To Save a Son (36 page)

Waldo was quivering with rage, beyond speech. He started to move forward, toward Franks, but Schultz got beside him, both hands on the man's arm. “Stop it, Harry! For God's sake stop it! He's right; you're behaving like a goddamned maniac!”

A sound came from Waldo, unrecognizable as a word. For several moments he stood rocklike and unmoving, and then, almost appearing unaware of what was happening, he let himself be turned at his partner's urging and led from the room.

When he was pouring at the bar, Franks realized just how much he was shaking. But it hadn't been fear, he decided, pleased. In any physical confrontation he knew full well that Waldo would have beaten him to a pulp, but even when it seemed the man might lash out he hadn't felt frightened. Another awareness came, counteracting Franks' satisfaction. Waldo was wrong and certainly he'd appeared off-balanced, but the FBI man had been convinced of his guilt. How many others, when everything became public, would have a no-smoke-without-fire reaction? He'd been wrong trying to minimize the embarrassment in his meetings with the schoolteachers that afternoon. Franks flushed, hot with a helpless impotence to do anything to make it different. Maybe he deserved to suffer for his stupidity, but he didn't think he deserved to suffer quite this much.

The knock at the door came after thirty minutes and this time there was no barging intrusion. Franks took his time answering. It was Schultz, not Waldo.

“Can I come in?” asked the American politely.

“My argument isn't with you,” said Franks.

“Please,” said Schultz.

Franks hesitated and then moved aside. Schultz entered and then turned back, looking at Franks. Schultz said, “Harry's in a hell of a state. Really bad. I know you wanted it from him but I want to say sorry, instead. He was way out of bounds. He knows it, which makes it worse.”

Franks walked back into the room, and said, “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes,” smiled Schultz. “Yes, I would. Scotch would be fine.”

Franks poured the drink, made another for himself, and said, “What the hell was it all about?”

“It's a personal thing,” said Schultz. “I know it shouldn't be—that it never should have happened—but it has. Some damned fool at Washington headquarters thought he had a good idea and assigned Harry to the case, which was a mistake. But Washington doesn't admit its mistakes; although to be fair, there's no way they could know, not unless you start making the sort of waves you set up today with that complaint direct to the district attorney.”

“You're not being very clear,” said Franks.

“This isn't the first time Harry's gone after Pascara and Flamini,” explained Schultz. “He used to work out of the Chicago office. Made a case against them about five years back and didn't get it right. Hurried, I think, because he was up for promotion and saw it as the way to jump a couple of grades. Except that it didn't work out that way. The lawyers blew so many holes in the case it was embarrassing; grand jury threw it out and Harry was the asshole of the year. Promised himself to get even. Kept bothering Washington, to try again. Seems to have convinced them he's some sort of expert on the Flamini and Pascara families. Washington's mistake was in letting him have the second try, because it's become an obsession he can't see around. He was sure he'd made everything watertight this time, not just against those two but against Dukes and you. It was Ronan's idea to offer the deal: make you a witness. Harry argued against it like hell. Ronan said without you they'd probably get off again, which would mean Harry being wrong once more. So he got overruled. Then he got overruled again when Ronan agreed to your coming here. Headquarters has started asking questions about all the fighting between us and the D.A.'s office, and there'll be more questions, because you went direct to Ronan, through your lawyer, today.” Schultz gulped at his drink, finishing it. “That's how it is,” he said. “I know that doesn't excuse him for what happened in here. But that's how it is.”

Schultz accepted a second drink and this time Franks stayed with the one he had. “Let me ask you something,” he said.

“What?”

“You worked with him all the time on this?”

“Yes,” said Schultz.

“So do you think I'm guilty?” demanded Franks urgently.

“Does what we're talking about now form any part of a conversation you might later have with your lawyer? And he with the district attorney?”

“Of course not!” said Franks.

“If it did, I'd deny it.”

“I've told you no,” said Franks.

“Like Harry, I thought you were as guilty as hell. I couldn't understand why … why you had to get involved, I mean. But then, these guys can put the black on someone for a lot of things, so maybe there was pressure. That's what I thought, all the way through the investigation. I guess I still thought it after that first meeting at the Plaza, although maybe I did have some doubts; no, not doubts. Doubts is too strong. Maybe I felt a vague uncertainty. That file you produced was good; dissolving the companies seemed like panic, though.”

Rosenberg's caution about the companies' dissolvement, remembered Franks. He said, “You're going up and down, like a seesaw. Do you or do you not—personally—consider that I'm
guilty!”

“Not anymore,” said the FBI man. “Having been with you all the time, seen how you behave, not anymore.”

“Not until now!” said Franks, anguished.

“You ever been in an American court, Mr. Franks?”

Franks shook his head. “No.”

“I know all about justice,” said Schultz. “About men being innocent until proven otherwise. I know about courts; how they're stage-managed and how plea bargaining is done; how deals are made, lesser sentences for lesser charges. If I'd sat on a jury and heard a case made out against you—the sort of case that is made out in court, with a lot of innuendo and a lot of things unsaid that should have been said—then I think I'd have found it difficult to think you were innocent.”

Whatever the outcome, he was going to be stigmatized for the rest of his life, Franks thought in stomach-emptying awareness; branded like a medieval criminal, with an identifiable mark on his forehead so that everyone would know who he was and what he had done. Except that he hadn't done anything. He'd said that so many times to himself—as well as to every other accuser—that it was beginning to sound hollow, even to himself. He tried to remember some schoolboy quotation—he thought it was Shakespeare—that said something about somebody protesting too much and decided it was apposite. And it
was
Shakespeare.
Hamlet
. The wrong sex but the right message.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
. Franks was surprised it had taken him so long to remember; it had been one of the challenges between himself and Nicky, when Enrico was insisting that they study classics. Franks had lost track of the conversation he was having. Trying to recover, he said, “Where does that leave me?”

“In the public mind, some guy who was pretty lucky to get away with it,” said Schultz, honestly.

“I'm not going to stand any more shit from Waldo,” said Franks. “His problems are his problems; I've got enough of my own. This time, okay. But not anymore.”

“Sure,” agreed Schultz. The FBI man rotated his glass in his hand and said, “You got any idea about bringing your kids back at some time, to those schools?”

“Anything wrong with keeping my options open?”

“It's not the way, Mr. Franks. You're either in the protection program or you're not. It's not something you pick up and put down. It's new names, new lives, new everything. For good.”

“No one in America knows what schools the kids go to,” insisted Franks. “Where would the problem be if they came back under new names?” He hadn't discussed new names with either school head. It would be impossible trying to make it work like that. His way was the way, Franks was convinced.

“You're in the big leagues,” warned Schultz. “These guys have facilities every bit as good as we do; sometimes better because they can afford better. Don't underestimate them. You've been suckered once; be careful about it happening again.”

The American was offering a genuine warning, Franks knew. Perhaps he should acknowledge it with further thought than he'd already given. Thinking back to his conversation with Tomkiss, on the car ride into New York, Franks said, “You ever been involved in this before? The protection program?”

“Once,” said Schultz.

“What happened?”

Schultz looked down into his glass. “We set it all up,” he said. “New ID, new Social Security number, bank account, house in another part of the country. Everything. It was against three capos in New Jersey. Got our indictments from the grand jury and started planning the celebration. They got to him before the trial. We still don't know how. One day we had him nicely boxed and protected and the next day we didn't; he slipped us visiting his lawyer's office. Got out through a bathroom window. Never saw him again. No one has.” Schultz snapped his fingers. “Just like that. That's how the case collapsed, too.”

“You mean he was killed?”

Schultz put his empty glass on a side table and declined the gestured offer for more. “I don't know,” said Schultz. “No one knows. Some people think he's part of a support in some overhead traffic system. Others that he's doing exactly what we offered him, living under a different identity on mob money. Doesn't really matter. We lost him and we lost the case.” Schultz smiled sadly. “It's that sort of story that throws Harry.”

“Don't you realize what running would mean?” demanded Franks. “Doesn't Waldo? It would mean abandoning my wife and children!”

“Guy I'm talking about had been married for fifteen years and had three nice kids. Great family man. Kissed them good-bye that morning and never came back. Happens a lot.”

“It's not going to happen with me.”

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Franks. We've got a lot riding on this.”

“Make sure Waldo understands it, too.”

“I'll try,” promised the American.

The following day, Schultz appeared to have done so. There was an initial embarrassment between Franks and Waldo, but Franks discerned a definite change in attitude. There wasn't the streetwise antagonism from the other man, and he actually appeared more relaxed. They caught the early flight to Zurich, wanting to complete the visit and return in one day. There had clearly been liaison with the Swiss authorities, and officials from the American embassy in Bern were waiting at Zurich.

Francois Dulac, the Swiss lawyer, was a white-haired, smooth-faced, unsmiling man who seemed offended by the crowd surrounding Franks, particularly the escorting police car. He closed the door positively against Waldo and Schultz, and said complainingly, “This isn't the normal way that I am accustomed to do business.”

“It's not the way that I am accustomed to doing it, either,” assured Franks.

“You have some identification, from Mr. Kenham?”

Franks produced the documentation that the company secretary had provided the previous afternoon. Dulac fitted heavy bifocals into position and read steadily. Then he said, “You have a passport?”

Franks offered it, and the man compared the photograph in it to the man sitting opposite. Franks sat unmoving, as if he were actually posing for a photograph, feeling vaguely stupid.

Dulac returned the passport and said, “It's my understanding you want an omnibus account for a bank holding. And for me to establish from here, but in Liechtenstein, an
actiengesellschaft.”

“Is that possible?” said Franks.

“Of course,” said Dulac briskly. “You want me the director named in the companies?”

“Yes,” said Franks.

“There is, of course, a fee.”

“I understand. Also I want my attachment to the companies, through you, to be in a name other than my own.” The moment of commitment to a new identity, thought Franks. He wondered how long it had taken his father to decide; the transportation might have been different—like the circumstances that made the change necessary—but they'd both wandered Europe, running from unseen pursuers.

“That is no problem either,” said Dulac. “What do you want it to be?”

The idea had come to him the previous night, after Schultz had left the suite and he'd permitted himself another drink. Franks knew it was sentimental, but the given name had belonged to his father. “Isaacs,” he said. “David Isaacs.”

“I'll need a sample signature today in that name. And a photograph of yourself to accompany it; that needn't be provided today. I'd accept it from Mr. Kenham.”

Franks was suddenly aware of the provision he always made to permit Tina access to any account. He said, “My wife must also have drawing facilities.”

“I'll also need sample signatures and photographs,” said Dulac. “In the name of Isaacs?”

If he were going to be sentimental, he might as well be completely so and involve his unknown mother, as well. “Rebecca Isaacs,” he said. “I'll see they come to you from my American attorney. His name is Rosenberg.” Franks paused. Why involve Kenham anymore? He added, “My photograph will come from Mr. Rosenberg, too.”

“As you wish,” said the Swiss lawyer.

“Something else,” continued Franks. “You are already familiar with Mr. Kenham, in London. I want today to draw up a document—a sort of will, I suppose—giving Mr. Kenham and the named members of the boards of my English companies disposal access to the
actiengesellschaft
in the event of my death. But
only
in the event of my death.”

“The death of whom?” said the lawyer. “Edmund Franks or David Isaacs?”

Franks wondered if anything ever surprised or shocked this imperturbable man. “Either,” he said. “Provable upon production of photographs and a notarized death certificate.” Would there have been any reaction from Dulac at a photograph of the blasted-apart Nicky Scargo?