No, they couldn't; he wasn't even Polish - or maybe he was - Abel didn't even know his name and had never heard him speak.
On the way back to the Stevens, Zaphia asked, with a flash of coquettishness he remembered, if it was considered safe to drive a motor car and hold a lady's hand at the same time. Abel laughed and put his hand back on the steering wheel for the rest of the drive back to the hotel.
'Will you have time to see me tomorrow?' he asked.
'I hope so, Abel,' she said. 'Perhaps by then you'll be my boss. Good luck anyway.'
He smiled to himself as he watched her go through the back door, wondering how she would feel if she knew the real consequences of tomorrow's decision. He did not move until she disappeared through the service entrance.
'Assistant manager,' he said, laughing out loud as he climbed into bed, wondering what Curds Fenton's news would bring in the morning, trying to put Zaphia out of his mind as he threw his pillow on the floor.
He woke a few minutes before five the next day. The room was still dark when he called for the early edition of the Tribune, and went through the motions of reading the financial section. He was dressed and ready for breakfast when the restaurant opened at seven o'clock. Zaphia was not serving in the main dining room that morning, but the pimply boyfriend was, which Abel took to be a bad omen. After breakfast he returned to his room; had he but known, only five minutes before Zaphia came on duty. He checked his tie in the mirror for the twentieth time and once again looked at his watch. He estimated that if he walked very slowly, he would arrive at the bank as the doors were opening. In fact, he arrived five minutes early and walked once around the block, staring aimlessly into store windows at expensive jewellery and new radios and hand - tailored suits. Would he ever be able to afford clothes like that? he wondered. He arrived back at the bank at four minutes past nine.
'Mr. Fenton is not free at the moment. Can you come back in half an hour or would you prefer to wait?' the secretary asked.
'I'll come back,' said Abel, not wishing to appear overanxious.
It was the longest thirty minutes he could remember since he'd been in Chicago. He had studied every shop window on La Salle Street, even the women's clothes, which made him think happily of Zaphia.
On his return to Continental Trust the secretary informed him, 'Mr.
Fenton will see you now.'
Abel walked into the bank manager's office, feeling his hands sweating.
'Good morning, Mr. Rosnovski. Do have a seat.'
Curtis Fenton took a file out of his desk which Abel could see had 'Confidential' wri tten across the cover.
'Now,' he began, 'I hope you will find my news is to your liking. The principal concerned is willing. to go ahead with the purchase of the hotels on what I ran only describe as favourable terms.'
'God Almighty,'said Abel.
Curtis Fenton pretended not to hear him and continued. 'In fact, most favourable terms. JIe will be responsible for putting up the full two million required to clear Mr. Leroy's debt while at the same time he will form a new company with you in which the shares will be split sixty per cent to him and forty per cent to you. Your forty per cent is therefore valued at eiuht hundred thousand dollars, which will be treated as a loan to you by the new company, a loan which will be made for a term not to exceed ten years, at four per cent, which can be paid off from the company profits at the same rate. That is to say, if the company were to make in any one year a profit of one hundred thousand dollars, forty thousand of that profit would be set against your eight hundred thousand debt, plus the four per cent interest. If you clear the loan of eight hundred thousand in under ten years you will be given the one - time option to buy the remaining sixty per cent of the company for a further three million dollars. This would give my client a first - class return on his investment and you the opportunity to own the Richmond Group outright.
'In addition to this, you will receive a salary of three thousand dollars per annum, and your position as president of the group will give you complete day - to - day control of the hotels. You will be asked to refer back to me only on matters concerning finance. I have been entrusted with the task of reporting direct to your principal, and he has asked me to represent his interests on the board of the neW Richmond Group. I have been happy to comply with this stipulation. My client does not wish to be involved personally. As I have said before, there might be a conflict of professional interests for him in this transaction, which I am sure you will thoroughly understand. He also insists that you will at no time make any attempt to discover his identity. He will give you fourteen days to consider his terms, on which there can be no negotiation, as he considers, and I must agree with, him, that he is striking a more than fair bargain.'