"Yeah, but that girl, Doc. You should've seen what I saw as I walked in!"
"That and more. Hey Joe. Cut that out. We're in public view."
"What? I jus- oh. Sorry," he said, withdrawing his hands from his pockets. He got in his cruiser and followed me home. As I drove through the drizzle I reflected on luscious Lolly and couldn't help but think that Moe's philosophy worked.
Forty minutes later Mary slid back the rice-paper screen of the tiny teahouse, kicked off her slippers, and placed a rough clay pot on the low lacquered table near where Joe and I sat with robes of white raw silk wrapped around us and tied with big sashes. We didn't feel the cold damp. Silk is warmer than wool and as strong as steel, though most people cannot believe this. The pot was filled with boiling hot water which surrounded a bottle of saki. Mary sat down between us.
"Tell him, Joey."
Joe poured a tiny cup of the hot wine and sipped it, staring out through the open wall at the gray-brown water of the pond, which rippled infinitely in the light rain.
"I've been thinking of what the killers have been searching for all along," he said in a tired voice. It was weary- husky with emotional fatigue. "From the start it interested me, of course. Mary can tell you how we were weaned on the Sacco-Vanzetti case. It's funny, but the event seemed to spark the Italian-American community instead of depress it. It was the thing that galvanized and united it. It made us sad, but it made us proud and defiant. So you can see how disastrous it would be if…"
He paused to let out a slow sigh.
"… if it were proved that they were guilty."
Joe let the hot wine roll around on his tongue, swallowed it, then let out another deep breath as he shook his head slowly.
"I've already talked to Gus Giordano about it. That's where I went right after I left your place earlier. Hotfooted it right down to the North End to talk to Gus. Now what we think is… what we think, is that the thing the hoods are after, whatever it might be, is some kind of proof. Probably a document or photo-something. And what we're really afraid of more than anything is that old Dominic Santuccio had something in his files that he didn't tell Andy about before he died. And that something is pure dynamite. Probably Andy found out about it last week and so asked for the bundle back. I checked with the library; they hadn't opened it yet, just sent it back to Andy via Johnny Robinson. Maybe Andy was ordered to get the envelope back. Who knows?"
"Ordered? Who would order him to do that?"
"You know who."
"The Mob? Oh, and that's why DeLucca's name upset you. You knew it was the Mob. Why would they be interested in evidence from the case? And how do we know the thing doesn't clear Sacco and Vanzetti?"
"Those two questions exactly were what was bothering me earlier when I was pacing around in your yard, while the rest of you ate lunch. They bothered me a lot. Okay. Either the Wise Guys want the damning evidence to blackmail the Italian-American community- to threaten to make it public if they're not paid off- or else they simply want to destroy it. I kind of suspect the latter possibility. Much as I hate the Mob, I admire the way they usually look out for the rest of us, especially us Calabrians and Sicilians. But you never know. For the past twenty years the Wise Guys have had everybody believing they don't traffic in hard drugs. Everybody thought it was the blacks and Hispanics. Not so. The Mob is heavy into horse. Why? Because it pays. Pays like there ain't no tomorrow. Now, if they knew the evidence or whatever in Andy's envelope could pay, they might steal it and hold it for ransom."
"And if it got out? The effect on the North End?"
"Disaster. My talk with Gus confirmed that. It'd be a major blow to the community's morale. The thing would travel across America like a shock wave. And Italians wouldn't be the only ones hurt by it. The labor movement, the entire liberal left- hell. The neofascist bunch they've got in the White House now would get that much more ammunition to go after every splinter group, every bunch who's not lily white and WASP. I could see a major backlash?
"I couldn't. And frankly, I don't see how anything carried in that envelope could be hot enough to kill over."
"Yeah, but it was. Why don't you go say that to Sam?"
"Joe? What if whatever it is proves they were innocent?" asked. Mary..
"I just can't see it, Mare," he said, shaking his head, "and Gus can't either. That's why he's even more upset than I am. He's not telling a soul about this and neither of you better either. Mary, how can you sell good news? You can't. And there's no reason to hide it. There's no money or leverage in good news. The only reason people are going after that packet is because there's something Andy didn't want to get out. There's just no other explanation."
I was afraid Joe was right. But I didn't say anything.
"Charlie, you said there was no way they could've been guilty."
"Yeah I know. And I still say it; But then, just as guilt was never really proven and there was no confession, innocence has never been proven either. I feel the weight of evidence remains overwhelmingly in their favor. But it was never a hundred percent."
"Sacco's alibi. That's it. That's what Gus thinks," said Joe.
"What about that other guy's confession?" asked Mary.
"Madeiros? He was doomed anyway. Again, you can take it strongly either way, just like the rest of the case. Pro: Celestino Madeiros knew he was going to the chair and didn't have anything to gain by clearing Sacco and Vanzetti; he did it out of the last twinge of conscience he had left because he didn't want to see two innocent guys get fried. Con: just as he didn't have anything to gain, he also had nothing to lose. Why not make a last-ditch effort to save a few partners in crime?"
"Unbelievable. Hollywood couldn't have written a better script," said Joe.
"It's like one of those optical tricks, Mary. Is the picture with the curved lines an outline of a vase or two faces staring at one another? Is that stairway the top of the basement stairs, looking down, or the bottom of the attic stairs, looking up?"
"Sacco's alibi," repeated Joe. "Both men had lots of witnesses swearing they were with them during the holdup. Sacco claimed he was in Boston that day, right in the North End, getting his passport ready so he could visit his relatives in Italy. He said he went to a local restaurant, a coffeehouse, and met a lot of people as he strolled around during the afternoon. But the jury found that suspicious. Why had this guy missed work- not shown up at his factory in Stoughton- on the very day of the holdup, when he never missed work? Ha! they said, very convenient."
"And Vanzetti?" asked Mary, drawing her silk robe tight around her against the chill.
"Vanzetti's alibi depended on neighborhood friends, who were mostly Italian too. But one legit Anglo-Saxon vouched for him: Melvin Corl, who was mending nets on the beach in North Plymouth. Also, Vanzetti was not absent from his place of business as was Sacco. Reason? He had no place of business; he came and went as he pleased."
"The whole thing is screwy," Mary said.
"Yeah," I said. "But Joe's right. The jury tended to believe Vanzetti a bit more than Sacco. It's the old double. reverse again, don't you see? Sacco's alibi was doubted because it was so good, so coincidentally foolproof. Why would a man decide to go into Boston and be absent from his work on the very day the robbery was committed? To the jury it meant only one thing: a false and carefully prearranged alibi. Add to this Sacco's twinlike resemblance to Mike Morelli… and there you have it."
We struggled to our feet and stood over the lacquered tea table. I felt as if a great weight had descended upon me. I knew what they were thinking, and felt sad. Everybody knew- had known since the arrest and trial- that there was always a chance that it would be shown that the shoe trimmer and the fish peddler had really pulled the job. That they were both guilty of armed robbery and murder and deserved to die.