“You let this reporter give her description, that’s it. No comments to her. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Got it.”
“Good. By the way, the woman Mr. Russo was living with in Israel is flying here today.” He glanced at a paper on his desk. “Sasha Levine.”
“She claiming the body?”
“Once the M.E. releases it. Shouldn’t need it anymore now that we’ve got the shooter.”
“I’d like to talk to her,” said Mullin.
“Go ahead. She’s due here at five. But, Bret-”
“What?”
“Don’t make this a big deal. Yeah, it would be nice to know why Russo got it, but it’s not priority.”
Mullin and Accurso stood to leave, but Leshin asked Mullin to stay. The big detective looked at Accurso and raised his eyebrows.
“See you downstairs,” Accurso said.
“Close the door, Bret,” Leshin said after Accurso was gone.
Mullin did as requested and faced his boss.
“How’s the drinking, Bret?” Leshin asked flatly.
“The drinking? What about it?”
“I hear you’ve been hitting the bottle pretty good lately.”
Mullin guffawed.
“True?”
“No, of course not. Who’d say something like that?”
“Sit down, Bret.”
When Mullin was seated, Leshin stood over him. “You don’t look good, Bret.”
“Whatta you mean?”
“You look like hell. Your hands are shaking. I saw it.”
“No, I’m-”
“Bret, listen to me. You’re a good cop, have been for a long time. But I don’t like being squeezed. I get a call from up top about somebody saying they saw you drinking on the job or drunk someplace, and bingo, I’m on the hot seat to do something about it. Understand?”
“Sure, Phil, and I wouldn’t do anything to make it tough on you. But I’m telling you, I’ve got the drinking under control. Last night, I had a couple of margaritas with dinner. That’s it. You have a drink before dinner?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Yeah, I know, but what I’m asking is whether having a drink or two before dinner is such a big deal. It’s like-it’s like, you know, civilized.”
Leshin laughed lightly and returned to his chair. “‘Civilized,’” he said absently, shaking his head.
“I’m fine, Phil,” Mullin said, pushing himself up from the chair. “Believe me, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about a thing with me.”
Leshin covered his eyes with one hand and waved Mullin from the office with the other.
I wish I didn’t have to worry about you was what Leshin was thinking.
I should have had a second vodka this morning was Mullin’s thought as he left the office. Stops the shaking.
TWENTY-SIX
Tony and Joe’s fish restaurant was in Washington Harbour, on the Potomac at 31st Street, in Georgetown. Formerly the site of a cement factory, it had been developed into a riverfront park in 1986 by Arthur Cotton Moore, who’d created the mixed-use development of shops, restaurants, offices, and apartments. Architectural critics termed the complex hideous; Washingtonians and tourists ignored any architectural shortcomings and enjoyed the open feeling, the boardwalk promenade, the computer-controlled central fountain, and whimsical sculptures scattered throughout the area.
Stripling arrived early and took an outdoor table with an umbrella, on the river side of the terrace. He’d just been served an iced tea when Jimmy Gale, wearing an open-necked white shirt and carrying a blue denim sport jacket over his arm, skirted other tables and took a chair across from the former CIA operative.
“Maybe we should eat inside,” Gale said. His face was blotchy; a film of perspiration testified to the heat.
Stripling smiled and took in the terrace with open hands. “It’s lovely out here, Jimmy. Liable to catch a cold in the AC.”
Gale, who was in his mid-forties, pulled a damp handkerchief from a pants pocket and dabbed at his face. “I don’t have much time,” he said. “We’re busy. Very busy.”
Stripling waved a waitress over. Gale had an iced tea, too. Both men ordered shrimp Caesar salads.
“What do you want, Tim?” Gale asked, downing a glass of ice water. “As I said, we’re very busy. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“The Widmer hearings,” Stripling said, not looking at him.
“What about them?”
Stripling now faced him. “It’s like Los Alamos. What’s all the secrecy?”
“I don’t know. It’s Senator Widmer’s hearings. Ask him.”
“Your boss is on the committee, Jimmy. Of course you know what’s going on.”
Gale looked about nervously. His tea came and he eagerly drank it. Stripling sat back, glass in hand, and took a certain quiet pleasure in Gale’s overt anxiety. Exerting power over others was something he’d come to enjoy after years of creating the conditions under which such power was possible. There had been so many Jimmy Gales, each having made a single human misstep in their lives, an isolated indiscretion, a drunken moment, a loss of control over their passions, a mistake in judgment experienced by every person at some point in their lives. The difference was that these very human beings worked for the U.S. government.
Stripling had first learned of Gale eight years ago, while still on the payroll of the agency. His success at identifying and turning government employees into informants for the agency had been beyond expectations. The stable of men and women he’d developed, willing to pass on information if asked, had grown to more than a hundred. Of course, there were those who left government service, and by extension lost their usefulness to Stripling and the CIA. But there were always others to take their place. Amazing, Stripling often thought, how vulnerable people were to having their private lives exposed, how willing they were to risk their professional and personal reputations in the pursuit of a vice or secret pleasure.
He’d found Washington ’s brothels, call girls, and escort services to be a particularly rich source of recruits. Married men who frequented such services were easy targets, although Stripling was judicious in his selection of which ones to pursue. If he’d elected to enlist every married man who visited one of the prostitutes on his payroll-some of whom agreed to install a tiny camera in the bedroom in return for easier money than plying their usual trade-the stable would have been too large and unwieldy to control.
Prostitutes providing other than conventional sexual experiences had been especially good to Stripling over the course of his career. That certainly was the case with Jimmy Gale. Married and with three children, Gale had come from Colorado to Washington with his family a dozen years ago to work for the senator from Colorado, and had quickly established himself as one of the most respected staffers on the Hill, a man fiercely loyal to his boss and mentor and someone whose word could be trusted. His reputation in his community of Rockville, Maryland, was equally positive. Gale was active in civic affairs, Little League, his church, his kids’ schools, and the local Republican club.
He was also a man who’d questioned his sexuality since he was a teenager. He’d kept that question under wraps well into his adult years, through his marriage and the birth of his children, submerged, stifled, but always there below the surface.
One night, after a party at a restaurant popular with Senate and House staffers, and after he’d consumed more alcohol than he was accustomed to, he dragged out a number he’d been given for a Capitol Hill brothel that offered male prostitutes. He didn’t remember much about the experience, whether it had been pleasurable or not or whether it had validated his questions about his true sexual orientation. All he knew was that it had been wrong to seek sexual gratification outside his marriage. He tore up the phone number and put the event behind him, to be forgotten and never repeated.
Until he was contacted by one Timothy Stripling, who made it known that he knew about the visit to the male who
rehouse, and who thought Gale would be willing, even anxious, to keep it between them in exchange for occasionally passing along information from the Hill. “After all,” Stripling had said, returning the black-and-white photos of Gale at the brothel to their envelope, “I’m not asking for you to divulge state secrets, Jimmy. It’s all in the interest of national security. Look at it this way; you’ll be doing a service to your country and adding to your bank account. What could be better?”
Gale looked at Stripling across the table and felt what he always did when in Stripling’s company. He hated this man who’d intruded into his personal life and who’d used a single, solitary incident to blackmail him into submission.
Although few had expressed such feelings to Stripling over the years, he was well aware that those emotions existed. He waited until the waitress had delivered their salads, slowly buttered a roll, leaned his elbows on the table, and said, “Now, Jimmy, let’s start over. The Widmer hearings. I know that you know what they’re all about.” He took a forkful of shrimp. “Let’s eat while we talk. While you talk. Shrimp shouldn’t sit out in this heat.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sasha Levine had debated long and hard about flying to Washington to claim Louis’s body.
Her initial reaction when called in the evening, Israel time, by someone from the Washington MPD, was resignation. Louis was a sick old man. His death was just a matter of time, and she’d mentally prepared for the day it would come. Still, projecting an acceptance of the inevitable and experiencing it in real time are quite different things, which she would soon discover.
She slowly lowered the receiver into its cradle, went to the small terrace on which they’d spent so many lazy evenings, looked up into a threatening sky, and bellowed a cry of anguish that stopped passersby on the street below. She collapsed into a chair and wept softly and steadily until there were no tears left to shed.
Dry-eyed and carrying a freshly lit cigarette, she returned to the living room and stared at the phone. The caller hadn’t said how Louis had died. Had he collapsed on the street? Been rushed to a hospital? She hadn’t asked and now wanted to know. The caller had left a twenty-four-hour number in Washington. It was morning there, and she made the call.
“Murder?” she said, incredulous. “He was shot dead?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The end of that second call did not result in any hysterical outburst by Sasha. In a sense, his having been gunned down fit more neatly into who he was. At least what she knew about him.
Russo had been living in Tel Aviv under the witness protection program for almost a year when he met Sasha at the Tango nightclub in the Tel Aviv Sheraton Hotel, on Hayarkon Street. It was 1993; he was sixty-one years old, still physically and mentally fit, virile and self-assured. Although he wasn’t tall-five feet, seven inches-he carried himself in such a way that he appeared to be. Shoes with built-up heels contributed to the effect. She noticed that he dressed nicely, although he was overdressed in the informal atmosphere of the club-an Italian-cut double-breasted black suit, a white shirt with a high collar, a black tie, and pointy, polished black shoes.
Sasha was dressed that night in a tight black sweater and slacks, which showcased her full figure and complemented her close-cropped raven-colored hair. Of Jewish-Hungarian parentage, she’d immigrated to Israel from Budapest ten years earlier. Well-schooled, she spoke excellent English and quickly found work as an administrator in an Israeli import-export firm, whose major clients were American companies. Her decision to leave Hungary had been an easy one. Trapped in an abusive marriage, she’d happily walked away from it and looked forward to an exciting, fulfilling new life in that new frontier called Israel.
She accepted a drink from Russo at the nightclub’s bar and found him amusing. His New York accent was thick, adding to his colorful stories of life in Manhattan.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a businessman,” he said.
“What sort of business?”
“Construction.”
“Oh, you build things.”
“Yeah, something like that. Cigarette?”
“Thank you, yes.”
She gave him her phone number at the end of the evening, and he promised to call. She forgot about it until a week later when her phone rang. He asked her out to dinner, and she accepted, but not without reservations. Her previous experience with men had not been positive; it had left her gun-shy and distrustful. Still, a harmless dinner with this amusing older American man couldn’t hurt, a pleasant evening out, nothing more.
They dined on Dizengoff Street at a Chinese restaurant: “This Jewish food ain’t to my liking,” he’d announced when he told her where they’d be eating. She wore chino slacks and a white sweater to dinner. He wore a suit and tie, which set him apart from every-one else in the bustling, informal restaurant. It was like a continuation of their conversation at the bar the previous week. Russo was a natural-born storyteller, regaling her with stories of his youth in New York, his life on the streets, his parents, his friends, the wiseguys he knew, cop stories, trips he took to Miami and Los Angeles and Chicago, the celebrities he’d met: “I knew Sinatra pretty good,” he’d said. “I used to pal around with Don Rickles and-”
“Who’s he?”
“A famous comedian. I always had front row center when Sammy and Dino were in Vegas. One night-”
His life had certainly been an interesting one, colorful and unpredictable, but with a hint of danger, and she wondered whether he’d been involved in some sort of criminal activity. She’d read about the Mafia in America and had seen the Godfather movies. Had this funny man seated across from her, fumbling with his chopsticks, dressed so formally and with such exaggerated good manners, been like one of those men she’d seen in the movies and read about in books? She’d wanted to ask but was afraid to, so she accepted his claim of being in construction and had subsequent dinners with him, an occasional movie, a few drives to the seashore on sunny weekends. By this time, she found herself looking forward to seeing him, even missed him between their times together.
She didn’t know where he worked in Tel Aviv, or even if he did. When asked about it, he’d reply only that he was exploring business opportunities and hadn’t found the right one yet. He lived in a residence hotel, which she’d never visited, and always seemed to have money. And he was unfailingly polite, opening doors for her and standing whenever she approached the table, pulling her chair out for her, lighting her cigarettes, and never failing to introduce her as Miss Sasha Levine.
Loneliness on both their parts eventually closed the gap between them. Unpleasant memories of her failed marriage back in Budapest faded, and after many discussions in Tel Aviv’s cafes and restaurants, she agreed that they should begin living together. For Russo, this woman named Sasha Levine offered a refuge of sorts in a strange land in which he didn’t speak the language, practice the religion, or like the food. And so they moved into her apartment on Basel Street and had lived there in relative happiness over the ensuing years.
It was shortly after they’d started living together that Sasha learned who Louis Russo really was and why he was in Israel.
They’d been sitting on the balcony at sunset, sipping wine and discussing their respective days. She’d had a stressful experience at the import-export firm and commented that one of the partners had been making suggestive comments to her for the past few weeks. Although she’d witnessed an occasional flash of temper in Louis, his reaction this time was extreme. He stood and paced the terrace, swearing in English and Italian and demanding to know where the partner lived. “I’ll take care of the bastard tomorrow,” he snarled.
“No, no, Louis,” Sasha said, trying to calm him. “Don’t make such a tzimmes.”
“What the hell is that?”
“A fuss. It’s no big deal. He’s stupid, an ugly little man.”
“I’ll kill the bastard, he lays a hand on you.”
“Please, Louis, I’m sorr
y I mentioned it.” Her thoughts were on the revolver he’d brought with him when moving in. She’d asked about it: “For protection,” he’d explained, placing it on the highest shelf in a clothes closet and covering it with sweaters.
He sat again. “I killed people like him for less,” he muttered, his words barely audible.
“You what?”
He proceeded to tell her the story of his life-his entry into the gangs of New York, his work for organized crime, the men he’d killed-and of his testimony against his superiors and entrance into the witness protection program. It was as though he’d been wanting since meeting her to explain to her who he was, and he told her these things with a sense of pride, speaking the words flatly, as though reeling off a grocery list, looking out over the street to the buildings across from them, never looking at her. She listened in silence, at once shocked and fascinated.
When he was finished, he slowly turned and asked, “You want me to leave?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She paused before continuing. “It was good of you to have turned in your criminal friends. An honorable thing to do.”
“No,” he said emphatically. “Killing the men was honorable. They deserved it because they were not men of honor. There was no honor in betraying my friends.”
They barely talked for the next few days. When they finally did, Sasha put her arms around him and said softly, “I don’t care what you did before, Louis. I know who you are now. Please, don’t leave me.”
The subject of Russo’s previous life came up only now and then. He would occasionally slip into a reverie fueled by wine, and would reminisce about his early days. Of his five siblings, only three were alive, although he couldn’t even be sure about that because he’d had no contact with them for years. A brother had died of cancer, he’d heard; a sister had been killed in an automobile accident.
“What do the others do?” Sasha asked.
Murder at Union Station Page 14
