Murder at Union Station

TWO

TWO MONTHS LATER

He sat in seat 16B, at the window. The seat next to him was empty. He hadn’t said much during the flight. When he’d asked for a glass of water or a pillow, the Delta flight attendant had had to lean close to understand him. He spoke in a soft, low, raspy voice, an old man who’d lost the ability to project.

“He’s so cute,” she said to a colleague as they stood in the galley of the jet. “Have you ever seen such a funny toupee?”

“I’ve never seen an orange one before.”

“It’s supposed to be red, I think. It looks like plastic.”

“I like men who accept getting bald and don’t wear them.”

She delivered the tomato juice he’d ordered.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Sure. Anything you need, just ask.”

He sipped his juice and pulled his airline tickets from the inside pocket of the jacket of his wrinkled, ill-fitting gray suit, something he’d done dozens of times since taking off from Barcelona. He’d recently acknowledged-to himself, never to others-that he’d become forgetful lately, entering rooms without remembering why he’d gone there, misplacing things, throwing away important receipts.

He’d been afraid of losing his tickets since they had arrived by Federal Express a week ago, delivered to the door of the apartment he shared with Sasha on Basel Street, in the old city. He’d put them in his small, hard-sided suitcase and checked on them every hour, it seemed to Sasha, with whom he’d begun living since shortly after having arrived in Tel Aviv twelve years ago.

“Crazy old man,” she’d shouted at him in her native Hebrew when, after looking in the wrong section of the suitcase, he’d failed to find the tickets and panicked. She went to the correct pocket, yanked the tickets from it, and threw them at him. He reacted the way he’d been reacting to her for the past few years. He returned the tickets to the suitcase, locked it, and sat on the small balcony that overlooked the busy street. He’d become adroit at ignoring Sasha and her outbursts, which he knew was the most effective way of annoying her. He sat stoically, deep in thought, thinking of the past, which he did with increasing frequency. Although his memory of recent events had slipped, his long-term memory was still sharp.

She had come to the balcony carrying a glass of Italian wine for him. A large ashtray on a small table overflowed with spent cigarettes, and she added another to the pile.

“Todah,” he said, thanking her in Hebrew and taking the glass from her.

“Prego,” she answered in his native Italian and patted his hand.

“You should stop smoking,” he said. “You smoke all the time, day and night.”

“You smoked when I met you,” she said.

“Yes, but I quit, huh? Cold turkey. For my health.”

Rather than argue, she returned inside, lighted a cigarette, and sat at the kitchen table, on which another full ashtray sat. She knew he was right, but she also knew she couldn’t quit. Not in Tel Aviv, where it seemed everyone smoked, maybe to calm the nerves. What was a cigarette compared to a Palestinian suicide bomber?

He continued to sit alone on the balcony, reflecting on better days. Healthier days. “La vecchiaia!” he muttered, followed by a string of obscenities in Italian and Hebrew, cursing having become old.

The flight attendant reminded him to buckle his seat belt as the flight approached its final destination, Newark Liberty International Airport. He’d gone to the lavatory half a dozen times during the flight, painfully making his way up the aisle, grasping the backs of seats for support, and thanking the flight attendants profusely when they helped steady him on his way back.

She took the cane from his lap and placed it on the floor beneath his feet.

“Thank you,” he said. “Grazie.”

“Visiting family?” she asked before leaving him to attend to her pre-landing duties.

He looked up at her with cold, wary eyes surrounded by loose skin, yellowed from the chemotherapy. She was taken aback for a moment; his gray eyes testified to having seen things in his life she’d never seen, nor would want to.

“No, no,” he said. “It is, ah-it is business.”

She wished him well on the rest of his journey, patted his liver-spotted hand, and left. He looked out the window at the clouds through which they descended. He imagined the clouds would support his body and thought it would be nice to be nestled in them. The jet broke free of the overcast and New Jersey was sprawled out below. Louis Russo closed his eyes, picked up the cane, wrapped gnarled fingers around it, and waited for the plane to land.

“Excuse me,” he said to a Delta agent directing passengers to connecting flights. “The train to Washington? The Amtrak train?”

“Yes, sir, it’s… Would you like a cart to take you?”

“Yes, please. That would be good.”

An electric-powered cart driven by an airport employee delivered him to the rail link between the airport and Amtrak. He stood stoically on the platform, leaning on his cane, the small carry-on suitcase at his feet, waiting for the Acela Regional train, which had left New York’s Penn Station a half hour earlier. He’d used the men’s room at the station and considered buying a hot dog and soft drink at a Nathan’s stand, but his stomach was unsettled from the bumpy flight and he thought better of it. He stepped into a phone booth, pulled a slip of paper from a pocket, and dialed the number written on it in large letters.

The train pulled smoothly into the station as Russo completed his call. He showed his business class ticket to the female conductor, who pointed to a car toward the rear of the train. He chose one of the comfortable blue seats at the end of the car, close to the restrooms and the café car, wearily settled into it, and sighed. It had been a long, tiring day.

He’d departed from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport at dawn, flying to Barcelona and waiting for the Delta flight to the United States. Sasha had packed his medications in a plastic bag and proudly showed him a red-and-blue-striped tie she’d bought for the trip. “You want to look nice,” she’d said. He thanked her and checked that his tickets were safe, swelling the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Don’t forget the yellow pills at lunchtime,” she said as he climbed into the taxi in front of the apartment building. “And call the doctor if you don’t feel well.” His Israeli oncologist had given him the name of a physician at George Washington University ’s hospital.

He turned as the cab pulled away from the curb, saw her wave, wiggled his fingers in response, and sat back.

Israeli security forces had stopped them twice at checkpoints. Russo was asked to show them his airline tickets, which he did, and they were allowed to proceed.

Now, as the train pulled from the station on its way to Washington, and after he’d presented his ticket to the conductor, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. There had been a moment while waiting for the train at the Newark station that he considered going in the other direction, to New York City, where he’d been born and raised, and where the happier days of his life had been spent. But that thought came and went. He would go to Washington where he was expected to be, where they would be waiting for him.