To Save a Son

by Brian Freemantle

  “Not one in a million, I wouldn’t think,” said Schultz matter-of-factly. “Even if we picked up the guys who did it. They probably wouldn’t know of Pascara or anyone else, you see. It’s not done that way. The contract comes down through middlemen to other middlemen. They’re clean.”

  “Why the public breakfast and the charity photographs, then?”

  “Pascara and Flamini and Dukes are where they are—and have survived for so long and beaten a lot of raps—because they don’t take chances. Any chances at all.”

  The three men turned as Tina came into the room. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her eyes were wetly red. Franks wondered if Maria had cried any more. “She wants to go to the family,” said Tina. “I asked her to stay but she said she wants to go there.”

  “I know,” said Franks. “We already talked about it. You okay?”

  Tina humped her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “What about the children?”

  “I told them that all the men were people who worked for you; that you were having a meeting. It’s all I could think of. There’ve been several police cars and David’s seen them. He couldn’t understand that.” She shuddered. “He kept asking to see the policemen’s guns.”

  “You coming with us?” asked Franks.

  Tina looked toward Waldo and Schultz, as if expecting some guidance. She said, “It would mean leaving the children.”

  “They’d be quite safe.”

  Tina shook her head doubtfully. “I think I’ll stay. Will you be long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Franks.

  “It isn’t going to be easy, is it?”

  “Nothing is, not anymore,” said Franks.

  “Do you mind if we set out, Mr. Franks?” said Schultz. “After this we’ve got to get back to New York.”

  “Sure,” said Franks. “Where’s Maria?”

  “Waiting,” said Tina. “She’s ready.”

  The change in Maria was very marked. She didn’t appear to have cried, like Tina. She emerged from the larger room into the hallway quite composed, looking alertly around her, and said, strong-voiced, “Shall we go?”

  She didn’t sit against him in the car this time. Instead she pulled away, into the corner of the car, staring out at the vehicles and the darkened figures of the patroling guards as they went down the drive and out onto the highway. As they started northward, she said, “There’ll be the funeral to arrange.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Franks.

  “I can manage,” she said positively.

  The shock had swung the pendulum in the other direction, Franks decided, from vulnerable to independent. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said.

  She didn’t reply.

  Franks twisted, looking over his shoulder. The escort car was tightly in position, and Waldo was back on the radio, maintaining his links. Franks supposed they were trained for situations like this. He was conscious of Waldo talking at greater length on the radio than he had before. The road directly outside the Scargo house was secured by roadblocks, as it had been in Scarsdale, so that no vehicle could pass without check. But this time Schultz stopped the car and Waldo got out. The huge man stood, head bent, in the lights of their own and another car, nodding to whatever was being said to him by a man whose features Franks could not properly see. The car actually moved when Waldo got back in, going down slightly under his weight. He looked over the seat at Franks and said, “Old man Scargo’s causing trouble. He’s ordered everyone off his property; says he doesn’t want any police around.”

  “Does he know why they’re here?”

  “It was left for you to tell them.”

  “Then I’d better do it, hadn’t I?” said Franks.

  The old man was visible in the porchlights before they actually reached the house, standing in the doorway and gesticulating to the officers who were grouped around, refusing to move.

  Enrico started forward when he saw Franks and Maria get out of the car, his mouth open to continue the protest, and then it registered that it was Maria with Franks, not Tina, and he stopped.

  “Let’s go inside,” said Franks.

  The old man remained where he was for a few moments and then looked hurriedly around him, toward the men with whom he had been arguing, appearing suddenly embarrassed. He turned, obediently, and went slump-shouldered into the house. Mamma Scargo was just beyond the front door and her eyes went from Franks to Maria and then back again and her face closed, in the same sort of immediate awareness that her husband had shown in the porchway. Enrico didn’t stop, but went directly into the large room overlooking the tennis courts where they seemed to have had all the family meetings. He went heavily to a chair and sat bent forward, his arms against his knees, gazing downward. Maria reached out to the old woman, offering comfort as Tina had done to her earlier, and Mamma Scargo came forward into the embrace. The two women, old and young, went to a couch and sat. It was to Enrico they looked, not Franks.

  “I asked them why they’d come,” said Enrico distantly. “Asked why there was the need, but they lied to me. They said there wasn’t anything wrong; that it was just a precaution. They should have told me. I would not have argued if I’d known.” He looked up at Franks. “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “He’s dead, of course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” accepted Enrico. “Of course.”

  “You should let them stay here,” said Franks. “They’re guarding Tina and the children. Maria, too.”

  “Did he suffer?”

  “No,” said Franks definitely. Having come all this way, there didn’t seem enough to say.

  “That’s good,” said Enrico. “It’s good he didn’t suffer.”

  The old lady was still looking across at her husband, seeking guidance, but both appeared calm and resigned to what had happened. Why were tears so easy when they were happy, but difficult in grief? wondered Franks. He tried to think of different words—better words—but there weren’t any, so he said, “I’m very sorry.”

  The old man stared steadily at Franks for a long time without speaking, and Franks stood, waiting for the inevitable accusation. Instead the old man said, “I wish it had been you.”

  “I suppose you do,” said Franks. He didn’t feel any anger or outrage at the honesty. Whatever happened, he didn’t intend getting into any sort of argument or shouting match with the old man. Like Enrico, Franks felt a strange resignation about everything. He supposed that was a better reaction than trying to imagine it was all unreal and not happening at all.

  “I’d like to stay here,” said Maria from beside the old lady.

  “Yes,” said Enrico. He looked past Franks toward the gardens in which the FBI men were assembled. “They should stay. For the moment they should stay. While Maria’s here.”

  “It’s only a precaution,” said Franks. “No one thinks they’ll make a move against you. Or Maria.” Did he know enough to say that? Franks asked himself. It seemed important to offer them some sort of reassurance.

  “How do they know what’s going to happen!” said Enrico contemptuously.

  “I should get back to Tina,” said Franks.

  Enrico shrugged dismissively.

  “Is there anything you’d like me to do?”

  There was another long look, but still no accusation at the end of it. Enrico said simply, “No.”

  Franks looked across to Maria, and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow, about the funeral.”

  “I said I’d do it.”

  “There might be something.”

  “There won’t be.”

  Waldo and Schultz were still in the porchway, talking to the other officers. They looked at Franks as he emerged, and Waldo said, “Well?”

  “He agrees they should stay.”

  “They would have done anyway,” said Waldo.

  Franks settled into the back of the car, engulfed in a sudden fatigue that spread through his entire body. So much so qui
ckly, he thought. Dear God, what was still to come?

  Franks leaned back with his head against the seat, his eyes closed. From the movement of the vehicle Franks knew when they regained the highway, on the way back to Scarsdale, but he didn’t open his eyes, too disinterested to confirm it. Not disinterested in getting back to Scarsdale, but in the constant movement and traveling. Did he still feel like fighting, like he’d determined on the ride up with Maria; fighting in such a way to keep the bastards from winning? The resignation he’d felt at the Scargo’s became entwined with the bone-aching weariness, and Franks decided he wasn’t sure anymore. He forced his eyes open, not to concentrate upon the drive but upon the way his mind was drifting. Of course he was going to fight. Make them pay for what they’d tried to do to him and what they had done to Nicky. Just tired, that’s all. All he needed was some sleep and another detailed meeting with Rosenberg and then they’d work out a way to settle everything.

  At the Scarsdale house Waldo stopped long enough to check all the precautions and said maybe he’d see him tomorrow, and Franks said sure, and then they left. He was conscious of the sag of his own shoulders as he closed the door behind them, remaining for a moment where he was, not wanting to move.

  “You all right?” said Tina from behind him.

  He turned slowly toward her. She was in the small room, where the drinks were, and he went in and sank gratefully into a chair, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Exhausted,” he said.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  He shook his head, eyes still closed, not replying.

  “How was it at the house?”

  “Not how I expected it to be. I thought there were going to be tears and screaming, but there wasn’t. Almost as if they expected it.”

  “How about Maria?”

  “I thought she was going back, inside herself. Shock, I guess.”

  “Do you know what’s going to happen, Eddie? How everything is going to work out?”

  “No,” said Franks honestly.

  “Don’t get killed, Eddie. Please don’t get killed.”

  “I don’t intend to,” said Franks too quickly.

  “Neither did Nicky,” she said just as quickly. “Don’t do anything else to cause any trouble.”

  “Give in to Pascara and Flamini and Dukes, you mean?”

  “If that’s what it takes, then yes, that’s what I mean,” said Tina urgently. “I want you alive, Eddie. To go on living. I don’t want to be a widow, like Maria. I’m not brave enough.”

  19

  Franks hadn’t considered the children; their reaction at least. It had been a bad night. Despite his tiredness, it had been difficult to sleep at first, and then his mind was blocked by half-awake dreams of Nicky’s mutilated body that became Tina’s mutilated body and then Maria’s—but never his own—and a repeated sound, which he identified as a bell but then changed his mind and thought it was the clanging of some heavy metal door being slammed behind him. He woke fully before it was light, lying still to avoid waking Tina, wishing that he didn’t feel so exhausted and that he was able to think clearer. He was going to need to be able to think very clearly today. Tina stirred at last and said, “You didn’t sleep very well, did you?”

  “Did I disturb you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry.”

  She was about to go on when David and Gabriella burst giggling into the room, still in their nightclothes, Elizabeth helplessly behind. Tina said, “It’s all right. We’re awake. You can leave them, Elizabeth.”

  “Daddy! Daddy!” said the boy. “Who are all these men with guns?”

  Franks lifted David onto the bed, so that the child sat astride his stomach, and Tina hauled Gabriella in on her side, in the same pose.

  “Men who’ve got to be here for a while,” said Franks. “And hello. Don’t boys who fly all the way from England and who’ve not seen their daddy for more than two months say hello and maybe manage a kiss?”

  “Hello,” said David. “Kissing’s stupid.”

  Franks smiled up at the boy. He realized—guiltily—how little lately he’d actually looked at his son; really looked to see how tall or short or fat or thin he was or whether he had pimples or whatever else it was that kids got growing up. David was beautiful, Franks thought, guessing at the outrage with which the child who’d just dismissed kissing would respond to the word. His hair was lustrously black, and the long-lashed eyes were deeply brown, almost black, too. The fingers of the hands he held were long and tapered and he guessed the boy was going to be tall, taller than he was. Franks supposed David inherited his coloring from Tina, although the boy reminded him of someone else, and then he realized the resemblance was to Nicky. He swallowed, wishing it hadn’t occurred to him. He looked sideways to Gabriella, thinking how Tina’s influence was obvious in the girl, too. They both looked like her children, not his. “I love you,” he said to Gabriella.

  “David says that’s stupid, too,” the child reported.

  “Okay,” said Franks. “You and I can love each other and David and I can be friends.…” He looked back to the boy. “That all right?”

  David looked at his father suspiciously. “What’s the difference?”

  “You tell me,” said Franks. “You’re the one who says kissing and love is stupid.”

  “Best friends?” asked the boy, seeking a guarantee.

  “The best friends there ever were,” promised Franks.

  “All right,” accepted David. At once he said, “Can you have one of them shoot his gun, so I can see it? Can I hold it, see what it’s like? Can I? Please?”

  “No!” The rejection came from Tina, too loud and too quick. The children looked at her, surprised; Gabriella’s bottom lip trembled briefly.

  “I won’t ask them to fire their guns. Or let you hold one,” said Franks, better controlled. “Guns are more stupid than kissing or love; much more stupid.”

  “Why have they got them, then?” demanded David belligerently.

  “They’re guarding something very precious,” said Franks, not wanting the conversation to go on.

  “Treasure!” demanded Gabriella, infected by her brother’s romantic enthusiasm.

  “Yes,” said Franks. “Treasure.”

  “Here? Where?” said the boy, staring around the bedroom. Gabriella gazed around, too, following her brother.

  “It’s locked up,” said Franks.

  “Can we see it? Please can we see the treasure?”

  “No,” said Franks.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I say so,” groped Franks helplessly.

  “That’s not a reason,” protested the boy, with childlike logic.

  Tina tried to come to the rescue. “If Daddy says you can’t see it, you can’t see it.”

  “That isn’t fair,” pouted Gabriella.

  “It’s only something that grown-ups can see, at the moment,” said Franks. “Maybe later.”

  “When?” insisted David.

  “When I say so.”

  Beside him Franks was aware of Tina dialing one of the internal extension numbers, to get the nanny to come to collect them. Elizabeth arrived immediately and apologized again, and Tina said it didn’t matter but to get them ready for breakfast.

  As the children were led reluctantly from the room, Franks said, “I wish I could have managed something better.”

  “I don’t want them getting some sort of psychosis, believing their parents could be killed.”

  “What are we going to tell them about Nicky?”

  “Nothing,” said Tina at once. “They didn’t see him that much; there’s no need to say anything. Not yet.”

  “It might be all right with Gabby, but I don’t think we can keep putting David off.”

  “Not yet!” shouted Tina, angry. “We’ve got things more important to worry about at the moment than satisfying children’s curiosity. The important thing is that they’re here, safe. Everything else can wait.”

  “I di
dn’t tell you about Rosenberg,” said Franks.

  “There wasn’t a lot of time, was there?”

  “He said I shouldn’t have dissolved the companies. And that Nicky was an important witness about the truth of everything I say.”

  “Would have been an important witness,” corrected Tina.

  “Yes,” said Franks. “He’s making some sort of contact with the prosecutor today; I’m due to meet him at noon.”

  “You’re going back into New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you’d stay here, with us. I want you to stay with me.”

  “I’ve told you how it’s going to be,” said Franks. “When it’s over, we’ll be together all the time. But first I’ve got to get it all over. Which means doing whatever Rosenberg advises.”

  “Have you forgotten what I said last night?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t,” insisted Tina. “I meant it.”

  “I won’t do anything silly,” promised Franks. “Nothing wrong.”

  The children tried to persist when Franks and Tina went downstairs, but Tina had them taken from the breakfast room, disregarding Gabriella when she started to cry at the abruptness of the dismissal. Neither ate; Franks had difficulty even drinking coffee.

  “How long will you be?” asked Tina as Franks prepared to leave.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Call if you can?”

  “If I can.”

  “Thought I’d call Poppa today; speak to Maria, as well.”

  “See if she’s changed her mind about the funeral. Arranging it herself.”

  “What should I do about all these men? Feeding them, I mean. They’re using the bathroom by the tennis court, but I suppose we should feed them.”

  “I suppose so,” Franks agreed. “Ask them.”

  “Drinks, too? Booze, I mean?”

  “It’s hardly a party,” said Franks. “Let’s cut out the booze.”

  “I feel self-conscious,” said Tina. “It’s like doing something in front of an audience.”

  “Try not to let the kids get too close.”

  “How the hell am I suppose to stop that!” demanded Tina, her control fragile. “If I send them out for the day on a trip they’ll have to have a guard, won’t they?”