The Prodigal Daughter Read online

Two years had passed since then, and although the newly named Baron Group had failed to make a profit in 1933, it lost only $23,000, greatly helped by Chicago’s celebration of its centenary, when over a million tourists had visited the city to enjoy the World’s Fair.

  Once Pacey had been convicted of arson, Abel had only to wait for the insurance money to be paid before he could set about rebuilding the hotel in Chicago. He had used the interim period to visit the other ten hotels in the group, sacking staff who showed the same pecuniary tendencies as Desmond Pacey and replacing them from the long lines of unemployed that stretched across America.

  Zaphia began to resent Abel’s journeys from Charleston to Mobile, from Houston to Memphis, continually checking over his hotels in the South. But Abel realized that if he was to keep his side of the bargain with the anonymous backer, there would be little time to sit around at home, however much he adored his daughter. He had been given ten years to repay the bank loan; if he succeeded, a clause in the contract stipulated, he would be allowed to purchase all the stock in the company for a further three million dollars. Zaphia thanked God each night for what they already had and pleaded with him to slow down, but nothing was going to stop Abel from trying to fulfill the contract to the letter.

  “Your dinner’s ready,” shouted Zaphia at the top of her voice.

  Abel pretended he hadn’t heard and continued to stare down at his sleeping daughter.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Dinner is ready.”

  “What? No, dear. Sorry. Just coming.” Abel reluctantly rose to join his wife for dinner. Florentyna’s rejected red eiderdown lay on the floor beside her cot. He picked up the fluffy quilt and placed it carefully on top of the blanket that covered his daughter. He never wanted her to feel the cold. She smiled in her sleep. Was she having her first dream? Abel wondered as he switched out the light.

  Chapter

  Two

  Florentyna’s christening was something everyone present was to remember—except Florentyna, who slept through the entire proceedings. After the ceremony at the Holy Name Cathedral on North Wabash, the guests made their way to the Stevens Hotel, where Abel had taken a private room. He had invited over a hundred guests to celebrate the occasion. His closest friend, George Novak, a fellow Pole who had occupied the bunk above him on the ship coming over from Europe, was to be one Kum, while one of Zaphia’s cousins, Janina, was to be the other.

  The guests devoured a traditional ten-course dinner including pirogi and bigos while Abel sat at the head of the table accepting gifts on behalf of his daughter. There was a silver rattle, U.S. savings bonds, a copy of Huckleberry Finn and, finest of all, a beautiful antique emerald ring from Abel’s unnamed benefactor. He only hoped that the man gained as much pleasure in the giving as his daughter showed in the receiving. To mark the occasion, Abel presented his daughter with a large brown teddy bear with red eyes.

  “It looks like Franklin D. Roosevelt,” said George, holding the bear up for all to see. “This calls for a second christening—FDR.”

  Abel raised his glass. “Mr. President,” he toasted—a name the bear never relinquished.

  The party finally came to an end about 3 A.M., when Abel had to requisition a laundry cart from the hotel to transport all the gifts home. George waved to Abel as he headed off down Lake Shore Drive, pushing the cart before him.

  The happy father began whistling to himself as he recalled every moment of the wonderful evening. Only when Mr. President fell off the cart for a third time did Abel realize how crooked his path must have been down Lake Shore Drive. He picked up the bear and wedged it into the center of the gifts and was about to attempt a straighter path when a hand touched his shoulder. Abel jumped around, ready to defend with his life anyone who wanted to steal Florentyna’s first possessions. He stared up into the face of a young policeman.

  “Maybe you have a simple explanation as to why you’re pushing a Stevens Hotel laundry cart down Lake Shore Drive at three in the morning?”

  “Yes, officer,” replied Abel.

  “Well, let’s start with what’s in the packages.”

  “Other than Franklin D. Roosevelt, I can’t be certain.”

  The policeman immediately arrested Abel on suspicion of larceny. While the recipient of the gifts slept soundly under her red eiderdown quilt in the little nursery at the top of the house on Rigg Street, her father spent a sleepless night on an old horsehair mattress in a cell at the local jail. George appeared at the courthouse early in the morning to verify Abel’s story.

  The next day Abel purchased a maroon four-door Buick from Peter Sosnkowski, who ran a secondhand car lot in Logan Square.

  Abel began to resent having to leave Chicago and his beloved Florentyna even for a few days, fearing he might miss her first step, her first word or her first anything. From her birth, he had supervised her daily routine, never allowing Polish to be spoken in the house; he was determined there be no trace of a Polish accent that would make her feel ill at ease in society. Abel had intently waited for her first word, hoping it would be “Papa,” while Zaphia feared it might be some Polish word that would reveal that she had not been speaking English to her firstborn when they were alone.

  “My daughter is an American,” he explained to Zaphia, “and she must therefore speak English. Too many Poles continue to converse in their own language, thus ensuring that their children spend their entire lives in the northwest corner of Chicago being described as ‘Stupid Polacks’ and ridiculed by everyone else they come across.”

  “Except their own countrymen who still feel some loyalty to the Polish empire,” said Zaphia defensively.

  “The Polish empire? What century are you living in, Zaphia?”

  “The twentieth century,” she said, her voice rising.

  “Along with Dick Tracy and Famous Funnies, no doubt?”

  “Hardly the attitude of someone whose ultimate ambition is to return to Warsaw as the first Polish ambassador.”

  “I’ve told you never to mention that, Zaphia. Never.”

  Zaphia, whose English remained irredeemably shaky, didn’t reply but later grumbled to her cousins on the subject and continued to speak only Polish when Abel was out of the house. She was not impressed by the fact, so often trotted out by Abel, that General Motors’ turnover was greater than Poland’s budget.

  By 1935, Abel was convinced that America had turned the corner and that the Depression was a thing of the past, so he decided the time had come to build the new Chicago Baron on the site of the old Richmond Continental. He appointed an architect and began spending more time in the Windy City and less on the road, determined that the hotel would turn out to be the finest in the Midwest.

  The Chicago Baron was completed in May 1936 and opened by the Democratic mayor, Edward J. Kelly. Both Illinois senators were dancing attendance, only too aware of Abel’s burgeoning power.

  “Looks like a million dollars,” said Hamilton Lewis, the senior senator.

  “You wouldn’t be far wrong,” said Abel, as he admired the thickly carpeted public rooms, the high stucco ceilings and the decorations in pastel shades of green. The final touch had been the dark green embossed B that adorned everything from the towels in the bathrooms to the flag that fluttered on the top of the forty-two-story building.

  “This hotel already bears the hallmark of success,” said Hamilton Lewis, addressing the two thousand assembled guests, “because, my friends, it is the man and not the building who will always be known as the Chicago Baron.” Abel was delighted by the roar that went up and smiled to himself. His public relations advisor had supplied that line to the senator’s speech writer earlier in the week.

  Abel felt at ease among big businessmen and senior politicians. Zaphia, however, had not adapted to her husband’s change in fortunes and hovered uncertainly in the background, drinking a little too much champagne, and finally crept away before the dinner was served with the lame excuse about wanting to see that Florentyna was safely asleep. Abel accom
panied his flushed wife toward the revolving door in silent irritation. Zaphia neither cared for nor understood success on Abel’s scale and preferred to ignore his new world. She was only too aware how much this annoyed Abel and couldn’t resist saying, “Don’t hurry home” as he bundled her into a cab.

  “I won’t,” he told the revolving door as he returned, pushing it so hard that it went around three more times after he had left it.

  He returned to the hotel foyer to find Alderman Henry Osborne waiting for him.

  “This must be the high point in your life,” the alderman remarked.

  “High point? I’ve just turned thirty,” said Abel.

  A camera flashed as he placed an arm around the tall, darkly handsome politician. Abel smiled toward the cameraman, enjoying the treatment he was receiving as a celebrity, and said just loud enough for eavesdroppers to hear, “I’m going to put Baron hotels right across the globe. I intend to be to America what César Ritz was to Europe. Stick with me, Henry, and you’ll enjoy the ride.” The city alderman and Abel walked together into the dining room and once they were out of earshot Abel added: “Join me for lunch tomorrow, Henry, if you can spare the time. There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

  “Delighted, Abel. A mere city alderman is always available for the Chicago Baron.”

  They both laughed heartily, although neither thought the remark particularly funny.

  It turned out to be another late night for Abel. When he returned home he went straight to the spare room, to be sure he didn’t wake Zaphia—or that’s what he told her the next morning.

  When Abel came into the kitchen to join Zaphia for breakfast Florentyna was sitting in her high chair smearing a bowlful of cereal enthusiastically around her mouth and biting at most things that remained within arms’ reach—even if they weren’t food. When he had finished his waffles, dripping with maple syrup, Abel rose from his chair and told Zaphia that he would be having lunch with Henry Osborne.

  “I don’t like that man,” said Zaphia, with feeling.

  “I’m not crazy about him myself,” replied Abel. “But never forget he’s well placed in City Hall to be able to do us a lot of favors.”

  “And a lot of harm.”

  “Don’t lose any sleep over that. You can leave the handling of Alderman Osborne to me,” said Abel as he brushed his wife’s cheek and turned to leave.

  “Presidunk,” said a voice, and both parents turned to stare at Florentyna, who was gesticulating at the floor where the eight-month-old Franklin D. Roosevelt lay on his furry face.

  Abel laughed, picked up the much-loved teddy bear and placed him in the space Florentyna had left for him on the high chair.

  “Pres-i-dent,” said Abel slowly and firmly.

  “Presidunk,” insisted Florentyna.

  Abel laughed again and patted Franklin D. Roosevelt on the head. So FDR was responsible not only for the New Deal but also for Florentyna’s first political utterance.

  Abel left the house, to find his chauffeur waiting for him beside the new Cadillac. Abel’s driving had become worse as the cars he could afford improved. When he bought the Cadillac, George had advised a driver to go with it. That morning he asked the chauffeur to drive slowly as they approached the Gold Coast. Abel stared up at the gleaming glass of the Chicago Baron and marveled that there was no place on earth where a man could achieve so much so quickly. What the Chinese would have been happy to strive for in ten generations, he had achieved in less than fifteen years.

  He leaped out of the car before his chauffeur could run around to open the door, walked briskly into the hotel and took the private express elevator to the forty-second floor, where he spent the morning checking over every problem with which the new hotel was faced. One of the passenger elevators wasn’t functioning properly. Two waiters had been involved in a knife fight in the kitchen and had been sacked by George even before Abel had arrived, and the list of damages after the opening looked suspiciously high: Abel would have to check into the possibility that thefts by waiters were being recorded in the books as breakage. He left nothing to chance in any of his hotels, from who was staying in the Presidential Suite to the price of the eight thousand fresh rolls the hotel needed every week. He spent the morning dealing with queries, problems and decisions, stopping only when Alderman Osborne was ushered into Abel’s office by his secretary.

  “Good morning, Baron,” said Henry, patronizingly referring to the Roznovski family title.

  In Abel’s younger days as a junior waiter at the Plaza in New York the title had been scornfully mimicked to his face. At the Richmond Continental when he was assistant manager it had figured in whispered jokes behind his back. Lately everyone mouthed the prefix with respect.

  “Good morning, Alderman,” said Abel, glancing at the clock on his desk. It was five past one. “Shall we have lunch?”

  Abel guided Henry into the adjoining private dining room. To a casual observer, Henry Osborne would hardly have seemed a natural soulmate for Abel. Educated at Choate and then Harvard, as he continually reminded Abel, he had later served as a young lieutenant with the Marines in the World War. At six feet, with a full head of black hair lightly sprinkled with gray, he looked younger than his history insisted he had to be.

  The two men had first met as a result of the fire at the old Richmond Continental. Henry was then working for the Great Western Casualty Insurance Company, which had, for as long as anyone could remember, insured the Richmond Group. Abel had been taken aback when Henry had suggested that a small cash payment would ensure a swifter flow of the claim papers through the head office. Abel did not possess a “small cash payment” in those days—although the claim eventually found its way through because Henry also believed in Abel’s future.

  Abel had learned for the first time about men who could be bought.

  By the time Henry Osborne was elected to the Chicago City Council as an alderman, Abel could afford a small cash payment, and the building permit for the new Baron proceeded through City Hall as though on roller skates. When Henry later announced that he would be running for the Ninth District of the House of Representatives in Illinois, Abel was among the first to send a sizable check for his campaign fund. While Abel remained wary of his new ally personally, he recognized that a tame politician could be of great help to the Baron Group. Abel took care to ensure that none of the small cash payments—he did not think of them as bribes, even to himself—was on the record and felt confident that he could terminate their relationship as and when it suited him.

  The dining room was decorated in the same delicate shades of green as the rest of the hotel, but there was no sign of the embossed B anywhere in the room. The furniture was nineteenth century, entirely in oak. Around the walls hung oil portraits from the same period, almost all imported. With the door closed, it was possible to imagine that one was in another world far away from the hectic pace of a modern hotel.

  Abel took his place at the head of an ornate table that could have comfortably seated eight guests but that day was laid only for two.

  “It’s like being in a bit of old England,” said Henry, taking in the room.

  “Not to mention Poland,” replied Abel, as a uniformed waiter served smoked salmon while another poured them both a glass of Bouchard Chablis.

  Henry stared down at the full plate in front of him. “Now I can see why you’re putting on so much weight, Baron.”

  Abel frowned and quickly changed the subject. “Are you going to the Cubs’s game tomorrow?”

  “What’s the point? They have a worse home record than the Republicans. Not that my absence will discourage the Tribune from describing the match as a close-fought battle bearing no relation to the score and that if a totally different set of circumstances had taken place, the Cubs would have pulled off a famous victory.”

  Abel laughed.

  “One thing’s for sure,” continued Henry, “you’ll never see a night game at Wrigley Field. Playing under floodlights w
on’t catch on in Chicago.”

  “That’s what you said about beer cans last year.”

  It was Henry’s turn to frown. “You didn’t ask me to lunch to hear my views on baseball or beer cans, Abel, so what little plan can I assist you with this time?”

  “Simple. I want to ask your advice on what I should do about William Kane.”

  Henry seemed to choke. I must speak to the chef: there shouldn’t be any bones in smoked salmon, thought Abel before he continued.

  “You once told me, Henry, in graphic detail what had happened when your path crossed Mr. Kane’s and how he ended up defrauding you of money. Well, Kane did far worse than that to me. During the Depression he put the squeeze on Davis Leroy, my partner and closest friend, and was the direct cause of Leroy’s suicide. To make matters worse, Kane refused to support me when I wanted to take over the management of the hotels and try to put the group on a sound financial footing.”

  “Who did back you in the end?” asked Henry.

  “A private investor with the Continental Trust. The manager has never told me in so many words, but I’ve always suspected it was David Maxton.”

  “The owner of the Stevens Hotel?”

  “The same.”

  “What makes you think it was him?”

  “When I had the reception for my wedding and again for Florentyna’s christening at the Stevens, the bill was covered by my backer.”

  “That’s hardly conclusive.”

  “Agreed, but I’m certain it’s Maxton, because he once offered me the chance to run the Stevens. I told him I was more interested in finding a backer for the Richmond Group, and within a week his bank in Chicago came up with the money from someone who could not reveal their identity because it would clash with their day-to-day business interests.”

  “That’s a little more convincing. But tell me what you have in mind for William Kane,” said Henry as he toyed with his wineglass and waited for Abel to continue.

  “Something that shouldn’t take up a lot of your time, Henry, but might well prove to be rewarding for you both financially and, as you hold Kane in the same high regard as I do, personally.”