Elizabeth Street Part 18

Giovanna and Lucrezia squeezed into a courtroom bench. The chambers were packed with expectant onlookers and reporters. Lieutenant Petrosino had told Giovanna about the case of Signore Spinella, a tailor who confessed to his priest that he was receiving Black Hand letters. The priest, against Spinella's wishes, went to the police. The detectives watched Spinella's store and, soon enough, they saw a man enter who they were sure was a crook. When the man left, they questioned the frightened tailor, who finally admitted that indeed this man was blackmailing him.

Now the blackmailer was on trial, and Giovanna, after persuading Lucrezia to accompany her, came to see American justice at work.

The tailor was a slight man, and his nervousness on the witness stand was evident. The poor man had to be prodded again and again by the prosecutor to tell his story. Finally, the prosecutor asked, "Is the man who threatened you in this room?"

The tailor was silent and anxiously glanced around the courtroom.

The prosecutor posed the question again even more dramatically. "Is this the man who threatened you?" he shouted, pointing to the defendant.

But the tailor wasn't looking at the defendant. Instead he saw a man leaning against the wall slowly draw his finger across his throat.

"No, I don't see him here," blurted the tailor.

Gasps filled the courtroom.

"Isn't this the man who threatened you?" shouted the prosecutor, now thumping on the defendant's shoulder.

"No, that's not him," mumbled the tailor.

The man leaning against the wall quickly left while the judge gaveled the room silent. In desperation, the frustrated prosecutor asked again and again, until the judge p.r.o.nounced the case dismissed.

Giovanna was stunned. She looked at the tailor disdainfully, but when she saw him rejoined by his weeping wife and children, she sighed knowingly. She could see the disgust on Lucrezia's face but couldn't read it. At times like this, Giovanna suspected that Lucrezia's contempt for the uneducated, poor immigrants surfaced. Or was she frustrated with a system that couldn't protect them? Giovanna herself could not answer the question.

Petrosino's cough rattled his chest and the office walls.

Giovanna wiped the perspiration from her own forehead with a handkerchief she had woven and embroidered with the initials G.C., because if she used either of her married names she felt like she was betraying someone. The heat in the room was oppressive.

"You must see a doctor, Lieutenant," counseled Giovanna. "Sometimes summer brings the worst lung illnesses."

"My wife agrees," answered Petrosino, drinking water.

Following her experience in court, Giovanna lost some of her enthusiasm for finding the blackmailers, but she still met regularly with Petrosino, from whom she continued to learn more about this secret society that was in actuality neither secret nor a society. She now knew that the role of Sicily's Mafia or the Camorra of Naples was limited to aiding and abetting the criminals in their travels between the countries. She agreed with Petrosino that Lupo's gang hadn't been involved in the blackmail of their store. All the signs pointed to one of the small gangs of blackmailers that came and went in Little Italy. She decided that if Rocco had killed their Blackhanders, that might have been the end of it. At least until the next one came along.

"Keep your eyes on Inzerillo's cafe, signora. The Wolf has disappeared," said Petrosino between coughs.

"What? Lupo is gone? What of his store?"

"He claimed bankruptcy. He took what money he had and left his creditors behind."

"So, Lieutenant, this is good news, yes? At least he is gone."

"No, signora. It only means I don't know where he is." Petrosino punctuated his sentence with his wracking cough, which would not stop.

"Lieutenant, there is no need to wait. You should see the doctor," said Giovanna, standing. She handed him his derby.

Petrosino, not having the energy to fight, took his hat and left.

Two weeks later, when word reached Giovanna that Petrosino was home with pneumonia, Giovanna asked Lucrezia to go with her to visit him. Carrying homemade chicken soup and a variety of herbal remedies in the July heat, they walked to his apartment at the corner of Lafayette and Sullivan. Fiaschetti, the young barrel-chested detective who had accompanied Petrosino to the hospital after the bombing, stood guard outside the door to his apartment.

"Signora! What are you doing here?"

"I brought soup."

"I'll be back in a minute."

Lucrezia gave Giovanna a look that said, "What did you get me into?" She wasn't accustomed to being left waiting in hallways.

"Signora Petrosino said to come in," announced Fiaschetti upon returning.

A pregnant Adelina Petrosino greeted them at the door. "How kind of you to come."

"I am so sorry the lieutenant is ill. This is my friend Signora LaManna, who is a doctor."

Adelina looked at Lucrezia sideways and said, "Thank you, but the doctor has been to see him. He will be fine if he rests."

In the uncomfortable moment that followed, Giovanna and Lucrezia stole glances at the large but modest apartment.

"Adelina, who is there?" called Petrosino from the bedroom.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Signora Siena."

Adelina walked into the bedroom and spoke to her husband. When she returned, she said, "He would like to see you for a minute."

Giovanna, nudging Lucrezia to go with her, walked inside.

Lieutenant Petrosino was propped up on pillows. His face looked drawn, but in Giovanna's quick a.s.sessment, she decided he would recover.

"This is Dottore LaManna, my friend."

"It's an honor, Dottore."

"Signora LaManna, Lieutenant."

"Signora Siena has told me all about you, Dottore. So I a.s.sume she brought you here to see if I will live."

Giovanna laughed. "Oh, you'll live alright, but only if you are tied to this bed."

"I will tell you this confidentially: the one good thing about my illness is I think it made everyone feel guilty enough to allow the commissioner to expand the Italian Squad."

"Congratulations, Lieutenant!"

"I'm not sure much will happen in my absence."

"You rest, Lieutenant. Even I am taking time off. I'm going to Scilla with my daughter in just one week. It has been a long time since I've seen my family."

"Good for you, signora! I suppose it was doctor's orders," he commented, winking at Lucrezia.

"I can see what a perceptive detective you are," answered Lucrezia, smiling.

Saying good-bye to Adelina at the door, Giovanna could not help but notice that Adelina was carrying well and the pregnancy appeared healthy.

Cedar Grove, New Jersey, 1973

"'Put money into one loaf of the bread and deliver to Rossi. Make the loaf darker than the others.' Mamma! How much money do we have?"

"Five or six dollars."

"I mean all the money!"

"But, Pop, I only have one more year and then I'll be a teacher."

"What can we do? You know what happened to little Marisa."

"I could talk to Lieutenant Petrosino."

"This is a private affair. Private business."

"This isn't Sicily, Papa. Here the police are on our side. Lieutenant Petrosino, he's Italian like we are."

"No! I told you! No!"

The clicking of my grandmother's knitting needles was bothering me, so I turned up the TV. It was Sunday afternoon, and I was watching an old black-and-white movie. A baker in the movie had decided not to pay extortion money after his daughter cried, and now the bad guys were breaking into his store. I cringed. It was a horrible scene. They had the guy tied to a chair and were cracking eggs over his head before they put him in a brick oven.

"Does it go this way or that way?" asked my grandmother, turning around the paper on which I had drawn a peace sign.

Without turning away from the TV, I flipped the peace sign right side up. "This way."

"Do you like the orange?"

"Yes, I like it." I tried not to show my exasperation at being interrupted again because she was doing me a favor by knitting a patch for my jeans.

As politely as possible, I turned my attention back to the guy from McHale's Navy who was playing an Italian cop.

"That's so loud," complained Nanny.

"You keep talking."

"Turn it down. What are you watching anyway?"

"Some old movie about the Mafia."

"You shouldn't watch that garbage."

"I know, I know..." I was familiar with my grandmother's feelings about anything that was Mafia-related.

I was relieved. The good guy in the oven was saved and the Italian cop was interrogating him as he was brought out.

"Who did this to you?"

"Lupo and two others."

"Are you sure it was Lupo?"

The half-finished orange peace sign attached to Nanny's needles dropped to the floor. My grandmother tentatively rose from the crushed velvet La-Z-Boy and walked toward the TV, stopping before she got too close. She leaned sideways to look at the picture, acting as if she got too near the television it could hurt her. Nanny watched and listened for a few moments before gasping in air and clasping her hand to her mouth. For a second she seemed rooted to the checkered linoleum.

"Turn it off!" she shouted, before storming up the den stairs into the kitchen. I heard her continue up the second set of stairs leading to the bedrooms.

My grandmother was not beyond throwing a fit, but this seemed odd. I was torn between wanting to finish watching the movie-now the baker's daughter was being attacked in a dark hallway-and my curiosity about why my grandmother was acting so weird. It didn't occur to me to be concerned; Nanny wasn't the kind of person who evoked worry or sympathy. Even at the worst of times, she was strong and eerily detached. Eventually, curiosity and guilt won out.

Nanny was in my room sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Did you turn that off?" demanded Nanny without looking at me.

"Yes," I lied. "What's the matter? I'm sorry if it was too loud."

"I told you not to watch that garbage."