The Vendetta Defense

eyes told Judy, in that moment, that he was capable of murder himself.

She sat down at counsel table, and she was shaking.

Chapter 44

It was after six o’clock at night by the time they got back to the office, and almost everyone had gone home. Judy had just gotten Bennie and Pigeon Tony into the war room at Rosato & Associates when Frank put a gentle but insistent hand on her suit sleeve.

“Can I see that file now?” he asked, his voice quiet. He had been silent all the way back from the courthouse, stuck in the cab with one security guard and Judy.

“Sure.” Judy wasn’t surprised, and set her briefcase and purse down on the polished walnut table. She opened her briefcase and retrieved the complete file, including the police file and the report of the accident reconstructionist. It would be awful for him to read. Judy couldn’t get its gruesome conclusion out of her mind, and the Lucias weren’t even her parents. “You sure you want to read this?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Judy stacked the computer-animated videotape on top of the report. It had convinced her, and she hoped it would convince Frank. “You can read in the other conference room, which also has a TV with a VCR in it. It’s down the hall and to the left. You probably don’t want me to send you in dinner, do you?”

“Thanks, but no.” Frank met her eye, but his gaze was disconnected, and Judy suppressed comment. It made sense he’d feel distant.

“You go ahead,” she said. “I want to talk to your grandfather anyway, explain to him what we’ll be doing tomorrow.”

“Okay, thanks.” Frank palmed the files and tape and left, closing the door behind him, as Judy settled Pigeon Tony at the table and Bennie went to the credenza at the far end of the room, picked up the phone, and began checking her voicemail.

“Frankie okay?” Pigeon Tony said, and Judy shrugged.

“I hope so.”

“I no like.” Pigeon Tony hung his head. “Not good. Not good for Frankie.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Pigeon Tony looked up, his eyes dark and sad. “No, not. Not a good day for him.”

Judy felt a twinge. It was clear Pigeon Tony wasn’t talking only about Frank. She told herself to slow down. Dialed herself back a little. “You want some coffee, Pigeon Tony?”

“Got Chianti?”

Judy laughed. “No. But you won’t need it. You want water?”

“Si, si.”

“No problem.” Judy got up and grabbed the pitcher of water from the back of the credenza, where Bennie was still on the phone. The woman must have 2,543 phone messages. Judy brought the pitcher back to the table, poured Pigeon Tony some in a Styrofoam cup, and handed it to him. “Here, handsome.”

“Grazie, Judy.” Pigeon Tony took a sip, and Judy watched his knobby Adam’s apple travel up and down, as if it had been hard to swallow. “My wife, Silvana. You know?”

Judy nodded, wondering where this was coming from. But she had noticed that when Pigeon Tony got tired or stressed, he became confused or talked more about the past. Judy could only guess at what memories this case was dredging up for him. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to live through a war, or to lose people you loved. She poured herself a cup of water, kicked off her pumps, and eased back to let him talk.

“Silvana, she gotta hard head. Baby Frank, he gotta hard head. Me, I’ma no hard head.” He smiled, and Judy smiled with him.

“No, not you. You’re a piece of cake.”

Pigeon Tony laughed then, a little heh-heh-heh that fit his size perfectly, a custom-made laugh. He finished his thought, shaking his head. “Silvana, she beautiful!”

“I’m sure she was.”

“I tella judge how beautiful!”

Judy sipped her water as Pigeon Tony’s eyes began to shine, his thoughts transported to another place and time. Judy had seen her grandmother do this, without the depth of feeling. Or maybe Judy had never given her grandmother the chance to talk over a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm water. She should have, and now it was too late.

“I tell judge when I first see Silvana, I meet Silvana, onna road with Coluzzi, atta race. How beautiful she is! Onna cart! She wear”—Pigeon Tony’s small hand went to his lips and he patted them, fumbling for the word—“she wear, you know. Rossetto per le labbra. You wear, when I see you, at jail.”

“Lipstick?” Judy offered.

“Si, si!”

Judy smiled. And here she thought she didn’t speak lipstick.

“Red, like wine she wear! Onna mouth! How we kiss!”

“Ooh!” Judy laughed. “Can’t tell that in court!”

Pigeon Tony held up a finger. “No! No! We kiss with a tomato! Si, si! Yes! A tomato!”

Judy didn’t get it, but Pigeon Tony was too wrapped up to stop and explain.

“So many tomato! Many, many tomato! Until she love me! Alla my tomato!” Pigeon Tony went heh-heh-heh. “Alla time, my mama, she say, ‘Where my tomato? I no have tomato, for make salad! Why I no have tomato?’ I laugh and laugh.”

Judy smiled, her throat unaccountably tight. She didn’t know exactly what Pigeon Tony was talking about, but she could get the gist. And somehow the feeling.

“Then Silvana, she eat lunch, make picnic, with me. You know, make picnic?” Pigeon Tony looked at Judy for verification, and she nodded. “In woods. Alla time. We talk and talk and we kiss.”

“No tomato?”

“No tomato. Kiss! Kiss a woman! La bella femmina! Ha! Aha! So sweet!” Pigeon Tony clapped his hands together once, his face alive with the memory. “Such a kiss! Such a woman! Sweeter than tomato! I say to myself, Tony, you marry these woman! You be happy forever!”

Judy smiled, forgetting for a minute the way it had all turned out, but Pigeon Tony leaned over and touched her hand.

“I tell judge, I tell him how she marry me, and choose me, he will see.” Pigeon Tony’s voice grew urgent, and deep. “Alla Coluzzi, I tell judge, how Coluzzi beat chemist, beat me, in street, at Torneo. You know, Torneo?”

“No,” Judy said. It sounded like tornado.

“I tell judge, he know. I tell people—how you say, jury—they know. I tell, I make them see how Coluzzi murder, murder my Silvana. Murder my baby Frank. Murder Gemma, his wife. I make them see!”

Judy shook her head. He wanted to testify so much, she couldn’t reason with him. “Pigeon Tony, you’ll tell them all about Silvana and how wonderful she was, and then you’ll tell them all about Coluzzi and how terrible he was—”

“Si, si! And how he kill her, how I find her, inna stable, with baby Frank.” Pigeon Tony’s breathing began to quicken. “Baby Frank see his mama! Like that!” Pigeon Tony’s eyes filled with tears, and Judy jostled his hand, trying to bring him back to the present day, to a different country.

“And then you’ll tell the judge and the jury what? How you went into the back room at the clubhouse and Coluzzi told you he killed Frank and Gemma and then how you ran at him and broke his neck?”

“Si!” Pigeon Tony nodded. “I tell! I do it! I make them see no is