Murder at Union Station

EIGHT

The Amtrak train from New York pulled into its berth at gate A-8 on time. Russo was nauseous and took one of the many pills he carried in a blue plastic case. He was also still weary and wanted to put his head down and sleep. But he couldn’t do that. He sat up straight and tried to blink away his fatigue. He debated stopping in the restroom before leaving the train but decided instead to look for a men’s room in Union Station.

“Are you all right?” the conductor asked as he slowly walked to the door, his cane leading the way, small suitcase in his other hand.

“Yes, I am fine. Thank you.”

“Want help with that?” she asked, indicating the suitcase.

He shook his head. “No, no, thank you.”

He stepped from the train and was bumped by another exiting passenger, a young businessman carrying a briefcase and in a hurry. There was no apology.

“Idiota,” Russo growled.

There was a time when such an incident might have prompted the old man to strike back. He’d killed over such discourtesy and disrespect. He watched the man disappear in a crowd of people who’d left the train and were rushing to whatever had brought them to Washington: meetings with government officials, business lunches, bullshit, reuniting with family, who knew?

He walked slowly toward where the arrival gates emptied into the station itself, but was stopped by a sharp pain in his side. He drew deep breaths and waited for it to subside before continuing. Immediately to his right was a public men’s room. His need to urinate was suddenly intense, as it had been for the past year since the diagnosis. Prostate cancer. There were instances when he couldn’t make it in time to a bathroom and suffered the embarrassment of soiling himself.

He paused before entering the facility. Marienthal had said he’d be at the gate to meet him, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He took in the people milling about, more than a few of them African-Americans. He didn’t like the blacks, didn’t trust them. Not that he’d had any bad times with them, but he was brought up to trust only his own, Italiano, people of honor. And Sasha.

As he took a few steps in the direction of the entrance to the men’s room, he noticed the tall, slender, well-dressed black man leaning against a wall and reading a newspaper. The man lowered the paper and locked eyes for a second with Russo, then raised the paper to cover his face. Did he sense something in the man’s eyes? The pain in Russo’s side and the need to reach a toilet were momentarily forgotten.

But that was immediately replaced by a sharper pain. He walked as quickly as possible into the men’s room.

When he emerged minutes later, the man with the newspaper was gone. Russo looked for Marienthal. Where was he? People passed him in a rush, the staccato rhythm of women’s heels on the white marble floor sounding louder to him than it actually was. The whirl of human movement around him became dizzying, and he felt light-headed. He turned and stared into a shop window filled with travel accessories, closing his eyes against his reflection in the glass.

A mild panic set in. He hated the accompanying feeling of hopelessness that had been cropping up frequently of late. Crowds confused him, and he’d avoided Tel Aviv’s bustling shops and restaurants for that reason, to Sasha’s annoyance.

Where was Marienthal?

He couldn’t continue to stand there, he knew. He had to move to avoid passing out.

The sense of confusion and disorientation increased as he walked aimlessly into the train concourse, behind the Amtrak ticket counter and past the Exclusive Shoe Shine’s raised platform, where Joe Jenks awaited his next customer.

“Shine, sir?” Jenks said to Russo.

“What?”

“Shoeshine? Best in D.C.,” Jenks said, flashing a broad grin at the old man with the red toupee and cane. “Comb your hair in your shoes when I’m done.”

Jenks’s face went in and out of focus. He looked puzzled.

“Chiacchierone incoerente,” Russo snapped at the bootblack, who put up his hands as though to defend himself against the old man’s obvious anger.

“Have a nice day, man,” Jenks said, shaking his head as Russo continued to glare at him before resuming his path deeper into the mass of humanity that was Union Station at that hour. Marienthal’s phone number was in his pocket but Russo didn’t look for a phone. He needed to get outside, away from the crowds whose chatter, mixed with music from restaurants, and blaring train announcements, assaulted him.

A woman brushed him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling.

For a moment, he thought she was Sasha, and he wondered where he was. Tel Aviv? No, Washington, D.C.

He turned right, in a direction that promised an exit from the huge station to sunlight and fresh air, passing a florist’s kiosk and one selling Godiva chocolates, the Main Hall with its soaring 96-foot-high ceilings, modeled after the Baths of Diocletian and the Arch of Constantine in Rome, ahead, its doors leading out.

He tried to walk faster, but pain in his legs and side prevented it. He stopped and took in air, closed his eyes against the blur of movement around him, then opened them.

The light-skinned black man stood between him and the Main Hall. The trench coat he carried over one arm had no right hand showing.

Deterred from continuing into the Main Hall, Russo turned and limped in the direction of a set of swinging yellow doors, next to a tobacco shop whose sign read PRESIDENT CIGARS. The light coming through small windows on the doors beckoned him. To what? To safety?

The doors opened and a man in kitchen whites pushing a laundry cart came through, allowing the doors to close behind him. Russo looked back. The black man was following-casually, not in a rush it seemed, but following.

Russo’s heart tripped as he continued toward the doors. He thought of the handguns he’d never been without years ago, and wished he had one now. He would blast the black bastard into oblivion, he thought, save himself. You don’t mess with Louis Russo. But that bit of braggadocio was fleeting, displaced by palpable fear.

He was within ten feet of the doors now, and stopped again. The man had closed the gap, was only a few feet behind. Russo shoved against one of the two doors, causing it to open. The long hallway was brightly illuminated by overhead fluorescent fixtures, which momentarily blinded him. Ahead, men pushed service carts and carried trays to and from restaurants served by this off-limits employee area.

Russo took steps into the hallway and shouted at the men. “Hey, hey! Listen to me. I need-”

His voice was cut off by two shots from behind, the first striking him squarely between the shoulder blades, the second tearing a gaping hole in the back of his head. The force of the shots sent him pitching forward, cane and suitcase flying into the air. One of the workers in the hall who was carrying a large tray heaped with dirty dishes struggled with it. He lost control, the dishes smashing into pieces against the hard floor. Other workers looked at the black man, who’d covered the weapon he’d used with his trench coat but made no move to bolt from the scene.

“What the hell?” a worker yelled.

“Get him,” another shouted.

But no one approached Russo’s killer, who slowly went through the swinging doors, turned left into the Main Hall, and turned left again into the East Hall Gallery, where kiosks were open for business-a Radio Shack, a handbag shop, a U.S. Mint outlet, clothing and accessories kiosks, and one devoted to miniature replicas of Washington’s most famous buildings and monuments. All the kiosks were on wheels and could be rolled away when the East Hall was booked for receptions and other social events.

The man carrying the gun beneath his trench coat moved smoothly and quickly, but without a sense of urgency that might draw attention to him, past the kiosks and to an auxiliary entrance to the popular B. Smith’s restaurant, which led to a small bar area. People at the bar paid him no mind as he passed them and entered the main room.

“Table, sir?” he was asked by one of the restaurant’s maître d’s.

“No, thank you. Not today.”

He left the restaurant through its main entrance and stepped out onto Massachusetts Avenue, in front of Union Station, where taxis waited for and dropped off passengers, and a long line of tourist buses and trolleys stood ready to take visitors on tours of the nation’s capital. A large contingent of uniformed police, augmented by National Guard soldiers, patrolled the area. The Homeland Security Agency had recently elevated the colored alert system from yellow to orange; the city was blanketed by security forces.

He waited for a break in the traffic, crossed the wide boulevard, stopping for a second to observe a short, pudgy man playing a trumpet to entertain tourists and hopefully to have them drop money into the hat at his feet, circumvented the 1912 Columbus fountain depicting the Old and New Worlds and the adventurous Italian who’d linked the two, and stepped aboard an Old Town Trolley that was about to transport a dozen sweaty, ebullient tourists around the city.

“Ticket, sir?” he was asked.

“Didn’t have time to buy one inside,” he said, pulling out his wallet and handing money to the driver.

“Thank you, sir,” the driver said. “Welcome aboard. Great day for it.”