Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [64]
“Again?” she’d said when he announced he was going out for dinner with Geoff.
“What do you mean, again? I haven’t had dinner with Geoff in a while.”
“It has nothing to do with whether it’s dinner, Rich. It has to do with my never being with you. You’re either holed up listening to your tapes or reading the proofs—God, don’t you know what’s in the book by now?—or slinking off to meet with your buddy.” She said buddy as though describing a venomous snake.
His anger was rising and he tried to keep it in check, but failed, the way he always seemed to during confrontations with his father.
“Damn it, Kathryn, you pick the worst times to get on your high horse and criticize me. You know damn well I’m getting close to making all the work pay off, and Geoff Lowe is the reason for it. Now just shut up and leave me alone.”
“Shut up? You’re telling me to shut up? Who the hell do you think you are, Rich? What ever happened to the Rich Marienthal I fell in love with?”
“He’s standing right here, Kathryn. He’s no different, but you are, and I’m sick and tired of your goddamn harping about Geoff Lowe and what I do for a living. You don’t like it, then get the hell out.”
She fought back tears as she stomped into the bedroom, threw on a jacket, grabbed her purse, and stormed from the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
He’d wanted to run after her, say he was sorry, patch it up, get her to understand that what he was going through wasn’t easy. It would be over soon and they could get back to the way it had been between them in the beginning. He wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t be involved with Lowe if he didn’t need him at the moment. The truth was—and he couldn’t admit this to Kathryn, at least not yet—was that he hated Lowe as much as she did, and couldn’t wait for it to be over, when their mutual using of each other would end.
He left the apartment twenty minutes later and walked off his anger—but not his unhappiness—on his way to the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill. He rode the elevator to the roof level, and entered the virtually empty Capitol View Restaurant, where Geoff Lowe sat alone at the bar, a half-consumed martini in front of him.
“Hey, buddy, how goes it?” Lowe asked as Marienthal took a stool next to him.
“All right,” Marienthal replied.
Bob McIntyre, leaning against the back bar watching a baseball game on the plasma TV, greeted Rich.
“A beer,” Rich said.
“We’ll be over there, Bobby,” Lowe said to the bartender, pointing to a leather couch in a corner of the room.
“Mei will bring it over,” McIntyre said, indicating the martini.
“So, ready for the big day?” Lowe asked after they’d settled on the couch.
“No,” Marienthal said, thinking of Kathryn and wishing he were with her.
“No?” Lowe said, laughing, as the waitress delivered his drink and Marienthal’s beer. “What do you mean, no?”
“Nothing,” Marienthal said. “Look, Geoff, considering everything that’s happened, I—”
“What everything, Rich?”
“Russo getting killed. The guy who did it getting killed. Maybe we should—”
Lowe turned abruptly, his face less than a foot from Rich’s. “Am I hearing right, Rich? Am I hearing that you’re getting cold feet? If I am—”
“Wait a minute,” Marienthal said, pulling back. “Hear me out. That’s all I ask, just hear me out.”
Lowe leaned back and sipped his drink. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m hearing you out.”
Marienthal thought for a moment before saying, “I’m having second thoughts about Louis, Geoff.”
“Second thoughts? About what?”
“About maybe he exaggerated. You know, he was getting old and he was sick. I mean, Geoff, you’re about to take down a president.”
Lowe held up a hand to silence Marienthal. He surveyed the room before saying, “You’re wrong, Rich. We are about to do that. It doesn’t matter how old or sick Russo was. It doesn’t matter if he exaggerated.