To Save a Son (15 page)

“The holding was strictly agreed,” said Franks. “You know that, from the formation documents. You've already talked about it; with my wife's holding, I retain control.”

“Why did you change, just like that?” asked Waldo, snapping his fingers.

“Because it was a sound business proposition; I was able to raise finance to set up a perfectly bona fide corporation with money costing less—far less—than the banks were offering, either here or in England.” Franks glanced sideways again to where Tina was still staring down, deep in thought. How would she react if he confessed how much he'd wanted Nicky in a position subservient to himself?

“A sound business proposition?” echoed Schultz.

“That's what I said,” replied Franks.

“Like the sound business propositions that already exist in Spain and France and Italy?”

“Yes.”

“Established by careful attention to the market? Commissioning market surveys and financial forecasts?” said Waldo.

There didn't seem to be anything they didn't know about him, Franks thought. He said, “Yes, that's exactly how I go about setting up a business.”

“Carefully?” pressed Schultz.

“Properly,” qualified Franks. “Making every inquiry before I commit myself.”

Franks was conscious of the smiles of satisfaction that passed between the two FBI men, and sat waiting apprehensively.

“So!” pounced Waldo. “Here you are, a successful, established businessman who always, quite properly, makes every inquiry before committing himself, committing himself in this case to a company formation different from any in which you'd ever before been involved, taking on investing stockholders. So tell us about the inquiries you made about David Dukes, Roland Flamini, and Roberto Pascara?”

Franks remained silent. He'd fallen headlong into yet another trap. How bad it appeared! “I made no inquiries,” he admitted. Until now, he thought; when it seemed too late. He hoped to God it wasn't.

“You made no inquiries!” said Schultz with forced incredulity. “You've just told us what a careful, proper businessman you are, Mr. Franks. We know from our investigations of the surveys and the reports that you
always
commission …” The man allowed a theatrical pause. “Or always have commissioned until now …” There was another gap. “Shall I tell you something, Mr. Franks?”

“What?” said Franks.

“We find it very difficult to understand—to believe—that someone who behaves as you always behave would on this occasion not have bothered about even a casual inquiry concerning the background of men upon whom your company depended.”

So did he, thought Franks. It was inconceivable—incomprehensible—that he could have done anything so stupid. Damn Nicky Scargo to every sort of hell that existed. He said, “My brother-in-law, Scargo, vouched for them. They were investors with whom he had done business in the past. He said they were reputable.”

“On his say-so—just on his word—you were prepared to go ahead?” said Waldo.

“Yes.”

“That doesn't seem like the action of a careful, responsible businessman. A good businessman,” said Schultz.

“No,” said Franks. “It doesn't, does it? Now I bitterly regret it.” It seemed to be the day for everyone to be humiliated, he thought.

“Why?” Schultz asked at once.

“Because I now know them to be what they are,” said Franks. “Because I now know how stupidly and easily I was tricked into creating a front for them.”

“From your meeting tonight in Westchester with the Scargo family?” said Waldo.

“You followed me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Schultz. “We've been following you ever since our surveillance picked you up entering Nicky Scargo's offices.”

Franks felt a physical irritation—an itching discomfort on his back and across his shoulders—at the awareness that for more than forty-eight hours everything he had done had been witnessed and noted. He said, “I learned about it first yesterday, from my meeting with Nicky Scargo, here in New York.”

Waldo took up one of his prompt files, not from the briefcase this time but from the floor, where he'd neatly arranged the papers to which he'd already referred in the earlier questioning. “So you know that David Dukes is also known by the name Tony Albert? And that Georgio Alcante is another Dukes alias, the one under which he has convictions for illegal gambling, loansharking, and organizing the passage of women across the state line, in the pursuance of prostitution?”

Franks swallowed and for the briefest moment experienced dizziness, so that he had to squeeze his eyes tightly closed to clear his vision. “No,” he said hollowly.

“And that Roland Flamini is also known by the aliases of Frederick Dialcano and Emanuel Calvo, and under all three names has been charged—but acquitted—of running illegal gambling operations and the organization of protection rackets?”

“No,” said Franks, “I did not know that.”

“Or that Roberto Pascara, whose real name is Pascaralino, is also known as Arno Pellacio and Roberto Longurno and Luigi del Angelo, a man who has five times been arrested on charges of extortion, illegal gambling, prostitution, and loansharking?” persisted Waldo relentlessly.

Franks sat shaking his head, punch-drunk with the facts that were being thrown at him. “No,” he said.

“Or that Harry Greenberg is also Sam D'Amato and Marty Tannenbaum, and graduated into Las Vegas gambling after serving as a lieutenant in the Mafia family of Santos Trafficante in Florida. And under the name of Sam D'Amato was arraigned on a charge of first-degree murder, the prosecution of which could not proceed because of the disappearance of an eyewitness to the killing?”

Franks held out his hands, beseechingly, as Enrico Scargo had beseeched him earlier that evening. “You know I don't!” he said.

“No, Mr. Franks,” said Schultz. “We don't know that at all.” He nodded toward his partner. “Like Harry said a while back, it seems to us you set up the perfect washing operation knowing damned well what you were doing and who you were doing it for.”

“That's nonsense!” erupted Franks. “I told you I was tricked. Trapped by Nicky Scargo into going along with something without any idea what it was to be used for. I was stupid. Okay, I've admitted that. But I'm not a criminal. I haven't done anything wrong.”

“You control a hotel company and a casino company in the Bahamas and Bermuda?” demanded Schultz.

“What sort of question is that?” said Franks. “That's what we've been talking about for the past hour!”

“We've evidence that through that casino operation, through the credit linkup you approved—your signature is on the agreement—at least four million dollars has been moved, undeclared on any income tax return from Dukes, Flamini, Pascara, or Greenberg. We are satisfied—and we're sure any grand jury and any court will be satisfied—that the actual figure is several times higher than that,” said Schultz. “The four-million-dollar figure is merely a sample, to list on the actual charges.…”

“Charges!” cried Franks, but Schultz overrode him. “You controlled the companies through which those illegal transactions took place, Mr. Franks. Your name—your signature—is on the credit agreement. You did all the negotiations for the establishment, first of the hotels and then of the very necessary casino. Those negotiations were conducted in advance of any contractual agreement between yourself and any of the people we've been talking about here tonight. You expect us to believe you haven't done anything wrong?”

“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.