him, she knew that. Ricky was nimble and sheathed in an athlete’s confidence, and of course he was a man; he was not available to be possessed. She wanted him anyway. And if he never married her? Was it worth spinsterhood, did she want him even at that price? Yes, she thought. Yes yes yes yes yes.
“Ricky, I love you, you know.”
“Okay.”
“No, the correct response is ‘I love you too, Amy.’”
“I love you too, Amy.”
She squeezed him. Yes yes yes. Maybe a few months earlier, she might have felt differently. But now she and Ricky were entangled. And in the year of the Strangler, well, even if all Ricky had to offer was his charm and his good strong back, Amy thought it might be enough. She had a sense that the city’s mood-the Strangler hysteria, all that mean, selfish, instinctive fear which everyone seemed to feel-carried with it an insight. What was happening in Boston was a passing revelation: The Strangler had taught them there was no safety inside the herd. Everyone was vulnerable. Death could strike out of a clear blue sky, like Oswald’s bullet. If that was true…then yes yes yes, she did want him, at any price.
“Come on, let’s go. We’ll hear some music, you’ll feel better.”
“Okay,” she said.
He bustled around, gathering up her coat and purse before she changed her mind. He held up the statue. “Bring Him?”
She shook her head.
“Right, there might be a cover.” Ricky turned to place the statue back on the counter carefully. “You know, for a second there I thought you were going soft on me.”
“Never,” she said to his back.
9
Suffolk Superior Court, Thursday afternoon.
There was a sense in the courtroom at times like these that they were not adversaries. They were a team, fielding their different positions-judge, lawyer, clerk-working together toward a common goal. The outcome of the case was certain. All that remained was the tying up of loose ends, reading the correct words into the record. It was an unspoken awareness. You tended to feel it when weekends or holidays loomed, in summer especially, on Friday afternoons when everyone was anxious to bug out. A certain contented lassitude crept into the lawyers’ voices. They referred to one another with amiable, anachronistic formality as “my brother.” The familiar formulas spilled out of their mouths quickly and with evident pleasure. They were insiders, technicians, and they were wrapping up.
Michael-who relished these moments of teamwork, these truces-spoke without notes, one hand resting in the pocket of his suit coat, JFK style. “It is a hard case, obviously, and the Commonwealth is not unsympathetic to the situation Mr. and Mrs. Cavalcante find themselves in. But then, they are all hard cases and this is all settled law. Like most of these old tenements in the West End, the Cavalcantes’ building was taken by the government in a proper exercise of its power of eminent domain. As tenants in the building, the Cavalcantes’ lease was immediately terminated by operation of law and they became tenants by sufferance, with no standing to raise these sorts of Fifth Amendment or Article Ten objections.” Michael heard the facile, bloodless tone in his own voice, but hadn’t they been through the drill before with these old West Enders? It occurred to him there might be time for a haircut that afternoon, and his pace quickened again. “However, to touch on the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims: First, there is no merit to the argument that the government’s use of its eminent domain power is improper merely because it benefits a private developer. If Farley Sonnenshein can make a buck rebuilding the West End, then so be it. The project still serves a valid public interest by converting a blighted area, a slum really, into a new neighborhood of obvious benefit to the city. As for the claim that the Cavalcantes have been inadequately compensated for the costs of moving, that’s really something they can take up with the Redevelopment Authority. As the court is well aware, the Authority has gone to great lengths to assist West Enders in relocating to new homes. The bottom line is that, without a valid legal claim, we can sympathize with the Cavalcantes but we can’t do anything to help them. They simply have to move. The whole point of eminent domain is that sometimes a few will be called upon to make sacrifices for the common good. ‘Ask not’ and all that.”
Michael lobbed an apologetic smile toward the older couple seated in the gallery. They blinked back at him as if he were speaking a foreign language-which he was, that is, he was not speaking Italian. And with that Michael nodded smartly to the judge, throwing the ball to him just as a second baseman turning a double play will pivot and whip the ball on to first base.
“Well.” The judge sighed. “I find for the Commonwealth essentially on the grounds that counsel just stated.”
Afterward, as Michael stuffed his files back into his trial bag, a court officer and the Cavalcantes approached him from different directions.
Mr. Cavalcante hesitated behind the bar railing. He was a small man, turned out in an old three-piece suit made from a rough, nappy wool. He held his hat over his heart. “Why did you say nothing about the, the”-he turned to his wife- “delinquenti.”
“Mafiosi, eh, gengsters, bad guys.”
“Gengsters. Why did you say nothing about the gengsters?”
The court officer handed Michael a slip of paper: Call Wamsley ASAP.
“You can talk to the Redevelopment Authority,” Michael answered absently.
“The Redevelopment don’t do nothing. They sent the gengsters. Now you send me back to the Redevelopment?”
Michael tried to focus on the old man, but his mind was on the message from his boss. It was rare that Wamsley or anyone from the office would bother him in court. That was the best thing about being on trial: You could not be disturbed. The joke in every lawyer’s office was that there were only two places where you could not be called to the telephone, the bathroom and the courtroom.
“The Redevelopment says, ‘Go to Medford, there is an apartment for you.’ That’s all they know, over and over, ‘there is an apartment for you, there is an apartment for you.’ Nothing about the gengsters.”
“Look, just call the police. If you want to report a crime, call the police. I’m sorry, Mr. Cavalcante, Mrs. Cavalcante, I’ve got to go, I’m sorry.”
The old couple stood staring. The man turned his head slightly, as if he had not heard the answer or was expecting to hear more.
George Wamsley bore a faint resemblance to Mr. Wizard. His ears protruded like a butterfly’s wings. His hair was forever mussed though he was forever combing it. His teeth were big and horsey. He was rumored to be a genius, and inside the Eminent Domain Division of the A.G.’s office, which Wamsley headed, he was revered. He would sweep through the office with loping strides and a whooping laugh, lavishing extravagant praise on the young lawyers who worked for him, complimenting them on this motion or that brief, engaging in earnest discussions of mundane cases, and in his wake would be a sort of turbulence, a high. You felt ravished and energized by him. Somehow some of his wet and goofy enthusiasm got into you, and you in turn churned up his enthusiasm with your work. Your work! No longer were you a bureaucrat or some mustache-twirling villain out of Dickens, preying on the poor in the name of progress (a turnpike, a parking garage). You were part of a grand, historic effort to build a great city out of a decrepit one. Never had eminent domain seemed so damn interesting.
No doubt at any other time a man like George Wamsley would never have accepted the job of running the Eminent Domain Division. He had had choices. He was a Lowell cousin, a friend of the poet. A gentleman dilettante before the war-the sort of cultivated Yankee crank who dabbled in Negro music and sailboat racing and Oriental mysticism-Wamsley first found his stride after the fighting stopped, as an adjutant in the American sector of Berlin. In the straitened chaos of 1945 and ’46 Berlin, an energetic polymath like George Wamsley could get things done. He spoke three of the four languages that were about. He enjoyed the dives on the Ku’damm and the improvised bar in the ruins of the Hotel Adlon. He collected antiques in exchange for Army beef and Lucky Strikes. War, at least the ruins of it, turned out to be a great adventure. When he returned to the States, Wamsley had drifted back to
