Two days after Christmas, work began again on the Eastside Plaza project. Whitman looked around at the huge site and thought, This one’s going to be a real moneymaker. Only this time, I’m going to cash in on it, too.
The site was crowded with heavy equipment. Cranes were digging into the earth and lifting tons of it into waiting trucks. A crane wielding a giant saw-toothed scoop bucket seemed to be stuck. The huge arm hung suspended high in midair. Whitman strode toward the cab, under the huge metal bucket.
“Hey, Jesse,” he called. “What’s the matter up there?”
The man in the cab mumbled something that Whitman could not hear.
Whitman moved closer. “What?”
Everything happened in a split second. A chain slipped, and the huge metal bucket came crashing down on Whitman, smashing him to the ground. Men came running toward the body, but there was nothing to be done.
“The safety brake slipped,” the operator explained later. “Gee, I feel really awful. I liked Bill a lot.”
When she heard the news, Lara immediately telephoned Paul Martin. “Did you hear about Bill Whitman?”
“Yes. It was on television.”
“Paul, you didn’t…?”
He laughed. “Don’t go getting any crazy ideas. You’ve been seeing too many movies. Remember, the good guys always win in the end.”
And Lara wondered, Am I one of the good guys?
There were more than a dozen bidders for the Reno hotel.
“When do I bid?” Lara asked Paul.
“You don’t. Not until I tell you. Let the others jump in first.”
The bidding was secret, and the bids were sealed, to be opened on the following Friday. By Wednesday Lara still had not made a bid. She telephoned Paul Martin.
“Sit tight,” he said. “I’ll tell you when.”
They stayed in touch by phone several times a day.
At 5:00 P.M. , one hour before the bidding was to close, Lara received a phone call.
“Now! The high bid is a hundred and twenty million. I want you to go five million over it.”
Lara gasped. “But if I do that, I’ll lose money on the deal.”
“Trust me,” Paul said. “After you get the hotel and start redoing it, you can cut corners on the changes. They’ll all be endorsed by the supervising engineer. You’ll make up the five million and then some.”
The following day Lara was notified that hers was the winning bid.
Now Lara and Keller were on their way to Reno.
The hotel was called the Reno Palace. It was large and sumptuous, with fifteen hundred rooms and a huge, glittering casino that was empty. Lara and Howard Keller were being escorted through the casino by a man named Tony Wilkie.
“The people who owned this got a bum deal,” Wilkie said.
“What kind of bum deal?” Keller asked.
“Well, it seems that a couple of the boys were pocketing a little money from the cash cage…”
“Skimming,” Keller interjected.
“Yeah. Of course, the owners didn’t know anything about it.”
“Of course not.”
“But someone blew the whistle, and the Gaming Commission pulled out the rug. It’s too bad. It was a very profitable operation.”
“I know.” Keller had already studied the books.
When the tour of inspection was completed, and Lara and Howard were alone, she said, “Paul was right. This is a gold mine.” She saw the expression on Howard’s face. “What’s the matter?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t like us getting involved in anything like this.”
“What’s ‘anything like this’? It’s a cash cow, Howard.”
“Who’s going to run the casino?”
“We’ll find people,” Lara said evasively.
“Where from? The Girl Scouts? It takes gamblers to run an operation like this. I don’t know any, do you?”
Lara was silent.
“I’ll bet Paul Martin does.”
“Leave him out of this,” Lara said.
“I’d like to, and I’d like to leave you out of it. I don’t think this is such a great idea.”
“You didn’t think the Queens project was a great idea either, did you? Or the shopping center on Houston Street. But they’re making money, aren’t they?”
“Lara, I never said they weren’t good deals. All I said was that I think we’re moving too fast. You’re swallowing up everything in sight, but you haven’t digested anything yet.”