“It’s against the law, nowadays?”
“In a way.” She watched the rearview. The Fiesta might as well have been in reverse. The pigeons could die of old age before the cavalry got there. “Chinese people don’t like it.”
Feet shrugged. “So I won’t tell ’em.”
“I don’t even know any Chinese people,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and they all cruised forward under the moon.
It was almost four in the morning by the time the last of Pigeon Tony’s birds had been stuffed flapping into cages, and the cages were stowed in the ancient cars. It wasn’t an effortless fit. The old men crammed birdcages on Honda floors, on the consoles of Chryslers, and even on the dashboard of Tullio’s Fiesta. The pigeons panicked the whole time, beating their wings and giving Judy an education on just how loud a pigeon could squawk.
The noise and commotion woke up many of the neighbors, who came in pajamas to their windows and doors to watch the spectacle. None of them said anything, nor did any help, and one of them clapped as the old men shuffled out of a demolished row-house bearing pigeon cages, green sacks of pigeon feed, cardboard boxes of pigeon vitamins, and empty spray bottles for disinfecting lofts. The Old Man, which Judy had been told was Pigeon Tony’s special bird, hadn’t shown up and at this point wasn’t expected to. Five more birds had returned. Judy hoped Pigeon Tony would be happy.
She stood outside the front door at the curb and kept an uneasy watch on the dark and quiet street. She was armed with her cell phone, ready to call 911 on speed dial and have the cops arrive an hour later. She had to admit that the authorities weren’t exactly on the case. Thirty-odd old men had just emptied a house of its contents, and nobody had said boo.
Short of petty larceny on the part of some very old men, absolutely nothing went wrong. No Coluzzis, no guns, no baseball bats. Not even a rolling pin. Still Judy began to breathe easy only when the last car door slammed and the two Tonys and Mr. DiNunzio climbed into the truck and flashed her a thumbs-up. Judy flipped the StarTAC closed and hoisted herself into the driver’s seat after them. After all, they had only accomplished the first leg of their daring night raid. The second leg was of her devising, and they had agreed. In fact, at Frank’s instigation, they had insisted.
Judy started the F-250’s engine, which roared in hope but ended up idling in disappointment. She fed it only the slightest bit of gas, and it crept forward, the caravan crawling behind them like a sleepy caterpillar.
Judy’s heart leaped up at the sight. Her green VW Bug sat under a streetlight, parked outside the combine’s clubhouse, and it had remained untouched. She’d expected to find it the victim of a Louisville Slugger, but it looked as shiny and new as when she bought it. “Wow! Will you look at that!” she exclaimed. Every time she saw the car, she got happy. She couldn’t help it.
“It looks okay,” Mr. DiNunzio said, surprised.
“Okay? It looks beautiful!” Judy cut the truck engine and opened the door, but Mr. DiNunzio stopped her.
“Wait a minute,” he said, his hand on her arm. “You never know.”
“You never know what?”
“It could be a trap.”
“A trap? Mr. D, it’s only a Bug!” Judy said. She was thinking this secret-agent thing had gone too far.
“He’s right, Jude,” Feet said, in the backseat, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block nodded.
“You can’t trust the Coluzzis, Judy. Could be a bomb in it.”
Judy’s mouth dropped open. “Never happen,” she said, but nobody laughed.
“Lemme see, first,” Mr. DiNunzio said. He opened his door and eased down onto the black running board and out of the truck with difficulty. Ford F-250s were hardly the vehicle of choice for seniors.
“No, wait, Mr. D.”Judy grabbed her backpack and jumped out the driver’s side. The Two Tonys struggled out of their half-doors in the back, and they all stood staring at the green Bug from a distance, as if it were radioactive. The caravan had double-parked in a line down the street and the old men were getting out of their cars, the night filled with the slamming of Ford Fiesta doors. Judy thought the whole thing was silly. “It doesn’t have a bomb or anything.”
“Why not? A bomb’s easy to make,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Feet nodded.
“You can find out on the Internet, just like it was a recipe for gnocchi. My kid tol’ me. They prolly have it on eBay.”
Judy scoffed. The Bug gleamed like an emerald in the streetlight. It was impossible for her to imagine it exploding. Then she remembered that the Coluzzis had killed Frank’s parents in their truck and Pigeon Tony’s car had been firebombed in Italy. Still, she wasn’t worried, really. “But it’s not me they’re after. It wasn’t me they were shooting at. I’m just the lawyer.”
“Oh, yeah. Everybody loves lawyers,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block. The old men left their cars and gathered behind him, Feet and Mr. DiNunzio leading an ocean of bifocals, flat caps, and black socks.
Feet pushed up his glasses by their Band-Aid bridge. “I don’t like it, Jude.”
Mr. DiNunzio was shaking his head. “Don’t do it, Judy. Frank said, ‘If the car looks fine, tell Judy I said she can’t get in it. It could be a trap.’”
Judy looked over. “Frank said to tell me I
“Yeah, but not in a bad way. I mean, he was worried about you.”
Hmmm. Once again there was no point in discussing it. Judy tossed her backpack on her shoulder and strode to the car. She was tired and she wanted to go home to bed. She had a dog to walk. She had a life to live.
“Judy!” Mr. DiNunzio shouted, running after her, but she kept going. She reached the car and dug in her backpack for her keys.
“Don’t worry, Mr. D.” She rummaged around in her backpack. Given the state of her messy bag, it would take her only about an hour to find the keys. Unfortunately, it gave Mr. DiNunzio enough time to reach her, hustling almost out of breath in his Bermuda shorts and white V-neck T-shirt.
“Judy, we should call the police.” Mr. DiNunzio ran a hand over his bald pate, which looked damp. “They have a bomb squad. They could check it out first. Make sure it’s okay.”
“Mr. D, don’t be silly. Everything’s fine. It’s just a car, and I don’t want to wait forever for them to get here. The cops haven’t been paying us much attention so far, have they?”
“Leave the car alone, Judy. You don’t know it’s fine for sure.” Mr. DiNunzio’s mouth set firmly. In the meantime Tony-From-Down-The-Block had hurried after him, with Feet huffing and puffing at his side. The other old men filled in behind them, encircling the car like a determined Roman phalanx. Mr. DiNunzio looked around in satisfaction and pushed up his glasses. “See, we’re all here. If you blow yourself up, you’ll blow all of us up.”
“Mr. D, you’re making too much of this!” Judy felt touched, but the situation had gotten way out of hand. She finally found the car key. All this protection was driving her nuts. “The Coluzzis don’t want to kill me.”
“Oh yeah?” A voice called out from the back of the car, and everybody’s head turned. It was Tullio, rising on rickety knees from the rear bumper.
“What do you mean?” Judy asked.
Tullio frowned. “If they ain’t tryin’ to kill you, then why they got a pipe bomb on your exhaust?”
Chapter 22
Sunday morning, Judy closed her office curtains against the press that thronged on the sidewalk outside the building, for the first time grateful for windows that didn’t open. They sealed out the sound of the First Amendment at work. The sun struggled through the weave in the polyester fabric, and Judy blinked against even that brightness.
She collapsed into the chair behind her cluttered desk, exhausted. She had barely gotten to bed at all last night; there hadn’t been more than an hour to conk out and shower before work. And even so she had been too rattled to sleep well. After they’d found the bomb under her car, she’d called 911, but the press, who listened to police scanners all the time, arrived well before the cops. Neither Judy nor any of the men had talked to the reporters, but they’d managed to get photos and videotape of the two uniformed cops who filled out an incident report and the squad that removed the bomb. They had impounded Judy’s car for evidence, though she had little confidence it would reveal anything. The Coluzzis were too smart to leave fingerprints, and the crime lab was
