“Hello, son. Glad you could find the time to spend a few hours with us. Been a while.”
Marienthal held back from reaching over and offering an awkward embrace of his father, who immediately drove away from where he’d parked and headed for the family home in the prosperous enclave of Bedford.
“How’s Mom?” Marienthal asked.
“All right, although I’m worried about her. She seems befuddled from time to time. Not as sharp as she used to be.”
Marienthal looked at his father, whose eyes never left the road, his patrician features clearly displayed against the dark window behind. He wore his requisite sharply creased chinos, blue button-down shirt, short, supple brown leather jacket, and perforated driving gloves. He hadn’t aged in Rich’s eyes; he seemed always to have looked this way.
“How long can you stay?” the father asked as he turned up a long, winding dirt road leading to the house.
“Just a couple of hours. I have to get back to Washington.”
A smile crossed his father’s thin lips. “You make it sound as though the White House is expecting you,” he said, his voice pinched, nasal.
Rich let the comment pass and turned to take in the passing greenery. Two Hispanic gardeners working on the property waved as the car passed; his father returned the greeting with a flip of a finger.
“José still work here?” Rich asked.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t he? He’s well compensated and loyal.”
Is he saying I’m disloyal?
Rich wondered. It didn’t matter. There undoubtedly would be many such comments to consider.
They pulled into a circular gravel drive and came to a stop. Rich revised his earlier observation that his father never aged. Out of the car, he looked older, slightly stooped; Frank Marienthal had always been proud of his erect posture. As they approached the front door of the 1860s colonial-style home, its white clapboard and antique green shutters and door immaculately painted, the flowering shrubs on either side of the walkway manicured and healthy, he also took note that his father’s gait wasn’t quite as assured as it had been in past years. Still, he exuded presence and purpose. That hadn’t changed.
Rich dropped his knapsack on the granite floor and followed his father into the kitchen, where Rich’s mother, Mary Marienthal, a short, slender woman with carefully coiffed white hair and a rosy complexion, worked alongside a black woman in a white uniform.
“Richard, darling!” Mary said, skirting a large stainless steel prep table in the center of the spacious kitchen to hug her son. “Let me see you.” She stepped back and took him in from head to toe. “You look wonderful. A little tired. Not getting your rest?”
“Not lately, Mom.” He went to the black housekeeper and gave her a hug. “How you doing, Carrie?” he asked.
“Oh, just fine,” she said. “Getting older faster.”
He joined her laughter. “You don’t look a day older than when you first came here,” he said.
“Hungry?” his mother asked.
“No, thanks. Had something to eat before I got on the train. A beer, maybe.”
He looked through the open door to a long hallway leading to the dining and living rooms. At the end was his father’s home office, where he was sure his father had retreated. Small talk in kitchens bored him. Small talk in any room bored noted criminal attorney Frank Marienthal.
A bottle of Killian Red in hand—no glass, thank you—Rich left the kitchen and went to the office. The door was open. The elder Marienthal sat behind his large custom-made, leather-topped curved desk. Floor-to-ceiling windows behind him afforded a restful view of gardens to the rear of the house.
“Come in,” his father said.
Rich entered and went to tall bookcases that took up an entire wall. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Perusing books on the shelves delayed the conversation he knew was about to ensue. Eventually he turned, smiled at his father, whose stern expression didn’t change, and took one of a pair of red leather armchairs across the desk. He raised a blue-jean-clad leg and dangled it over an arm, in contrast to his father’s stoic, proper posture.
“You wanted to talk to me,” Rich said.
“Yes. I’ve heard about Louis Russo’s murder.”
“Where did you read it?”
“I didn’t read it. I was called about it. I’m surprised I didn’t hear it from you.”
“I’ve been busy since it happened. I’m sure you can understand that.”
Frank Marienthal paused, his position behind the desk not changing, his eyes focused on his son. “Frankly, Richard, I do not understand it.”
“Well, I can’t do anything about that. About your not understanding it, I mean.”
The father’s dark blue eyes bored holes in his son. “Maybe I should educate you a little, Rich. I’ve tried to do that throughout your life, but you’ve always resisted, of course. Rebellion and such.”
“Dad, I—”
Frank Marienthal’s hand slowly came up, fingers widely separated. “Please, hear me out. You do know, Richard, that I was firmly against this book of yours. I tried to dissuade you at every turn for many reasons, not the least of which is the secondary use it might be put to.”
Rich removed his leg from the chair’s arm and planted both feet on the floor, as though girding himself for war. In a sense, he was.
The elder Marienthal continued. “When you first asked me to intervene with Russo and put you together with him, I initially refused. Remember?”
“Sure I remember.”
“But you pressed the issue and I acquiesced. You said you needed to interview him for background material for a
novel
you were writing about the mob. You used privileged information to make your case with me. Frankly, Richard, I resented it then, and I resent it now.”
Rich waited a moment before responding. “Look, Dad,” he said, “that so-called privileged information wasn’t very privileged after twenty years. Besides, it’s not information that was important when you represented Louis—when he turned informant and went into witness protection. It was outside lawyer-client privilege.”
Frank’s eyebrows went up, and he smiled. “Where did I go wrong?” he said through a deep, prolonged sigh. “You’re going to lecture
me
about lawyer-client privilege? As I recall, you refused to go to law school as I wanted you to do. Another bit of sophomoric rebellion.”
“I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” Rich said, “any more than I wanted to accept the appointment to Annapolis. I know you meant well in encouraging me in those directions, but they didn’t represent what I wanted. Why can’t you accept that?”
“How is the writing career coming?”
“You didn’t answer my question. You changed the subject, the way you always do. A courtroom technique I would have learned in law school, I suppose.”
Rich took a swig of beer, started to place the bottle on the desk, but instead lowered it to the rug next to him. He felt his anger rising, and silently told himself to keep it in check. He’d lost control too often in the past when in such conversations with his father. Each time, his volatility rendered him helpless in contrast to his father’s calm, reasoned approach. No matter how right he might have been during those confrontations, losing control quickly became the issue, the only issue. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
“Why so combative, Richard?”
“Why is it that whenever I disagree with you, you call me combative?”
“I was asking about your writing career.”
“It’s going fine. I met with my editor this morning before coming here.”
His father slowly shook his head.
“Yeah, I know,” Rich said, reaching down for his beer and finishing it. “It’s Hobbes House. The fact is . . .”
“The fact is, Richard, that Hobbes House’s reputation isn’t a secret to anyone, including you.”
“They wanted the book!”
“Of course they did.”
“Dad—”
“You and your book are being used, Richard. Isn’t that evident? You’re bright enough to see through that.”
“Thanks.”
“And you used Louis Russo. The man is dead because you lied to me about the sort of book you were writing. You called it a novel.”
“It started out that way. But I changed my mind. Hobbes House is still calling it a novel to keep things under wraps until publication.”
“Why did Russo come to Washington? ”
“Whoa, hold on,” Rich said. “You claim you resented me when I asked to be put in touch with Louis. Well, I resent being accused of using him and being responsible for his murder. He agreed to talk to me—thanks to you—and he went on to tell me his story, the whole story. I really liked Louis.”
“I’m sure that’s a comfort to him.”
“He agreed to come to Washington of his own free will. Sasha—she’s the woman he lives with . . . lived with in Tel Aviv for years—told me she thought going to Washington was good for him, gave him a sense of purpose.”
“You haven’t answered my question.
Why
was he in Washington?”
“To meet with me. We were going to talk . . . about the book.”
“I thought you finished it.”
“I did. I just thought—”
“You believed the story he told you?”
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“No, and I told you that. You entered into this agreement with a sick, delusional old man.”
His posture relaxed somewhat as he lapsed into what would pass for reverie. “I remember well his tales of intrigue, Richard. He was like so many of them, looking to enhance his image by inflating his importance. A strange thing about mafiosi. They consider themselves super-patriots, keepers of the flag and flame, appreciating their country more than law-abiding citizens. Crooks? They’re desperate for respectability, Richard. They know they’re nothing more than common thugs, leg-breakers and murderers. They cost this nation millions in labor union extortion and other illegal activities. Yet they seek approval from politicians and have gotten it on occasion. Louis Russo was no different. He was just a soldier in the Gambino family who got squeezed by authorities and decided to break his oath. Frankly, Richard, I’m surprised that you would give credence to such a man.”
Frank abruptly stood and looked out at the garden. As Rich observed him, he thought back to when, as a teenager, he would be allowed to visit New York City courtrooms where his father defended clients accused of myriad criminal acts—rape, drug dealing, assault, arson, and murder. Some of his highest profile cases involved members of organized crime. He became known in the press as a mob lawyer, although mobsters did not constitute most of his practice. He was an unlikely attorney to be involved with defending members of organized crime, at least from Rich’s perspective. Other so-called mob lawyers were New York characters, it seemed to him, Runyonesque types who acted like their clients—brash, irreverent, fast talking, scornful of the judicial system that looked to prosecute them for their crimes. His father was the antithesis of those attorneys—Harvard educated, family money, erudite, soft-spoken, a gentleman.
But he was also a brilliant defense attorney, dedicated to pretrial preparation, skilled at cross-examination (one of three books written by him delved into the art of that subject), and well connected within the community of judges before whom he plied his trade. His success at obtaining not-guilty verdicts was the envy of other lawyers; many sought him out as a co-counsel in particularly difficult cases.
Once, when asked by a TV reporter outside a courthouse, after one of his mob clients had been found not guilty, how he could justify in his own mind defending people who were so obviously guilty, he replied, “The fact that you assume these people are guilty flies in the face of our system of jurisprudence. I certainly wouldn’t want someone as close-minded as you on any jury of mine. Excuse me. I have other places to be.”
What he didn’t add was that he chose his clients based upon their ability to pay his sizable fees. A mafioso’s money was as good as anyone else’s, and they always had plenty of it to buy the best possible defense.
Mary Marienthal came to the door as Frank turned from the window.
“Not now,” he said, waving his hand.
“I just thought Rich might like another beer,” she said.
“He’s had enough beer,” her husband said. “Close the door, please.”
She looked at Rich, who’d turned in the chair at her arrival. Her eyebrows went up. He gave her a reassuring smile and she backed away, closing the door behind her.
“You asked how my writing career was going,” Rich said after his father had resumed his place behind the desk.
He was met with a noncommittal stare.
“It wasn’t going very well for a while, and you know all that. But this book will turn that around. I don’t care whether it’s Hobbes House or Random House. Geoff, a friend of mine in Washington, knows people at Hobbes House and suggested I submit the book to them. They bit, and with enthusiasm. Sure, I know their reputation. They’re a publisher with a conservative bent. Big deal. They’ve had some best sellers in the past couple of years, and that’s what I’m looking for. This is my breakout shot, Dad.”
Rich stood and paced the room, coming to a stop in front of the desk. He placed his hands on it and leaned toward his father. “Can’t you be supportive of what I’m doing?” He turned to take the chair again and kicked over the empty beer bottle. “Sorry,” he said, righting it and sitting.