Read Online To Save a Son by Brian Freemantle - Free Book Online Page B

would be any harm in exploring it,” said Flamini. “This is informal, after all. If we decide against it we haven’t really wasted anything.”
    â€œI’d like to see something of the actual operation,” said Franks with his predictable need to examine everything personally.
    â€œWhy don’t I take you down and introduce you to my Las Vegas partner? Name’s Harry Greenberg. The hotel is the Golden Hat.”
    â€œWe still need to know the attitude of the islands,” reminded Flamini.
    â€œWhy don’t I go to Las Vegas and then across to the islands?” suggested Franks. “I could get the feel of everything and we could have a complete discussion next time, when Nicky’s back.”
    â€œIt could be a lot of work for nothing,” said Flamini.
    â€œSurely you wouldn’t consider going on without it!” said Franks, surprised at the apparent reversal of the man’s attitude.
    â€œNo,” said Flamini. “Maybe Nicky’s the one to do it, that’s all.”
    â€œNicky’s not here,” said Franks, reluctant to surrender personal supervision.
    Franks met Dukes in Nevada at the end of the week. Harry Greenberg was a fleshy, eagerly smiling man who wore a lot of gold jewelry and smoked cigars through a stunted holder. The friendship between him and Dukes was very obvious from the time and trouble the casino director devoted to them. Both were given hospitality suites on the top floor of the hotel and a chauffeured limousine was made available to them throughout their stay. Greenberg personally escorted them through the security and monitoring rooms, producing the criminal files about which Dukes had spoken in New York. Greenberg explained the intricacies of the various games and their profit margins, and did not confine himself to his own hotel but took them on varying tours through the rest of the hotels on the strip. Everywhere they were personally greeted by other directors and shown the facilities.
    Franks didn’t like Las Vegas in any way. The supposedly luxury hotels seemed to him plasticized and surface smart, the halter-topped and check-shirted clientele raucous and herdlike, and the casinos garishly offensive. Throughout, however, he remained utterly objective, refusing any judgment on initial impressions and letting everyone fully explain the benefits.
    He refused, too, to commit any opinion to Dukes, although he did in Dukes’ suite go fully through the figures that Greenberg made available. From those figures, incomplete though they were, the profit of which Dukes was so enthusiastic was undeniable.
    From Las Vegas Franks flew directly to Bermuda where in less than a week he encountered opposition from almost every government minister and official to whom he talked. Franks went to the Bahamas prepared for the same response, but found the attitude quite different.
    He raised the question with William Snarsbrook, the tourist minister with whom Franks had first made contact when he arrived on the island to investigate the possibility of hotels and with whom he had remained in social and business contact ever since. Snarsbrook was a refined, educated Bahamian—with a degree in economics from the London School of Economics—and one of the few officials during those early negotiations who had not sought what was now disguised in the audited returns as “commission.” A tall, bespectacled, quiet man, Snarsbrook had only ever accepted the hospitality at the various hotel openings, and although it had been made clear he could dine and stay as a guest of the company at any of the hotels, Franks knew the man had never taken advantage of the offer.
    They met on the second day of Franks’ visit, at the hotel across the round-backed bridge leading to Paradise Island. Of the three complexes on the island the one nearest the capital had unofficially become the leader of the chain, and in the early part of their