applying for passports to Italy. As it turned out, the photo he took to the consulate office was too big. He was turned down, and consequently had no written proof of his visit that day. I explained this to Joe and Brian. Both were slightly skeptical.
'Too pat,' said Joe. 'That picture was taken from about twenty feet away. Why would anybody do that? And it just so happens that you've got Sacco in the picture, posing, with his passport photo very conveniently displayed. Nah. Sacco was a typical southern Italian type. Somebody got a ringer for him and posed that shot'
'I agree,' said Brian. 'I'd like to think it was genuine, but I guess I want to know how come a passerby just happened along at just the right time and decided to snap that shot.'
'But wait,' said Mary. 'The shot isn't of the men; they just happened to be in the foreground. The picture is of the harbor. It's a good view too.'
We all stared at the scene in silence. Sam's finger went to the very center of the picture and rapped on it.
'What's this?' he asked in a low voice. 'What's goin' on here?'
He had pointed to a steamboat, bow toward the camera, that was heading for a pier abutting Atlantic Avenue. Directly in the path of the steamer, and broadside to it, was a smaller steam launch. Upon looking more closely, we finally saw what it was that had drawn Sam's sharp eyes. The launch was canted over unnaturally. It was then clear to us that the bigger vessel was in fact colliding with the smaller one, about two hundred yards out in the harbor. And the collision scene, though by no means major, had been sufficient to draw the attention of a sightseer with a camera at hand, for the picture was framed around the two boats. They were the object of the picture, though casual inspection wouldn't reveal it.
'That's one of the old penny ferries,' said Joe. 'I've seen a lot of pictures of them. They operated between Eastern Avenue in the North End and Lewis Street in East Boston. Fare was only a penny for foot passengers. It was before the Callahan Tunnel was built.'
'I remember the penny ferries,' said Sam. 'They were for the working people, the people who worked in the factories… it was the only way they could get to their jobs, so they kept the fare low.'
'Listen to this,' I said, laying out the dripping print of explanatory text on the worktable. I then read aloud to them the following explanation: This photo was taken on the afternoon of April 15, 1920, by Mr. Louis Perez of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during a visit to Boston. Mr. Perez's widow claims he was walking down Commercial Street when he came within view of the harbor. Having his camera ready for a panoramic picture, he planned to walk to the water's edge. However, at the intersection of Commercial and Atlantic, just opposite the old ferry landing, he saw that a collision between the ferryboat Ashbumam, inward bound from East Boston, and the cargo launch Grenadier appeared to be imminent. He took the picture, unaware that Nicola Sacco was standing on a nearby corner talking to his friends Dentamore and Guadagni, who promptly left the scene for a coffeehouse. Unfortunately, they were also unaware of the photographer. Damage to the vessel Grenadier was minor, and the incident, in spite of delaying the Ashburnam's four-minute channel run by eight minutes, was soon forgotten by both crews. However, the Coast Guard, which dispatched the rescue vessel Felicia to stand by, recorded the collision as having occurred at approximately 3:26 P.M., April 15, 1920.
I replaced the print into the washing tray with the others. Nobody said anything. Sam went to the tray and picked up the wet print again. He held it up, and I looked over his shoulder at the face of the little dark man holding the picture. He was smiling. He was smiling because he was going on vacation to Italy to see members of his family whom he hadn't seen in years. But at the very instant the shutter was released, Alex Berardelli and Fred Parmenter lay dying on the roadside twelve miles away in South Braintree while the Morelli gang piled into the big touring car and sped away with the loot. And probably at the same instant Bart Vanzetti was sitting on an overturned dory on the beach at North Plymouth, thirty-five miles southeast, talking with Melvin Corl, the Yankee fisherman. They were probably talking politics, workers' rights, socialism, and all the other things that got Bart into trouble. And the events in Braintree would sweep along and engulf these two men who scarcely knew one another, would sweep them along as if they were in a riptide, so that within a month they would find themselves taken off a Brockton trolley car and arrested. And from the police station in Brockton they would follow an inexorable course that ended in the low, rambling, dusky hills of Charlestown, in the prison death house. Ironically, Sacco's ultimate destination lay just outside the photo, to the left.
And it broke my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
'Thing is,' said Joe as he lunged so hard into an egg roll that the cooking oil ran down his big chin, 'thing is, we gotta make the thing stick.' He commenced chewing, and his big soft eyes glazed over in ecstasy.
We sat around a big table in the Yangtze River Restaurant in Lexington. I had just inhaled a tureen of hot- sour soup, an egg roll, won-ton shrimp, and four pork dumplings with hot sesame oil. I had warned my mouth, esophagus, and all parts below that they were in for trouble, then thrown caution to the winds. Nothing beats a good thing like too much of it.
'How?' asked Mary, whose mouth was swollen with Szechuan spicy beef and fried rice.
Joe shook his head like a big bass fighting a hook. The headshake meant that he didn't know, couldn't talk, or both. We were thinking of an airtight way to nail Joseph Carlton Critchfield to the wall, even though he was ninety- two years old.
'His grandson's the active one now,' said Brian. 'Maybe he's the one we're really after. One thing: we're not going to get anything firm on him because of that letter. It's damning; it'll wreck his rep
… but it won't put him away.'
'We got to get him for killin' Johnny,' said Sam.
'I've got a nasty hunch,' said Brian, 'based on a lot of experience, that if we don't make it tight on the first pass, he'll slip through the net. He's got too many connections.'
'You're dead right,' Joe said, rolling up a pancake filled with mu shu pork: He fed the tube into his mouth; it disappeared like a branch into a tree shredder. 'I suggest entrapment.'
'Isn't that illegal?' I said.
'Yep. I suggest it anyway. Just for openers. All Critchfield now knows are two things. One: nobody's found the incriminating photographs. He therefore has good reason to suspect they'll never be found… at least in his lifetime. Two: the thugs- all three of them- who could testify against him are dead, and nobody's come knocking on his door. He thinks he's in the clear. He's finally breathing easy. He's ready.'
'Count me in, Joe.'
'Forget it, Sam. We count you out. You're up to your ass in alligators already. You've done your part and we all thank you, but now you've got to be cool. Nope, there's only one logical person to spring the trap.'
'Who?' asked Mary.
Joe pivoted around in his chair and leveled a big fat finger at my chest.
'You.'
'Oh no.'
'Oh yes. You're the one, Doc.'
'Now wait a minute, Joey,' said Mary. 'Wait just a goddamn mm-'
'I know, I know. But listen, the thugs are dead and the evidence is missing. But there's one guy around that if DeLucca did report in to old Critchfield- and we have every reason to think he did- could be a possible threat. And we all know who it is.'
Everybody stared at me. I felt like Caesar crossing the forum on the ides of March.
'But I… but I…' I protested.
'Not to worry, Doc. Take it easy, Mare, Joe continued, scooping a pint of sweet-sour pork over a heap of steaming rice. 'There's nothing to worry about.'
He commenced shoveling in the food, and I felt a little better. I guess. But I had my doubts. After all, the last
