Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [60]
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.
He shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. They looked down on me because of the life I chose.” He placed his fingertips beneath his chin and flipped them into the air. “They don’t matter,” he said. “The hell with them.”
He never mentioned his brothers and sisters again.
Now she sat in a spartan office at a police headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a heavyset detective. It was a few minutes after six. While awaiting her arrival, he’d debated slipping out to a nearby bar for a couple of quick ones, but thought better of it. Now he wished he had. The urge was becoming acute.
“You have a nice trip here?” Mullin asked.
“The flight? Yes. But there is no smoking on the plane. May I smoke here?”
“Afraid not. The rules.”
“Yes, the rules. Always the rules. The flight was all right. The reason for it? No.”
“Yeah, sure. I can understand that. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re, ah—you’re Jewish, right? An Israeli, I mean.”
She smiled. You’re a good-looking woman, Mullin thought. The old mafioso had good taste. Large breasts pressed against the fabric of a purple silk blouse; her crossed legs were shapely beneath a short tan skirt.
“I’m Hungarian,” she said. “My parents were Jewish.”
He nodded. “I see,” he said. “Well, so you’re here to claim Mr. Russo’s remains.”
“Yes. We were not married, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I know that. But no other family member has stepped forth to claim him. I guess that means you.”
“Is it all right if I ask you something, Detective?”
“The name’s Bret. Sure. Go ahead.”
“I am told you found the man who shot Louis.”
“That’s right. I mean, we didn’t exactly find him. Alive, that is. Somebody shot him.”
She shook her head. “Everybody shooting everybody. It’s like in Israel. Bombs, always bombs. People killing people.”
“Yeah. I know. Too much a that. I don’t want to offend or anything, Ms. Levine—I mean, considering your loss and all—but there’s some questions I’d like to ask you.”
“About Louis.”
“Yeah. About Louis. I don’t know how much you know about him, but—”
“That he was a criminal in the United States before he came to Israel under your witness program? I know that.”
Mullin started to say something, but she continued.
“I know that