“Very cozy,” said Abel, “but what if they can prove the charges?”
“Oh, they should be able to prove some of the charges,” said H. Trafford Jilks matter-of-factly. “But as long as Henry Osborne stays tucked away, they’re going to find it very difficult to nail you on most of them. But you’re going to have to live with the fact, Mr. Rosnovski, that most of the real damage has already been done whether you’re convicted or not.”
“I can see that only too well,” said Abel, glancing at a picture of himself on the front page of the Daily News, which H. Trafford Jilks obviously had brought with him. “So you find out, Mr. Jilks, who the hell bought that file from Henry Osborne. Put as many people to work on it as you need. I don’t care about the cost. But you find out and find out quickly, because if it turns out to be William Kane, I’m going to finish him once and for all.”
“Don’t get yourself into any more trouble than you are already in,” said H. Trafford Jilks. “You’re knee deep in it as it is.”
“Don’t worry,” said Abel. “When I finish Kane, it’ll be legal and way aboveboard.”
“Now listen carefully, Mr. Rosnovski. You forget about William Kane for the time being and start worrying about your impending trial. It will be the most important event in your life unless you don’t mind spending the next ten years in jail. Now, there’s not much more you can do tonight. I’ll get my men looking for Henry Osborne, and I’ll issue a short press statement denying the charges and saying we have a full explanation that will exonerate you completely.”
“Do we?” George asked hopefully.
“No,” said Jilks, “but it will give me some much needed time to think. When Mr. Rosnovski has had a chance to check through that file of names, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover he’s never had direct contact with anyone in it. It’s possible that Henry Osborne always acted as an intermediary without ever putting Mr. Rosnovski fully in the picture. Then my job will be to prove that Osborne exceeded his authority as a director of the group. Mind you, Mr. Rosnovski, if you did meet any of the people mentioned in the file, for God’s sake let me know, because you can be sure the Justice Department will put them on the stand as witnesses against us. I’ll leave a copy of the file for you and we’ll start worrying about that tomorrow. You go to bed and get some sleep. You must be exhausted after your trip. I will see you first thing in the morning.”
Abel was arrested quietly in his daughter’s apartment at 8:30 A.M. and driven away by a U.S. marshal to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. The brightly colored St. Valentine’s Day decorations in store windows heightened Abel’s sense of loneliness. Jilks had hoped that his arrangements had been so discreet that the press would not have discovered them, but when Abel reached the courthouse, he was once again surrounded by photographers and reporters. He ran the gauntlet into the courtroom with George in front of him and Jilks behind. They sat silently in an anteroom waiting for their case to be called.
When they were called, the indictment hearing lasted only a few minutes and was a strange anticlimax. The clerk read the charges, H. Trafford Jilks answered “Not Guilty” to each one on behalf of his client and requested bail. The Government, as agreed, made no objection. Jilks asked Judge Prescott for at least three months to prepare his defense. The judge set a trial date of May 17.
Abel was free again, free to face the press and more of their flashing bulbs. The chauffeur had the car waiting for him at the bottom of the steps with the back door open. The engine was already running and the driver had to do some very skillful maneuvering to escape the reporters who were still pursuing their story. When the car pulled to a stop on East Fifty-seventh Street, Abel turned to George and put his arm on his shoulder.
“Now listen, George, you’re going to have to run the group for at least three months while I get my defense worked out with Mr. Jilks. Let’s hope you don’t have to run it alone after that,” said Abel, trying to laugh.
“Of course I won’t have to, Abel. Mr. Jilks will get you off, you’ll see.” George picked up his briefcase and touched Abel on the arm. “Keep smiling,” he said, and left the other two men as they entered the apartment building.
“I don’t know what I’d do without George,” Abel told his lawyer as they settled down in the living room. “We came over on the boat together nearly forty years ago and we’ve been through a hell of a lot since then. Now it looks as if there’s a whole lot more ahead of us, so let’s get on with it, Mr. Jilks. Nothing new on Henry Osborne?”
“No, but I have six men working on it, and I understand the Justice Department has at least another six, so we can be pretty sure he’ll turn up, not that we want them to find him first.”
“What about the man Osborne sold the file to?” asked Abel.
“I have some people I trust in Chicago detailed to run that down.”
“Good,” said Abel. “Now the time has come to go over that file of names you left with me last night.”
Trafford Jilks began by reading the indictment and then he went over each of the charges in detail with Abel.
After nearly three weeks of constant meetings, when Jilks was finally convinced there was nothing else Abel could tell him, he left his client to rest. The three weeks had failed to turn up any leads to the whereabouts of Henry Osborne, for either Trafford Jilks’s men or the Justice Department. Jilks’s men had also had no breakthrough on finding the person to whom Henry had sold his information, and the lawyer was beginning to wonder if Abel had guessed right.
As the trial date drew nearer, Abel started to face the possibility of actually going to jail. He was now fifty-five and afraid of the prospect of spending the last few years of his life the same way he had spent three of the first few. As H. Trafford Jilks had pointed out, if the Government could prove it had a case, there was enough in Osborne’s file to send Abel to prison for a very long time. The injustice—as it seemed to him—of his predicament angered Abel. The malfeasances that Henry Osborne had committed in his name had been substantial but not exceptional; Abel doubted that any new business could have grown or any new money made without the kinds of handout and bribe to different people documented with sickening accuracy to Trafford Jilks’s file. He thought bitterly of the smooth, impassive face of the young William Kane, sitting in his Boston office all those years ago on a pile of inherited money whose probably disreputable origins were safely buried under generations of respectability. Then Florentyna wrote, a touching letter enclosing some photographs of her son, saying that she still loved and respected Abel and believed in his innocence.
Three days before the trial was due to open, the Justice Department found Henry Osborne in New Orleans. They undoubtedly would have missed him completely if he hadn’t landed in a local hospital with two broken legs. A zealous policeman discovered that Henry had received his injuries for welching on gambling debts. They don’t like that in New Orleans. The policeman put two and two together and later that night, after the hospital had put plaster casts on Osborne’s legs, the Justice Department wheeled him onto an Eastern Airlines flight to New York.
Henry Osborne was charged the next day with conspiracy to defraud and he was denied bail. H. Trafford Jilks asked the court’s permission to be allowed to question him. The court granted his request, but Jilks gained very little satisfaction from the interview. It became obvious that Osborne had already made his deal with the Government, promising to turn state’s evidence against Abel in return for lesser charges against him.
“No doubt, Mr. Osborne will find the charges against him surprisingly minor,” the lawyer commented drily.
“So that’s his game,” said Abel. “I take the rap while he escapes. Now we’ll never find out who he sold that goddamn file to.”
“No, there you are wrong, Mr. Rosnovski. That was the one thing he was willing to talk about,” said Jilks. “He said it wasn’t William Kane. He would never have sold the file to Kane under any circumstances. A man from Chicago called
Harry Smith paid Mr. Osborne cash for the evidence and, would you believe it, Harry Smith turns out to be an alias: there are dozens of Harry Smiths in the Chicago area and not a single one of them fits the description.”
“Find him,” said Abel. “And find him before the trial starts.”
“We’re already working on that,” said Jilks. “If the man is still in Chicago we’ll pin him down within the week. Osborne also added that this so-called Smith assured him he only wanted the file for private purposes. He had no intention of revealing the contents to anyone in authority.”
“Then why did ‘Smith’ want the details in the first place?” asked Abel.
“The inference was blackmail. That’s why Henry Osborne disappeared, to avoid you. If you think about that, Mr. Rosnovski, he could be telling the truth. After all, the disclosures are extremely damaging to him and he must have been as distressed as you when he heard the file was in the hands of the Justice Department. It’s no wonder he decided to stay out of sight and turned state’s evidence when he was eventually caught.”
“Do you know,” said Abel, “the only reason I ever employed that man was because he hated William Kane as much as I did, and now Kane has done us both.”
“There’s no proof that Mr. Kane was in any way involved,” said Jilks.
“I don’t need proof.”
The trial was delayed at the request of the Government, which claimed it needed more time to question Henry Osborne before presenting its case. He was now the principal witness for the prosecution. Trafford Jilks objected strongly and informed the court that the health of his client, who was no longer a young man, was failing under the strain of false accusations. The plea did not move Judge Prescott, who agreed to the Government’s request and postponed the trial for a further four weeks.
The month dragged on for Abel and two days before the trial again was due to open, he resigned himself to being found guilty and facing a long jail sentence. Then H. Trafford Jilks’s investigator in Chicago found the man called Harry Smith, who turned out to be a local private detective who had used an alias under strict instructions from his client, a firm of lawyers in New York. It cost Jilks one thousand dollars and another twenty-four hours before Harry Smith revealed that the firm concerned had been Cohen, Cohen and Yablons.
“Kane’s lawyer,” said Abel immediately on being told.
“Are you sure?” asked Jilks. “I would have thought from all we know about William Kane that he would be the last person to use a Jewish firm.”
“Way back, when I bought the hotels from Kane’s bank, some of the paper work was covered by a man named Thomas Cohen. For some reason, the bank used two lawyers for the transaction.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” George asked Abel.
“Nothing,” said Trafford Jilks. “We must have no more trouble before the trial. Do you understand, Mr. Rosnovski?”
“Yes,” said Abel. “I’ll deal with Kane when the trial’s over. Now, Mr. Jilks, listen and listen carefully. You must go back to Osborne immediately and tell him the file was sold by Harry Smith to William Kane and that Kane used the contents to gain revenge on both of us, and stress the ‘both of us.’ I promise you when Osborne hears that, he’s not going to open his mouth in the witness chair, no matter what promises he’s made to the Justice Department. Henry Osborne’s the one man alive who may hate Kane more than I do.”
“Anything you say,” said Jilks, who clearly wasn’t convinced. “But I feel I must warn you, Mr. Rosnovski, that he’s still putting the blame firmly on your shoulders and to date he’s been no help to our side at all.”
“You can take my word for this, Mr. Jilks. His attitude will change the moment he knows about Kane’s involvement.”
H. Trafford Jilks obtained permission to spend ten minutes that night with Henry Osborne in his cell. Osborne listened but said nothing. Jilks was sure that his news had made no impression on the Government’s star witness and he decided he would wait until the next morning before telling Abel Rosnovski. He preferred that his client try to get a good night’s sleep before the trial opened the next day.
Four hours before the trial was due to start, Henry Osborne was found hanging in his cell by the guard bringing in his breakfast.
He had used a Harvard tie.
The trial opened for the Government without its star witness and it appealed for a further extension. After hearing another impassioned plea by H. Trafford Jilks on the state of his client’s health, Judge Prescott refused the request. The public followed every word of The Chicago Baron Trial on television and in the newspapers—and, to Abel’s horror, Zaphia sat in the public gallery seeming to enjoy every moment of his discomfort. After nine days in court, the prosecution knew that their case was not standing up well and offered to make a deal with H. Trafford Jilks. During an adjournment, Jilks briefed Abel on the offer.
“They will drop all the main indictments of bribery if you will plead guilty to the misdemeanors on two of the minor counts of attempting to improperly influence a public official.”
“What do you estimate are my chances of getting off completely if I turn them down?”
“Fifty-fifty, I would say,” said Jilks.
“And if I don’t get off?”
“Judge Prescott is tough. The sentence wouldn’t be a day under six years.”
“And if I agree to the deal and plead guilty to the two minor charges, what then?”
“A heavy fine. I would be surprised if it came to anything more than that,” said Jilks.
Abel sat and considered the alternatives for a few moments.
“I’ll plead guilty. Let’s get the damn thing over with.”
The Government lawyers informed the judge that they were dropping fifteen of the charges against Abel Rosnovski. H. Trafford Jilks rose from his place and told the court that his client wished to change his plea to guilty on the two remaining misdemeanor charges. The jury was dismissed and Judge Prescott was very hard on Abel in his summing up, reminding him that the right to do business did not include the right to suborn public officials. Bribery was a crime and a worse crime when condoned by an intelligent and competent man, who should not need to stoop to such levels. In other countries, the judge added pointedly, making Abel feel like a raw immigrant once again, bribery might be an accepted way of going about one’s daily life, but such was not the case in the United States of America. Judge Prescott gave Abel a six months’ suspended sentence and a $25,000 fine plus costs.
George took Abel back to the Baron and they sat in the penthouse drinking whiskey for more than an hour before Abel spoke.
“George, I want you to contact Peter Parfitt and pay him the one million dollars he asked for his two percent of Lester’s, because once I have my hands on eight percent of that bank I am going to invoke Article Seven and kill William Kane in his own boardroom.”
George nodded sadly, fearing the battle wasn’t over yet.
A few days later the State Department announced that Poland had been granted most favored nation status in foreign trade with the United States and that the next American Ambassador to Warsaw would be John Moors Cabot.
CHAPTER FORTY
On a bitter February evening, William Kane sat back and reread Thaddeus Cohen’s report. Henry Osborne had released all the information he had needed to finish Abel Rosnovski and had taken his $25,000 and disappeared. Very much in character, thought William as he replaced the wellworn copy of the Rosnovski file back in his safe. The original had been sent to the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., some days before by Thaddeus Cohen.
When Abel Rosnovski had returned from Turkey and was subsequently arrested, William had waited for him to retaliate, expecting him to dump all his Interstate stock on the market immediately. This time, William was prepared. He had already warned his broker that Interstate might come onto the open market in large amounts with little warning. His instructions were clear. They were to be bought immediately so that the price would n
ot drop. Again he was prepared to put up the money from his trust as a short-term measure, to avoid any unpleasantness at the bank. William had also circulated a memo among all the stockholders of Lester’s asking them not to sell any Interstate stock without consulting him.
As the weeks passed and Abel Rosnovski made no move, William began to believe that Thaddeus Cohen had been correct in assuming that nothing had been traceable back to him. Rosnovski must surely be placing the blame firmly on Henry Osborne’s shoulders.
Thaddeus Cohen was certain that with Osborne’s evidence, Abel Rosnovski would end up behind bars for a very long time, preventing him from ever finding it possible to invoke Article 7 and again be a threat to the bank or William Kane. William hoped that the verdict might also make Richard come to his senses and return home. Surely these latest revelations about that family could only make him embarrassed by the Rosnovski girl and realize that his father had been right all along.
William would have welcomed Richard back. There was now a gap on the board of Lester’s created by the retirement of Tony Simmons and the untimely death of Ted Leach. Richard would have to return to New York before William’s sixty-fifth birthday in ten years or it would be the first time in over a century that a Kane had not sat in a bank’s boardroom. Cohen had reported that Richard had made a series of brilliant takeover bids for shops that Florentyna needed, but surely the opportunity to become the next chairman of Lester’s would mean more to Richard than working with that Rosnovski girl.
Another factor that was bothering William was that he did not care much for the new breed of directors now working at the bank. Jake Thomas, the new vice chairman, was still the firm favorite to succeed William as chairman. He might have been educated at Princeton and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, but he was flashy—too flashy—thought William, and far too ambitious, not at all the right sort to be the next chairman of Lester’s. William would have to hang on until his sixty-fifth birthday, trying in the meantime to convince Richard that he should join Lester’s long before then. William was only too aware that Kate would have had Richard back on any terms, but as the years passed, he had found it harder to give way to his better judgment. Thank heaven Virginia’s marriage was going well, and now she was pregnant. If Richard refused to return home and give up that Rosnovski girl, he could still leave everything to Virginia—if she produced a grandson.
Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Page 53
