Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “So be it,” said William, turning his eyes away. “This board must decide whether it wishes to end my career in disgrace now, after nearly a quarter of a century’s service, or to yield to the threats of a convicted criminal.”

  Jake Thomas nodded to the company secretary, and voting slips were passed around to every board member. It looked to William as if everything had been decided before the meeting. He glanced around the crowded table at the twenty-nine men. Many of them he had chosen himself. He had once heard that a small group of the younger directors openly supported the Democratic party and John Kennedy. Some of them wouldn’t let Rosnovski beat him. Not now. Please let me finish my term as chairman, he said to himself. Then I’ll go quietly and without any fuss—but not this way.

  He watched the members of the board as they passed their voting slips back to the secretary. He was opening them slowly. The room was silent and all eyes were turned toward the secretary as he began opening the last few slips, noting down each aye and nay meticulously on a piece of paper placed in front of him that revealed two columns. William could see that one list of names was considerably longer than the other, but his eyesight did not permit him to decipher which was which. He could not accept that the day could have come when there would be a vote in his own boardroom between himself and Abel Rosnovski.

  The secretary was saying something. William couldn’t believe what he heard. By seventeen votes to twelve he had lost the confidence of the board. He managed to stand up. Abel Rosnovski had beaten him in the final battle. No one spoke as William left the boardroom. He returned to the chairman’s office and picked up his coat, stopping only to look at the portrait of Charles Lester for the last time, and then walked slowly down the long corridor and out the front entrance.

  The doorman said, “Nice to have you back again, Mr. Chairman. See you tomorrow, sir.”

  William realized he would never see him again. He turned around and shook hands with the man who had directed him to the boardroom twenty-three years before.

  The rather surprised doorman said, “Good night, sir,” as he watched William climb into the back of his car for the last time.

  His chauffeur took him home and when he reached East Sixty-eighth Street, William collapsed on his front door step. The chauffeur and Kate helped him into the house. Kate could see he was crying and she put her arms around him.

  “What is it, William? What’s happened?”

  “I’ve been thrown out of my own bank,” he wept. “My own board no longer have confidence in me. When it mattered, they supported Abel Rosnovski.”

  Kate managed to get him up to bed and sat with him through the night. He never spoke. Nor did he sleep.

  The announcement in The Wall Street Journal the following Monday morning said simply: “William Lowell Kane, the President and Chairman of Lester’s Bank, resigned after yesterday’s board meeting.”

  No mention of illness or any explanation was given for his sudden departure, and there was no suggestion that his son would take his place on the board. William knew that rumors would sweep through Wall Street and that the worst would be assumed. He sat in bed alone, caring no longer for this world.

  Abel read the announcement of William Kane’s resignation in The Wall Street Journal the same day. He picked up the phone, dialed Lester’s bank and asked to speak to the new chairman. A few seconds later Jake Thomas came on the line. “Good morning, Mr. Rosnovski.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Thomas. I’m just phoning to confirm that I shall release all my Interstate Airways shares to the bank at the market price this morning and my eight percent holding in Lester’s to you personally for two million dollars.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Rosnovski, that’s most generous of you.”

  “No need to thank me, Mr. Chairman, it’s no more than we agreed on when you sold me your two percent of Lester’s,” said Abel Rosnovski.

  PART SEVEN

  1963–1967

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Abel was surprised to find how little satisfaction his final triumph had given him.

  George tried to persuade him to go to Warsaw to look over sites for the new Baron, but Abel didn’t want to. As he grew older, he became fearful of dying abroad and never seeing Florentyna again, and for months Abel showed no interest in the group’s activities. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Abel became even more depressed and feared for America. Eventually George did convince him that a trip abroad could do no harm, and that things would perhaps seem a little easier for him when he returned.

  Abel traveled to Warsaw, where he obtained a highly confidential agreement to build the first Baron in the Communist world. His command of the language impressed the Warszawians and he was pleased to beat Holiday Inn and Intercontinental behind the Iron Curtain. He couldn’t help thinking … and it didn’t help when Lyndon Johnson appointed John Gronowski to be the first Polish-American ambassador to Warsaw. But now nothing seemed to give him any satisfaction. He had defeated Kane and lost his own daughter and he wondered if the man felt the same way about his son. After Warsaw, he roamed the world, staying in his old hotels, watching the construction of new ones. He opened the first Baron in Cape Town, South Africa, and flew back to Germany to open one in Düsseldorf.

  Abel then spent six months in his favorite Baron, in Paris, roaming the streets by day, and attending the opera and the theater at night, hoping to revive happy memories of Florentyna.

  He eventually left Paris and returned to America, after his long exile. As he descended the metal steps of an Air France 707 at Kennedy International Airport, his back hunched and his bald head covered with a black hat, nobody recognized him. George was there to greet him, loyal, honest George, looking quite a bit older. On the ride to the New York Baron, George, as always, brought him up to date on group news. The profits, it seemed, were even higher as his keen young executives thrust forward in every major country in the world. Seventy-two hotels run by a staff of 22,000. Abel didn’t seem to be listening. He only wanted news of Florentyna.

  “She’s well,” said George, “and coming to New York early next year.”

  “Why?” said Abel, suddenly excited.

  “She’s opening one of her shops on Fifth Avenue.”

  “Fifth Avenue?”

  “The eleventh Florentyna,” said George.

  “Have you seen her, George?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Is she well, is she happy?”

  “Both of them are very well and happy, and so successful. Abel, you should be very proud of them. Your grandson is quite a boy, and your granddaughter’s beautiful. The image of Florentyna when she was that age.”

  “Will she see me?”

  “Will you see her husband?”

  “No, George. I can never meet that boy, not while his father is still alive.”

  “What if you die first?”

  “You mustn’t believe everything you read in the Bible.”

  Abel and George drove in silence back to the hotel and Abel dined alone in his suite that night.

  For the next six months, he never left the penthouse.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  When Florentyna Kane opened her new boutique on Fifth Avenue in March 1967, everyone in New York seemed to be there, except William Kane and Abel Rosnovski.

  Kate and Lucy had left William in bed muttering to himself while they went off to the opening of Florentyna’s.

  George left Abel in his suite so that he could attend the celebrations. He had tried to talk Abel into going along with him. Abel grunted that his daughter had opened ten shops without him and one more wouldn’t make any difference. George told him he was a stubborn old fool and left for Fifth Avenue on his own. When he arrived at the shop, a magnificent modern boutique with thick carpets and the latest Swedish furniture—he was reminded of the way Abel used to do things. He found Florentyna wearing a long blue gown with the now famous F on the high collar. She gave George a glass of champagne a