The Inheritors
The most exciting, most revealing novel from America’s master storyteller…
“Harold Robbins is a master!”
—Playboy
“Robbins’ books are packed with action, sustained by a strong narrative drive and are given vitality by his own colorful life.”
—The Wall Street Journal
Robbins is one of the “world’s five bestselling authors… each week, an estimated 280,000 people… purchase a Harold Robbins book.”
—Saturday Review
“Robbins grabs the reader and doesn’t let go…”
—Publishers Weekly
The Inheritors
Harold Robbins
Copyright
The Inheritors
Copyright © 2014 by Jann Robbins
Cover art, special contents, and electronic edition © 2014 by RosettaBooks LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Cover design by Alexia Garaventa
ISBN Mobipocket edition: 9780795341137
Many thanks to the man who wears the hat, Bradley Yonover.
THIS BOOK IS FOR
PAUL GITLIN
WITH LOVE
Table of Contents
That Day Last Spring: Morning
Book One: Stephen Gaunt
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Two: Sam Benjamin
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
That Day Last Spring: Afternoon
Book Three: Sam Benjamin
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Book Four: Stephen Gaunt
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
That Day Last Spring: Night
Afterword
Harold Robbins, Unguarded
Harold Robbins titles from RosettaBooks
That Day Last Spring
MORNING
I was on my third cup of coffee when the telephone began to ring. I let it ring. You wait three years for a phone call, you can wait thirty seconds more.
I refilled the coffee cup. I checked the angle of the sun, the window of the blonde who lived in the house just below me on the hill, the traffic on the Strip.
The sun hadn’t crested the hill, the blonde was still asleep, her shades drawn, and the only car on the Strip was a lonely police car crawling along. Then I reached for the phone.
“Good morning, Sam,” I said.
There was a moment’s silence. I could hear the sound of his harsh breathing in the phone. “How’d you know it was me?”
“This is a late-morning town,” I said. “Nobody gets up before ten o’clock.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he grumbled. “I got in last night but I don’t know it yet. I’m still on New York time.”
“I know.”
“‘What are you doin’?” he asked.
“Sitting. Drinking coffee.”
“How about coming over and having breakfast with me?”
“I don’t eat breakfast, Sam. You know that.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “You know that too. But I can’t sleep. And I want to talk to you.”
“I’m on the phone.”
“I spend half my life on the phone. I want to talk to your face.” He paused. Again I could hear the harsh sound of his breath in the phone. “Tell you what. Come on over and we’ll take a ride someplace. I’ll even risk my neck in that new car I read you got that goes two-twenty miles per.”
“Why don’t you just take a drive by yourself?”
“Two reasons. One, California drivers are all crazy and I’m afraid of them. Two, I said I want to see you.”
I hesitated a moment, “Okay. I’ll pick you up in front of the hotel.”
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “I got one call to make to New York.”
I put down the phone and went upstairs to the bedroom. I opened the door softly and stepped inside. The drapes were drawn tightly and in the dim spill of light I could see Chinese Girl was still asleep. She was naked on top of the sheets, her hands stretched out over her head as if she were about to dive from the high board, her long hair cascading down her back covering her like a blanket.
I walked over to the bed and looked down at her. She was absolutely motionless, I could scarcely see her breathe. The room was filled with the smell of last night’s love that hung in the air like old wine. I cupped my hand gently across her small ivory-tinted marble-hard buttocks. She dug herself into the mattress and I could feel the heat of her coming into my fingers.
She spoke into the pillow without turning her head, her voice muffled and heavy. “What is it that you do to me, Steve? The minute you touch me I drown in my own juices.”
I took back my hand and went into the bathroom. When I came out fifteen minutes later, she was sitting up in bed, her fingers playing between her legs.
“You’re dressed,” she said. “That’s not fair. I was keeping it warm for you.”
“Sorry, Chinese Girl,” I answered. “I have an appointment.”
“You can be late,” she said. “Come back to bed and fuck me.”
I didn’t answer. I crossed the room and took a sweater from the closet and slipped into it.
“There’s an old Chinese proverb,” she said. “Any day that starts with a fuck can’t be all bad.”
I laughed.
“I’m not being funny. That’s the first time you’ve said ‘No’ to me.”
“It had to happen sometime, Chinese Girl,” I said.
“And stop calling me ‘Chinese Girl.’ I have a name and you know it.”
I looked at her. There was a hint of anger in her face that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Cool it, Chinese Girl,” I said. “Even I don’t believe a name like Mary Applegate.”
“But that’s my name.”
“Maybe so. But you look like Chinese Girl to me.”
She pulled the sheet up over her. “I think it’s time for me to go.”
I didn�
��t answer.
“How long will you be?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a couple hours.”
“I’ll be gone by then.”
I looked at her. “You got enough bread?”
“I can manage.”
I nodded. “Good-bye, then. I’ll miss you.” I closed the door behind me and went downstairs.
Outside the sun had already climbed the hill and the white glare made me blink. I put on the shades and went around back of the house to the carport.
The Iso reflected the light like a black pearl in Cartier’s window. Her little Volks stood next to it looking like the ridiculous bug that it was. There was something almost forlorn and lost about it.
Maybe it was just the way I felt whenever I saw one of them. All the little skivvies had them. It was wheels, it was cheap, and it took them back and forth on their little affairs. And in between times it was parked in somebody’s garage while their owners rode around in Lincoln Continentals. But sooner or later, big-car time came to an end and they were back in business. Like this morning.
I went back into the house and found some Scotch tape in the kitchen. Then I taped two one-hundred-dollar bills to the Volks dashboard where she couldn’t miss them. I pulled up in front of the hotel thirty minutes late and he wasn’t downstairs yet.
I sat in the car and cursed myself for being a fool. Chinese Girl was right. I blew a perfectly good fuck.
Fifteen minutes later he came out. The doorman opened the car and he climbed in puffing. The door slammed shut and we looked at each other.
Like for a long moment. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ve missed you.”
I put the car into gear and went down the driveway. I didn’t speak until we stopped for the light at Sunset Boulevard. “I didn’t think you cared.”
He took it more seriously than I meant it. “You know I do. I had to do what I did.”
The light turned and I headed out toward Santa Monica. “It doesn’t matter now. That’s three years old.” I glanced at him. “Anyplace in particular?”
He shrugged. “Anyplace you say. It’s your town.”
I kept on going.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I called,” he continued.
I didn’t answer.
“I felt I owed you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I said quickly. “I have the stock. Yours. Sinclair’s.”
“You don’t have to tell me you’re rich,” he said. “Everybody knows that. But money isn’t everything.”
I turned and looked at him. “Now he tells me,” I smiled. “Then why did you do it?”
His dark eyes shone behind the highly polished, black-rimmed glasses. “The pressure was on. I was afraid everything was going to go.”
I laughed bitterly. “And there I was. Wide open and trusting. A perfect setup.”
“Remember what I told you then? Someday you would thank me for it.”
I kept my eyes on the road and my mouth shut. There were a lot of things I could thank him for. But there was only one thing wrong with them. They were nothing that I wanted.
“You know the old song?” he asked. “You always hurt the one you love.”
“Don’t sing it. It’s too early in the morning.”
“It’s true,” he said earnestly. “Of all people, I thought you would be the one to know that.”
“Okay. You told me. Now I know.”
He was suddenly angry. “No, you don’t. You don’t know nothin’. I helped make you rich, don’t you ever forget it.”
“Turn off the rockets, Sam,” I said dryly. “You just finished telling me money isn’t everything.”
He was silent for a moment. “Give me a cigarette.”
“What for? You don’t smoke.” I grinned at him. “Besides I’ve seen you do that trick before. Maybe a thousand times.”
He knew what I was talking about. “I want a cigarette.”
I flipped open the glove compartment behind the gear box that ran between our seats. “Help yourself.”
His fingers were trembling as he lit it clumsily. We began to descend the curving road past Will Rogers Memorial Park to the coast road.
The sun was up by the time I turned the car north on the coast road. He started to throw the cigarette out the window, but I stopped him by gesturing to the ashtray.
“There’s got to be something crazy about a country where it don’t rain for a hundred days and everything burns up, and then when it does rain, it floods and everything washes away.”
I smiled. “You can’t have everything. How far do you want to go?”
“Pull over. I want to stretch my legs.”
I cut across the road into a parking area. We got out of the car and walked over to the edge and looked down at the beach.
The sand was white and the water was blue and sparkling, the waves coming in on long white-capped rollers. The surfers were out already, huddling over a small fire on the beach, some of them in their wet suits. The girls were there too, but the surfers weren’t looking at them. They were watching the water with calculating eyes, searching out the swells and eddies.
“It’s crazy,” Sam said. “Those kids are going swimming in the middle of the winter.”
I grinned, lighting a cigarette. I cupped my hands to shield the flame from the breeze. He tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to look at him and lost the light.
“Do you know how old I am?”
“Sure. Sixty-two.”
“I’m sixty-seven,” he said, staring at me.
“So, you’re sixty-seven.”
“I lied about my age a long time ago. I was too old even then. I took off five years.”
I shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
“I’m getting tired.”
“If you don’t say anything, nobody’ll notice it.”
“My heart notices it.”
I looked at him.
“I can’t run like I used to.”
I was silent for a moment. “Cut down on your fucking.”
He grinned. “I gave that up a long time ago. I even stopped going down to give a little head. I get dizzy.”
“If you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to die, don’t bother. I never thought you were immortal.”
He stared at me. His voice was genuinely shocked. “I always did.”
I lit the cigarette and turned away. The surfers were already testing the water. I could hear the sounds of their voices floating back on the wind.
“I’m selling out, Steve. I wanted you to be the first to know it.”
“Why me?”
“In a kind of way it’s like it was three years ago. And when I turn around, you’re the only one there. Only this time the shoe is on the other foot. I can’t hurt you, you can hurt me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I want you to come back.”
“No.” My answer hung flatly in the breeze. “I’m never going back.”
He put his hand on my arm. “You have to listen to me. Hear what I have to say.”
I didn’t answer.
“I can get thirty-two million dollars from Palomar Plate for my share of the company.”
“Take it and run,” I said.
“I would if I could. But that’s not all of it. They want a guarantee of continuity. And I can’t give it to them. But they said they’ll accept you instead of me.”
I stared at him for a long silent moment. “I’m not interested.”
“You got to come back,” he said intensely. “You know what I been through the last few years while you been sittin’ up there on the hill, countin’ your money and fucking your head off?
“I been sweatin’ out disaster. Three years of it. Nothing went right. Everything I tried went right into the shithouse. Right before my eyes I watched it all turn to ashes. Then I got lucky. I hit a big one. And suddenly everybody says Sam Benjamin’s got his touch back.
“Bu
t I know better an’ you do too. You set that one up for me an’ the only reason I went through with it was because it was the only deal where I still had credit. It wasn’t my touch, it was yours. I also know now that I can’t do it myself any more than I can stand on my head and piss straight up.”
He took a package of gum out of his pocket, pulled the wrapper off and popped a stick into his mouth. He held it out to me. “Diet gum. No sugar.”
I shook my head.
He took a couple of chews. “Nothin’ works anymore. Once I thought maybe the kids were the answer. Now I know better. We put too big a load on them. We expect them to give us our answers when they don’t even have the answers for themselves.”
“You know where Junior is?”
He didn’t wait for my answer. “Haight-Ashbury. Yesterday before we came here, his mother and I go up there to look for him.
“‘Denise,’ I say. ‘You stay right here in the hotel. I’ll find him and bring him here. Besides it’s raining.’
“So I take the limo and the driver takes me up an’ down the streets. Finally I get out and begin to walk. I walk up and down. I never seen so many kids. After a while I begin to feel like they’re all mine. I’m getting mixed up. So I lay a yard on a big black cop and in twenty minutes I’m up four flights of stairs, out of breath and in this freezin’ cold flat.
“Junior’s in there with about a dozen other kids. He’s got a Jesus beard, an’ paper showin’ through the holes in his shoes. He’s sittin’ on the floor, his back against the wall. He don’t say nothin’ when I come in, just looks up at me.
“‘Ain’t you cold?’ I ask him.
“‘No,’ he says.
“‘You look blue to me,’ I say. ‘Your mother’s over in the hotel. I want you to come over an’ see her.’
“‘No,’ he says.
“‘Why not?’ I ask.
“He don’t answer.
“‘I could get the cops and roust you outta here. You’re nineteen a’ you gotta do what I say.’
“‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But you can’t watch me all the time. I won’t stay.’
“‘What you got here? Freezin’ your ass off in this icebox when you got a warm clean room at home?’
“He stares at me a minute, then calls out, ‘Jenny!’
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