The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (15 page)

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."
 
 

CHAPTER EIGHT

I took my coffee into Mary's atelier and watched her
throwing big slabs of clay around. Fifty pounds apiece. Wham! Splat!
She hefted them up and slammed them down on her sturdy bench to force
the air bubbles out. If the bubbles remain inside the clay, the air
explodes in the heat of the kiln during firing and your pot blows up—
shatters all over the place. She bounced the big wads of clay around
as if they were little hunks of cookie dough. That can make you
strong; no wonder she was so good at arm wrestling. I pinched her on
the butt.

"Thanks for the cheap thrills last night,"
I said.

"Aw don't mention it; the others never do."

"Want to go on an adventure today?"

She eyed me warily, then grabbed my wrist. She was
relieved to see that I was still wearing the respectable, if boring,
Omega dress watch.

"Can't be too dangerous, you're not wearing that
black watch Joe finally returned when you gave him his wop lighter
back. What's the adventure?"

"
I've got an idea of how to try to find Johnny
Robinson's courier pouch."

She eyed me again, even more warily. Yours Truly is
not famous for good ideas regarding adventures, as was borne out when
I nearly got my brains splattered all over the place in the old
Plymouth Cordage warehouse and factory. Mary reminded me of this past
misadventure and it gave me pause. I shuddered.

"And I was reading your Sacco-Vanzetti books
this morning early when you went running. Did you know that Vanzetti
lived in Plymouth and worked in that cordage factory? He even led a
strike there."

"Yeah I know. I try to forget about that place."

She attacked the clay hunks with a new ferocity now,
and threw them around like Liatis Roantis throws people around in
karate class. She sank her fist into the clay, leaving a deep mark.

"
Bastards! God, I hate that Thayer. Even if I
were a WASP I'd hate him!"

"After you put those in the bags, follow me,"
I said. She did, still dressed in her white bib overalls and striped
jersey. I carried a walking stick and a flashlight. We got into the
Scout, bound for Cambridge.

"Have you told Joe about this? And how smart is
this idea?" she asked.

"No, and not very," I said.

We rang the bell at Dependable Messenger Service but
nobody answered. I knew Sam Bowman was expecting us because I had
called him earlier and set this adventure up. He had agreed eagerly.

We rang twice more and finally heard loud cussing
from behind the thick door. Along with the cussing was a deep growl.

"I told ya I don't want none! Now git! I set the
dog on ya!"

"It's us, Sam. Mary and Doc."

He let us in, apologizing. He said that two of the
pushiest salesmen he'd ever seen had just come by and wouldn't leave.

"
They tryna sell me some roofing compound. It's
silver-colored and dries up like metal, you know? I say I don't need
no roofing compound, but they say can we take a look. Won't cost me
nothin. So I let 'em. Had their own ladder on top of the van."

"Ah! And— surprise, surprise— they then
informed you that yes indeed, you do need roohng compound."

"
Zactly. And then they came inside to write out
a estimate, even though I said I didn't want it. Who knows . . .
might be closin' the place. Watch it! Watch it, Miss, he'll bite—"

But it was too late; Mary was already close to the
huge dog and bending down over him. Popeye went wild. He flattened
his stubby black ears, squinted his eyes, and lunged at her. He
licked her all over, then flopped over on his broad back and piddled
up in the air. Embarrassed, he jumped back up again and tried to sit
so she could pat him. But he couldn't sit because he was wagging his
stumpy tail too hard. In fact, he was wagging his entire big butt. He
sniffed and snorted, whined and yelped softly as she patted his wide,
flat head. He squatted and leaked again briefly in ecstasy, then
turned, wagging and whining, in a tight circle.

"Silly boy . . . silly old boy," cooed
Mary.

"Now would you look at dat."' said Sam in
amazement. "Popeye my man, whatsa matter witchu?"

I was looking at the interesting objects on Sam's
rolltop desk. He didn't see me looking at them.

Popeye pawed at Mary's leg and whined until she
patted him again. Then she walked around the tiny office and the dog
followed her. She went to the safe, which was open, and the dog
didn't do squat.

"What happened to your guard dog, Sam?" I
asked.

"
Damn! Don't know, Doc. Strangest thing I ever—"

He stopped in mid-sentence because he saw me looking
down at his desk top, where the jeweler's saw and the big fat
cartridges lay strewn over the blotter. I picked one of the
forty-five-caliber rounds up— still as big as a lipstick— and
examined the tip of the bullet. Sam had used the fine metal saw to
delicately score the metal casing that reached halfway up around the
lead core. He'd made two cuts across the top, perpendicular to each
other, in a cross, then two again in between the first two cuts,
resulting in a delicate eight-pointed star in the front of each load.
A finely wrought flower of death.