Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [61]
Rudy, who walked with a distinct limp and who often spoke of the plate in his hip, did not like Michael’s favorite neighborhood eating spot, Tomaso’s Pizza Parlor and Restaurant. “Cheap guinea food,” he said when Michael first suggested going there for dinner, and they avoided it. But on this night, Michael insisted, and Rudy reluctantly went along, grumbling all the way.
Mrs. Tomaso had given Michael her usual demonstrative welcome and seated the men in a booth near the front window. Michael ordered a glass of house red while Rudy, who drank heavily and consumed a number of pain pills each day, asked for Skyy vodka over ice.
“I am sorry,” Mrs. Tomaso said, “but we do not have that.” She pointed to two small shelves behind the counter on which a few bottles of hard liquor were displayed.
“What kind of a joint is this?” Rudy mumbled. He downed the vodka she brought him and ordered another. By the time their food was served, Rudy was well on his way to drunk and had become verbally abusive to the restaurant’s proprietress.
“Shut up, Rudy,” Michael said a few times after his dinner companion had hurled insults at the woman. That caused Rudy to turn on Michael, calling him a “fairy” and a “weak-kneed fag.” Mr. Tomaso responded to the raised voices and came around the counter from where he had been preparing pizzas for a takeout order. Michael waved him off and called for a check. Rudy got up from the table unsteadily and staggered out the door, followed a minute later by Michael, who’d paid the bill and apologized profusely to the Tomasos.
They walked back to the apartment building. When they reached the front door, Michael grabbed Rudy by the throat and rammed him against a wall. “You ever do that again and you’ll need dentures to go with that plate in your hip,” he snarled. “Those are my friends, you bastard, and nobody talks to my friends like that, especially to a woman. You understand?”
Rudy tried to loosen Michael’s grip on his throat. Michael, his face twisted with rage, let go and stepped back. He unlocked the door, grabbed Rudy by the back of his shirt, and propelled him inside and to his apartment door. “The keys,” Michael demanded. “Give me the keys.” He physically ushered the burly ex-GI into the apartment, across the living room and into the bedroom where he threw him on the bed.
“Sober up,” Michael said, and left.
Now, the morning after, Michael was up early. After a vigorous hour of exercise, including lifting a set of weights he kept in a corner behind a chair, he showered, dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and left the apartment, stopping for that morning’s edition of The Washington Tribune and reading it over a breakfast of fresh fruit, a hard roll, and coffee at a local bakery. Joe’s byline was on page one of the Metro section as it had been all week. Reading Joe’s article twice before tearing it from the paper, he carefully placed it in a small leather bag he carried over his shoulder.
His next step was Dean & Deluca in Georgetown where he purchased small portions of hors d’oeuvres—charcuterie, smoked salmon mousse, and tapenade. The attractive middle-aged woman who served him was flirtatious, which he enjoyed, and it enhanced an already good mood.
He took a leisurely stroll through the Watergate complex before entering its liquor store and buying a fifth of each of