Murder at Union Station (11 page)

“Hello, Detective. My name is Stripling, Timothy Stripling. Liberty Press. I was told to call you about Louis Russo.”

“Hold on.”

Detective Tresh came back on the line and read from a prepared script: “Louis Russo. Born 1932 New York City. Father, Nicholas, Italian. Mother, Lillian, Jewish. Five siblings. Joined Gambino family 1947, age fifteen. Loan-sharking, numbers collection, prostitution, enforcement, drug trafficking. Six known murders, first in 1953, age twenty-one. Mid-level soldier in family. Four arrests, three indictments. Arrested on drug charges 1990. Turned informant 1991, age fifty-nine. Testified in RICO trial 1991. Witness protection program 1991. Federal Bureau of Investigation handling. Wife, Anna, deceased 1989. No known children. Year in Mexico under bilateral agreement with Mexican government. Relocated Israel 1993. There since. Cohabitation with Sasha Levine, Jewish, current age fifty-five, residence Tel Aviv. Priority level low.”

Stripling heard silence.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Negative.”

“Thanks.”

The line went dead.

That conversation took place before Russo was killed at Union Station and before Stripling knew of the murder. Now that the man he was supposed to find was dead, the information he’d received from Detective Tresh was meaningless, albeit interesting. The old mafioso probably had been caught in a drug sting in 1990 and squeezed to cooperate with the feds. Dealing in narcotics after years of forbidding it had brought down more than one mobster. Russo had violated the oath of
omertà,
of silence, and paid the ultimate price thirteen years later. The Mafia’s memory was long and unforgiving.

That series of thoughts was interrupted by the phone’s ringing.

“Hello?”

“Timothy, my friend. It’s Mark.”

Stripling’s former boss at the CIA, Mark Roper, was fond of referring to people as “my friend” or “old buddy.” Stripling learned long ago that when he was on the receiving end of such platitudes, it was reason to be wary.

“Hello, Mark.”

“Everything well with you?”

“Yes. You?”

Roper sighed. “Quite well, despite our valiant members of Congress considering themselves experts on intelligence. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the House truly represents America—wife beaters, drunks, lawyers, doctors, flimflam artists, born-agains, atheists, pillars of their communities, and absolute rogues. Enough of that. I hear your meeting with our friends went well.”

“Didn’t amount to much.”

“So I read. The fellow you were interested in is no longer.”

“If you mean he’s dead, you’re right.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re dead.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they still want you on the case. Two o’clock, same place.”

“To do what?”

“They’ll explain. Mind a suggestion?”

“I probably will, but go ahead anyway.”

“Be cooperative.”

Stripling laughed. “I have always been the model of cooperation, Mark.”

“A very poor model at times. This is important, Tim.”

“To you?”

“To others more important than me.”

Stripling resisted correcting his grammar.

“I hate to be crass, Mark,” Stripling said, “but you never have told me what I’m being paid.”

“Five hundred a day and expenses. It will show up in your checking account.”

“Make it seven-fifty.”

“Five hundred. Please, Tim, cooperate.”

“Thought I’d try.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Stripling hung up and again read the information he’d received from the detective in New York and the newspaper clips on the Russo murder. Why the continuing focus on this old guy? Stripling’s initial assumption that the murder was a mob hit was now a little shaky. He was to meet with the FBI agents again. Surely, having someone killed who’d been in the witness protection program for thirteen years couldn’t be the reason for the Bureau’s sustaining interest. And why bring him, Timothy Stripling, into it? The Bureau had plenty of ex-agents looking to freelance.

He made himself a salad from leftover chicken, did a half hour of light stretching exercises, took the two handguns from where they were secured in a safe inside a bedroom closet and checked them, almost a daily, obsessive ritual, returned the weapons to the safe, and stepped out into the bright, hot sunlight.

Five hundred a day,
he thought as he looked for a taxi to take him to FBI headquarters. It would do, at least for the moment. But money aside, he now had another reason for playing along. He wanted to know who this Louis Russo
really
was and why he was here, and why both the FBI and CIA wanted the answer, too. One thing was certain in his mind. Their interest reflected that of someone high up the chain,
very
high.

SIXTEEN

M
arienthal’s Delta shuttle flight to New York was delayed by thunderstorms that moved through Reagan National Airport that morning. He arrived at La Guardia almost a full hour later than planned and took a taxi into the city, where he was left off in front of an office building on Park Avenue South. He checked his watch; he still had fifteen minutes before his scheduled meeting and used it to grab a coffee and Danish at a luncheonette next door. Fortified, he entered the lobby, took the first available elevator, and rode to the ninth floor, where the offices of the publishing company, Hobbes, were located.

“I’m Rich Marienthal,” he told the young, moonfaced blonde receptionist. “I have an appointment with Sam Greenleaf.”

“Have a seat,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Marienthal browsed a recent issue of
People
until Greenleaf appeared. “Hello, Rich,” he said, crossing the reception area and shaking hands. “Come on in.”

Greenleaf, Hobbes House’s managing editor, was a large man in all ways—head, face, body, and hands. Sporting an unkempt reddish beard, he wore brown corduroy slacks, well-worn space shoes that showed the result of supporting excess weight for too long, and a checked shirt undoubtedly bought through a big-and-tall-man catalogue. He led Marienthal to a sizable office as disorganized as his personal appearance, moved files from a chair in front of a desk overflowing with books and papers, and invited Marienthal to sit. Photographs dangled crookedly on the walls. A window in need of washing reluctantly allowed gray light into the room. The powdery remains of crumb cake were scattered on a piece of foil on the desk.

“Good trip?” he asked.

“Delayed. Weather in D.C. But I’m here.”

“Good, good. Coffee?”

“Just had some.”

Greenleaf used the phone on his desk to ask someone to fetch him a cup, sat back, and shook his head. “Couldn’t believe the news when you called me,” he said. “Incredible. Who the hell could ever have forecast such a thing?”

“Not me, Sam. That’s for sure.”

Greenleaf came forward and rested his chin on a bridge formed by his hands. “What’s the latest, Rich? I mean, do you know who did it?”

“I have no idea.”

Marienthal adjusted his position in the chair and looked at one of the photographs on the wall, a formally posed portrait of the publishing house’s founder and namesake, Wallace Hobbes. The founder, now deceased, claimed to be a distant relation—very distant—to the seventeenth-century English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes had spawned the movement known as Hobbism, whose creed claimed that human beings were so lazy, selfish, and self-aggrandizing that only an absolute monarchy could control them. Why Wallace Hobbes—or anyone for that matter—would want to claim a relationship to a man with such ideas was lost on Marienthal.

Greenleaf returned to a more relaxed posture in his oversized, overstuffed office chair. “What do you figure, Rich, that those former friends of his who ended up behind bars because of his big mouth finally got even? But why now? Didn’t you tell me Russo was a sick man?”

“Revenge is the most logical explanation,” Marienthal said, reaching into a pocket of his tan safari jacket for a Kleenex. “I think I’m getting a cold,” he said, blowing his nose.

“Summer colds are the worst,” said Greenleaf. “They tend to hang on forever.”

“So I’ve heard. Look, Sam, the question now is, what does this do to the book?”

Greenleaf held up his hand. “Hard to say. It’s all so new. I’ve already been on the phone with Pamela. She’s not happy at this turn of events.”

Pamela Warren was Hobbes’s publisher, a steely woman who’d come up through the ranks at other publishing houses. Those who knew her and had worked with her agreed that she was a savvy businesswoman, a careful publisher, and utterly humorless, especially when it came to the bottom line.

“I’m not happy either,” Marienthal said, “about a lot of things. But that’s irrelevant. The question is how to get around it.” He frowned as a new and unwelcome thought came to him. “She’s not considering yanking the book, is she?”

Greenleaf raised his palm against what had been said. “No fear of that, Rich. The story you’ve so adroitly put together will still have impact, whether Mr. Russo is alive or not.” He paused; an unpleasant expression crossed his face. “Of course,” he said, “we have lost the timing and the event, the very things we were counting on. How that will impact sales is another question.”

Marienthal had expected this issue to be raised and had formulated a response. He started to express it but was interrupted by the arrival of Greenleaf’s coffee. The editor tasted it, swiveled in the chair, reached for something on the credenza behind him, and handed Marienthal a color proof of his book’s jacket.

“We were supposed to have finished books by now,” Marienthal said.

A shrug from Greenleaf. “The wheels of publishing grind slow, Rich. Your book has gone from manuscript to print faster than we’ve ever done before. It’s coming off the presses as we speak. But getting books into the stores is our problem.
Your
problem is what happens now in Washington. Have you spoken with your friend on the Hill?”

“Last night.”

“And?”

“And they want to go forward with the hearings, using the book.”

“Having a book take the oath isn’t nearly as sexy as having your Mr. Russo do it.”

“You say that as though I could have done something to prevent his getting killed.”

“No, no, no, Rich. I wasn’t suggesting that. It’s just that . . .”

Marienthal cocked his head. “Just?”

“It’s just that when you brought us the proposal, its appeal was—well, let’s just say there was a built-in publicity hook that helped in our decision to buy it. It was something that Pamela—that
we
were counting on. Here. Look.”

He gave Marienthal mock-ups of ads that had been prepared by an outside agency. Marienthal scanned them quickly and put them on the desk. “What can I say, Sam? They’ll have to be redone.”

“Provided Pamela is willing to lay out the money to do them over. She runs a tight ship, Rich. I’ll be meeting with her this afternoon. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, we have to go with what we have, minus your inconsiderate Louis Russo.”

“Inconsiderate?”

Greenleaf laughed away his words. “Getting himself killed the way he did. Bad timing, if nothing else.”

Marienthal resisted commenting on Greenleaf’s insensitivity. While his relationship with Louis Russo had initially been solely for the purpose of writing a book, he’d grown to like the old mafioso.

It hadn’t been easy convincing Russo to tell his story for the book Marienthal intended to write. He’d had to work at gaining his trust and had been uncomfortable at times with things he’d said and promised to achieve that trust. Russo, if not exactly a gracious host during Marienthal’s frequent visits to Tel Aviv, had been unfailingly courteous. So had the woman, Sasha, whose good-natured challenges to Russo seemed exactly what was needed to pick up his spirits when they flagged, and to spur him to believe he might live to see another day.