Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  opened by

  Florentyna Rosnovski

  October 17, 1958

  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. The openings were ashes without her.

  Abel was beginning to dread 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 one person Abel Rosnovski truly loved.

  France no longer held an excitement for him, and once he had finished his business there, Abel 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 very 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 suppose I’ll have to deal with the problem when I get back.”

  “He’s making threats,” said George.

  “There’s nothing 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?” asked George.

  “Three weeks, four at the most. I want to look at some sites in Turkey and Egypt. Hilton’s already started building there and I’m going to find out why. Which reminds me, George, the experts tell me you’ll never be able to reach me once the plane has landed in the Middle East. The Arabs still haven’t worked out how to find each other, let alone visitors from foreign countries, so I’ll leave you to run everything as usual until you hear from me.”

  Abel spent more than three weeks looking for sites for new hotels in the Arab states. His advisors were legion, most of them claiming the title of Prince, each assuring Abel that he had real influence as a very close personal friend of the key minister, a distant cousin, in fact. However, it always turned out to be the wrong minister or too distant a cousin. The only solid conclusion Abel reached, after twenty-three days in the dust, sand and heat with soda but no whiskey, was that if his advisors’ forecasts on the Middle East oil reserves were accurate, the Gulf States were going to want a lot of hotels in the long term and the Baron Group needed to start planning carefully if they were not going to be left behind.

  Abel managed to find several sites on which to build hotels, through his several princes, but he did not have the time to discover which of them had the real power to fix the officials. He objected to bribery only when the money reached the wrong hands. At least in America, Henry Osborne had always known which officials needed to be taken care of. Abel set up a small office in Bahrain, leaving his local representatives in no doubt that the Baron Group was looking for hotel sites throughout the Arab world but not for princes or the cousins of ministers.

  He flew on to Istanbul, where he almost immediately found the perfect place to build a hotel, overlooking the Bosphorus, only a hundred yards from the old British embassy. He mused as he stood on the barren ground that was his latest acquisition, recalling when he had last been here. He clenched his fist and held the wrist of his right hand. He could hear 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 journey 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 as he pressed a button by the side window. A sheet of glass glided up between the driver and passenger sections of the car. “Florentyna has been in touch with her mother. She’s living in a small apartment in San Francisco.”

  “Married?” said Abel.

  “Yes,” said George.

  Neither spoke for some moments.

  “And the Kane boy?” asked Abel.

  “He’s found a job in a bank. It seems a lot of people turned him down because word got around that he didn’t finish at the Harvard Business School and his father wouldn’t supply a reference. Not many people will employ him if as a consequence they antagonize his father. He finally was hired as a teller with the Bank of America. Way 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 been 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 is she looking for?”

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

  Abel sat thinking about what George had said, his short fingers tapping at the car window. “See that she gets the money, George. Make it look as if the transaction is an ordinary bank loan and be sure that it’s not traceable back to me.” He continued tapping. “This must always remain simply between the two of us, George.”

  “Anything you say, Abel.”

  “And keep me informed of every move she makes, however trivial.”

  “What about him?”

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

  “Trouble with Henry Osborne again. It seems he owes money everywhere. I’m also fairly certain his only source of income is now you. He’s still making threats—about revealing that you condoned bribes in the early days when you had taken over the group. Says he’s kept all the papers from the first day he met you, when he claims he fixed an extra payment after the fire at the old Richmond in Chicago. Says he now has a file three inches thick.”

  “I’ll deal with Henry 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 Baron in Lagos after yet another coup. That never worried Abel.

  The next morning Abel saw Henry Osborne. He looked old and tired, and the once smooth and handsome face was now heavily lined. He made no mention of the three-inch-thick file.

  “I need a little money to get me through a tricky period,” said Henry. “I’ve 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 checkbook. “Come begging once more, Henry, and I’ll remove you from the board as a director and turn you out without a penny.”

  “You’re a real friend, Abel. I swear I’ll never come back again—I promise you that. Never again.” Henry plucked a Romeo y Julieta from the humidor on the table in front of Abel and lit it. “Thanks, Abel. You’ll never regret this.”

  Henry left, puffing away at the cigar, as George came in. George waited for the door to be closed.

  “What happened with Henry?”

  “I gave in for the last time,” said Abel. “I don’t know why—it cost me ten thousand.”

  “Jesus, I feel like the brother of the prodigal son,” said George. “He’ll be back again. I’d be willing to put money