'Here's what happened,' I said. 'After old Dom's death Andy, being a good citizen and interested in the case and his father's lifelong passion, donates the papers. Fine. Then sometime later, and we'll probably never know how, he discovers that there's something hot in the papers: a potential bombshell. He has to get the papers back to save the last vestiges of Sacco and Vanzetti's tarnished reputation. Because if scholars dig out the facts and publish them, every American, and especially every Italian-American, will have to face the truth- that Sacco and Vanzetti were indeed robbers and killers. Right?'
'That's it. So far so good… But, he also knows that somebody else wants the papers. Or else why hire Johnny Robinson?'
'Yeah, but who wants them?'
'I don't know,' said Joe. 'But I've seen the archives room at the Boston Public and it's a virtual vault. The people who wanted the papers would have to take them from Andy after he got them back, or else during the delivery itself.'
'It would seem to me that taking them from Andy would be easier and safer,' I said.
'Yeah, but you don't know the North End like I do. It's the tightest of all the Boston neighborhoods. Maybe they thought pulling something against Santuccio on his home turf would be very risky, so they took or lured young Andy away from the meeting with Johnny. Maybe they thought he already had the packet. Under interrogation, he tells them it's on its way via courier, but one glance at Johnny and the dogs and the thugs know it's no-can-do. So they know if Johnny can't make contact he'll either leave the packet at Dependable's office or take it home, where they set up the ambush-'
'Doesn't sound right,' I said. 'Let's suppose that by eleven in the morning the bad guys already have custody of Andy away from his house. He tells them the drop is being made right then, and they're too late to connect. He describes Johnny to them- maybe they're already familiar with how formidable he is- and they set the ambush with the bomb by early afternoon. One or two guys are in Robinson's place waiting. Another guy, stations himself at the Santuccio house to see if Johnny comes back, which he does at around five. Still no Andy, so he leaves and starts home. He stops to call my office, knowing I'm waiting for the bridge. At that time he discovers he's being shadowed.'
'Right!'
'Okay. So he's struck out twice with an important meeting with Andy and thinks he's being tailed. 'A complication, dontcha know,' he says. He's put two and two together and it spells trouble. But he's cool; he's been through worse. He does stop at Dependable to drop off the log sheet and get into his Cutlass to head for home. He takes his pouch with him because he wants to touch base with Andy, and me, over the weekend. Probably the lookout notices this, and calls ahead to some guy waiting; near a pay phone in Lowell. Johnny's coming home with his pouch: get ready.'
'Yeah. So the hit goes pretty much the way we figured it. As soon as he's dead they take Johnny's pouch and skip. They kill the Santuccio boy so he won't talk, and as an afterthought remove two of his digits.'
'Would you guys tell me what's happening?' asked Brian. So we did. And he thought about it..
'But you said the boy was tortured too. That's terrible. It also has to be explained. Why torture the kid? Who would want to do that?'
'Hatred,' said Joe.
'Maybe. But that's only one of the three reasons for torture,' said Brian. 'The other two are information, and the verification of information.'
'Ah yes. Well then, they tortured him in order to find out about Johnny and how to get their hands on the packet,' I said.
'Maybe,' he said, 'or maybe it happened afterward… Maybe they tortured and killed him as a last resort because they didn't get what they wanted.'
'They got it,' said Joe. 'We know they got the pouch; we can't find it anywhere. Neither can Sam.'
Brian Hannon, set fire to a Lucky, inhaled deeply, and let the smoke stream out his nostrils like a dragon.
'Mmmmm. You can't Find it. But that doesn't mean for sure that the bad guys have it. Yet. Johnny was no dumbbell. He was cool and sharp. Maybe he stashed the pouch at the last second.
Who knows? All I say is, I say the torture thing is not only ugly, it's mysterious. It needs explaining. If I were you, Joe, I'd hang in there like a sash weight. Go at it tooth and nail; I'll help any way I can.'
We got up and left the chief's office. But Joe ducked back in to thank Brian, which I thought was nice. Then he said: 'About that ballistics test performed at the Dedham trial. I just want you to know a few things about it, Brian, because like any cop I'm aware of how decisive they are nowadays. This was the first ballistics test and comparative analysis of fired bullets ever performed. The guy who did the test was a Massachusetts state cop, like me. His name was Captain William Proctor. My boss remembers him. Anyway, the results proved that one of the fatal bullets could have been fired from the pistol Sacco was carrying at the time of his arrest. Could have. What they didn't give Proctor a chance to say was that it could have been Fired from any thirty-two-caliber automatic. Later investigations by the defense showed that the spent cases had a peculiar mark on them made by an ejector claw common only to foreign-made automatics. Sacco carried a Colt. The defense later showed that the pistol that tired the bullet probably belonged to Antonio Mancini, a professional killer and member of the Morelli gang of Providence.'
Brian stared dumbstruck during this discourse. Then Joe and I headed for Old Stone Mill Road. I had a question that was gnawing at me.
'Joe, if the defense proved that the bullet was probably tired by this other guy, then why didn't they let Sacco and Vanzetti off?'
'Because they had already been electrocuted. Read the books on the case, Doc. It's not very pretty. The whole thing makes the Commonwealth look like a ninety-pound pile of dog doo.'
Mary was out shopping. I made a big sandwich for my brother-in-law, and while he ate lunch I drank two mugs of coffee and ate half a banana and some yogurt. While we ate I asked him lots of questions about the Sacco-Vanzetti case. Then he left for Ten-Ten Comm. Ave., taking the tapes with him. I returned to my office to look at X-rays and do preliminary work on a mandible resection that I was to perform the following week. After all my appointments I stopped at the library before going home, and emerged with seven books, all about Sacco and Vanzetti.
Quite a case.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tom Costello was miserable, and irritable.
'But the insurance will cover everything, Tom. Every buck.'
'Great! But what about me? Know how thilly I thound over the phone?'
'I've still got the casts; it won't take as long as the first time.'
We made the necessary appointments for the rebuilding of the anterior bridge. It would take a lot of extra time and neither of us was happy about it. I would not bill him for the extra hours it would cost me, of course. As he was leaving I asked him what he knew about Sacco and Vanzetti. He harangued me for twenty minutes about what a raw deal they'd gotten, mostly because they were Italians. Considering his name was Costello, it figured. But then I bumped into Jim DeGroot at the liquor store. I asked; him and he shrugged his shoulders, saying that if a Massachusetts court found them guilty and all the appeals and motions of delay and new trials didn't work, then they probably were guilty.
'But what's the sense in talking about it now? They're dead anyway, right?'
Figured.
Then I asked Moe Abramson, and he said that he pitied not only the two innocent men who were sent to their deaths but the whole sick and bigoted Yankee-WASP establishment plutocracy that set them up. Then he went into a discourse on punishment and guilt, and quoted by memory whole passages from Dostoevski, Freud, Malraux, and others.
Figured.
