The Vendetta Defense

JIMMY: Why the fuck did you send it out? I don’t see why you had to

send it out. Where the fuck did you send it anyway? Camden?

WOMAN’S VOICE: No, sir, our plant is in Frankford.

JIMMY: Frankford? So get your ass inna car and go there! I need my effin’ suit!

She hit FAST FORWARD. The tapes were hand-labeled by date, but they had been running around the clock, and Jimmy spent more time on the phone than any man in creation. Judy had started listening to them the day before the car crash, on January 25, and gone backward in time from there, in case there was any conversation between Coluzzi and Jimmy that suggested the two men had planned it. She hit STOP, then PLAY:

JIMMY: Is that you? WOMAN’S VOICE: Who do you think it is? Cher? JIMMY: I don’t like Cher. Cher don’t do nothin’ for me. WOMAN’S VOICE: Um, how about Pamela Sue Anderson? JIMMY: The one with the tits? Her, I like. WOMAN’S VOICE: Okay, I’m her.

Judy fast-forwarded, with nausea. It made her never want to have sex with an Italian. It made her never want to have sex again, which was turning out to be a given anyway. Poor Marlene. Jimmy Bello was a pig. Judy hit PLAY when she thought she had gone far enough.

MAN’S VOICE: And don’t forget the baby oil. JIMMY: What do you need that for, Angelo?

It was Angelo Coluzzi, and Judy’s ears pricked up despite her fatigue. His voice was deep and brusque, and his English much better than Pigeon Tony’s. So far there had been just a few conversations between the two men, and they revealed only that Jimmy was a glorified errand boy. He ran personal errands:

ANGELO: I told you, get the Cento. I like the Cento. Sylvia likes the Cento. She don’t want Paul Newman. What the fuck’s she gonna do with Paul Newman?

JIMMY: So I forgot, I’m sorry.

ANGELO: What’s so fuckin’ hard to remember? Cento! Cento Clam

Sauce! White! What’s hard? Cento, that’s hard? JIMMY: Cento, I got it. I’ll bring it this afternoon. ANGELO: Cento, for fuck’s sake! It’s the only one without the MSG.

Sylvia can’t take the MSG, I tol’ you that. You know that.

He also ran pigeon errands:

ANGELO: You mix oil with the malathion, stupid. JIMMY: Baby oil? ANGELO: The oil holds the malathion. You mix it and brush it on the perches. The fumes go in the birds’ feathers at night. Kills all the mites. JIMMY: So you don’t want the borax now? ANGELO: Of course I want the borax. Bring the borax, too! You’re so fuckin’ stupid! And pick me up at ten tomorrow.

And he wasn’t always the best errand boy at that:

ANGELO: The peanuts you dropped off, they’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: What? Whatsa matter with the peanuts? ANGELO: They’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: They’re normal. They’re normal peanuts. ANGELO: You need raw Spanish peanuts, not roasted, no salt. The kind you got, they got at the ballpark. You can’t feed ’em to the birds. Why’n’t you just bring ’em a hot dog and a Bud Lite, you idiot? And make it two o’clock tomorrow, not three.

He also ran errands for the construction company:

ANGELO: No, stupid, I said 20,000 square feet of plywood, builder’s grade. They shorted us, the bastards. JIMMY: You said 2000 square feet. I wrote it down, Ange. 2000. ANGELO: 2000? I didn’t say 2000! What am I gonna do with 2000 square feet of plywood in a mall, for fuck’s sake? And pick me up at nine o’clock, can you get that right? Don’t be late.

Judy took notes on every conversation between Jimmy and Coluzzi, but as the tapes rolled on, her hopes sank. There was nothing to suggest that they had caused or planned the car accident with Frank’s parents. She flipped back through a legal pad full of notes. The only evidence she’d gotten was on the first tape, for January 25, the day of the crash:

ANGELO: I’ll be ready at ten tonight and I’m gonna be thirsty.

JIMMY: You got it. I’ll bring the Coke.

ANGELO: Good. Don’t be late.

Judy had listened to it over and over, excited when she first heard it. But on her notes she could see it for what it was. Nothing. All it proved was that they were together that night, not that they killed two people together. But still it was interesting, and it motivated her to keep going, despite her growing fatigue.

Judy checked her watch. It was three in the morning. Maybe she could lie down and listen. She put her legal pad on the floor, stretched out on the soft wool of the conference room rug, and curved her back against Penny’s, which felt surprisingly warm and solid. It was good to have a dog around, and Bennie couldn’t fire her for it, since she did it herself most of the time.

Judy snuggled back against the puppy, who leaned against her in response, then she rested her head on her arm, picked up her pen, and hit PLAY. She closed her eyes and listened to the tape drone on, hoping that, in the still of the conference room, in the middle of the night, she would hear the sound of men planning murder.

A lawyer’s lullaby.

The next thing Judy knew the tape had gone silent and the telephone on the credenza was ringing. She must have fallen asleep. Her navy suit bunched at the skirt. Her brown pumps lay discarded on the carpet. She looked at the windows. It was dawn. An overcast sky, with the clouds showing a pink underbelly.

Ring! Ring! Judy propped herself on an elbow and checked her watch through scratchy eyes. It was 6:30 A.M. Ring! Penny lifted her head and blinked dully, clearly hoping voicemail would pick up.

Ring! Judy got her feet under her, sleepwalked to the credenza, and picked up the phone. “Rosato and Associates.”

“Judy! You there? It’s Matty, Mr. DiNunzio.” His voice sounded urgent, and it woke Judy up.

“Sure, what is it?”

“We been callin’ you all night, at home. What’s the matter with your phone?”

“I don’t know, what’s the matter with it?”

“It don’t work. I called the company, they said there was something wrong with the line, inside the house. They can’t even send a guy to fix it, they only fix the outside lines.”

Judy felt a tingle of fear. Her apartment, unlocked. Her phone, possibly tampered with. It sure sounded like a trap. Her gaze found Penny, who had gone back to sleep curled into a golden circle on the rug, reminding Judy of a glazed doughnut. The dog had saved her life. Judy resolved to be a better mother.

“Judy, you okay?”

“I’m fine. I stayed here and worked. I got these tapes of Coluzzi and Jimmy, but they’re not much help —”

“Judy, I don’t have time to talk. I’m at a pay phone and I don’t have another quarter and I’m almost out of time.”

Judy couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to anybody calling from a pay phone, but it had probably been Mr. DiNunzio. In fact, the DiNunzios still had a black rotary phone at home, resting on something that they called a telephone table. Soon the whole family would be on display in the Smithsonian.

“You gotta come,” Mr. DiNunzio said. “Now.”

“Where? Why?”

“Down by the airport.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but we need your help. Come now. Get a pencil.” He recited an address as if it were familiar, and Judy grabbed a pencil, scribbled it down, and reached for her clogs lying under the table.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

But the line went dead.

The metal scrapyard lay alongside the highway in an industrial section of South Philly, and it was immense, taking up at least three city blocks. Mountains of rusty oil barrels, fenders, bumpers, aluminum duct work, brake drums, and railroad wheels reached like houses to the sky, and between each was a dirt road. It looked like a veritable City of Scrap, and if it was, its city hall sat at its center: a huge metal tower of dark corrugated tin, with a series of conveyor belts reaching to it in a zigzag pattern, like a crazy walkway. Judy had never seen anything like this, except in the cartoon The Brave Little Toaster, but she didn’t say so. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d want your lawyer knowing, much less saying.