Shooting for the Stars (26 page)

PART SIX

ONCE UPON A TIME FOREVER

Chapter
49

A
BBIE
always thought you were harmless,” I said.

“Everyone thinks I'm harmless.”

“She was your sister.”

“I know.”

“Did you know she was your sister when you killed her?”

“That's why I killed her.”

There was no one around us. It was late, and the street on Fifth Avenue outside the apartment house of Laura's mother was pretty much empty. Rizzo moved close to me and I felt the barrel of the gun in my side. He laid a newspaper over it so that no one could see what was going on even if someone did pass by us. He told me to start walking. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I did.

“Why?” I asked him as we moved south down Fifth Avenue. “You at least owe me an explanation.”

“Do you have any idea what it's like being Thomas Rizzo's son? All my life, I tried to distance myself from his world. But it never did any good. Everybody still thought of me as the mobster's kid. No matter what I did, that label was always with me. And, by not following him into the family business, if you want to call it that, I alienated myself from him. I was still his son. But that was it. There was no love there, no respect—he had disdain for me and everything I tried to do. I was a joke to everybody.

“I tried, I really tried to do something to impress him. But everything always went wrong. I went to a good college. I made the Dean's List. Later, I found out I got accepted at the school because my father had paid off people on the admissions board. He paid off professors too; that's why I got such good grades. He wanted everyone to think I was this great scholar. Even my real estate business was built on his money. He never let me forget any of that. My son is so noble, he used to say—he doesn't want to dirty his hands in my business—but he'll take my money. I just wanted to do something right once in my life. To make him proud of me.

“That's why I started seeing Abbie. My father seemed fascinated with her. He was always talking about this beautiful and talented woman on TV. If I had someone like that as my girlfriend, I thought maybe he would see me in a different way. Maybe he'd finally respect me. So I figured out a way to meet her, and we hit it off pretty well at the beginning. We went out on a few dates, and she seemed to like me. But then it all ended. Abbie broke it off. She said I was a nice guy, but she couldn't see me anymore. I didn't understand what had happened to change her so much overnight.”

It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. Thomas Rizzo Sr. had told her the truth. Rizzo was her real father. That meant Tommy Jr. was her half-brother. She didn't tell him that right away, of course. She was probably saving it for her show. But she knew she couldn't keep seeing him anymore. So she made up some excuse to break up with him.

“My father finally told me,” Rizzo said. “I'd gone to him out of desperation and said I didn't understand why Abbie had stopped seeing me. He just started to laugh. He was laughing at me. He told me I couldn't do anything right. Of all the women in the world, I fell head over heels in love with my own sister, he said. He said I'd always been a loser. That he was embarrassed to have someone like me as his son.

“He said as soon as he found out I was seeing Abbie, he reached out to her and told her the truth. He even asked me if I had slept with her, can you believe that? I said no, we hadn't gotten to that point in the relationship yet. He seemed very relieved about that. He said he was just glad he found out in time so he could put a stop to it.

“He told me Abbie was the kind of child that should have been his. That she was smart and tough and he could see her mother in her. He told me he should have stayed with Laura Marlowe, but he didn't because of me. He said he'd given up the love of his life out of some stupid feeling of loyalty and duty to his family. Now his family was Abbie, he said. He was going to make her an even bigger star than she was now, even bigger than her mother had been. He said she was everything that I wasn't. And here I was mooning over her pathetically like some lovesick puppy. All the anger, all the frustration that had been building between us over the years seemed to come bursting out at that moment.

“Then Abbie called and said she was at the hotel. She said she was going to put the whole thing on the air. She wanted me to come on the show for an interview too. I didn't know what to do. All I kept thinking about was that I couldn't let our relationship become public knowledge. If people knew I'd fallen in love with my own sister, I would be a laughingstock for the rest of my life. Not just with my father. With the whole world. I just couldn't live with that kind of humiliation.

“I didn't mean to kill her. I just wanted to scare her. I begged her not to do this. But she laughed. She laughed at me, the same way my father had laughed at me. The way people have always laughed at me. Something just snapped inside of me. I pointed the gun at her. She was scared now, and I liked that. It made me feel good that she was afraid of me. She asked me to put the gun down. She promised not to run the story. But I didn't believe her. I knew
she would. I knew her well enough to know that she could never not go through with a story that good. That's when I killed her.”

Rizzo told me to stop walking, that we were where we were going. I looked around. We were standing in front of the Regent Hotel, which was only a few blocks from Beverly Richmond's building. Laura Marlowe had died at this hotel. So did her daughter Abbie. I had a pretty good idea what Rizzo had in mind next.

“You don't have to do this,” I said.

“I'm afraid I do. Once I found out you'd been to see my father, I realized it was just a matter of time until you'd figured it all out. Now that you know, you have to die too. Just like Abbie. I couldn't let her run this story, and I can't let you do it either.”

“Why here?” I asked, stalling for time in hope someone would see him holding the gun on me and call the cops.

“It provides a nice sense of closure. Besides, people will say it had something to do with Laura Marlowe's death and Abbie's. You'll be part of the legend. The reporter who died trying to solve the mystery. There's sort of a Bermuda Triangle aspect to the whole thing, don't you think? They'll be talking about you for years. Laura Marlowe, Abbie Kincaid, and Gil Malloy. But no one will ever link it to me.”

He motioned for me to walk down the alley next to the Regent. The same alley where Laura had died. We went about thirty feet into the alley. Now, even if someone passed by, there was no way anyone could see us. Just to make sure, he had me walk down some steps toward a basement door. We were completely out of sight now.

“What about Remesch?” I asked him. “How did all that evidence of Abbie's murder wind up in his place in Wisconsin? Did you set him up?”

“I learned from the best,” he smiled. “My father. It wasn't hard to fly up there, plant the gun, and then wait for the law to show up.
It gave me a real sense of accomplishment when he was arrested for the murder.”

He wanted to tell the story. He wanted someone to listen to him. Even if it was someone who would be dead in a few minutes. All his life no one had listened to him. I heard a police siren in the distance. For a second, it gave me a surge of hope. But then it quickly passed. There was no other sound. We were alone, and I needed a miracle if I was ever going to get out of this alive. I didn't want to become part of the Laura Marlowe legend. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be for me.

“Tommy, you're not really a killer,” I said.

“The thing is I kind of liked it,” he smiled. “All those years growing up with my father, I guess I always wondered what it was like to kill someone. Now I know. It gave me a feeling of power that I never had before. My father's dying, and I will get everything from him. The money, the business, and the power—if I want it. I never thought I did. But now I realize that everything's working out perfectly for me. I'm not going to be a joke anymore. I'm going to be the man, just like my father. Killing Abbie was the best thing I ever did. Now there's just this one more little thing I have to finish.”

He pointed the gun at my chest.

“Drop the weapon,” a voice said.

I looked up and saw him standing there at the top of the stairs.

I'd been hoping for a miracle.

Waiting for someone to show up and rescue me.

This wasn't the person I expected.

But I was sure glad to see him.

“Just put the gun down now, Tommy,” Marlboro Man said, except he wasn't smoking a cigarette this time. He was all business. “I've known you for a long time, and I'm trying to give you a break. But you're making it damn hard for me. You screwed up, kid. You screwed up real bad.”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Rizzo said.

He still had the gun pointed at me.

“Yes, it does.”

“Why are you here anyway?”

“Your father sent me.”

“To do what?”

“Clean up your mess, kid. He's always cleaning up your messes. Now I gotta do it one more time.”

“You're not going to shoot me. I'm Thomas Rizzo's son.”

“Abbie was his daughter.”

“I know, but . . .”

“He's very upset about her death.”

“The old man is dying. He'll be gone soon. I'll take over everything then. I'll be your boss. We can make a deal.”

“No deal, kid.”

“All we have to do is get rid of this reporter. Then no one will ever know. I'll have my father's money, my father's power. I'll be the man.”

“Drop the gun, Tommy.”

Suddenly, Rizzo whirled around and started firing.

I dived for cover behind a trash canister just as the first shots rang out.

It was really no contest. Rizzo was scared; he'd never been in a spot like this before. But not Marlboro Man. He wasn't scared at all. This was his profession.

He killed Tommy Rizzo with a single shot to the head.

Chapter
50

H
IS
name is James Kilgore,” I said.

“Who?” Dr. Barbara Landis asked.

“The Marlboro Man.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I asked him.”

“After he shot Tommy Rizzo to death?”

“Yes, I just thought it was important to know.”

Dr. Landis was the psychiatrist I'd seen in the past to help me deal with my anxiety attacks and the underlying problems in my life—as she put it—that caused me to have the anxiety. I hadn't been to see her in weeks. Well, actually it was more like months. I figured she'd be upset about my long absence. Maybe yell at me or lecture me for not keeping up with my treatment. But she just started talking with me as if we'd left off at a previous session the day before.

“What else did you say to this Kilgore person?”

“I asked him why he did it. He said Thomas Rizzo's last wish, the one thing he wanted to happen before he died, was to find out who murdered his daughter, Abbie, and kill them. So that's what Kilgore did.”

“Even if it turned out to be Rizzo's own son?”

“I think maybe Rizzo knew it was going to turn out that way,
but he kept hoping against hope he was wrong. Anyway, Kilgore followed me on the theory that I might eventually lead him to the killer. I never had a clue he was right there behind me. Unlike me, he really knew how to follow somebody. Once he heard Tommy's confession to me, that was all he needed. I don't know if he faced any kind of a moral dilemma over killing his boss's son. I don't think he did. I think he had his orders, and he followed them. I understand that. I respect that.”

“You respect the principles of a man who probably has killed a great number of people?”

“Yes.”

“More than you respect the principles of Edward Holloway or Laura's mother—neither of whom, as it turned out, ever killed anybody?”

“I have a very complicated set of principles,” I said.

After Kilgore shot Tommy Rizzo that night outside the Regent, I wasn't sure what he was going to do next. The easy thing would have been to kill me too. That way there was no witness to tie him to the crime. I had no doubt he would have done that if Rizzo had ordered it. But that wasn't part of the deal.

He'd asked me—not told me—if I would leave him out of it when the cops came and got my story. If I would tell them I'd never seen the shooter before.

“And that's what you did?” Dr. Landis asked.

“Yes, I said Rizzo had confessed Abbie's killing to me. I said someone shot him afterward and then fled. I said I had no idea who that was. Just to throw the police off the trail a little more, I speculated that it was one of Thomas Rizzo's mob rivals who took out his anger on Rizzo's son. I said I assumed it had nothing to do with the Abbie or Laura Marlowe stories. The cops weren't that
upset. They had my testimony about Rizzo's confession, which was enough. Plus more evidence they found once they went back and rechecked everything about Tommy and his movements that night. Anyway, they'd never have to prove it in a court of law since Rizzo was dead. They could close the books on Abbie's murder. Remesch was released from prison, and everybody's going to live happily ever after.”

“And you never wrote about Kilgore or Thomas Rizzo Sr.'s role in saving your life in any of your stories?”

“No.”

“Or told anyone about this—even your editor at the paper?”

I shook my head no.

“So why are you telling me now?”

“I have to talk to someone about it.”

“Still there must be other people you know . . .”

“Someone I could trust.”

“Are you saying that I'm the only person in your life right now that you feel you can completely trust?”

“Yeah, whatever . . .”

I told her about all the personal stuff that had been going on with me since my last visit there. About Susan suddenly getting married to someone else. About Abbie Kincaid and the short time we'd spent together before she was killed. And about my just-ended relationship with Sherry DeConde.

“Three relationship crises like that is a very traumatic series of events to go through,” Landis said when I finished.

“Tell me about it.”

“How are you handling the shock of your wife's remarriage?”

“I'm fine with it.”

“No, you're not.”

“You're right, I'm not.”

“Sometimes things change and we just have to move on with our lives.”

“That's what Susan said too.”

“We've talked about your marriage in the past. You seem to have built that up as a magical time—a Camelot or a utopia—where everything was perfect. But you and I know that wasn't true. There were always problems in your marriage, and you told me that a number of times. And your wife didn't just walk away from the marriage without warning or provocation. It was the culmination of a series of crises—including some infidelity on your part—that you made no effort to deal with at the time.”

I sighed. This damn woman knew me too well.

“Look, I know the marriage wasn't perfect,” I said. “I know a lot of that was my fault too. But I always assumed—I mean I never really doubted until now—that one day Susan and I would get back together again. In the end, despite everything bad that had happened between us, she would come back to me. That was my dream. So much for that dream, huh?”

“It might be beneficial for you to seek out a new relationship at this point,” Landis said. “To move on the same way she has moved on.”

“I'm feeling a little pessimistic about me and the dating scene these days.”

“Based on what happened between you and the DeConde woman?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Perhaps if you went back and gave her another chance . . .”

“Sherry DeConde is dead to me,” I said.

She asked me about working on the Laura Marlowe story. What my reaction had been when I discovered that Laura had killed herself, not been murdered by anyone. I told Landis the truth. I
was shocked, just like everyone else. But I also felt an almost overwhelming sense of grief and loss for the poor woman.

“Why was she so important to you?” Landis asked.

“I'm not sure. I mean she's been dead for thirty years, but she just felt so real to me. The more I found out about Laura Marlowe, the more fascinated I became with her. I felt her pain, I felt her desperation, I felt her loneliness. She was America's sweetheart, and she was supposed to be living this fairy-tale life. Except her life was more like a Greek tragedy. But she still clung to the hope that she could somehow find the fairy tale. That's why she tried everything from Sign of the Z to Jackie Sinclair's X-rated movies to the affair with Thomas Rizzo. And then, when she realized the fairy tale was never going to come true, she killed herself. All of it—her entire life, then her death—was so sad.”

“It sounds like you relate to her on some level—that you've experienced some of those same types of feeling that she did.”

“Well, I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're worried about.”

“But you dream about a fairy-tale outcome—for your marriage, for your entire life—that you're terrified will never happen for you.”

“I think we all dream about that,” I said. “But that's all it is. Just a fairy tale. For me. For Laura Marlowe. For everyone. Fairy tales don't come true.”

It was toward the end of the session when Landis finally brought up my long absence from the sessions with her. She asked if I planned to make another appointment soon.

“Well, that depends,” I said.

“Depends on what?”

“Do you think you can cure me, doc?”

“I think we can continue to make progress with the issues in your life.”

“C'mon, that's psych-speak.”

“I can't guarantee a cure for all your problems.”

“I'd really like to get cured.”

“Let's just be satisfied with making progress at the moment.”

“Do you guys ever actually cure anybody?”

She smiled.

“Okay, so am I making progress?”

“Do you remember when you first came to me? I told you that one of the biggest problems you had was that you measured yourself as a person by your success as a newspaper reporter. When you were on Page One, you felt good about yourself. When your reporting career wasn't doing well, you were unhappy with your entire life. As I recall, you even stopped seeing me at one point back then when you were riding high on Page One. Told me you didn't need me anymore. And yet here you are back in my office again. Even though you're all over the front page and a big media star right now. Despite all that success and adulation, you sought me out for some answers. You didn't bury your problems in the persona of star reporter Gil Malloy. You made a real attempt to deal with them, to confront them, as Gil Malloy the real person. Do you understand what that means?”

I thought about it for a second.

“That we're making progress?” I asked.

“We're making progress,” Landis said.