To Save a Son (16 page)

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.

“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.

“Why not take them directly up to Scarsdale?” he suggested.

“I thought we were restricted to Manhattan,” she said aggressively.

“I am,” said Franks. “I don't think you are; certainly the children aren't. You could meet the flight in tomorrow morning and go straight on up.”

“That means I couldn't come to the meeting.”

Franks looked curiously at her. “I hadn't thought you'd want to attend.”

“Shouldn't I?”

“Your official proxy would be sufficient for the vote.”

She smiled, a fleeting expression, and Franks got the impression that she was relieved. “Sure you don't need any support? I can't imagine Nicky being much use.”

“It would probably be better if I did it alone.” Was he being affected by everyone else's uncertainty? he wondered.

“I'm prepared to come, if you want me.”

Franks shook his head. “Get the house opened up this afternoon and get the kids up when they arrive. I'll call you there, to tell you how the meeting went.”

“Why not get the lawyer—” She hesitated, trying to remember the name. “Rosenberg,” she managed. “Why not get Rosenberg to arrange with the FBI that you could come up for the weekend?”

Franks felt a resurgence of last night's irritation at the restrictions that had been imposed upon him. “I will,” he said positively.

Tina telephoned the Scarsdale housekeeper, to talk about opening up the house, while Franks settled down with the investigation package. The Chicago file was biggest, involving both Pascara and Flamini, and Franks went through that first. Pascara's full name—Pascaralino—wasn't listed, and they'd missed the Luigi del Angelo pseudonym, but the charges that had been made against the man were itemized. The extortion indictment claimed that three men had died in Pascara's campaign to extract protection money from Chicago freight-ship operators. Three of the charges alleging the running of brothels accused Pascara of dope peddling from the premises and there was a lawyer's note with the gambling indictment to say that it had failed because the two major witnesses had disappeared between the time of the grand jury hearing and the trial. Franks looked up from the documents. Tina was deep in her conversation with the housekeeper. He wouldn't tell her, he decided. She was becoming increasingly nervous as it was. From the extortion indictments against Flamini—made in the name of Frederick Dialcano—it was clear to Franks that the man and Pascara had attempted to divide the waterfront up between them, wharf by wharf. Flamini had been jointly charged with Pascara in one of the gambling indictments in which the witnesses had disappeared.