To Save a Son (19 page)

“I know Nicky Scargo only slightly. Socially at that,” said Rosenberg. “The appointment message said just that there was a criminal problem. You'll have to take me completely through everything.”

Franks hesitated, unsure whether to begin with the apparently innocent linkup through Nicky with the three men or with the FBI interview. He decided upon the very beginning, to maintain the chronology, setting out the establishment of the companies step by step from the initial finance search to the island visits, the eventual formations, and then the Las Vegas and casino progression. Rosenberg had started a small tape recorder at the commencement of the account but still occasionally made notes on a pad in front of him, never once intruding a question as Franks talked. The note-taking increased when Franks reached the FBI meeting, and when Franks spoke of the previous day's dissolution conference the lawyer looked up, momentarily frowning. It took over an hour for Franks to complete the account, and when he finished he said, “I think I will take that coffee now.”

Rosenberg ordered it through the intercom on his desk, continuing to stare down at the notepad while the secretary appeared briefly to deliver it. After she left, Rosenberg looked up. “I must first ask you an important question—the most important question. Were you at any time prior to the FBI interview aware that the companies you formed were being used for any criminal enterprise?”

“No!” said Franks at once. Just as quickly he qualified it, for absolute accuracy. “Nicky told me first,” he said. “He telephoned me in England and said I should come, because of a problem. When I got here we had a meeting, which was before I saw the FBI people. It was at the meeting with Nicky that I learned, for the first time.”

“Thank you for being so precise,” said Rosenberg. “What I must establish is that you were in no way aware prior to this current visit?”

“No, I was not,” insisted Franks.

Rosenberg went back to studying his notes. He looked up at last and said, “All right, Mr. Franks, I'll represent you. I'll represent you in every respect, which includes any court appearances. But if at any time it becomes clear to me that the assurance you've just given was untrue then I shall immediately withdraw from the case. I will only act for people on the basis that there be complete honesty between us, whether that honesty involves an admission of guilt or a declaration of innocence.”

“I am innocent,” insisted Franks again. “Completely and utterly innocent.”

“I offer the same honesty that I demand,” said Rosenberg. “And quite honestly, Mr. Franks, I don't think it is going to be an easy job proving that, either to the satisfaction of the FBI or to a court.”

Franks hadn't expected such an opinion from the man and he felt a sinking feeling of uncertainty. “What about the file that Nicky maintained? With the account numbers and the real formation details?”

“Without that I wouldn't think you stood a hope in Hell's chance,” said the lawyer. “That's still in safe-deposit?”

“Yes.”

“I think it better stay there. I'll come with you to the safe-deposit room, read it, and then it can be returned without it having to be taken from the bank premises.”

“You think Pascara or somebody might try to get it from us?”

Rosenberg looked at him quizzically. “Wouldn't you, if you were them?”

“So it is proof!” seized Franks hopefully.

“I won't know until I've had the opportunity of examining it,” said Rosenberg. “The real question is whether it's sufficient proof. Would Nicky Scargo give evidence on your behalf?”

“I don't know,” said Franks.

“He'd need to, to convince any court that it was material he'd prepared and kept. He'd need to be the man to testify that you were duped. And if he did that in a court of law then he would be committing professional suicide; he'd have to be debarred.”

I don't give a damn about perjury if I'm thinking about survival
, remembered Franks, feeling another sinking feeling of uncertainty. “I don't know if he'd do that,” he said again.

“It's something we need to establish,” said Rosenberg. “And not just about the file he kept. According to what you've told me, Scargo was the man who trapped you. Any jury will hear how it was with you, being taken in as part of the family when you were a child, during the war. Being treated like the guy's brother. Unless they hear from Scargo's own mouth that he did what he did to you, then they're not going to believe that someone with a relationship like you had would behave in such a way.”

“But he did!” protested Franks.

“It's not me you have to convince, Mr. Franks. Your record, up to now, has been that of a successful businessman. Entrepreneurial, certainly. Innovative, from what you've told me. But also, from what you've told me, someone who has always shown proper care and caution. How does that character reconcile with linking yourself up with mobsters, without so much as a basic character check?” The lawyer indicated the material that had come from Chicago and Houston and which Franks had provided as he told his story.

“I know! I know!” said Franks desperately. ‘I trusted Nicky Scargo.”

“Then Nicky Scargo's got to say so. He's got to flagellate himself in the witness box and admit to some sort of biblical deception.”

“What about the dissolution of the company!” demanded Franks. “The moment I discovered who they were I got rid of them. Doesn't that prove my innocence?”

“No,” said Rosenberg shortly.

“What?”

“The FBI advised you of your rights, before the interview began? That you could have had a lawyer present?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Okay,” said Franks, raising his hand. “Another mistake. I accept that. But I'm not
guilty
of anything! What have I got to be afraid of if I'm not guilty?”

“A very great deal,” said the lawyer. “You didn't know of me when the FBI got to you, but you did before the dissolution meeting. I want another undertaking from you, Mr. Franks. And that is that from now on you'll do nothing, absolutely nothing at all, without first discussing it fully with me.”

“But what's wrong with dissolving the company?”

“Shall I tell you how any prosecutor would present that to a jury?” said Rosenberg. “Not as proof of innocence. As proof of guilt. In little more than a day, gentlemen of the jury, of Mr. Franks knowing that the FBI had discovered what he was doing, he tried to divest himself of his criminal colleagues, people he was happy and content to front for while they washed millions of illegal dollars but from whom he tried to run when they got found out.”

“That's a travesty!” protested Franks.

“It's the obvious prosecution,” said Rosenberg. “You should have done absolutely nothing. You should have come to me. We should have waited for any prosecution to be launched and then subpoenaed Dukes and Flamini and Pascara and Greenberg and everyone else we could have thought of. Courts are theaters, Mr. Franks. Juries are impressed by the actors, so impressions are important.” Rosenberg gestured again to the material that had come from Houston and Chicago. “They look like mobsters. You don't.”

“You can still subpoena them, can't you?”

“Of course I can. And I will, if the need arises. They won't talk, of course. They'll invoke the Fifth Amendment. Which again would have been in our favor if you hadn't closed up the company. While the company existed there was the chance of your appearing the dupe. Dissolved looks like you were running.”

“I haven't handled anything very well, have I?”

“No,” said the relentlessly honest lawyer. “Which for me is something actually in your favor. I've told you how a prosecution will present it, and I've told you how it could be viewed by a jury, but I think you've behaved exactly like an honest man.” He smiled apologetically. “Please don't be offended, but if you'd been crooked I would have expected you to be cleverer than you have been.”

Franks laughed humorlessly. “Thanks!” he said. “Until now I've thought of myself as a pretty smart businessman. It's not going to look much like that in court, is it?”

“I've given you the bottom line, in everything,” said Rosenberg. “It's the way I work, never promising anything I don't think I can deliver. It's bad, but it's a very long way from being hopeless. Scargo's file is an ace. He'll be another, if he's prepared to testify. Even if he's not, that won't mean that everything is lost. Don't forget what I said about courts being theater. The Fifth Amendment prevents people incriminating themselves out of their own mouths. I've never known a jury yet who haven't believed the point that was being put to a witness who invokes his rights. If it gets to a court and I get Scargo in the box, I can make him confirm that file to the jury by just letting him hide behind the law. The Cain and Abel bit might be more difficult, particularly as you're married to his sister. Is there any evidence we could bring to prove that it was a split, feuding family?”

“None,” said Franks. “Until now it's always been close; incredibly close.”

“So why did he do it?”

Franks hesitated. Wasn't it precisely a Cain and Abel situation between him and Nicky? “Competition,” he said.

“What?”

Franks told the other man of the perpetual contests that Enrico had set them when they were children, the constant demands that one should excel over the other, and then he recounted Nicky's outburst at their confrontation after the summons from England.

“Wait!” stopped Rosenberg. “This is important. The exact words, as far as you can remember them. I want the exact words!”

Franks frowned, recollecting. “He said he was ‘sick and tired,'” he groped. “Something about being sick and tired of having me held up to him as a big tycoon. Just as he had been sick and tired of having to be as good as me when we were kids and at school.”

“Jealousy?” said Rosenberg.

“I suppose so.”

“I wonder if he'd admit that in court?” said Rosenberg, more to himself than to the other man.

“Would it be important?”

“It's the motive, isn't it? Trying to involve himself with you; be as big an operator?”

“I suppose it is,” agreed Franks.

“A jury could accept that. Understand it.” said Rosenberg, still reflective. He came back up to Franks. “What about you?” he said.

“Me?”

“How do you feel about Nicky Scargo?”

Rosenberg was very good, conceded Franks. But then that was why he'd come to the man in the first place. Complete honesty, the lawyer had demanded. And he was going to have to be completely honest in everything if he were to extricate himself. “It's never been a feeling of jealousy,” he said. “Not a conscious feeling, anyway. But there's always been competition, the need to prove ourselves better.”

“
Yourself
better?” persisted Rosenberg.

“I suppose so,” admitted Franks reluctantly.

“Nicky was working for you, setting up the companies?”

“Yes,” said Franks in further admission. He was aware that he was coloring.

“Was that how it was? Why you went into it so openly? To get Nicky Scargo working for you?”

“I trusted him to set up an honest deal.”

“We've talked about that,” said Rosenberg, refusing to be deflected. “Were you eager—overeager to the point of ignoring business practices you would normally have followed—to set yourself up with Nicky Scargo so that you would be his boss?”

“Yes,” said Franks, his voice hardly audible.

Rosenberg sat back, appearing satisfied. “If this comes to court I'll have to bring it out,” he said. “You understand that, don't you? It provides the rationale. It doesn't detract from the fact that you were incredibly stupid, but it makes explainable, partially at least, how it could have happened.”

What was he going to have left at the end of all this? wondered Franks. He said wearily, “Yes, I understand.”

“Okay. Is there anything else that I don't know that you think maybe I should?”

Franks considered and then shook his head. “No, I don't think so.” Then he said, “Yes, one thing. Waldo, the FBI man, said he wanted me to remain here, in Manhattan. I don't know if he meant the actual city or what. My wife and family are up in Scarsdale and I want to go up there too. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?”

Rosenberg shook his head. “You were bullied, weren't you?” he said.

“I guess so.”

“Did Waldo or the other guy say where they were working from? New York office or the Washington headquarters?”

“No,” said Franks.

Rosenberg told his secretary to get him a number, and said, “The New York office will know, even if he isn't attached to them. I'll enter an undertaking as your counselor, guaranteeing your cooperation and appearance whenever requested. They can't impose the sort of restrictions they were trying, not at this stage.”

The telephone rang and Rosenberg lifted it, frowning across the desk as soon as he identified himself and said whom he was representing and asking to be connected to Waldo.

“They are looking for you,” he said to Franks, hand cupped over the receiver.

Waldo apparently came on to the line. Rosenberg said, “What!” and then, “Yes, of course. Yes. I understand. Of course we'll come. Right away!”

The lawyer replaced the receiver and looked across the desk, momentarily unspeaking. “Nicky Scargo's been shot,” he announced. “He's dead.”

17

They went in Rosenberg's car, Franks hunched behind the driver, head bent. He thought they went by a park but he was only vaguely aware and didn't know—wasn't interested—whether it was Central Park or one of the other oases in the city. When was he going to stop being wrong! When, dear God, whoever He was, was he going to be able to see six inches beyond the end of his own nose, appreciate what he was involved in and do something right instead of wrong, for a change! He'd been wrong about the establishment of the companies and he'd been wrong about cooperating with the FBI interview and he'd been wrong in confronting the mobsters and dissolving the companies and he'd been wrong in dismissing—laughing as if it were absurd—the possibility of someone being killed. And now it had happened. Nicky was dead. Franks found it difficult to comprehend; no, not comprehend. The lawyer had spoken to the FBI and the FBI had said Nicky was dead, so he had to comprehend that. Assimilate, then. That was the word. Difficult to assimilate. He'd accepted—they'd all accepted—that the family was destroyed figuratively. But this was literally. Shot, Rosenberg had said. Dead. What would that mean? Franks asked himself, striving to understand; striving to understand
properly
. It would devastate Mamma and Poppa Scargo; destroy them as effectively as the bullet or bullets had destroyed their son. Maria, too. She might have gone back to her mother on Long Island, but Franks couldn't believe that she'd ceased loving Nicky, not completely. Any more than he believed Tina had, despite everything. Both of them—Maria and Tina—were reacting to events, not to their hearts. What about himself? The question settled, giving some coherence at last to his thoughts. Nothing, he realized. Nothing, just as there'd been nothing all those years ago in the English graveyard when he'd stood over his father's grave and tried to feel something. Not grief, at least. His awareness of what Nicky's death meant revolved around the just-ended interview with the lawyer. “
Nicky Scargo's got to say so
.” That's what Rosenberg had said: Nicky's evidence—even if the man hid behind the Fifth Amendment—could have saved him in front of a jury. Now Nicky wasn't alive anymore, either to speak or to hide. Did that mean he couldn't be saved?