“Yes,” said Franks.
“Mrs. Franks,” said Waldo, “we’ve been talking for a long time and you’ve said very little. Practically nothing. Is there anything you’d like to say?”
“I’ve told you of my wife’s involvement,” said Franks protectively, before Tina could reply. “My wife’s holdings in these and every other company I control are little more than nominee structures, devices to ensure that the control remains with me.”
“I invited your wife to comment, Mr. Franks,” said Waldo.
“You reminded us before all this began of certain rights,” said Tina, her voice distant. “I don’t think I have anything to say except in the presence of a lawyer.”
That’s what she’d wanted at the start, Franks remembered. He wished now that he’d listened.
“Like I told you,” said Waldo, “those are your rights.”
The unkempt man started collecting the documents from the floor beside him, patting them into some order and then stacking them back into the briefcase.
Schultz said, “You told us earlier that you’re not familiar with American law, Mr. Franks. So let me tell you about a part of it. On the statute books there is legislation known by the acronym RICO. It stands for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Law. There’s also another appropriate piece of legislation, the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Law. From our inquiries we consider there are charges sufficient to bring you before a grand jury, for that jury to determine whether a case can be brought against you in a court of law. This material has already been placed before a district attorney in the state of New York, for such charges to be prepared against you.…”
“No, wait!” said Franks desperately, once more feeling the sweep of dizziness. “You haven’t let me explain.”
“There’ll be adequate occasion for you to explain, sir,” said Waldo, the condescension gone now, replaced by polite formality. “There will be the need for further interviews between us.…” The man paused, holding out his hand invitingly. “It is your right to refuse, but I am going to request that you hand over your passport to us tonight.”
“Go to hell!” said Franks. He had been punch-drunk, overwhelmed by the enormity of his entrapment. But not any longer. He’d told the Scargo family that night that he was going to fight and win, and he was going to fight and win against these two supercilious cabaret performers. Everything of which they had accused him was perfectly explainable. And he would explain it. Before any grand jury or court they chose. Explain it and be proven innocent. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m going to stay here in New York and I’m going to prove myself not guilty of every accusation you make. Or think of making!”
He had Nicky’s file. That was going to save him. He’d thought the account records were the important pieces of evidence, but there was also the formation notes, proving that everything he said was the truth. That—and the evidence that Nicky himself would be forced to give on oath—would clear him completely, Franks knew. He actually smiled, knowing that he wasn’t vulnerable. He wouldn’t tell them about it, though. Technically it was evidence, and they could insist he hand it over. They could wait until he’d divested himself of Dukes and Flamini and Pascara and discussed everything with the best criminal lawyer that money could buy and then sit in court and hear their whole circumstantial case collapse to the ground. How condescending would they be then?
“Then I must formally ask you not to leave the city,” said Waldo.
“I’ve already told you I’ve no intention of doing that!”
“So you don’t intend to go up to Scarsdale?” said Schultz.
Franks frowned, surprised that they literally meant to restrict him to Manhattan. “No,” he said, unwilling to make any small request of them, like extending his boundaries.
“Get a lawyer, Mr. Franks,” said Schultz. “You’re going to need a lawyer.”
“I intend to.”
When Franks returned from letting them out into the corridor. Tina was still in the chair she had occupied throughout most of the encounter, staring down as she had all the time. “Tina?” he said.
She looked up at him, blank-faced momentarily, as if she did not recognize him.
“Tina?” he said again.
“You’re going to jail!” she said, jagged-voiced. “Everything they said makes you look like an accomplice; a criminal, like the others.”
“No!” said Franks. “I know it looks bad. Terrible. But I can win.”
“For Christ’s sake, stop saying all the time that you can win!” she burst out, angry in her despair. “They’ve got you, every way you turn!”
Franks went over and knelt before her, trying to pull her to him. She came, but stiffly, as if she was reluctant for any physical contact between them. “You said tonight that you trusted me always to do the right thing,” he reminded her quietly.
She nodded.
“So go on trusting me,” he said. “Trust me when I say it’s all going to tum out all right. It’s going to be nasty, but then I told you that it would be. But in the end it’s going to be all right.”
She remained looking at him for several moments, their faces only inches apart. Then she said, “You didn’t, did you?”
“Didn’t what?” he asked, hoping she didn’t mean what he thought.
“Know.”
Now he stared at her for a long time, not speaking because he wasn’t able to, not at once. The anger flickered and died, sadness overcoming it. “You really feel you’ve got to ask me that!”
“Yes,” she said. “If you want the trust that you’ve always had, then I’ve got to be told.”
“I didn’t know,” said Franks, still sad. Of all the shocks and revelations of the past two days, the greatest was this: that they weren’t as close—Tina to him at least—as he’d always imagined them to be. Nothing ever the same again, he thought, recognizing the now familiar reflection.
15
Franks’ instinctive, automatic reaction after his meeting with the FBI agents was to abandon Nicky Scargo completely: to divest himself of the lawyer as quickly as he intended to divest himself of the others, as further proof of his innocence. And then he remembered how important Nicky’s corroborative evidence would be, when he produced the file of formation notes and bank records, and decided that he couldn’t alienate the man; not yet. Because he remembered Nicky’s reaction—the very words—when he asked him if he was prepared to lie on oath. “Yes. I don’t give a damn about perjury if I’m thinking about survival.” Nicky was a liar and a cheat. Franks wasn’t going to have the little bastard running out on him. Nicky had used him, decided Franks. So now he would use Nicky. He’d use him, each and every way he considered necessary, and then he’d dump the man, like Nicky had been willing to dump him—had, in fact, dumped him. Based on what they knew—thought they knew—he supposed the two FBI agents were justified in sneering at him, as a businessman. But they were going to see just what sort of hard, ruthless businessman he could be, long before the eventual collapse of their court case.
The next day Nicky was waiting in the office when he and Tina arrived. She’d intended to come before he’d actually asked her. Franks wanted her to be with him because, although he had some vague recollection of the difficulty of wives giving evidence either in support of or against their husbands, or vice versa, he still considered it important now to have a witness at all times. Tina was the only one he felt he could trust, even though her trust in him had needed reassurance.
Nicky looked better than he had: his suit and shirt were fresh and appeared newly pressed, and the sag appeared to have lessened, both in his face and in the way he held himself. The lawyer smiled as they entered the suite, and said, “I’m glad the family knows now.”
Nicky didn’t mean the family, Franks realized. He meant Enrico. Now that everything was in the open with his father, Nicky considered the responsibility shifted; himself no longer solely to blame. “Yes,” said Franks.
&nbs
p; “They were very upset after you left.” As if he still found it difficult to believe, the lawyer added, “Poppa cried.”
“What about?” asked Tina, her voice hard and unsympathetic.
“What do you think?”
“After the way the family has treated Eddie and me, it’s difficult to imagine,” she said harshly.
“About what’s happened, of course,” said her brother.
“I thought we decided last night that everything was too late for that.”
“He still cried. Mamma too.”
“You trying to make a point?” asked Tina, the bridge between them impassable now.
“Don’t cooperate,” said Nicky. “For God’s sake, realize what you are up against and don’t cooperate.”
“I know what I’m up against,” said Franks.
“What do you mean?”
“Two FBI agents were waiting for us when we got back to the Plaza last night. In fact, they weren’t really waiting. They—or other agents at least—followed us out of Manhattan and up to Westchester and then back again. They know everything about my business dealings, right back from the very start. They’ve photographs of me with Dukes and Flamini and Pascara and my signature on every incriminating document imaginable.” He stopped, indicating the impressive console he’d noticed the first time he’d entered the office. “Incidentally,” continued Franks, “they’ve got a tap on your telephone. Quoted the conversation we had when you called to get me here.”
Nicky jerked back from the telephone bank as if it were hot and he were frightened of being burned. “Fuck me!” he said.
“Someone’s going to get fucked, Nicky,” said Franks, picking up the other man’s word. “But it isn’t going to be me.”
“What can we do?” pleaded Nicky, the new, fragile confidence crumbling at the first indication of pressure.
“What I’ve always intended we should do,” said Franks. “Protect ourselves. I want a name, Nicky. The name of the best criminal lawyer in the city.” Franks paused, looking to Tina to give her the credit. “I made a mistake last night. I agreed to the meeting without a lawyer being present. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.”
“Rosenberg,” said the other lawyer at once. “Ruben Rosenberg.” There was the slightest hesitation, and then Nicky said, “He’s a Jew, of course.”
“I’d never have guessed,” said Franks. “My father was a Jew, too. Remember?”
“I’m sorry,” apologized Nicky in the now familiar stumbling way. “I didn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Franks said impatiently. “Do you know this man?”
“You’ve seen him, when we’ve lunched at the club,” said Nicky. “Bald-headed guy with glasses who has the permanent booth second from the door.”
“Do you know him?” persisted Franks.
“We used to play squash together, in the club on Sixtieth.”
“Call him,” ordered Franks. “Set up a meeting. I want to meet him right away. Today.”
Nicky looked nervously toward the monitored telephone bank.
“It’s the FBI’s idea that I get a lawyer,” said Franks, still impatient. Tying Nicky in—even on something so apparently inconsequential as an interview with another lawyer—might help later in some way, thought Franks. As Nicky got a line and dialed, Franks felt across for Tina’s hand. She let him take it and smiled back wanly, but it was a minimal response. Just as there had been the minimal response the previous night when he’d moved to make love and she’d turned away and asked him how he could think of doing that after what they’d been through. Maybe he shouldn’t be too critical of her reaction, thought Franks. Maybe he had been unreasonable. He’d actually felt relieved—confident the safe-deposited folder was their salvation—but perhaps it had been unrealistic to expect Tina to understand everything as clearly as he did now.
Nicky sat beyond the huge desk, head forward and his free hand against his forehead, creating a cowl, so that it was difficult to hear every word, but even before he replaced the receiver Franks knew that a meeting wasn’t possible that day.
“Friday,” announced Nicky. “Ten o’clock.”
“That’s three days away,” protested Franks.
“You wanted the best,” said Nicky. “The best are busy. Because they’re the best.”
Franks knew he’d been unrealistic, but he’d wanted the meeting at once; that day. There was something else that didn’t have to be delayed any longer. “I want the dissolution meeting called,” he announced.
“You’re still determined to go ahead?”
“Even more so.”
“I don’t want to be involved,” said the man.
“You are involved, whether you want to be or not,” said Franks dismissively. “You’ll not achieve anything by not being at the meeting.”
“You’ll say it was you? Just you?”
Franks sighed at the plea, and beside him Tina said, “Oh Christ, Nicky! Stop it!”
“I’ll say it’s all my idea,” said Franks, disgusted at the man’s hesitation. “Everything will be my fault. Now for God’s sake make the calls. Let’s get something started instead of sitting around wetting ourselves.”
Nicky looked again at the bugged telephones. “From here?” he said.
This time Franks hesitated. He didn’t know anything about telephone monitoring but he presumed that it was practically simultaneous, so that Waldo and Schultz or whoever else were bothering would know very quickly of the contact. He didn’t mind their knowing—was anxious for them to know about it and be aware of the reason—but not before he’d put the dissolution into effect. He couldn’t foresee any reason for them to intervene, but he knew he’d made one mistake by speaking too openly to them and he didn’t intend making another. “You’ve got a telephone credit card?” he said.
“Yes,” nodded Nicky.
“Make it from a phone booth then.”
“When?” Nicky sat with his hands against the desk, as if it were a positive barrier, something to protect him against any sort of attack.
“Is there a pay phone in the building?”
“I guess so.”
“So what’s wrong with right now?”
“What shall I say?”
“Give me a piece of paper,” instructed Franks, not immediately replying. Franks wrote out not just the names of Dukes, Flamini, and Pascara but beside them the aliases that had been listed to him the previous night by Harry Waldo. He pushed the yellow legal pad back across the desk and said, “Tell them I want to talk to them about those names as well.”
“Who are they?” asked Nicky.
“Just tell them,” said Franks.
Nicky stared down at the paper, unwilling to move. He rose at last, but stopped at the door and looked back into the room. “You sure?” he said.
“Make the call, Nicky,” said Franks. He looked across to Tina as her brother left the room, and said, “You okay?”
“I guess so,” she said.
“I want to make you a promise,” said Franks.
“What?”
“When this is all over, I’m going to quit. The islands operation will be over anyway. There’s bound to be a lot of bad publicity, so I’ll have to stay in some sort of control in Europe, but as soon as I think it’s safe to do so—that the companies won’t be affected—I’ll get somebody else in to run them. We can live where you like, here or in England. Or anywhere else if you like. Both the kids will be at boarding school by then so it’ll just be the two of us.”
“That would be nice,” said Tina.
Franks frowned at the lack of interest in her voice. “It’ll be like it was before, when I was taking the long weekends. Only better.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice still empty.
Franks decided he couldn’t expect any other attitude from her, not at the moment. Later it would be better.
She looked directly at him, and said, “Maybe we should have the children here, with us.”
“Why?”
Tina shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d just like to have them with me.”
“Call David’s headmaster if you like, and have them brought over.”
“I might,” she said. “It wouldn’t mean taking David away for too much of the term. And I don’t think it matters too much if Gabby misses school at her age.”
“Whatever you want,” agreed Franks. It would probably be a good thing, give Tina something else to think about.
Nicky came back hurriedly into his office, almost as if he were being pursued. Before he sat down, he said, “They don’t like it, Eddie. I knew they wouldn’t like it.”
“They’re going to like it a damned sight less before I’m through.”
“Pascara told me to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Not to do anything silly. Those were his words, ‘Tell Eddie not to do anything silly.’”
“When?”
“They’re flying in tonight, all of them. I said eleven tomorrow morning.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That you wanted to talk about the future of the companies.”
“That the FBI were investigating?”
“I had to, Eddie! You must see that I had to!”
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have done so.”
“That’s when Pascara told me to tell you not to do anything silly.”
“I think I will get the children brought across,” said Tina.
“What?” frowned her brother.
“Something we were talking about while you were telephoning,” said Franks. She was becoming infected with the nervousness of everyone else, he thought.
“It means you’ll have to meet them without the reports, either from Chicago or Houston,” said the lawyer.
“I don’t think I need them, after last night,” said Franks.
But the reports did arrive from both sets of lawyers, by the special delivery that afternoon that Nicky had requested when he commissioned the inquiries. They were addressed to the lawyer, but he had them sent unopened across to the Plaza, wanting to separate himself from everything as much as possible. Franks was glad to have something upon which to concentrate, although he didn’t imagine there would be much beyond what Waldo and Schultz had told him. A challenging atmosphere arose in the suite between himself and Tina, so that she snapped rather than talked to him, and Franks consciously had to hold back to avoid an argument. Imagining the cause to be her concern over the children, he encouraged her to call England to make arrangements to fly them both out to New York. Harrow agreed to David’s premature release, and Franks had his London secretary make the Concorde reservations for the children and Elizabeth.
To Save a Son Page 12
