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.
"You know who I think really convicted them, even more than that bastard judge Thayer? It was the jury foreman, Ripley. He hated Italians. He was a cop who wanted more than anything to 'get the dagos.' Can you imagine allowing ga jury like that? They should've had some Jews on that jury. It never would have happened."
"Why?"
"Simple. Of all the people who have suffered from prejudice and persecution, we've suffered the most. But we're not like the other groups, who then can't wait to dish out hatred to the next bunch of unfortunates. The Jews don't do that. We've never done that and never will; we stay with the underdog. Listen Doc, more than anyone else it was two Jewish men who tried to get Sacco and Vanzetti off the hook: Felix Frankfurter and Herbert Ehrmann. Wanta see my new tank?"
"No."
"Get in here this instant." He held his office door open and I followed reluctantly. I stayed two feet behind him and got ready to shield my eyes. The new tank was high and narrow and filled with bright coral fans. Several brilliantly colored fish wafted about. Surprise, surprise; Moe's taste was improving.
"Salt water," he said. "Those are tangs. Nice, eh?"
"Great. I'm surprised that you-"
But I stopped short, speechless with revulsion at what I saw at the bottom of the tank. The sand there came alive in a flapping, rolling, undulating mass of writhing flesh.
"Good God!" I groaned.
"What? The skate? He belongs there, Doc. Part of the scheme of things."
The horrid bulbous eyes darted about as if on stalks. Four vents behind each eye opened and shut rhythmically. The scaly tail twitched. I spun about-face and departed.
" 'Bye, Moe. We'll resume our chess game when you get rid of the tank."
"Remember, Doc," he yelled after me, leaning out of his doorway, "every creature deserves a home, even ugly ones."
"Don't be a sap," I said.
I went home at five-thirty, went for a run, took a sauna and shower, sat with a cold mug on the porch, and started to read the first book about Sacco and Vanzetti. After twenty pages I was disturbed. After eighty I was distraught. Surely this was some kind of joke. Certainly the author did not know what he was saying… So I put it down and tried another. Worse. Okay, I told myself, the third time's the charm. So I picked up tome number three. Disastrous. I put the books down and gave the far wall a thousand-yard stare. I felt bludgeoned. If it weren't so sad it would be almost humorous. The proceedings of the case, and the various assumptions, allegations, denials, and refusals, had all the earmarks of a vaudeville skit.
Mary came home. I heard her high heels clicking and snapping around the kitchen linoleum. I heard a shopping bag rustle, the refrigerator door open and shut.
"Charlie?"
"Mmmmph."
"What are you doing home? What's the matter?"
I explained the reading material. She replied that of course they were innocent men. Of course they'd been railroaded to the chair. Where had I been?
"Our folks talked about that case all the time when we were kids in Schenectady. Didn't Joe tell you?"
"Joe just left here. He ate the biggest submarine sandwich ever constructed. He just ate a Trident-class sub. He's taking us to dinner tonight at Joe Tecce's. Now let me be; I want to reread key parts of these books again to make sure there's no mistake."
I did. Then I read them again., Mary came in and said it was time to get ready. She asked me why I was reading and rereading the books. .
"Because I'm hoping that I've overlooked something; that something will change if I keep reading it over."
But it didn't. It was with a weary heart that I donned the fancy duds. Even the sight of Mary prancing around in her undies didn't cheer me up, and she looks nice in 'em. We got in the Audi and got on to Route 2 for Boston. I had a tape of Mozart's Concerto No. 2 for Horn playing, and it helped a bit, but not much. By mistake Mary first popped in the cassette of Jeannie Redpath singing Scottish ballads. That can have you bawling in five minutes even if you're in a good mood. We drove along and I puffed on my pipe in silence. Mary turned off the tape.
"Okay, Charlie. Tell me about it. What's gotten you so depressed? We've got the time now. Spill."
"Everything I read about Sacco and Vanzetti points not only to a trial that was unfair but to an inexorable machine of destruction pointed straight at them."
"So what's new about that?"
"I've got to read the stuff more carefully, but getting into it fast, I saw the sweep and size of the monster. Most people have now acknowledged the unfair-trial part. After all, Sacco and Vanzetti, while never even accused of any crime whatsoever prior to their arrest, were radical anarchists. Anarchists killed President McKinley in 1901, and started the First World War by killing Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. So they were unpopular. This is old. What's new to me is the sense of orchestration behind the events of the trial and subsequent appeals. I keep seeing in my mind's eye a smoke-filled room somewhere with a small group of very rich and well-dressed men puffing on cigars, planning the whole thing. And this cabal could set the machinery in motion, Mary. Ah, yes… just as easy as throwing a switch in one of the textile mills, setting all those flywheels spinning, those loom arms thumping, those bobbins twirling…"
"Well hasn't that been said before?"
"Kind of. It was alleged vaguely. It surfaced during the seven years of the trial and appeals-"
"Seven years!"
"Oh yeah. During the ordeal some of the undercurrents were visible. But when you look through seven books all at once you see the entire thing, as if from a space satellite. I can't help seeing a great mechanized thing, fueled by power and wealth, running down those two steerage-class troublemakers without even missing a beat."
"You sound like Jack London."
"Don't mean to. And, of course, they could have even been guilty. But guilty or not, they had that machine set after them like the Hound of Hell. As sure as we're sitting in this car."
"What happened? The crime, I mean."
"On April fifteenth, nineteen twenty, there was an armed robbery of a shoe factory in South Braintree. It was the Slater and Morrill factory on Pearl Street. The spot is probably less than a mile from where the South Shore mall is now. In the robbery the two payroll guards were shot dead. They didn't try to go for their guns or anything; they were just shot down in cold blood. Murdered. About fifteen grand was taken by five holdup men, who escaped in a large touring car."
"They stole money, not shoes?"
"They robbed the payroll. It was payday. In those days workers weren't paid by check; they got cash in pay envelopes which were toted around in strongboxes and armored cars like Brinks trucks. It was like the old Westerns, in which gold was carried on trains and stagecoaches. But your point about stealing shoes is interesting, because only people with a great familiarity with the factory and its procedures could have pulled off the heist, which went like clockwork. They even dribbled out a stream of tacks behind the car so pursuing vehicles would rupture their tires. They got clean away."
Mary sat in silence for a second before asking the obvious sequitur: "If they got clean away, then when were Sacco and Vanzetti arrested?"
"Twenty days later, on a streetcar in Brockton. It was about ten at night. Both men were armed with handguns. They had spare ammunition too. When asked about their business that night, and where they were on the day of the robbery, they lied."
"Huh? I never heard it that way."
"Probably not. Not in an Italian-American family you wouldn't. But it's true. So you see they weren't off to a good start. Add these circumstances to the fact that they had both gone to Mexico as draft dodgers during the Great War, and the fact that Sacco was not at work on April fifteenth- he missed that day and only that day- and the fact that Vanzetti, a fish peddler, had no regular job or employer who could vouch for him, and you can see how their troubles multiplied pretty quickly."
"Jeeez, Charlie. Maybe they were guilty!"
"May be."
We drove on past the Fresh Pond Bowladrome and fruit stand. I could feel Mary glaring at me.
"Don't play games, dammit! You've got me hanging now. Did they or didn't they?"
"Did they what?"
She punched me in the arm. It hurt. She'd make a good featherweight, I thought, and I told her so. She hit me again.
"Okay, okay," I said. "An interesting thing was this: right after the South Braintree robbery the police in New Bedford were closing in on a known gang of robbers they were watching because of a suspicious license plate and a stolen car that might have been used as the escape vehicle. This gang, called the Morelli gang, was based in New York and Providence. One of the Morelli brothers lived in New Bedford. But the New Bedford cops cut short their investigation."
"Why?"
"Because in early May they heard that the criminals had been arrested: Sacco and Vanzetti. So they dropped it. It's a shame they did, too, because the Morelli gang had a history of robbing factory freight cars, especially those of Slater and Morrill. In fact, some of its members had cased the Slater and Morrill plant more than once.. ."
"And how did they know that the cops in Brockton had the right guys?"
" 'Cause the cops in Brockton said so. Chief Michael Stewart of Bridgewater was obsessed with the idea that a band of anarchist robbers was living in the South Shore area, and that they kept their getaway car in a shed. Finding such a shed and having been told that the car usually kept there wasn't running well and was being repaired, Stewart ordered a stakeout on the local garage that was fixing the car. It was an Overland, a now-defunct make of auto. Four men came to the garage to claim the car. Told it wasn't ready, they departed. Two left riding a motorcycle. Two left on foot and boarded a streetcar: Sacco and Vanzetti."
"And what were they doing at night getting a car and carrying guns? Huh?"
"They wanted to use the car to collect some radical literature they'd recently distributed. An associate of theirs, a guy named Salsedo- Andrea Salsedo- was held illegally and interrogated by the FBI in New York. He was also detained for eight weeks in a fourteenth-story room of a building there. All this was done without formal criminal charge, you understand, in violation of his fundamental rights. On May third his crushed body was found on the pavement below. The Feds said that he must have leaped to his death. Suicide, or so they said. Sacco, Vanzetti, and the rest of the anarchists were scared stiff. They feared the same fate. That's why they were armed; that's why they were out trying to get the car rolling so they could make the rounds and get rid of the incriminating literature."
"And why weren't the two other guys accused of the crime too?"
"They were. One had an alibi through his employment and the other was very short- so short all of the witnesses agreed he couldn't have taken part. So the police got Sacco and Vanzetti by process of elimination. Even then, their fingerprints did not match any found on the getaway car when it was discovered abandoned. The prosecution later dropped the whole question of prints."
"Charlie: were they guilty?"
"From what I've read, I'd say no. Armed robbery was against their characters as revealed by their lives. They simply weren't violent men or criminals. Protestors, yes. Angry men who disagreed with the status quo, yes. But killers and robbers, no. And the prosecution's claim that they pulled the job leaves too many ends dangling, too many details unexplained and floating in a vacuum. Where were the guys who helped them? Not only did the defendants not tell, but there was nothing about their past histories or personal associations that connected to the robbery. The fifteen grand that was taken- where was it? The defendants didn't have it. Moreover,. there was not a trace of it anywhere around the two men. Certainly the sick old car they came to collect wasn't the one used in the lightning-quick robbery. No sane person would use it in any robbery. The guns they were carrying seemed to be the most damning and inexplicable pieces of evidence. Yet the ballistics tests performed by the prosecution were misinterpreted and used to mislead the jury. Finally, both men did have alibis."
"Well if they had alibis what was the problem?"
"The alibis, on both counts, had serious flaws: they depended on the testimony of fellow Italians."
Mary snapped her head around and let out a few choice exclamations. I blush even now to think of them.
"Uh-huh. That's how a lot of your countrymen feel about it. Now as a comparison, when the case against the Morelli gang is considered, all- not some, but all- the loose ends are gathered up neatly and tied into a bow: the gang's need for money to pay for upcoming defense lawyer's fees and bail; the money itself, which appeared at the right time and in the right amount; the getaway car, which as I mentioned earlier first tipped off the New Bedford cops; the getaway route, which was accurately described by the guy who should've been the defense's star witness in a new trial; and finally… three big things."
"What were the three big things?"
One: the fact that the Morelli-gang hypothesis explains each and every participant in the crime, down to the last detail as described by the witnesses. Two: the Morelli gang was composed of robbers and killers; the past of each gang member ties him with robbery and crime as a way of life. And three: are you ready? Remember I said there should have been a star witness? He was a guy in jail with Sacco and Vanzetti at Dedham. He was the guy who sparked the investigation of the Morelli bunch in the first place. Know why? Because in nineteen twenty-six, six years after the holdup and a year before Sacco and Vanzetti were put to death, he confessed ta taking part in the robbery and described it in every detail. Know what else? He wrote out a sworn statement that Sacco and Vanzetti weren't there!"
Mary squirmed in her seat and drew her breath in sharply, her eyes bugged out in her anger.
"You're shitting me!"
"Nope."
"And those bastards executed them anyway?"
"Yep."
"Charlie, you're shitting me!"
"Cross my heart…"
"Bastards!" she shouted, smacking the dashboard with her fists. She does this on big slabs of clay to get the air bubbles out before firing. The clay could take it; the Audi, despite its engineering, probably couldn't.
"Easy, kid. The guy's name was Celestino Madeiros, a Portuguese boy who was already indicted for murder in another holdup. He was executed the same night as Sacco and Vanzetti. He had nothing to gain by the confession. He said he felt sorry for the two guys held wrongly. He felt especially sorry for Sacco's wife, Rosina, and their son, Dante."
We were now passing Mass. General Hospital, and swept around it and over to Causeway Street. Then a right turn onto Washington and we were there. The whole time Mary sat silently, glowering through the windshield. We met Joe in the open-air patio court for a drink. I ordered a dry Tanqueray martini and got it wet, which invariably happens in any Italian restaurant, and we waited for our table. Mary sipped on a Campari, having forsworn peppermint schnapps forever.
"What's the matter, Sis?" asked Joe, who couldn't help noticing her subdued state. She told him, and we launched into the case a am.
"I agree with you, Doc. There was an invisible hand behind it all, pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. The worst thing though was the prosecution's constant claim that this and that evidence showed that the defendants could have committed the crime. Their alibi witnesses could be lying to protect their friends; therefore they were lying. The men could have been in South Braintree, so therefore they were there, and therefore they did commit the robbery. Bullshit! American law says the prosecution must prove guilt. It does not say the defense must prove innocence. They were marked men."
He rapped the table twice as he said the words again: "Marked men."
We went in and ordered dinner. I had the house specialty, which is steak a la Mafia. It was great. We all shared the antipasti and pasta, and a liter of good house red. Three couples came in, obviously young studs and foxy mamas from the North End. They wore the local outfit. The women, who were gorgeous, had on tight blouses, choker necklaces, and pants that were sprayed on. This ensemble was set off by four-inch stiletto heels. Their hair was swept back, short, thick, black, and slightly wet. Their faces were heavily made up and their cheeks blood-red.
Their lips were purple and wet and slick as the underside of a lily pad. Mary said that she didn't care if the punk look was the rage, they looked like cheap whores. No doubt about it, they looked a bit tawdry. They looked wanton. They looked wicked and nasty. They looked terrific.
The guys, between the three of them, were wearing more gold than Fort Knox. Necklaces, crucifixes, St. Chris medals, St. Francis medals, St. Jude, St. Anthony, St. Peter, and so on. Rings, I.D. bracelets, watches, buckles. If they tried to board a plane at Logan Airport the metal detector would get a hernia. They wore continental-cut jackets with a little sheen to them, black calfskin boots with heels- they needed the heels to be taller than their datesand pants that were skin-tight at the crotch to show the world that they were hung like seed bulls. Their hair looked a lot like their dates' hair. All of them had mustaches; one also wore a beard. Their white silk shirts had big collars and were open to the navel, this to reveal both the array of chains and charms and medals and the chest rugs. Each guy's bosom looked like a coconut-fiber doormat. I've heard it rumored that Caesare's Men's Boutique sells not only hairpieces but chest rugs too, for those who aren't naturally endowed. I could use one. Another item that purports to move well at Caesare's is a padded-cup jock for guys who want to look hung like a seed bull but aren't. I could use one…
"Well at least you can tell the boys from the girls here," I said.
"That's refreshing anyway." Never had I seen such blatant sexuality; never was human sexual dimorphism more exaggerated.
"And don't bother staring at their pants, Mary; they're just wearing those padded jocks."
"If I have another glass of wine I think I'll go check," she said.
"By the way, I notice you haven't taken your eyes off that tall girl's ass since she walked in."
"Huh?"
"Don't 'huh' me, buster. How would you like me to dress like that?"
"I'd love it."
"Hey Joe! Joey!" A fat man with an enormous mustache was working his way over to our table. Joe jumped up and pumped his hand. Then his arm slowed down. He was looking at the man's face. He had obviously been crying.
"Joey-" the man said quickly, and he leaned over and whispered in Joe's ear.
"I know."
"Oh, sorry," the man said, turning to us, "didn't mean to do that. Something sad just happened. Sorry."
Then he turned back to Joe again and leaned over him. "Can you come for a few minutes anyhow?"
"Yes," answered Joe. "We'll be right over when we finish."
The fat man left, his eyes glancing to and fro- as if looking for others to accost. We dove into our ice cream, and Joe explained that they had Andy Santuccio laid out at Langone's funeral parlor a couple of blocks away and that he was going to stop by and pay his respects. We said we'd come along.
The place was crowded. People of all shapes and ages milled about, talking in low tones. They kissed each other, embraced, sobbed quietly, and said the rosary. About half spoke English, half Italian. There was a lot of black, especially worn by the older women. Men wore dark hats. It almost resembled a congregation of Orthodox Jews on the Lower East Side. The parlor room which held the remains was packed with flowers. Two old aunts stood at the casket, shaking hands with mourners and wiping their eyes. Many people came and went from the chapel room. The only things missing were the street procession and the men with the trumpets following behind, playing the dirge. Otherwise it very closely resembled the Sicilian funeral scene in The Godfather. I made this observation to Joe, who suddenly realized something.
"Follow me," he said, leading us back past the offices to a small room crammed with mementos and pictures on all the walls. Joe looked through several volumes of photographs and newspaper clippings before showing me a picture of Hanover Street crowded to overflowing with spectators as a pair of hearses inched down the street. All the men wore hats: skimmers, fedoras, bowlers, even top hats. The women wore wide hats with flowers on top and big, full-skirted dresses. The hearses looked about 1920s vintage.
"What's this?" I asked him.
"The funeral procession of Sacco and Vanzetti. Look. See the armbands worn by all the mourners? Look, here's another one."
He turned the page and I saw a grisly photo of two dead men on slabs. They were partially draped, but their upper torsos and heads were visible. Their faces had the vacant, collapsed look of death. Then Joe turned another page and we saw the two men formally laid out in suits, placed in caskets with the lids propped open, and covered with flowers, much as poor young Andy was next
door. But a crowd was tightly pressed around the corpses. The people in the crowd were holding up a huge banner, which read: DID You SEE WHAT I DID TO THOSE ANARCHIST BASTARDS THE OTHER DAY?
"Do you know about that quote, Doc?"
"Yeah. It was supposedly said by the judge at the trial, Webster Thayer, when he was playing golf with friends in Worcester. It showed he was just a wee bit biased. It doesn't say very much for American jurisprudence, does it?"
"Nah. It sure doesn't."
The fat man with the watery eyes and walrus mustache came into the room and looked at the pictures with us for a few minutes. He kept apologizing for interrupting us and Joe kept telling him he wasn't. His name was Gus Giordano, and I liked him immediately and intensely. Like Moe Abramson, he seemed to be a giving person.
"So sad," he said, looking down at the photographs of the funeral procession. "So very sad."
Big drops were falling on the pictures. Giordano was crying. He wiped his eyes and looked at Mary. He managed a weak smile and she hugged him.
"But you should see the real thing. The films of it. Joey, you know Frank Bertoni?"
"Never heard of him."
"He lives just up the street. He's a film nut, you know? Collects all kinds of old movies. He's put together a film based on old newsreels of the trial. Took him years to get all the footage. We've shown it at Sons of Italy and sometimes-"
"Wait a minute," said Joe, looking up quickly. "Hey, I think I've seen that film. It's like old-time movies? Like Chaplin?"
"That's it," said Giordano. "Well, if you've seen it already.. ."
"But we haven't," said Mary. "Do you think it's possible for us to-"
"For you, the world," said Giordano, and went to a phone.
He returned in less than five minutes and handed Joe a slip of paper with a name and address on it.
"He's a great guy and he loves to show the film; it's his pride and joy. I'd go too but I really should stay awhile. Arrivederla."
After Joe spent another ten minutes pumping hands and giving hugs, we left Langone's and walked four blocks to the apartment building of Frank Bertoni, who let us in at the front door and walked us up two floors. He was young and blondish and wore wire-rimmed granny glasses. His apartment was small but neat, the walls covered with old movie posters. There was a photo of Charlie Chaplin in a repairman's suit, wielding a huge wrench to giant machinery. There were posters featuring Gable and Lombard, Tracy and Hepburn, Jane Russell, and lots more.
Frank had prepared for our arrival; armchairs were set up in the living room in a row facing a screen. Behind the seats sat a projector on a table. He switched the projector on, the house lights off. The whirring of the projector was the only noise in the room. The movie was silent, the seconds ticked off by a line like a radar blip that moved counterclockwise in a circle: 5… 4… 3… 2… 1. ..and
then we saw the title in black and white: THE NEVER-ENDING WRONG
a film by
Francis J. Bertoni
The window was open, and the street noises of babbling pedestrians and car traffic that filtered up through the window were a natural accompaniment to the crowd scenes and protests we saw on film. The film was, of course, a spliced collection of the original film footage. The moving images on the screen bore all the earmarks of age, with ropelike streaks that moved back and forth across the pictures, making them look like it was raining, and great white blobs and {lashes that exploded continually all over the screen. Most striking, though, was the high-speed, Chaplinesque puppet dance of the people, which failed to lend the necessary comic relief to the grim scenes that paraded before us.
The first thing we saw was a huge crowd of protesters carrying signs and banners in the rain. I was puzzled to see a gigantic pillar in the center of the picture. A shot from farther back revealed it to be the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. Tall-helmeted bobbies milled around the fringes of the mob. Flash to Paris, where a similar throng stood and pranced around the Arc de Triomphe, the primitive camera making the solemn marchers look like square dancers as they jumped and turned and sashayed arm in arm. On to Moscow, where, as one would suspect, they were going bananas. Whole trainloads of protesters, probably encouraged by the state, filed off railroad cars and drummed through the wide streets as they met farmers driving troikas and oxcarts. Around St. Basil's the multitudes in tall hats and billowing skirts shouted and raised their hands together, sang, and hopped about like bunny rabbits. In Rome the crowds were tumultuous, as might be expected in the home country of the accused. Though lightly clad in comparison to their northern cousins, the crowds in St. Peter's Square engaged in the same tragicomic square dance.
Shot of a building. Bertoni announced that it was the Dedham courthouse, scene of the trial. Pan down the street toward another biggish building, which we cannot see. Then another shot. It is a prison, complete with high brick wall and coil of barbed wire, barely visible, creeping over the edge. Two watchtowers, and the big cell-block building itself, with barred windows. The Dedham jail looks the way we think a jail should look- perfect for a movie set. A crowd coming toward the camera, with all the people doing that old-time-movie polka dance that's usually funny but now is not. Close-up of four men. I see instantly that the two in the middle are Sacco and Vanzetti. They look young… and hopeful. Sacco even manages a weak and fleeting smile. Vanzetti looks stern. He is talking. He is holding hands with his fellow prisoner, a nice gesture. No, wait. They're handcuffed together. Their outer arms are also handcuffed, to the marshals beside them. Vanzetti is trying to say something, but he wants to use his hands and he cannot. He finally manages to bow his head and remove his worker's snap-brim hat, which he holds, and speaks to the camera. Shot of Sacco, saying nothing. Vanzetti is tall and handsome; his giant drooping mustache gives him the air of an orator. Sacco is short, stocky, and trim in his dark suit and bowler hat. Very close shot of Sacco's face. Typically Italian. Dark, with rather prominent nose and cheekbones. Intense and handsome. The face aroused much controversy because witnesses swore that it was Nick Sacco they saw at the scene of the robbery and murder. Nobody claimed to have seen Vanzetti. And yet Herbert Ehrmann, the young, bright assistant defense counsel, showed the striking resemblance between Sacco's typical Italian face and that of Joe Morelli, leader of the holdup gang in Providence. A resemblance that was not twinlike but clonelike. The prosecution and the state refused to consider the evidence.
Back to Vanzetti, who finishes his speech and replaces his cap. The crowd moves on, jump-stepping fast down the street. Policemen in double-breasted coats with brass buttons bring up the rear, carrying shotguns. Switch to big car pulling up in front of courthouse. Car is fancy, probably a Stutz or Packard or Cadillac. Out pops a man in tails and top hat. Close-up as he tips his hat and smiles. judge Webster Thayer. His hair and mustache are trim and white. He looks prosperous, and is. Switch to beefy, truculent man charging down the sidewalk. Military carriage, firm bouncy step, skimmer straw hat. Fred Katzmann, the district attorney and chief prosecutor. He looks competent, trained, thorough, and absolutely merciless. He proves himself to be all of these, especially during the cross-examination of Sacco, in which his questions are directed toward Sacco's political beliefs, his American patriotism, his home and family life, and a dozen other subjects not related to the South Braintree crime but designed to inflame and prejudice the jury. Katzmann gives a false smile and quicksteps on. Crowd going up courthouse steps. They jump and swing their way up in double time. One can almost hear the dance caller and fiddle. As each person appears Bertoni identifies him for us. Then we are surprised to see the interior of the courtroom, and Bertoni explains that this was before the Lindbergh kidnapping trial, at which cameras of any type were banned from courtrooms.
"It keeps getting darker and lighter," said Mary, breaking our silence. "Why's that?"
"It was before high-intensity lamps," explained Frank. "They're lighting magnesium flares, one after the other."
The courtroom is packed. Shot of curious looking wire cage in back of courtroom. Sacco and Vanzetti are sitting in it. Cage is solid except for space to peek out in front. Close-up of judge Thayer. Shot of someone testifying. Slow pan of pistols and bullets and cartridge cases on table. Shot of defense table, with attorneys Thompson and Ehrmann nodding and talking to each other. Shot of Katzmann again. Scary. Evil. But then the film was designed to convey that…
Final close-up of Sacco and Vanzetti. Then the strange, snake-like scratches in the film, the dark vertical lines that weave about on the screen, seem to converge on the two men in the dock. They snake forward and back, growing thicker, almost blotting out the two faces. Close-up of Vanzetti, whose face has lost all of its former defiance and sternness. One now sees doubt in the handsome, youthful face. Doubt, and the beginnings of fear. The lines grow thick again. Big white blotches explode around the face.
Cut to Boston Statehouse. Big crowd on Beacon Street and up the steps. Cops with brass buttons and billy clubs holding the crowd back. Huge car pulls up. Much bigger than Judge Thayer's. A real limo. Out pops a man in a sporty three-piecer, with skimmer. He jumps up the statehouse steps, removes the skimmer, and waves it to the crowd. Governor Alvan Fuller. He looks rich, and is. He owns the Packard dealership in Boston. He wants to be President. Close-up of Fuller speaking. Then a shot of three middle-aged men. Very distinguished trio. Bertoni tells us they are the special commission chosen by Fuller to review the case. They look as alike as Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. All have white hair and trim mustaches like judge Thayer. All have well-cut suits with tails, and top hats. They look as if they're going to a ball. The credentials of the commission were flawless: Robert Grant was a former judge, Samuel Stratton was president of M.I.T., and A. Lawrence Lowell was president of Harvard. In fact, the towns of Lawrence and Lowell were named after members of his family, who put up the money to build the factories and dams and canals to make even more money. But they meant well, those three top-hatted gentlemen. I guess;
Cut to crowds of protesters on Beacon Street again. Cut to Trafalgar Square, Paris, Moscow, and Rome again. Cut to a grim crowd of silent people standing around a big prison. Now, even the old time movie camera cannot make them jump or dance. They are frozen. Waiting.
"This is Charlestown Prison, the afternoon of the execution," said Frank.
The camera pans the faces of the crowd. All is still. Then the shot we aren't ready for a small crowd of prison officials opening the gates, and behind them people carrying out the two black coffins…
The film hissed and crackled. The wavy black lines snaked along over the picture. The white splotches exploded on the screen.
Cut to Langone's funeral parlor, the place we had just been to see Andy Santuccio. Then a shot of the inside, where the open caskets are resting on sawhorses, the big banner with Judge Thayer's quote up behind them. It looks, just like the photographs we'd seen earlier. Then the final scene, a slow procession of the two hearses down Hanover Street, decked in flowers. Cut to a quote:
None of my enemies will be mourned as I am.
– Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1927
The film crackled loudly, snapped through the gears of the machine, and flipped round and round until Frank Bertoni switched it off. We sat, stunned. Mary's mouth was halfway open. She didn't twitch a muscle. Finally Joe broke the silence by thanking Frank.
"Was it really that big, Frank?" asked Mary. "People protesting all over the world?"
"Oh yeah. In fact a lot of people, in retrospect, think that the protesters did as much as anything else to send them to the chair. It got too big. Too threatening. The big shots in the system felt that half the world was against them and willing to help 'the reds.' It scared hell out of 'em, and they convinced themselves they had to snuff out this radical menace before it got out of hand and overpowered them. It became a battle of ideology and class, not a criminal trial."
We had some of Frank's Amaretto and departed. We stopped to buy coffee beans and spinach pasta, then went to the car. Joe asked us over to his place on Pinckney Street, so we went. After all, he treated us to dinner, and I think he wanted a chance to pay us back for the weekends in Concord. But my heart wasn't' in the visit. The film had done me in. Mary too. We sat and listened to records and shared a bottle of bubbly. Joe sensed our depression.
"Movie got to you eh? Yeah. Thinking back now to when I first saw it, I remember feeling pretty depressed too. Well as I said before, the case makes the Commonwealth of Massachusetts look like a ninety-pound pile of dog doo."
"Any luck on finding Johnny Robinson's courier pouch?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Naw. It'll never turn up. They destroyed it I'm sure."
"You say he wore it every day?"
"Yep. Wore it to bed practically."
"Did he wash it often?"
"Huh? How the hell do I know? What kind of question is-"
"Nothing. I was just wondering. Well Mary, let's get moving."
So we went and got home forty minutes later. It was close to midnight. I sat on the couch reading a book about French vineyards.
"Wait here, sport," said Mary, disappearing upstairs. Ten minutes later I heard labored footsteps on the carpet, and felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and couldn't believe my eyes.
Mary was standing there in skin-tight pants and a pink sweater that would've been too tight on a Barbie doll. She had half her make-up cabinet on her face, her hair down, and was scarcely able to retain her balance on five-inch spiked heels.
"Where the hell did you get that getup?"
"Been savin' it for the right guy…"
"How can you walk in those? Or stand?"
She shrugged and sneered.
"Don't plan on stayin' upright that long."
"Those pants are even tighter than the ones in the North End."
"They're dance tights. You like?"
She turned her back and wiggled, then sat down on my lap and kept moving.
"Seriously, Charlie"- she kissed me- "do you like it?"
"Be still my heart."