To Save a Son

by Brian Freemantle

  “I’ve already realized that,” said Franks.

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Waldo. “For you, personally. Normally it’s punks; people who don’t know any different. They usually end up with a house better than they had in the first place and they’re grateful for the pension.…” The FBI man looked around the suite. “This isn’t our standard,” he said. “It’s yours. The adjustment for you is going to be a bastard.”

  He’d unwound; now it was winding-up time again, thought Franks. “I’ll learn,” he said, unwilling to face reality too quickly.

  “I think you’ve got a lot to learn,” said Waldo. “An awful lot.”

  “I will,” insisted Franks stubbornly.

  The meeting with the directors was a formality. They’d drawn the agreements as promised, and he produced the access documents as promised, and the formalities were over very quickly.

  “We’re now effectively running the companies?” said Podmore.

  “Yes,” agreed Franks. He had the inescapable feeling of being cast adrift.

  “Knowing—as you did—that it was going to happen, I’m somewhat surprised you made the salary and advantage agreements that you did with the managers who are being elevated,” said the man.

  Franks bristled at the lecturing tone but knew it would be wrong to respond angrily to it, like it would have been wrong to have met Waldo’s anger with anger. “Extra responsibilities are being imposed upon them, just as they are upon you. Shouldn’t that be recognized?”

  “Shouldn’t we have been the people to recognize it?” came back Podmore.

  Fuck the man, thought Franks, the recurring reaction; fuck them all. “Two days ago I was in control of these companies,” he said. “I still am, although distanced. Within six months, I shall be back, running them again. I’m grateful for your support but I don’t think it would be wise for anyone to imagine a situation anything different from what it actually is, do you?”

  Waldo and Schultz seemed surprised by his early emergence from the conference room.

  “All through?” said Schultz.

  “All through,” agreed Franks. “It’s time to get back to America.” To get it over and then get back to something else: normality.

  “What now?” asked Waldo.

  Franks checked his watch, unnecessarily because he’d already timed the suggestion out. “The last plane,” he said, abandoning the thought of the Concorde. “That gives us time to go from here to St. Paul’s, which is very close, so that John can hear the bells. And then to Knightsbridge so that you can buy the tartan for your wife. The Scotch Shop is there. Harrod’s, too. You can get presents for the kids, as well.”

  Which is what they did. Franks took them to lunch at Scott’s after getting their assurance that the protection wouldn’t be too obvious, and back at the hotel he had time enough after packing to call Tina to say he was returning.

  “I’m glad it hasn’t taken as long as you thought,” she said.

  “So am I,” he said, pleased there was no challenge in her voice.

  “Not for that reason,” said the woman. “Poppa had a heart attack during the night.”

  25

  Enrico Scargo refused to go to the hospital, with an old man’s conviction that hospitals were places where people went to die. Private nurses and resuscitation and monitoring equipment were installed in the house. At first both Tina and Maria moved in. Neither of them got any rest because Mamma insisted on sitting up practically throughout the night as well as day with her husband. So they evolved a routine of alternating between Scars-dale and the Scargos’. When Franks arrived from Kennedy airport, the old man was hooked up to a respirator. Although there was nothing practical he could do, Franks stayed for two days before going into Manhattan to brief Rosenberg on the arrangements he’d made in England and Switzerland and instructing the lawyer what he wanted done. On the way back from the city, Franks decided that although it was an improper thought—certainly not one he’d consider expressing—her father’s collapse meant that Tina now had something to fully distract her from the unreality of how they were living. She’d signed the bank papers dismissively—not bothering to ask what they were—and had been quite disinterested in hearing what he’d done on the trip. In fact, reflected Franks, disinterest in him was an accurate description of Tina’s current attitude.

  Franks went back to the Scarsdale house from Manhattan for the first time since his return from England. David and Gabriella were subdued by their grandfather’s illness and there was none of the usual boisterousness of a homecoming or excitement about the presents he brought: a make-it-yourself tank model kit for David and what he belatedly realized was an inappropriate wetting doll for Gabriella. Franks was back early enough in the evening to be with them for their evening meal, and toward the end of it David looked soberly at him and said, “Why did you tell me a lie?”

  “What lie?” said Franks, not immediately remembering.

  “About Uncle Nicky. You said he might come, but I know he can’t because he’s dead. Aunty Maria told me.”

  Franks sighed. He said, “It wasn’t a lie to cheat you. I just wanted to talk to Maria about it first, but I didn’t have time. What did she tell you?”

  “I asked her when he was coming,” said the boy. “She said there had been a bad accident and that he’d died.”

  “Did she say what sort of accident?” asked Franks.

  David shook his head. “Just that it was an accident.”

  “What did happen?” said Gabriella.

  Franks hesitated, unwilling to lie a second time, but even more unwilling to talk about shooting, conscious of David’s fascination with guns. “Something happened with a car,” he said, aware at once of the inadequacy.

  “Were other people killed as well?” asked the boy.

  “No, only Uncle Nicky,” said Franks. The question had been easier than he expected.

  “Why doesn’t Aunty Maria cry?” asked the girl.

  “She has,” said Franks. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t joined them for their meal.

  “I haven’t seen her,” insisted the child.

  “She cries by herself. In her room,” groped Franks.

  “Does that mean she’s brave?” said Gabriella.

  “Yes,” said Franks.

  “I’d cry if you died,” she said.

  “Let’s stop talking about people dying,” said Franks. “I’m not going to die.”

  “Promise!” said David, more urgency than usual in the familiar demand.

  “I promise,” said Franks gently.

  “You didn’t tell the truth about Uncle Nicky,” accused the boy.

  Franks leaned across the table for David’s hand. “I didn’t tell you about Uncle Nicky because I didn’t want to upset you; in case you started thinking silly things like that it could happen to me. It isn’t going to. I’m not going to die, and nothing is going to happen to me.”

  “Are those men who are here all the time now going to see that it doesn’t?” said Gabriella with innocent accuracy. “I thought it was to guard treasure.”

  Franks tried desperately to remember the explanation he’d given to David. He said. “They’re men who are helping me; it’s to do with Daddy’s job.”

  “You said there were some bad men who didn’t want you to tell on them,” said David.

  “That’s it!” said Franks. “I’ve got to tell the truth about some bad things and the people here with us now are going to help me do that.” He looked up gratefully at Elizabeth’s arrival and said, “Bath time!”

  Franks escaped at once into the small sitting room. He examined the drinks, momentarily undecided, and then chose the usual martini. He mixed a small pitcher, thinking how well he’d done over the last few days: hardly anything at the Scargos’—certainly never approaching drunkenness—and this the first today. He knew he should call to see how things were up there. Time enough later. He carried the drink with him to an easy chair, thinking of the convers
ation with the children. Not good, he decided; bloody awful, in fact. It was inconceivable to talk about shotgun murders to kids that young, so to lie was unavoidable, but he didn’t like risking his relationship with them. Was it at risk? Or was he magnifying something out of proportion? He wished he could talk to someone about it, but couldn’t think who. Tina? She’d gone to her parents’ that afternoon. Besides, if he mentioned it, he and Tina wouldn’t talk; in minutes they would be arguing.

  Franks was at the drinks table refilling his glass when he heard the sound of the car in the driveway outside, and through the window saw that it was Maria. He answered the door for her himself, knowing that she’d sat up most of the previous night with Mamma Scargo and surprised that she didn’t look more tired than she did. He kissed her platonically on the cheek and said he had drinks already mixed, and she said, “Terrific!”

  Maria sat in the chair he’d earlier occupied and stretched her legs out straight in front of her, kicking off her shoes. He gave her the drink, sat opposite, and said, “How it is up there?”

  She pulled down the corners of her mouth and said, “Nothing happening at all, really. Doctor says he’s stable, whatever that means. He could be off the respirator by the weekend. This morning the doctor prescribed some tranquilizers and sleeping pills for Mamma but she says she won’t take them. Insists she wants to be awake, in case he needs her.” She raised her glass and said, “Cheers, if that’s an appropriate thing to say.”

  “I’d better call Tina soon,” said Franks. “I told her I was coming back here but I’m not sure if she’ll remember.”

  “She didn’t say anything,” said Maria.

  “How is she?”

  Maria appeared surprised by the question. “Okay, I guess. Worried, naturally.”

  “Everything is getting her down,” said Franks. Hadn’t he once decided not to discuss Tina with Maria? It seemed a long time ago.

  “You can’t expect much else,” she said.

  Franks gestured toward her glass and she nodded acceptance. Franks said, “You don’t seem to be letting it get you down so much as she is.”

  “Maybe I’ve had my crisis,” said the woman. “Maybe Tina thinks she’s still got hers to come.”

  He’d like very much to know what they all had to come, thought Franks. “Whatever she feels, she’s not helping much,” he said.

  She smiled at him and Franks smiled back, arguing pointlessly with himself about why he was doing what he was doing.

  “Anything I can do to help?” said Maria.

  “I think you’re doing it, by listening,” said Franks. Recalling the difficulties with the children, Franks talked about that, too, and of his uncertainty at the way he’d responded, welcoming the chance to speak and not be shouted at in return. Was Gabriella still wetting the bed? he wondered. Bloody stupid to have bought that doll.

  “I’m sorry if I made things difficult with the kids,” she said. “I should have talked about it first to Tina, I guess. It just didn’t occur to me.”

  “I was the person who avoided the issue; I should have warned you,” said Franks.

  “I can understand why you did want to avoid it,” said the woman. “It was unthinking of me and I’m sorry.”

  They were each overcompensating, Franks recognized. He recognized, too, a tension or an awareness growing between them and wondered if she noticed it.

  Maria said, “Europe go okay?”

  “Busy,” said Franks. “I didn’t enjoy all the protection; I felt stupid.”

  “I’ve practically stopped noticing,” said Maria. “Perhaps I’ll take a trip when things have settled down a little. I enjoyed Europe with Nicky.”

  Mentioning the man—and their honeymoon—didn’t seem to cause her any difficulty. He said, “I can arrange anything, practically anywhere you’re likely to want to go. All you’ve got to do is mention it.”

  “It would be good to get away,” said Maria reflectively. “Go somewhere where nobody knew me and sit in the sun and get fat.”

  “Getting fat doesn’t seem to be a problem for you,” said Franks, and at once regretted it because it sounded gauche. Hurriedly he said, “Getting away and sitting in the sun certainly sounds good.”

  Maria looked pointedly at him but didn’t speak for several moments. Then she said, “Why don’t you try it?” and smiled again.

  Franks realized she didn’t know everything about his going into the Witnesses Protection Program; he didn’t know everything about it himself. But that wasn’t what she was talking about, anyway. He said, “Do you think this is wise?”

  “What?” she said, knowing but wanting him to say it.

  “Holding our hands into the fire to see how long it takes to get burned.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “That’s what I think we’re doing.”

  “Frightened?”

  “I don’t know,” said Franks. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Clutching at straws Franks said, “I should telephone Tina.”

  “Yes,” agreed Maria, the more controlled of the two. “You should.”

  “Why don’t you freshen the drinks?” said Franks. “I freshened them the last time.”

  Maria rose slowly, enjoying his attention upon her but stopped too far away to take his glass. “Halfway,” she said. “You’ve got to come halfway.”

  Franks leaned forward, holding out his glass for her to take. She held back, in command, knowing it and wanting him to know it too, and then took it from him. Franks used the telephone alongside the chair in which he was sitting, which was a mistake because it meant that he had to conduct a conversation with his wife while the woman for whom he felt a physical ache—and who was aware of it because she looked and saw how obvious it was and smiled yet again—was sitting only a few feet away. It was a desultory, clipped conversation. He asked after her father and she said there wasn’t really any change and she asked about his visit to Rosenberg and he said it had all gone as he told her it would. Tina asked if Maria was back and he said she was and he said the children were okay and when was she coming back, and Tina said maybe in three days, when Maria came up to relieve her. He said he’d call tomorrow and she said okay, and as he replaced the receiver Franks realized it had occurred to neither of them to express anything like love. At least the conversation, as inconsequential as it was, had subdued his physical arousal.

  “There’s no change,” he said.

  “I told you that.”

  “You hungry? I arranged steaks.”

  “For both of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew I was coming back then?”

  “Tina said you might; it seemed more sensible to prepare than not.”

  “Is that why you decided to stay here tonight?”

  Yes, thought Franks. He said, “I always intended to come back here today; there were so many people up there it was like a railway station.”

  “I think David’s right.”

  “David?”

  “You tell lies.”

  “You didn’t say whether you were hungry.”

  “Not particularly.”

  “It’s being prepared now.”

  “We’d better eat some of it then.”

  “Yes.”

  It was a meal with little conversation, but they rarely stopped looking at each other in a way that wasn’t looking at all but was a kind of touching, without hands. Toward the end of the meal, which they hardly ate, Maria said, “I always wondered if this would happen. I didn’t think it would but I always wondered.”

  “Nothing’s happened yet,” he said.

  “But it’s going to.”

  “Yes,” accepted Franks in final, easy surrender. “It’s going to.”

  Maria was suddenly, surprisingly, brisk. “I don’t know how it is between you and Tina,” she said. “That’s between you. It just obviously isn’t very good at all. But you should know about Nicky and me.”

 
; “Why?”

  “Because I want you to,” insisted the woman. “Nicky was gay. I suppose I should have known before we got married. I was the personal assistant, for God’s sake. As close as that, I would have known about the women and I knew there weren’t any. No, that’s not true. There were some but not a lot; not as many as there should have been for a bachelor lawyer with a lot of money and a townhouse in Manhattan.” For practically the first time during the meal she broke their gaze, fussing with her wineglass. “I know I told you that I wanted whoever did it to suffer. And I do. But Nicky was a bastard for what he did to me. It was an experiment of a sort, I suppose. Respectability required that he was married—before the gossips got it right—and I guess in the early months he tried. Very early months; I’d say the first three or four. He could swing both ways. At first I couldn’t believe how good it was. Then he answered the question I didn’t know he was asking himself and it started going wrong.” There was a further pause. “Late-night meetings started to happen; I guessed he was cheating on me because that was the obvious explanation, but I thought he was cheating with some other woman. He still tried, occasionally. He started asking me to be his man.… We’d done it before and I didn’t think anything of it, and then he kept asking and that’s the way it was.…” Maria looked up to him and said, “You know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” said Franks. “I know what you mean. But I don’t know why you want to tell me.”

  “I want it—whatever it is—to be right between us. So I don’t want you to think of me as some hot bitch wanting to get laid practically before her husband’s buried. He made me an offer, you see. Finally he couldn’t pretend anymore and we talked it out. All he wanted was discretion. He’d be thoroughly discreet and I could be thoroughly discreet, and to the outside world it would be the perfect, loving marriage.”

  “That’s pretty sick,” said Franks.

  “Nicky said I’d be surprised how ordinary the situation is.”

  “Did you agree?” demanded Franks.

  “No,” she said at once.

  Franks held her eyes, saying nothing. Maria shrugged and said, “I guess I would have done, in time. Who wouldn’t? But I didn’t. I supposed I still loved him; still do, in a funny way. Tried to tell myself that sex wasn’t the only thing and that it might come around to be okay, in time. I know it wouldn’t have done, of course. We talked about divorce, but he was very frightened of that; respectability again.”