To Save a Son (14 page)

“No!” said Franks, holding out his hand like a man trying to ward off something unpleasant. “No, wait! I can explain it. Everything can be explained.”

Waldo laughed openly, and Schultz joined in, sharing the same joke. “We had a bet,” said Waldo. “Johnnie and I. Just how long it would take one of you to say you could explain it. Everyone always says it, you know? Everyone always says something like that.”

“I won,” said Schultz. “I said fifteen minutes and you said twelve.”

Despite his fear of what they might construe from it, Franks went to the bar and poured himself a brandy, indicating the bottle to Tina. She shook her head. Able to look directly at her for the first time since they entered the apartment, Franks saw that she was white-faced, lips pinched together in a tight line of uncertainty. She stared at him pleadingly. Franks broke away from her, still not turning to the two men. They'd perfected a very good act, he conceded; an act calculated to irritate and offend and off-balance, so that an interviewee would become completely enmeshed in the sticky web of his own half answers and evasions. A very good act. He'd damned near become enmeshed himself. For no reason, because there was no reason for him to feel the guilt that he had felt only minutes before. He turned back to them, drink in his hand, and said with forced control, “Why don't you tell me what you want?”

“We want to know everything,” said Waldo, an expert in the game.

“About what?” came back Franks, who was learning to play himself now.

Waldo went back to his file again. “You are the managing director, holding also the position of chairman, of a company running three hotels in the Bahamas and two in Bermuda?”

Franks hesitated, recalling the lecture on their rights at the beginning of the interview. Would it have been better to have insisted upon the presence of a lawyer? Nothing to hide, he told himself: entirely innocent. “Yes,” he said.

“A company of which, with the portfolio of your wife, you are the controlling stockholder?”

“Yes,” said Franks again.

“You are managing director, holding also the position of chairman, of a company owning a casino in Nassau, in the Bahamas?”

If he was entirely innocent, with nothing to hide or be frightened about, why did he feel so unsettled? Franks asked himself. He said, “Yes.”

“A company of which, with the portfolio of your wife, you are the controlling stockholder?”

“There is nothing wrong with either of the two companies,” said Franks. “Neither is there anything wrong or particularly unusual about the share construction of either company.”

“You, with the portfolio of your wife, are the controlling stockholder of the casino company operating in Nassau, in the Bahamas?” persisted Waldo.

“Yes,” said Franks. He drank from his brandy glass, needing it.

Waldo flicked through the documents in front of him, apparently seeking something. He glanced briefly up, smiling his pleased-at-discovery smile. “Do you know Peter Armitrage, Winston Graham, and Richard Blackstaff?” he asked.

Franks hesitated. Three of the development and tourist officials with whom he'd negotiated in Bermuda. “I am acquainted with them,” he admitted.

Waldo turned a page. “And Herbert Wilkinson, James Partridge, and Eric de Falco?”

Wilkinson and Partridge were in the Bahamas development office. De Falco was a deputy in the tourist section. “Those are men with whom I dealt in the establishment of the hotels in Nassau and elsewhere,” said Franks.

“Men who helped you in establishing your hotels in Bermuda and the Bahamas?” It was Schultz, coming into the questioning for the first time.

“Government officials whom I met in the course of establishing hotels in Bermuda and the Bahamas,” said Franks, responding to pedantry with pedantry, hoping his unease wasn't showing and waiting for the inevitable question.

It came at once. “Men whom you bribed, for permission to set up your company?” said Waldo, back at his files. “Peter Armitrage, twenty thousand dollars, Winston Graham, a total of fifteen thousand dollars, and Richard Blackstaff three payments, a total of ten thousand dollars?”

Did the FBI have jurisdiction in the Bahamas? thought Franks worriedly. Surely that was a British possession? He said, “The audited and publicly available accounts of the company record those figures as commission payments.”

“Did you pay twenty-five thousand dollars to Herbert Wilkinson, fifteen thousand dollars to James Partridge, and make two separate payments of ten thousand dollars to Eric de Falco?”

“Those sums are also listed in the audited and publicly available accounts of the company as commission,” said Franks.

“We know they are, Mr. Franks,” came in Schultz again. “We've checked. Carried out our own audit in fact. As far as we've been able. We know the sums are listed as commission but the beneficiaries of that commission, either in the Bahamas or Bermuda, are not named.”

“The companies are incorporated in Delaware,” said Franks. “There's no requirement under the state law of Delaware for commission payments to be itemized to named recipients.” Poppa Scargo had made him and Nicky go climbing, during that pup-tent trip to the Catskill mountains when they were children, challenging them to reach a certain promontory. Nicky had won because Franks had tried to take a shortcut across a shale slurry that began to move and shift with him, so badly that at one stage he actually felt that it was going to overwhelm and engulf him. He'd experienced the feeling of choking suffocation and he felt it now, the sensation of nothing firm or steady being underfoot.

“We've done a lot of reading of the company records,” took up Waldo. “Are you familiar with a man named William Snarsbrook?”

“If you've done a lot of reading of the company records you know full well that I am,” said Franks, irritated despite himself at the mocking condescension. “He was the Bahamian official with whom I negotiated the setting up of the casino.”

“Yes,” smiled Waldo. “He was. The first reference to that casino idea was entered into the company records on August sixteenth, according to what we've discovered.”

“Yes,” said Franks shortly. A problem he'd already isolated, he thought.

“Yet according to our information from William Snarsbrook, you visited the Bahamas to discuss the establishment of such a casino on June tenth. There were, in fact, three meetings. June tenth, eleventh, and again on the fourteenth. There were also visits, from what we've been able to discover, to Bermuda. Discussions with officials there, as well.”

“Yes,” conceded Franks. The slurry was still shifting, and the feeling of suffocation was worsening.

“Is it your normal practice to make such inquiries in advance of any board discussion?” said Schultz, giving his partner a rest.

“There was board discussion,” insisted Franks.

“We couldn't find any record of it,” said Schultz.

“Informal discussion,” said Franks.

“Ah!” said Waldo in exaggerated awareness. “Informal discussion it was not thought necessary to file in company records?”

“That was exactly how it happened,” he said. Franks heard movement to his right and saw Tina at the bar. He held out his empty glass toward her. He didn't give a damn whether they construed it as nervousness or not. With that thought came another. The demanding, unasked request was
exactly
the sort of gesture he had found so offensive from Poppa Scargo. “Please,” he said hurriedly to his wife.

Waldo sat forward, on the edge of his already difficult seat, so that he could reach across the distance separating him from Franks. From the strained briefcase he took a bundle of photographs, shuffling them into the order he wanted. “Do you recognize these men?”

Franks looked down at the publicity shots taken at the opening of the Bahamian and Bermuda hotels, clearly showing him with Dukes and Flamini. “Of course I do!” he said.

“Whom do you recognize them to be?” insisted Schultz.

“Dukes and Flamini.”

“And these?” continued Waldo, dealing out a fresh print.

The photograph had been taken at Nicky's wedding, and this time he was captured not just with Dukes and Flamini, but with Pascara as well. “Dukes, Flamini, and Pascara,” acknowledged Franks dully.

“And these?”

Franks hadn't been aware of any photography during his visit to Las Vegas to examine the viability of a casino operation, but there were a lot, of him alone by various tables and games and then with Dukes and Harry Greenberg. “I went to Las Vegas to see the sort of gambling setups that exist there.”

“And these?”

It was the opening of the Nassau casino. He was with everyone again, including Harry Greenberg this time. Tina was pictured, too, he saw. “I'm not amused by all this,” he said.

“We're not doing it for your amusement, Mr. Franks,” replied Schultz.

“Who is this man, Mr. Franks?” demanded Waldo.

Franks breathed deeply, feeling engulfed, looking at the person whom the FBI agent was indicating in a photograph taken at Nicky's wedding. “David Dukes,” he said.

“What do you know of him?”

“He's a financial investor. Made a lot of money in oil. Has interests in Las Vegas, too. It was he who set up the trip that I made … where the other photographs were taken,” said Franks.

“Just that?” said Waldo.

“Just that.”

“Who is Tony Alberi?”

“I don't know anyone of that name.”

“Georgio Alcante?”

“I do not know a Georgio Alcante.”

“Who is this man?” asked Waldo, moving his finger.

“Roland Flamini.”

“What about Frederick Dialcano?”

“I don't know anyone named Frederick Dialcano.”

“Emanuel Calvo?”

“No.”

“This man?” The finger moved again.

“Roberto Pascara.”

“What about Arno Pellacio?”

“I do not know any Arno Pellacio.”

“Roberto Longurno?”

“No.”

“Luigi del Angelo?”

“No.” Franks was sweating openly, knowing that they could see his reaction to the pressure. Not guilty, he thought, repeating the litany through his mind. No matter what all this meant and however bad it looked—and he didn't know yet whether it looked bad or not—he
wasn't
guilty, and if he wasn't guilty of anything then he didn't have anything to fear.

“This man?” Waldo pressed on.

“Harry Greenberg.”

“Sam D'Amato?”

“No.”

“Marty Tannenbaum?”

“No.”

Waldo sat back, easing himself as much as he could into his chair. On cue, Schultz relieved him, taking up the questioning. “Do you consider yourself a good businessman, Mr. Franks?”

Once, thought Franks, replying honestly to himself. Now he wasn't so sure. “Yes,” he said.

“You've businesses in Spain, France, and Italy? And you run a Caribbean cruise liner?”

“Yes.”

“Successful, then?”

“Yes.”

Schultz held out his hand to his partner and Waldo passed across the briefcase. The neat man fumbled through, once pulling out a sheet of paper and then replacing it, walking his fingers on through the file. He searched unhurriedly, and Franks decided it was all part of the questioning technique. Schultz found at last what he was apparently looking for. He looked at Franks and said, “According to our information, you made several protracted visits to the Bahamas and to Bermuda before the formation date of the hotel company.”

“Yes,” replied Franks.

“Why?”

“I thought that would have been obvious,” said Franks. “Before setting up a business I always make sure that it will be viable.”

“Always?”
demanded Schultz.

“Always.”

Schultz went briefly to his sheet of paper. “That's why you visited Las Vegas before the official formation date of the casino company?”

“Yes.”

“And satisfied yourself from all those prior visits that both the hotels and the casino would be profitable, money-making enterprises?”

“If I hadn't been satisfied, I wouldn't have proceeded.”

“Tell us how you proceeded, after satisfying yourself on the islands?” It was Waldo, coming back into the questioning.

“I'm not sure I know what you mean,” said Franks. He heard Tina moving, slightly behind him. He looked to her, imagining she wanted his attention, but she was staring down fixedly at the floor, almost as if she weren't listening to what was going on.

“Tell us how you went about setting up the company.”

“All my European enterprises are private companies, with boards composed—”

“Of accountant and lawyer nonvoting directors,” interrupted Schultz, wanting him to know the depth of their inquiries. “We know, Mr. Franks!”

“I intended the corporation in the Bahamas and Bermuda to be the same. I discussed it with my brother-in-law, Scargo. He told me there could be cheaper finance in New York than there was in England.” Franks paused, wondering if he were putting Nicky at risk. At once a rush of anger swept the reservation aside. Nicky had put him at risk, for Christ's sake! All he was doing was telling the truth. “We made inquiries. I actually had meetings with bankers here in New York and with my normal financiers in London.”

“Who were prepared to advance the capital necessary?” demanded Schultz.

“Yes,” said Franks. “But the markets were unsettled. Money was very dear. Scargo then said he could introduce me to some private investors who might be interested in putting up the money.”

“Why are all your other companies privately controlled?” asked Waldo.

“Because I prefer it that way.”

“But on this occasion you were prepared to change the system: take in outside stockholders?”