To Save a Son (35 page)

“You trying to make our job more difficult than it already is, Mr. Franks?” attacked Waldo at once.

“Just doing my job,” said Franks, throwing their phrase back at them. Franks felt better today than he had for a long time; more in charge and in control of things. At the moment Waldo and Schultz amused him more than they irritated him.

David's school was the next appointment. They arrived early, and suddenly on the enclosed grounds Waldo and Schultz and their backup were the object of attention. Franks felt the embarrassment was shifted from him. The headmaster, whose name was Henderson, came directly from the dining room, still gowned and with his napkin absentmindedly clutched in his hand. The man became aware of it after they entered his study, staring curiously at it and then gazing around, as if unsure whether to put it down somewhere or keep it in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket and smiled the sort of open-faced smile that Franks couldn't remember having seen for a long time, and said, “After luncheon I suppose it's too late—or maybe too early—to offer you a sherry.”

“I think it is,” said Franks. “But thank you anyway.” He was becoming increasingly proud at having gone so far into the day without a drink. Not that it was a problem—he'd decided that a long time ago—but he couldn't deny he'd been drinking more than usual lately. He recalled the looks that had passed between Waldo and Schultz when he'd ordered the bar at the Dorchester and hoped they had noticed. Why did it matter whether they'd noticed or not? Why did
they
matter?

“How's David?” asked Henderson.

Franks wondered what the headmaster's reaction would be to seeing the child posing proudly with a pistol and a pump-action shotgun. He said, “He's very well. But it's obviously about David that I've come to see you.”

“Obviously,” agreed the headmaster, brushing aside the fronds of some straying grey hair. “I've actually been quite anxious to hear from you. His sudden recall seemed quite dramatic.”

“I'm afraid it is,” said Franks.

“Oh?” said Henderson, the greeting-parents' smile slipping.

He probably thinks it's a difficulty in paying the fees, thought Franks. He coughed and then launched into what was becoming practically a recorded message, although again he minimized his own faults in the affair. When he started talking about protection Henderson actually swiveled in his creaking chair and stared out through the window at the waiting cars and the ill-at-ease Americans, taking off his half-rimmed glasses and polishing them with the hastily pocketed napkin.

“Good Lord!” said Henderson when Franks had finished. “Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing.”

The man would have made the same reaction at an English batsman achieving six in a test match against the West Indians. Franks said, “I want to emphasize that everything is temporary. I have had to take David away for this term and may have to keep him away for a while longer, but I want him to return and continue his education with you. He's extremely happy here and I think he's doing well.”

Henderson started polishing his glasses again, a delaying mannerism. “He's a good pupil and someone we've been happy to have here,” said Henderson. “Certainly someone whom I and the form masters and his housemaster regarded as a child with promise …”

“I'm delighted you feel that way,” said Franks.

“But you must understand that I have to balance my genuine feeling for David against my responsibilities to the school as a whole.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” said Franks, who thought he did.

“I've over four hundred pupils here. I'm responsible for all of them; for their safety as well as for their education,” said the headmaster. “For David's sake—for all of your sake—I sincerely hope that the apparent danger to which the American government thinks you are at the moment subjected is as brief as you have explained to me. I hope—even more sincerely—that however long the period is, that David, at the impressionable age that he is, can withstand it without any prolonged psychological difficulty.…”

“I'm sure he can,” intruded Franks.

“Knowing the boy, I'm inclined to agree with you. I certainly hope he can,” picked up Henderson. “But that's really not the nub of what I'm trying to say, Mr. Franks. I'm not at all sure that I can give you the undertaking here today that there would still be a place at the school for David if there was the risk of any physical assault … anything of the like that you've set out to me this afternoon. Of course I would do it for David, if David were the only child involved in my decision. But what about the other four hundred boys and the parents of those other four hundred boys? Let me ask you something. How would you feel if you knew that a school to which you'd entrusted David's safety as well as his education had knowingly accepted a child liable to goodness-knows-what—kidnapping or physical attack—from which your son might be the inadvertent sufferer? Would you be prepared to accept that risk and leave David here? That's what you're asking me to do. You're asking me to put at risk the entire safety and reputation of the school. Isn't that so?”

“No!” protested Franks. “I said I wouldn't consider asking you to accept David—wouldn't consider sending him back to you—unless I was absolutely and utterly convinced of his personal safety. And if his safety is guaranteed, how can that possibly put at risk anyone else in the school?”

“Who's going to give that absolute and utter guarantee, Mr. Franks? Give it to the satisfaction of the parents of my other pupils?”

“What about those other pupils!” demanded Franks suddenly, as the argument came belatedly to him. “I know for a fact that some of them—quite a few—are the children of diplomats attached to embassies in this country. Diplomats and government officials and statesmen in unstable countries, often subjected to coups and uprisings. You have children here now at greater risk—kidnapping was a word you used—than will ever exist for David.” Franks guessed that Henderson was wilting and moved to press the advantage. “Isn't that so?” he demanded. “Far greater risk!”

Henderson plucked at the napkin. “I'm not at all sure it's a valid comparison,” he said.

“I am,” said Franks, gauging the weakening. “It's a direct and valid comparison, which all the other parents—myself until this moment—recognize and accept.…” He allowed another pause, and said, “I must be quite honest, Mr. Henderson. I came here today expecting more understanding than I'm so far receiving.”

“I'm very sorry that you should feel that way, Mr. Franks,” said the headmaster stiffly.

“But I don't consider that my feelings are those that matter,” said Franks. “My prime consideration is my son. And continuing the excellent education he has, until now, been able to receive here. I've come to see you today because I considered it was right and proper to do so; because I considered you deserved the explanation.”

“And I appreciate the gesture,” said Henderson, now completely on the defensive.

“As I would appreciate one from you,” picked up Franks at once. It was good to feel dominant in a discussion again, even a discussion with a schoolmaster.

“Do you anticipate a great deal of publicity arising from the matter?”

“I expect some will be inevitable,” conceded Franks. “Far more in America than here. But that will be about the crimes being alleged. I do not anticipate any reference to the protection I've spoken about; or why it's considered necessary.”

“You understand my concern for the pupils and for the school in general?” persisted Henderson.

“I thought I'd made it clear that I do,” said Franks. “Just as I thought I'd made it clear that there will be no cause for that concern when David returns here.”

Henderson nodded. “You—and David, of course—have my sympathy, Mr. Franks. I think it is my responsibility to consider both the school and the boy. What I am prepared to do is place the whole matter before the school governors. And I give you my assurance—my absolute assurance—that I will present the arguments that you have put forward today as strongly as possible.”

The bloody man had wriggled away, thought Franks. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. He said, “When could I expect a decision?”

Henderson pursed his lips. “A month,” he said. “Certainly no longer than six weeks.”

Another time limit, thought Franks miserably. “I'll contact you from America,” promised Franks. Hastily he added, “Or my lawyer will. A Mr. Rosenberg.”

Henderson wrote the name on a jotting pad in front of him and smiled up, aware of his escape and pleased because of it. “I'm sure everything will work out all right, Mr. Franks. And to David's benefit.”

“I hope so,” said Franks. “I sincerely hope so.”

Franks was far more circumspect at Gabriella's school. He stopped short of actually lying but, cautious from his experience with Henderson, there was a lot he omitted to tell the headmistress, whose name was Tippitt. She was a spinster and fussy and her study smelled strongly of something like lavender or mothballs. He took tea he didn't want, to be polite, and minimized every likely difficulty and embarrassment. He nodded dutifully through what appeared to be the standard lecture about her responsibilities to the school as a whole and assured her that nothing would jeopardize the school, its pupils, or its reputation. The woman ran behind the same barricade as Henderson, insisting she had to put the matter before the school governors, and Franks had to stifle the impotence, knowing there was no way he could argue her around. She even gave him the same time limit as the headmaster.

Back at the hotel suite Franks took the first drink of the day, pleased with his abstinence; to celebrate, he made it a big one. What had he achieved? The meeting with the managers had gone well, but objectively there had been little likelihood of it going any other way. Any more than with Kenham, without the support of the others. Franks had expected to get commitments from both schools, but, maintaining his objectivity, he supposed that had been an unreal hope. He thought he'd argued Henderson around to present a fair case to the governors, but he wasn't so certain about the headmistress. Gabby's was only a prep school, he reassured himself. It wouldn't be the end of the world if they wouldn't take her back. Just irritating. He looked at his watch, calculating the time in America. Was there any point in calling Tina? She'd be interested only in what had happened at the schools, and he didn't have anything positive to tell her about them. She'd ask for his impressions, though, and when he gave them she'd start fighting. Franks decided not to call. She had the number, after all. If she wanted him, she could call.

Franks was at the bar freshening his drink when the sound came at the door. He frowned toward it, starting forward, but it opened before he got there. Waldo was red-faced, in the act of saying something to the following Schultz, which Franks didn't hear. Franks got the impression that Schultz was trying to restrain the fat man but that Waldo wasn't listening.

“Very clever” erupted Waldo. “Very fucking clever!”

Momentarily Franks didn't understand, his mind still occupied with the other events of the crowded day, and then he remembered the call to Rosenberg. His anger boiled up, to match that of the FBI man. “You want to come into my room, you knock!” he said. “And then you wait! Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I know who I am,” said Waldo. “And I know who you are. You've made me the fucking laughingstock of the embassy here.”

“You made yourself the laughingstock, Waldo. You arranged the tap on the telephone. And then had to boast about it. Would you have taken it off? Would you?”

Schultz closed the door and stood hesitantly just inside. “Let it go, Harry,” he urged his partner. “This isn't going to achieve anything.”

Waldo ignored the other American. “No,” he admitted, “I wouldn't have taken it off. I'd have kept it on and listened to everything you said because it's my job to do so.”

“It's not your job to do so,” rejected Franks. “I don't think you've got a job to do here, any of you. I think you're playacting and wasting time. I'm going along with it but only just. And going along with it isn't being treated like you think you can treat me. Understood?”

Waldo came farther into the room, belligerently, and briefly Franks thought the huge man was going to strike him. Instead he stopped, very close, and said, “I want you to understand something! I said I know who you are. And I do. I can smell a crook, and you smell. I know you were in on it. In on everything, right up to your ass. I don't care about any special files; I tracked you and your companies for months and you're as guilty as hell. Okay, so the district attorney chose the path to take and that path lets you off the hook legally. But not as far as I am concerned. I think you should be arraigned with them, with Pascara and Flamini and Dukes.” Waldo stopped, gulping air. “You know why I put the tap on? You know why I stick closer to you than shit to a blanket? I think you plan to run. I think this company stuff and school stuff is just so much bullshit. I think you're going to try to run, somewhere, somehow. Let me tell you something. Don't try it. Because you don't stand a chance. Not a fucking chance.”

Waldo was standing so close that Franks could actually feel the man's breath as he spat the words out. The American's face was suffused with color, more purple than red, and a vein throbbed in the center of his forehead. Franks' feelings had gone beyond the immediate, instinctive anger and he was glad. Icily calm, his voice very quiet, Franks said, “Get out. Get out of this room. Now! But I want you back here. I want you back here when you've got rid of your hysteria and I want your apology. I told you in the car this morning that the cooperation was off. Then we were just talking about the tap. Now we're talking about you. Any arrangement I made with Ronan is over, right now. I'm not going to deal with a maniac and that's how you're behaving, like a maniac. I'll give you an hour. If you're not back here within an hour then I'm going to call Rosenberg and I'm going to call Ronan and then I'm going to get on a plane out of here—tonight—and your whole fucking case will be around your ankles, where it deserves to be if this is your idea how to work.” Franks looked over the man's shoulder, to Schultz. Stretching the contempt, he said, “Get him out! For God's sake get him out of here!”