On the other hand Jack wanted a quieter life. He needed to make money, of course, but his way. "Bigger and better doesn't always mean best," he would say and although I tried to persuade him to stay he decided not to, and half way through 'sixty-four he stopped coming up to the West End. A few months later I gave him the money for The Dog's Home and I was on my own again - but not for long, because shortly afterwards I was invited to invest in the casino business.
Legitimate gambling arrived in London with the Gaming Act of 1961, after which casinos became part of the scene - part of the night life, a tourist attraction, a stimulant in the lives of some people - and big business. Very big business.
I'm not really a gambler - unless you count being a businessman but a hell of a lot of rubbish gets talked about it. Later, when I was running the casinos, I came in for stick from all sorts of quarters. Of course some weak people do become gambling addicts but I'm damned if I'll accept it's criminal to run a casino because it encourages the habit. You may as well say anyone who serves a pint of bitter encourages alcoholism, or a chemist dispensing aspirin encourages drug addiction - or the pill encourages prostitution. Hell, where does it end? It's all beside the point now but it used to get me steamed up angry at that time.
Anyway, four years after The Point of View opened its doors for the very first time, it was established as the best club in town. Winston's was flourishing and Jennifer's had given birth to daughters - Pamela's Place in Chelsea and Josephine's in Fulham so with everything nicely under control, I was looking for my next step forward. And then one day I had a phone call from a man named Weston - Charlie Weston. I knew him slightly - he was a member of Winston's among other things, and an occasional visitor to The Point of View. He said he had some business to talk about so we fixed a meeting, and I thought no more of it until he arrived at eleven the next morning.
He brought a whole team of people with him. Five altogether. I've forgotten their names now but I remember their occupations. One was Weston's lawyer, another was an architect, the third was a merchant banker - complete with assistant - and then there was Weston himself. After shaking hands we indulged in the usual pleasantries, then I arranged them on chairs around my office and asked Weston what was on his mind.
He was older than me, but not by much. I was twenty-eight then and he was maybe thirty-six. I knew he was fairly big in the haulage business - he never stopped boasting about it at Winston's - but apart from that I knew little of his background. He was a well built man about six feet two and broad with it - black hair and blue eyes, looked a bit Welsh but spoke without an accent. A rough diamond, who had started as a long distance driver and never looked back. Strong and rough, with a handshake like a coal crusher.
He said, "I'd like to make a suggestion before we begin. We think this will be an important meeting - for all of us. So it might be helpful if your secretary took notes - sort of leave you with something to think about."
I was a bit surprised and irritated - after all it was my office and she was my secretary — but I was more intrigued than anything, so I asked Brenda to join us and bring her pad.
That meeting lasted six hours. I had sandwiches and drinks sent in from the club - and innumerable pots of coffee and extra packs of cigarettes - until, at about five o'clock, we had talked ourselves to a standstill. What it amounted to was this: Charlie had just bought into two casinos - The Chequers Club in Curzon Street and The Derby in Brook Street - and had obtained the necessary licences to open a third, at the bottom end of Park Lane. The Park Lane project was huge - Las Vegas style. The architect unveiled plans and elevations like the president of the Royal Academy presenting the Summer Exhibition. It was a hell of a place incorporating a new hotel, service flats, indoor swimming pool, squash courts, everything. The capital outlay was enormous but Charlie's accountant was there to talk about the subsequent profits. I failed to see how it concerned me but it was fascinating stuff which captured my interest.
When the accountant finished, Charlie took over. He showed me copies of the latest accounts - all fully audited - to prove what a viable business he had acquired, and although the casinos were making good profits I was pleased to realise I was making better ones. But as he said, The Derby was in its first year, the capital outlay had been enormous, and interest charged on borrowed money had dug deep into his margins. I remembered my first year with The Point of View and sympathised.
Then the merchant banker took over. His bank had been making a study of the leisure industry - and here were the figures. So I waded through a lot more detail which merely confirmed my gut feeling - that the casino business had growth written all over it. I listened, nodded, looked suitably impressed - and asked myself why the hell they were telling me this? Then the lawyer explained. The Park Lane project - while hugely profitable - was too big for Charlie to finance himself. So they were looking for a partner. But that was just the beginning. The idea was that Charlie and I merge our businesses, then float a public company and sell a chunk of our stock to the investing public. That would give us the cash to finance the Park Lane venture and after that everything would come up roses. Hell, we'd even be millionaires - at least Charlie and I would.
They had certainly done their homework. When they finished I realised they knew almost as much about my business as I did. But what impressed me most was the proposed new board of directors. Lord Hardman was to be chairman, and the others would be the Earl of Darlington, Lew Douglas (who owned a string of hotels), Charlie and me. Hardman was blue-blooded business, owning outright the oldest firm of wine merchants in the country, and Darlington was on the board of the merchant bank. But it was more than that. They wanted me - a boy from Battersea - to run the whole show as managing director.
We discussed a whole lot of things. The merchant bank's hand was obvious in choosing the team, but I was surprised to learn that Charlie Weston actually knew Hardman quite well. Their backgrounds were so totally different that I couldn't imagine how their paths crossed - but apparently Charlie ran a special fleet of road tankers to transport Hardman's wine in bulk, and the two had come to know each other through business. Anyway we talked and talked; how many shares each would own in the new set-up and things like that - and at the end of the meeting I promised to think about it.
Jack brought Maria over to dinner that night, and my current girlfriend made up the foursome. Jack thought I was mad to even consider it. "What's in it for you?" he wanted to know. "You've already got everything you want. Your own business - money - the good life. What more do you want?"
"I dunno - but I've got to think about it. This could be big - the biggest there is."
"You're out of your mind," he sounded disgusted. "Those guys will give you so much aggro you'll wish you were back in Oxford Street making sandwiches."
"It's his life," my girlfriend said protectively.
Maria smiled, "But his friends worry about him."
I remembered that afterwards - Maria sitting at that table, watching me with her dark, liquid eyes, concerned and anxious. I smiled and patted her hand, telling her there was nothing to worry about. "I'm a big boy now. I can look after myself," I said - and you can't get more complacent than that.
We floated Apex Holdings on the second of April, 1967. The shares were over-subscribed three or four times, so the underwriters made a killing and I was officially a millionaire - at least on paper. I was thirty years old and life had never been sweeter.
The freehold of the Curzon Street premises was owned by Charlie Weston, or to be more accurate by Apex Holdings, since he and I had put everything we owned into the business in return for shares. It was a fine building with enough room on the upper floors for our head office, so from then on I worked there. I had long since moved from Battersea to a flat in Mount Street just round the corner and so - unless it was raining - I walked to the office every morning. If it was wet Tom, my driver, fetched me in the Rolls.
And after that I was given my head. Board meetings were a formal
ity. Hardman presided with a light touch and was invariably the first to propose the acceptance of my report each month. There was rarely any dissension. They were all experienced businessmen and as long as the figures were coming out right they were happy to see me every four weeks and then rush back to their individual enterprises. I was left to get on with it - and running Apex proved to be little different from running my own venture. Just the scale was bigger, that's all.
Mind you, I worked all hours God sent. I organised the business into three divisions - casinos, restaurants and discotheques - and put a man in charge of each. The first year was murder - meetings, planning, decisions; but bit by bit I assembled a strong team of people. Of course I made mistakes, who doesn't? Luckily none were too serious though because we prospered overall, and oddly enough, the Park Lane project, the reason for us getting together in the first place, was postponed - on my recommendation. We did open a casino there, but it was a scaled down version of the original project. Caution on my part really. I felt we had enough on our plate; best to let the new team settle down before embarking upon such a massive venture. Anyway, that was my feeling and the others went along with it.
It was at the end of those very busy twelve months or so, that I met Kay. During Ascot week. Apex were sponsoring a number of races - principally the Apex Gold Cup - and we had a permanent box for entertaining VIPs. The usual sort of thing - champagne and caviar and smoked salmon sandwiches - lots of social chatter with the occasional look at the races. And Edgar Hardman - Lord Hardman - came down for the third day of the meeting - and brought his daughter Kay.
Truthfully I wasn't immediately attracted to her. Of course at the time I was being faithfully - if that's the right word - serviced by some of the prettiest showgirls in London, so I was hardly looking for spare crumpet. And besides I was working when we met, being host at these business things demands concentration, or at least I find it does. Diplomacy is not second nature to me and any charm I may have isn't natural - I have to work at it.
When we shook hands she said, "So we meet at last. I was beginning to think you only existed in newspaper photographs." She stepped back to eye me up and down. "Like the centre spread in Playboy."
"I'll see if my navel's turned to a paper clip when I go to bed tonight."
"Do better than that," she smiled into my eyes. "Come over to my place and I'll see for you."
It was the kind of provocative remark typical of Kay. She wore her sexuality like an aura and was the most feminine woman I ever met. Men swarmed round her like bees at a honey pot. Yet the strange thing was she was neither pretty nor beautiful - at least not in the accepted sense. Of course she had a superb figure and I suppose an expensive finishing school had taught her to make the most of it, but although her face was striking, it was certainly not beautiful. She had inherited her father's square jaw for one thing and his bold way of looking at people, so that a glance from her could turn the most mundane conversation into an argument. She had a look which bestowed a judgement, as though she was evaluating you, weighing your worth. If you passed inspection her eyebrows arched almost imperceptibly and she gave a nod of approval, and when she smiled the sun shone. I've seen men spend an evening trying to win her smile and go home happy if they did so, and I've seen others leave with murder in their hearts because of a cross word.
But none of that was known to me when we met at Ascot. All I saw then was a girl of medium height, with golden hair and blue eyes, who turned to smile at me as she reached the other side of the box. She raised her glass and said something - but the words were lost in the general chatter, and all I remember is her smile making me feel better than I had felt all day.
After the last race was over people began to gather their things for the journey to town. We were a party of twenty and a fleet of cars waited to convoy us back up the M3. I had just sent a message to Tom to bring the cars round, when Kay excused herself from the people she was with and came over to join me. "Still giving orders, Mr Harris - doesn't the boss ever relax?"
"The name's Sam. And I never give orders. It's more polite to ask people."
"Even when they have no choice but to obey?"
"Everyone gets a choice in life," I said gently, but I already felt an indefinable challenge.
"People only do what they want to do? Is that what you're saying?" She cocked her head to one side and watched me quizzically.
"Something like that. Leastways I've never known anyone act against his best interests."
"And attending to your - your requests. That's invariably in their own best interests?"
"That's for them to judge."
I wondered why I sounded defensive? There was nothing aggressive in her manner, but her directness was unusual. As though she went through life taking whatever she wanted as a matter of course - as if it was hers by right.
Then, quite unexpectedly, she announced: "It's my birthday today. Did you know?"
"Well no - no I didn't know. Many happy returns."
She thanked me and looked down at the racecourse. The crowds were still milling around, saying goodbyes or making arrangements to meet again later. Bookies were packing their satchels and a patch of white cloud momentarily obscured the sun. She turned back to me and put one hand on my lapel: "I'm having a party tonight will you come?"
I tried to imagine her kind of party. Ten years separated our ages and our backgrounds were light years apart. I had called at the Hardman family home once and nobody left there without being impressed. Wyndham Manor was drenched in history. Hardmans through the ages looked down from the walls and their ghosts paced the terrace at night.
"I'm afraid I'm working," I said, then added more diplomatically, "My business plays havoc with my social life."
"Don't you have managers? People like that - to look after things?"
I smiled, "It helps if I show an interest."
"But you don't have to lock up - balance the books at the end of the night - that sort of thing?"
"No, not these days."
"Then come when you finish. I'll expect you," she said simply. "Will you have eaten or shall I see you for dinner?"
There seemed no way of avoiding it without seeming boorish. A meeting elsewhere might have enabled me to refuse with conviction, but I had nothing planned and her smile weakened my powers of resistance.
"I won't be finished until about ten -" I began, but she cut me short by saying, "Dinner will be waiting for you." She thrust a card into my hand just as her father came over to join us. "Hello, Father," she grinned up at him. "Lost a fortune?"
"Had quite a good day as a matter of fact," he linked his arm through hers. "Won seven hundred I think - er I say - is that Hutchinson waving to us?" Hutchinson was my assistant, and he was indeed waving. The cars were ready and waiting.
"Au revoir, Mr Harris," Kay said. She smiled brilliantly with just a hint of mockery in her eyes. "It's been a perfect day -" she lowered her voice "- and it's not over yet."
Back in the West End I said goodbye to my guests and went home to change for the evening. Kay's parting look stayed in my mind. It defied analysis. Amusement perhaps? Mockery? Provocation challenge? But a challenge to what? To go to a party - a birthday party? Finally I gave up trying to work it out and went to The Chequers Club to make my first call of the evening.
I had developed a routine by then - though routine is probably the wrong word for something which varied so much - but I would call on each of our clubs and restaurants between eight and midnight, stay for a drink, answer any queries, gauge the night's takings - and then move on. I tended to leave the discotheques to Smithers who was my man running that division, but I did the clubs every night, though never in the same order. During the evening I took dinner along the way and then went home, sometimes alone but more often than not with a current girlfriend. Which is what I would have done that night except, according to the card Kay had given me, I was expected at an address in Chelsea.
I left for her place at nine for
ty-five, expecting the worst and cursing myself for being talked into going. The meal would be one of those scrambled buffet affairs (how else could she keep dinner for me at a party?), the wine would be undistinguished and the guests the crowd of chinless wonders who make up the upper class party set. I promised myself to stay an hour and then flee to The Point of View.
But when the cab drew up outside the address she had given me the place was in darkness. No loud music split the silence, no shafts of light lit the darkened pavements, no shouts of laughter disturbed the neighbours. In fact there were no signs of a party at all. Puzzled, I checked the address and asked the cabby to wait while I rang the bell. Perhaps it was a joke? Was that why she had mocked me? Invent a non-existent party - just to see if I was mug enough to turn up? It seemed a bloody silly thing to do and my temper was rising when the door phone squawked in my ear: "Come up, Sam - I'm on the first floor." The automatic lock buzzed and the door moved open an inch - so I paid the cabby and went in, closing the door behind me.
It was a well appointed house. Thick carpet drifted upwards from the wide hall onto the sweep of the staircase. Hessian-covered walls were decorated with modern paintings - all originals and properly lit. And Kay was waiting for me on the landing - in a dress which took my breath away.
That fact alone needs explaining. After all, the most glamorous chorus line in London worked for me then. Apart from the other girls - vocalists, entertainers, hat check girls, receptionists - even secretaries and typists. All were good-looking. Nightclubs and casinos draw beautiful girls like moths to a flame. I was no stranger to attractive women - fully dressed, partly clad, in the nude or in my bed. So what was so special about Kay - after all, I have admitted already that she was not beautiful.
Sensuality I think. I found out later that if she as much as brushed a speck of dust from my sleeve the gesture became a caress. Her fingers paused as if to linger, go further, explore, excite, tempt and seduce. I thought it was an act to begin with. No woman arouses a man and remains unaware of it; coquetry is not a reflex action - but if that is true Kay was the exception to prove the rule. Her sensuous acts were quite unplanned. She behaved the way she did because of her sensuality. It was quite unconscious. In her case she would have to act to appear otherwise - and she never showed the slightest inclination to do that.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 41