Kane and Abel (Kane & Abel 1)

No one spoke.

Several other members of the staff left the Richmond during the next few weeks when they realised that Abel did not intend to continue Desmond Pacey's system on his own behalf, and they were quickly replaced.

By the end of March, Abel had invited four employees from the Plaza to join him at the Richmond. They had three things in conu - non: they were young, ambitious and honest. Within six months, only thirty - seven of the original staff of one hundred and ten were still employed at the Richmond. At the end of the first year, Abel cracked a large bottle of champagne with Davis Leroy to celebrate the year's figures for the Chicago Richmond. Tley had shown a profit of three thousand, four hundred and eighty - six dollars. Small, but the first profit the hotel had shown in the thirty years of its existence. Abel was projecting a profit of over twenty - five thousand dollars in 1929.

Davis Leroy was mightily impressed. He visited Chicago once a month and began to rely heavily on Abel's judgment. He even came round to the point of admitting that what had been true of the Chicago Richmond might well be true of the other hotels in the group. Abel wanted to see the Chicago hotel running smoothly on its new lines before he considered tackling the others; Leroy agreed but talked of a partnership for Abel if lie could do for the others what he had done with Chicago.

They started going to baseball and the races together whenever Davis was in Chicago. On one occasion, when Davis had lost seven hundred dollars without getting close in any of the six races, he threw up his arms in disgust and said, 'Why do I bother with horses, Abel? You're the best bet I've ever made.'

Melanie Leroy always dined with her father on these visits. Cool, pretty, with a slim figure and long legs which attracted many a stare from the hotel guests, she treated Abel with a slight degree of hauteur which gave him no encouragement for the aspirations he had begun to formulate for her, nor did she invite him to substitute 'Melanie' for 'Miss Leroy'

until she discovered he was the holder of an economics degree from Columbia and knew more about discounted cash flow than she did herself. After that, she softened a little and came from time to time to dine with Abel alone in the hotel and seek assistance with the work she was doing for her liberal arts degree at the University of Chicago. Emboldened, he occasionally escorted her to concerts and the theatre, and began to feel a proprietorial jealousy whenever she brought other men to dine at the hotel, though she never came with the same escort twice.

So greatly had the hotel cuisine improved under Abel's iron fist that people who had lived in Chicago for thirty years and never realised the place existed were making gastronomic outings every Saturday evening. Abel redecorated the whole hotel for the first time in twenty years and put the staff into smart new green and gold uniforms. One guest, who had stayed at the Richmond for a week every year, actually retreated back out of the front door on arrival, because he thought he had walked into the wrong establishment. When Al Capone booked a dinner party for sixteen in a private room to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, Abel knew he had arrived.

Abel's personal wealth grew during this period, while the stock market flourished. Having left the Plaza with eight thousand dollars, eighteen months before, his brokerage account now stood at over thirty thousand. He was confident that the market would continue to rise, and so he always re - invested his profits. His personal requirements were stiH fairly modest. He had acquired two new suits and his first pair of brown shoes. He still had his rooms and food provided by the hotel and few out - of - pocket expenses.

There seemed to be nothing but a bright future ahead of him. The Continental Trust had handled the Richmond account for over thirty years, so Abel had transferred his own account to them when he first came to Chi~ago. Every day he would go to the bank and deposit the hotel's previous day's receipts. He was taken by surprise one Friday morning by a message that the man - , ager was asking to see him. He knew his personal account was never overdrawn, so he presumed the meeting must have something to do with the Richmond. The bank could hardly be about to complain that the hotel's account was solvent for the first time in thirty years. A junior clerk guided Abel through a tangle of corridors until he reached a handsome wooden door. A gentle knock and he was ushered in to meet the manager.

'My name is Curtis Fenton,' said the man behind the desk, offering Abel his hand before motioning him into a green leather button seat. He was a neat, rotund man who wore half - moon spectacles and an impeccable white collar and black tie to go with his three piece banker's suit.

'Thank you,' said Abel nervously.