in a small house in San Francisco with some old friends from Radcliffe days.’

  ‘Married?’ asked Abel.

  ‘Yes.’

  Neither spoke for some time.

  ‘And the Kane boy?’

  ‘He’s found a job in a bank. It seems a lot of places turned him down, partly because word got around that he didn’t complete his course at the Harvard Business School, but mainly because they were afraid that by employing him they’d antagonize his father. He was finally hired as a teller with the Bank of America. Far below what he might have expected with his qualifications.’

  ‘And Florentyna?’

  ‘She’s working as the assistant manager in a fashion shop called Wayout Columbus near Golden Gate Park. She’s also trying to borrow money from several banks.’

  ‘Why? Is she in any sort of trouble?’ asked Abel anxiously.

  ‘No, she’s looking for capital to open her own shop.’

  ‘How much has she been asking for?’

  ‘She needs thirty-four thousand dollars for the lease on a small building on Nob Hill.’

  Abel thought about George’s news, his short fingers tapping on the car window. ‘See that she gets the money, George. Make it look as if it’s an ordinary bank loan, and be sure it’s not traceable back to me.

  ‘Anything you say, Abel.’

  ‘And keep me informed of every move she makes, however insignificant.’

  ‘What about the boy?’

  ‘I’m not interested in him,’ said Abel. ‘Now, what’s the bad news?’

  ‘More trouble with Henry Osborne. It seems he’s running up debts all over town. I’m also fairly certain his only source of income is now you. He’s still making threats - about letting the authorities know that you condoned bribes in the early days when you first took over the group, and that he fixed an extra payment after the fire at the old Richmond in Chicago. Says he’s kept all the details from the day he met you, and he now has a file three inches thick.’

  ‘I’ll deal with him in the morning,’ said Abel.

  George spent the remainder of the drive into Manhattan bringing Abel up to date on the rest of the group’s affairs. Everything was satisfactory, except that there had been a takeover of the Lagos Baron after yet another coup. Coups never worried Abel. Revolutionaries quickly discover they aren’t hoteliers, and they need visitors if they hope to put any money into their own pockets.

  The next morning Henry Osborne called in to see Abel. He looked old and dishevelled, and his once smooth and handsome face was now heavily lined. He made no mention of the three-inch-thick file.

  ‘I need a little help to get me through a tricky period,’ said Osborne. ‘Been a bit unlucky.’

  ‘Again, Henry? You should know better at your age. You’re a born loser with horses and women. How much do you need this time?’

  ‘Ten thousand would see me through,’ said Henry.

  ‘Ten thousand!’ said Abel, spitting out the words. ‘What do you think I am, a gold mine? It was only five thousand last time.’

  ‘Inflation,’ said Henry, trying to laugh.

  ‘This is the last time, do you understand me?’ said Abel as he took out his cheque book. ‘Come begging once more, Henry, and I’ll remove you from the board and turn you out without a penny.’

  ‘You’re a real friend, Abel. I swear I’ll never ask you for another penny. Never again.’ He plucked a Romeo y Julieta from the humidor on Abel’s desk. ‘Thanks, Abel. You’ll never regret this