To Save a Son (20 page)

Franks wasn't aware of the car stopping. Rosenberg had to nudge him into something like wakefulness, and Franks tried to recover, staring around, startled. There were police cars lined in an orderly fashion and a squarely solid, red brick building, which in the first few seconds Franks thought was actually Nicky's brownstone and then immediately knew was not, because it was too square and squat.

“It's the precinct building,” said Rosenberg, providing the identification. “There's a mortuary at the back. That's where I've arranged to meet the FBI people.”

Franks let the lawyer leave the car first, trailing docilely behind, wanting very much to follow and not to lead. They entered through the main door, into a bedlam of a receiving area. It appeared to be crowded with people, all shouting and arguing. There was a high, commanding desk behind which sat a sergeant and two assistants, who seemed—illogically—to be unaware of the movement and cacophony and jostling parading before them. There were uniformed officers shouting for attention and ordinary people shouting for attention and telephones ringing, demanding attention. On a bench along one wall three men sat, handcuffed, bent forward to look down at the floor; one had a bloodstained cloth around his head but didn't seem in any pain. Franks would have thought the man should have been in a hospital. Rosenberg didn't become one of the assembled people demanding attention. He paused, taking Franks' arm so that the man could not be intercepted, and set off confidently along a corridor beside the reception desk. The challenge came as they drew level and were about to pass. Rosenberg's reaction was as quick as the challenge, shouting Waldo's name and a telephone extension number and then saying, “FBI.” The identification roused the sergeant, who focused upon them, demanded their names, and then nodded them through. Still with his hand cupping Franks' elbow, Rosenberg continued on. It was a heaving labyrinth of a place, interlocked corridors jostled with people, all of whom appeared unaware or unconcerned of everyone around them. Rosenberg and Franks ebbed and flowed with the human wash until Rosenberg located office numbers running in the sequence he wanted. He hurried down the minor corridor, head moving as he counted off the numbers, and when he found the door he wanted thrust in without knocking.

It looked more like a storeroom than a place in which people worked. The window faced out onto a blank wall only a few feet away, so there was little natural light, the main illumination coming from a chipped and stained fixture in the middle of the ceiling. Waldo was at an empty steel desk, sitting doing nothing, and Schultz was by a filing cabinet wedged into the corner of a wall against which was a calendar showing January, 1982. Someone had started crossing off the days but stopped at the sixteenth. The place smelled dusty and unused, like a rarely opened cupboard.

“You Rosenberg?” demanded the obese FBI agent.

“Waldo?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Been waiting for you,” said Waldo.

“Crosstown traffic was bad,” said Rosenberg.

Franks stood just inside the door, offended by the exchange. Somebody had been killed—all right, somebody about whom he found it difficult to arouse any feeling, but that was a personal problem. But still, a human being. And these two men were discussing the difficulty of driving in Manhattan.

“Mr. Franks,” greeted Waldo, nodding.

“What's happened?” demanded Franks, impatient with the artificial politeness.

“Scargo's dead,” said Waldo.

“I know that,” said Franks, still impatient. “What
happened
?”

“They got him—it was two men—in the garage.” The man paused. “You know the brownstone, on Sixty-second?”

“Yes,” said Franks. How long ago had it been that he and Tina had stayed there and enjoyed Nicky's and Maria's company and considered themselves friends?

“Scargo used to park his car opposite, in the basement garage of the apartment house. Got him there this morning. Shotguns. It's a hell of a mess. Janitor heard the blast, but by the time he got there—he didn't hurry, who would?—it was all over. No one there, of course.”

Franks came farther into the room, angered by the laconic account. “It's Pascara,” he said. “Or Dukes or Flamini. All of them. It's got to be. Have you arrested them?”

Franks was conscious of Schultz actually shaking his head, a gesture of sadness. “Mr. Franks,” said the FBI man, “from what the janitor says, Nicky was shot down around eight forty-five this morning. At eight forty-five this morning, Pascara and Flamini were publicly identified breakfasting at the Continental Plaza on Michigan Avenue, Chicago. David Dukes was photographed at Caesars Palace, part of a welcoming delegation to Las Vegas for the Los Angeles Lions Club. Dukes is very big in charities. The Lions are one of his favorites.”

“You believe they weren't involved?”

“Of course we don't believe they weren't involved,” said Waldo. “You know something we don't that could tie them into it?”

Franks shook his head helplessly.

“That's the way it's done, Mr. Franks,” said Waldo. “You think Pascara and Flamini went to the Continental Plaza for its waffles? Or Dukes to Caesars just to be a public benefactor?”

“Why?” said Franks. It was an empty question, really to himself, but Schultz responded to it.

“Why don't you tell us, Mr. Franks?” said Schultz. “Why not tell us what happened at the meeting yesterday that you had with them at Scargo's office?”

“You picked them up?” said Franks.

“We picked up the telephone calls, off Scargo's credit card,” said Waldo. “Got them at the airport. Wanted to see where they went.”

“I'm Mr. Franks' attorney,” intruded Rosenberg. “Is he under investigation for possible criminal proceedings?”

“Yes, sir,” said Waldo.

“Then I shall limit his answers.”

“Something secret enough at that meeting to cause a man to be murdered?” demanded Schultz.

“I can tell you the point of that meeting was to dissolve the companies running the hotels and casino in the Bahamas and Bermuda,” said Rosenberg.

“Jesus!” said Waldo, amazed. Despite the legally imposed restriction, he said to Franks, “You told them about the investigation? About our meeting with you?”

“Yes,” said Franks.

“Why did you stop there?” said the overflowing man contemptuously. “Why didn't you wait in the garage this morning and pull the trigger yourself? You killed him anyway!”

“That's improper!” protested Rosenberg.

“It's true,” said Waldo. “Don't you think that's true, Mr. Rosenberg?”

“You asked us to come down to assist in your inquiries,” reminded Rosenberg stiffly.

“I think you just did,” said Waldo, world weary. “Jesus!”

Schultz said, “Didn't Scargo tell you what we'd told him? Not to approach them?”

“Yes,” admitted Franks, dry-throated.

“But you decided you knew best!”

“My client doesn't have to debate the matter with you,” said Rosenberg.

Schultz sighed. “Do you have any idea, Mr. Franks, where Scargo's wife might be? She was last seen leaving the brown-stone two days ago and she hasn't been seen since.”

“Long Island,” replied Franks at once. “Her mother has an apartment near Fort Salonga. I don't know the address but I guess it would be in the book. The name is Spinetti.”

“How do you know she's there?”

“Nicky told me yesterday. Said Maria wanted to get away for a few days.”

“That her name—Maria?” asked Schultz, who was using the top of the filing cabinet to rest a pad upon.

“Yes,” said Franks. The thought engulfed him, as he spoke, and he said, “Do you think she's in danger? Anyone else? My wife and family are alone in Scarsdale!”

“Mr. Franks,” said Waldo easily, “your wife and two children have been under FBI and U.S. Marshals protection since eleven o'clock this morning. We've known where she's been from the time she left the Plaza to collect them at the airport.”

Franks remembered Waldo's early boast about surveillance. He said, “If you followed her, then you would have followed me to Mr. Rosenberg's. And if your surveillance was that good, then you'd have been outside Nicky's house today!”

Waldo shifted, uncomfortable. “Crosstown traffic,” he said, nodding toward the lawyer. “We lost you. We had a man outside Scargo's brownstone. Saw him leave this morning and stayed in the car, ready for him to come up from his parking spot and drive to the office. Our man never heard the shooting.”

“And you expect me to be satisfied with the protection you've got at Scarsdale!” said Franks.

“No,” said Waldo. “I don't expect you to be satisfied at all. It's just the best shot you've got, that's all.”

“I want to go there, right away,” said Franks.

“At this stage you can't enforce any sort of boundary restriction,” said Rosenberg.

The telephone in the makeshift office was lodged on the windowsill. Schultz turned away from it and bent toward Waldo, so that neither of the other two men could overhear the conversation. Waldo nodded and looked up to Franks. “You know Scargo very well?” he said. “Were brought up with him?”

“Yes,” agreed Franks doubtfully, not sure of the questioning.

“We need a formal identification of the body,” said Schultz. “We've got people going out to get Mrs. Scargo now, but it's going to take a while to get her back in from Long Island. Salonga's way out.”

“And he's a mess,” said Waldo.

“You can refuse,” said Rosenberg hurriedly.

Franks frowned at his lawyer. “Why should I refuse?” he said. Looking back to Waldo, he said, “Of course.”

They emerged from the cramped room back into the human flow, going against the tide toward the rear of the building. Nearer the attached mortuary the throng lessened and they were able to walk abreast. Franks said to Waldo, “Do you think they'll try to kill me? Or my family?”

“Your wife know anything?”

“She held the proxy vote that enabled me to dissolve the company.”

“Does she know anything?”

“I suppose she does,” said Franks.

“She could be hit, if she's a threat,” said Waldo.

Franks stopped, confronting the man. “Doesn't anything move you?” he demanded. “You're talking about killing with about the same emotion as you'd talk about a sandwich filling for lunch!”

Waldo stared back at him patiently. “If I thought getting outraged and upset would help, Mr. Franks, I'd get outraged and upset. Emotion gets in the way of my job.”

Franks felt Rosenberg's hand upon his arm. “Let's get on with it, shall we?” said the lawyer.

Waldo thrust through the rubber-buffered doors of the mortuary. Franks paused momentarily, and then followed. To the immediate left were other doors, topped by an “enter—do not enter” lighting arrangement—some sort of autopsy theater? Waldo went straight past, farther along the corridor, and then turned left, through a door. There was a mixed odor of antiseptic and formaldehyde, and it was cold. Directly inside the door a man sat at a desk. He was reading the
Daily News
, and there was a thermos flask near an adjustable lamp. The attendant was unscrewing it when they entered, but he resealed it when he saw them.

“Mort,” greeted the FBI man.

“Hi, Harry,” said the attendant.

“Scargo,” requested Waldo.

The man looked briefly at Franks and Rosenberg, as if he were trying to isolate the relative, and then led them to a bank of what appeared to be huge filing cabinets. He stopped at the third from the left and pulled at it. The tray emerged on smoothly oiled runners, and Franks stood just to one side, gazing in.

Nicky's body was encased in plastic, and Franks' impression, absurdly, was that Nicky looked as if he were wrapped up like lettuce in a supermarket. The attendant jerked back the cover, and although he had nerved himself, Franks winced at the sight, unable to stop the grunt of shock either. Nicky was completely naked, his body appearing unnaturally white. The back of his head was almost completely blown away, a tangled mass of hair and bone and blood and visceral threads. His face was almost entirely untouched, just one small pellet indentation on his chin, and there was no grimace of pain or distortion, or sudden shock. The right arm had been severed just above the elbow and what remained of it was wrapped in a separate plastic container and laid where it properly belonged, to the right side of the body. There was a massive chest wound on the left, so there was just a hole where the breast and the shoulder should have been. As Franks backed away he saw that they really did tie identification tags on the toes. Nicky's was to the right and he saw that the name had already been neatly inscribed in block capitals.

“Yes,” he said, “that's Nicky.” Had he been responsible for that? For that mutilated butcher?

Franks backed farther away from the mortuary cabinet, swallowing against the acid that rose in the back of his throat. “Christ!” he said. He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see it was Rosenberg, guiding him away. The attendant thrust the drawer back into the wall and made some notation on the identification panel attached to the front.

“Thank you,” said Schultz. “Now you see why I asked you to do it and not Mrs. Scargo.”

Franks nodded, unable to speak. As they went out through the door the attendant had regained his desk and was opening the thermos top.

They walked unspeaking back to the temporary office. By the time they got there the immediate sensation of sickness had gone, and Franks said, “I'd like to speak to my wife. Can I use that telephone?”

“Go ahead,” said Waldo.

Franks dialed the number and Tina answered at once, the stored-up words jumbling from her when she recognized his voice. “Eddie, what the hell's happening! There are men here; FBI men and marshals. They say it's to protect me and the children, but they won't say why.”