Murder at Union Station (34 page)

The apartment consisted of a large living room, two tiny bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen. Photographs and posters of jazz giants idolized by the young musician covered the walls. A Yamaha electric piano sat in one corner of the living room; Jackson used this to work out new chord changes to old tunes. There was a couch and two easy chairs, a TV, a small table off the kitchen that served as a dining table, and a state-of-the-art sound system for hundreds of CDs housed in tall, free-standing racks.

It was to this basement haven that Richard Marienthal had fled.

Jackson had been playing a job when Rich arrived at the apartment; he’d left a key with the landlady. When he returned from his job at four the next morning, he found his writer friend asleep on the couch.

“The bed in that other room is yours, Rich,” he said after his noisy entrance had awakened Marienthal.

“I wasn’t sure which bedroom to use,” Marienthal said. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me crash here.”

Jackson’s laugh was easy and frequent. “It works out great, man,” he said, pointing to a suitcase and two saxophone cases near the door. “The place is yours ’cause I won’t be around for a while.”

“You said when I called that you were heading out of town on a gig. What’s it all about?”

“It’s like a gift from heaven, man. When Charlie called me—Charlie Young, the alto player—and said Buck had recommended me for a band Charlie’s taking on the road, I almost fell over. We’ve got seven weeks in some good clubs around the country.”

“I know who Charlie Young is,” Marienthal said.

“Right. We caught him together, what, a month, two months ago? He’s a monster. Anyway, we’ve been rehearsing for the past two weeks and leave tomorrow morning for the tour, so the joint is yours, man, for as long as you want. But you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I catch the news on the tube and see that you’re, like, at the center of a big storm.”

“Afraid so,” Marienthal said.

Jackson brewed herbal tea in the tiny kitchen and brought two cups to the living room, along with fresh blueberry scones. He raised his cup to Marienthal and said, “Okay, man, lay it on me.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” Marienthal said. “You know how when you’re improvising on some song and get lost?”

“Moi?”
Jackson said, laughing, hand to his heart.

“You know what I mean. If you hadn’t started in that direction, had stuck closer to the chords—”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s the situation I’m in. It’s like you taking gigs strictly for the money. Bad music, but the pay is good. Making a living as a writer can be as tough as being a jazz musician. I did all kinds of writing I didn’t enjoy and kept thinking that if I stuck to my goals and didn’t sell out—at least not in the long run—I’d make it.”

“I know what you mean,” said Jackson.

“So, anyway, my father—he’s a big-shot lawyer, represents Mafia types, or at least he did—he represented a mobster named Louis Russo. Russo was nailed on a drug charge and accepted a deal my father choreographed: testify against his mob friends in exchange for immunity and a new life in the witness protection program.”

“Russo. The old dude who got shot in Union Station.”

“One and the same. At any rate, after Russo went into the program and moved to Israel—”

“Israel?”

“Yeah. He was in Mexico for a year, then headed for the Middle East. Some sort of deal we have with the government there. My father told me stories about Russo, his days with the mob, the murders he was supposed to have committed. The more he told me, the more I wanted to meet Russo and use his life as a basis for a novel I wanted to write. The public seems to have an insatiable appetite for mob books, movies, TV series. But after I spent some time with Russo, he started talking about another aspect of his life that really got my attention. Russo claimed he was the triggerman in the assassination of the Chilean president Constantine Eliana.”

“Assassination? When was that?”

“Almost twenty years ago.”

“And?”

“And who headed the CIA then?”

Jackson’s eyes went up. “Are you saying . . .”

“I’m not saying it, Win. Russo said it. He claimed Parmele authorized the CIA to contract with the New York Mafia to assassinate Eliana, and that he, Russo, did the deed.”

“That’s heavy.”

“That’s what I said when I heard it.”

“More tea?”

“Thanks, no. I got Russo to tell me the story, and I decided that
that
would be the basis for a book, a
big
book. My shot at riches and fame.” His laugh was rueful. “Know what I mean?”

“Sure I do. So you wrote the book.”

“I sure did. At least I wrote a proposal based upon what Russo told me. That’s when I met Geoff.”

“Who’s he?”

“A senior aide to Senator Karl Widmer.”

“Alaska.”

“Uh-huh. I met him at a party and had lunch with him a few days later. He set it up. He was all excited about the book and said he had friends at Hobbes House in New York. I agreed to let him send the proposal to them—provided I dropped the idea of a novel and turned it into nonfiction.”

“And you did?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they the ones publishing it?”

“Right. Hobbes House is a right-wing publisher, which turned me off at first. You know me. I guess if I had to take sides, I’d say I’m a Democrat like my father, only he’s a closet liberal. I never really cared about politics. I always dismissed it as a necessary evil, a bunch of men and women out to feather their own nests, but somehow things got done and the country ran. I voted for Parmele. Believe me, I knew the book might hurt him, especially his chances for a second term. But then I figured, just how much damage could a book do? It would get some attention and hopefully sell well, maybe even become a best seller. Parmele and his people would spin it, deny what Russo claimed ever happened, and that would be it.

“But Geoff had other ideas. He convinced me—and Christ, Win, it didn’t take much convincing—that if we could get Russo to testify at hearings Widmer would hold with his subcommittee on intelligence, the book would really get a lot of exposure—network TV, the cover of
Time,
all of it.”

“And sink the president, huh?”

“Again, I really didn’t care. I mean, I cared on some level, but those feelings were always trumped by what I’d get out of it. Geoff wanted me to testify along with Russo, and that was too seductive for me to say no. Understand? You ever been in therapy?”

“With a shrink? No.”

“But you know about it. It’s like what you always hear. The therapist is going to say it all comes down to your relationship with your parents. I just figure that everything I did was in competition with my father.”

“And was it?”

“I don’t know. Could be. He helped me, but basically he was against my doing this book, so maybe I did it to challenge his authority. Maybe I bought into Geoff Lowe’s idea to use the book as a political tool to get the president, and get my father at the same time. I don’t know. I’m just a writer.”

Jackson laughed. “You’re one of the smartest guys I know, Rich.”

“Too smart for my own good.”

Marienthal peered down at the rug in silent thought. When he looked up, Jackson saw that his friend’s eyes were wet.

“What are you going to do?” Jackson asked.

“Stick my head in the sand, like I’m doing now. What are my choices? I could give the Russo tapes and my notes to the White House and feel like maybe I saved a presidency. I could go ahead and turn everything over to Lowe and Senator Widmer, let them hold their hearings, and watch the book take off.”

“But Russo is dead. He can’t testify.”

“Right. But Lowe and others on Widmer’s staff evidently think that by playing the tapes of Russo making these allegations, it’s almost as good as having him there in the flesh.”

“A question, my friend.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you think Russo was right, that Parmele ordered the assassination when he was head honcho at the CIA?”

“Only according to Russo. That’s all I know.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a phone call. At its conclusion, Jackson rejoined Marienthal, who’d gotten up and was examining the CDs in their racks.

“This is some collection,” Marienthal said.

“My inspiration. So, buddy, what are you going to do?”

“Hole up here, thanks to you. Go to sleep and hope that when I wake up, it’ll all be over.”

A serious cloud crossed Jackson’s face. “You in real danger, Rich?”

Marienthal shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on who killed Russo.”

“Had to be Mafia. Right? You think they might be after you because of what Russo told you? Making you the only, well, witness to the Parmele thing?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. Maybe by dropping out for a while, I can think a little clearer.”

“Look, dude, I’ve got to catch me some sleep,” Jackson said. “You look like you could use some, too. I’ll go out later and stock the fridge, at least for a couple of days. Meantime, make yourself at home. The place is yours. Use the computer, phones, put on some sounds and relax.”

“Thanks,” Marienthal said.

While Jackson slept in his bedroom, Marienthal put on a Cedar Walton CD at low volume and sat in the kitchen, which opened onto a small patio at the rear of the narrow row house. The first vestiges of dawn provided enough light for him to make out a small round table with four chairs and umbrella. A patch of grass was beyond, ending at a tall stockade fence separating the property from another yard and house. A pervasive sense of loneliness overcame him. He’d never felt so conflicted in his life. Kathryn had a keen sense of how to compartmentalize things, something he’d never been good at. His mind was a sticky cotton-candy mess, everything mushed into one large, confusing panorama. He stared at the kitchen wall phone and considered calling someone, anyone. Kathryn. Mackensie Smith. His father.

An urge to call Geoff Lowe and tell him he was destroying the tapes and notes came and went. Compartmentalize! Sort it out. Russo’s murder was one thing. Stick it away over there. The Widmer hearings? Stash that issue in one of Al Gore’s lock boxes.

The book! No matter what happened with other complications surrounding it, there were all those months of hard work to be considered and salvaged. It was being published as he sat there, and he was pleased that it was. His regret, as the hands on the kitchen clock relentlessly ticked off his life, was that he hadn’t gone forward the way he’d originally intended, written it as a novel based upon Russo’s tales. Geoff Lowe had been instrumental in that decision, too, and he thought back to that lunch with Lowe after having met at the party.

“I’m telling you,” Lowe had said at that lunch, “you’ve got one hell of a best-selling nonfiction book here, Rich. A novel? Waste of time.”

“But it’s based on one man’s word, Geoff, a former mafioso in the witness protection program. I can’t corroborate what he’s told me.”

“You don’t need corroboration,” Lowe countered. “The guy has led the life, walked the walk and talked the talk. His word is as good as anyone’s. It’s not you attesting to the truthfulness of it. All you’re doing is being a good journalist, recounting his recollection of events and filling in some blanks when necessary.”

They discussed it throughout lunch. Toward the end, Lowe said, “Look, I have a good friend at Hobbes House in New York. You know who they are.”

“A publisher. Conservative nonfiction.”

“Exactly. I have a friend there, the top editor, Sam Greenleaf. If you change your proposal to nonfiction, I know Sam will bite.”

“I thought I’d submit it to other publishers, maybe those who liked what I’d submitted to them before.”

“But who didn’t buy what you wrote. Right?” Marienthal had given him a thumbnail sketch of his writing career.

“Right.”

“So why blow a golden opportunity?”

Marienthal’s expression was quizzical.

“Hobbes House. The bird in hand, Rich. Let’s say I can sell it there right away. And let’s say I can get old Senator Widmer
to base hearings of his subcommittee on intelligence on the book
. Let’s say you can convince Mr. Russo to come and testify at those hearings, and I get Widmer to agree. Can you even imagine what publicity that would generate? Conservative books are hot these days, have been for years. Coulter—”