Read Online Cool Heat by Richter Watkins - Free Book Online Page B

claimed he had relatives who helped build the transcontinental railroad’s western section, and that many who died had been dumped into Lake Tahoe.
    Thorp stood before an eighty-two-inch screen that displayed the mockup of his vision. He was selling them on the grand Regal Tahoe and its venues. He led them with a toast to great dreams and grand designs. “Bad recessions provide great opportunities for those positioned to take advantage.”
    Never before had Vegas been hit this hard and the opportunities here, like Tahoe, were big.
    “Lake Tahoe’s North is the next big thing,” Ogden Thorp said. “This is Tahoe now…” They stared at the big screen. The picture zoomed in on the Cal-Neva and the other old, ready-to-be-torn-down casinos. Then the picture moved around to the mountains on the east side of the lake, the undeveloped forty-two thousand acres that once belong to George Whittell.
    For Thorp, this was his moment. He’d arrived. These men, the big movers and shakers whose money had helped build Macau into the gambling capital of the world, were looking to get into something new, and he had what he thought would entice them. It had been five long years in the planning. These were the men who were going to make him king of the Sierras.
    “The new design…including the outlying ski resort and the main casino hotel that will replace everything on the Cal-Neva highlands…”
    With a click, there it was in close-up detail. And it was beyond spectacular. He watched the expressions on the men as their eyes widened.
    “This will be the eighth wonder of the world,” Thorp said. “And it’s just the beginning.”
    He moved the scene to the famous landmark, Thunderbird Lodge, on the Nevada side of the North Shore. “Here’s the big prize. We’re making some serious progress. We’ll have the ban lifted on enough land for this. This was once the dream of George Whittell. He owned the forty-two thousand acres—you heard me right—forty-two thousand acres that are now wasted parkland. The entire eastern side of Tahoe is waiting for us.”
    He loved talking about George Whittell, his idol in many ways. “All that’s there is his home, which is now the Thunderbird Lodge. Before he died in nineteen sixty-seven, George changed his mind about building his great resort. I’m not sure who or what got to him. But we’re going to rectify that. Tahoe needs it and needs it now.
    “George Whittell was the king of playboys in his day, and I admit to copying as much of him as my system can handle. He made Charlie Win Win look like a choirboy.”
    They laughed, knowing well that he meant the famous parties—right down to the tunnels, the lion’s cage, the speedboat, and the girls. Thorp even had the stonework at his place fashioned by Paiute and Washo Indian masons and ironworkers just as Whittell had done at the Thunderbird Lodge. He didn’t import any Venetian ironworkers as Whittell had but came close. Nor could he bring in honest-to-God Cornish miners to build the tunnels. But Mexicans, well supervised, did a very nice job.
    “It true,” one of the men asked, “that you have a lion in some underground cage under your house like Whittell had?”
    “That will only be revealed to those who end up there. Back in Whittell’s day—as it happened to Errol Flynn—they’d wake up after a drunk and find the fucking lion licking their faces. People heard that macho swashbuckler Flynn’s scream clear across the lake.”
    The men roared. He went on regaling his audience with Whittell’s life back in the day when he had those big parties, the gambling, Hollywood stars including Howard Hughes.
    Thorp’s smile filled his smug face. “Next weekend, I’ll be hosting the party of the year, the Great Gatsby Gala, and I want all of you to be there. All expenses for all the pleasures will be free, of course. And if you aren’t interested in talking to me, you’ll have on hand movie stars, politicians, and, in the poker