The Vendetta Defense (3 page)

“I’m fine, and thank you for asking,” Mary said, though Judy could hear the smile in her voice. The smile didn’t come from Revlon or even Dixon Ticonderoga but was due entirely to a wonderful heart, and Judy felt a twinge of guilt. Attempted murder wasn’t a laughing matter.

“I’m sorry. How’re you feeling, Mare?”

“Pretty good for somebody who took two bullets.”

Judy winced. She had almost lost Mary, forever. She didn’t want to think about it. “You need anything? It’s only fifteen minutes by cab. Want me to bring you anything?”

“No thanks.”

“You sure?”

Mary snorted. “You regret that wisecrack, don’t you? If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you feel guilty.”

“Me?” Judy smiled. It was a long-running joke between them. Mary, an Italian Catholic, held the patent on guilt, and Judy could see that it would never expire. “No way. I’m from California.”

“You should be guilty. You were making fun of somebody with ventilation. What kind of friend are you?” Mary laughed, but it got lost in a surprising burst of background noise, which sounded like men talking loud. Mary had been recuperating at her parents’ house in South Philly, and the DiNunzios, whom Judy adored, were an old Italian couple who lived very quietly, at least when Mr. DiNunzio wore his hearing aid. Usually the only background noise at the DiNunzio rowhouse was a continuous loop of novenas.

“What’s that sound over there?” Judy asked. “Another DiNunzio clambake?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“Yes, I do.” It sounded like quite a commotion, with the men now arguing. Judy frowned. “Is anything the matter?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

“My father’s friends are here. You met Tony-From-Down-The-Block.”

“The guy he buys cigars with?”

“That could be anybody, but yes,” Mary answered, and the background arguing surged.

“What the hell was that?”

“Feet.”

“It didn’t sound like feet, it sounded like voices.”

“Feet’s his nickname. His real name is Tony Two Feet. He’s shouting. He’s an excitable boy, for an eighty-year-old.”

“Tony Two Feet? That’s a name? Everybody has two feet.”

“Don’t ask me. He’s my father’s other friend. They’re all upset about Pigeon Tony.”

Judy smiled. “Is anybody there
not
named Tony?”

“Please. It’s ten Italian men. Odds are three will be Tony, two will be Frank, and one will end up in jail. Pigeon Tony just got arrested. The smart money was on Dominic.”

“Arrested for what?”

“Murder.”

Judy’s lips formed an imperfectly lined circle. “Murder?”

“Also my mother sends her love.”

“Murder?”
Judy felt her pulse quicken. “A friend of your father’s, arrested for murder? Your father is around seventy-five, isn’t he? How old
is
Tony? And who did he kill, allegedly? I mean whom?”

“You can’t just say Tony, you have to say Pigeon Tony, and he’s close to eighty. He grew up in Italy and he supposedly killed another old man, also from Italy. I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on when you called.”

Judy’s eyes flared in surprise. She felt awake for the first time in months. “Does Pigeon Tony have a lawyer?”

“Wait a minute. You sound interested. You’re not allowed to be interested.”

“Why not?” Judy inched forward on her horrible chair. Murder trumped antitrust. Spring had sprung. Her other phone line rang but she ignored it. Ignoring phones got easier with practice. “I can be interested. I have a First Amendment right to be interested.”

“My father wanted me to call you, but I don’t think you should take the case.”

“Your dad wants me to?” Judy’s pulse quickened. She would do anything to help Mary’s father, especially something she already wanted to do.

“Yes, but I don’t, and I don’t have time to fight about it. It’s
La Traviata
over here. I gotta go.”

“Put your dad on the phone, Mare.”

“No. Remember the last murder case we took? Gunfire ensued. Hot lead whizzing around. Lawyers are ill prepared for such things. Stick to the Sherman Act. Besides, I told my father Bennie won’t allow it.”

“Why wouldn’t she? We take murder cases now, and besides, the boss is at a deposition. I’ll apologize later if she won’t let me take it. Don’t make me whine. Put him on!”

“No.” The ruckus in the background started again, and Judy could hear Mary’s father closer to the phone.

“Now, Mare! Lemme talk to your father.” There was a sudden silence on the phone, and Judy could picture Mary’s hand covering the receiver, muting the arguing of the men and the softer voice of Mariano DiNunzio. “Mr. D, is that you?” Judy asked, shouting through Mary’s hand, as if it were possible. “What’s the matter, Mr. D?”

“Judy, thank God you called!” Mr. DiNunzio said. He came onto the line abruptly, and Judy assumed he had taken the phone from Mary. “The police, they have my friend downtown. They took him away, in handcuffs.” Mr. DiNunzio’s voice was choked with emotion, and Judy’s heart went out to him, the gravity of the situation striking home.

“What happened?”

“They say he killed a man, but he would never. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.” Mr. DiNunzio cleared his throat, and Judy could hear him collect himself. “I would never ask such a thing, a favor, for me. For myself. You know this. But for my friend, my
compare
, he’s in trouble.”

“Whatever you need, you got it, Mr. D.”

“I know you, you’re a good girl. A smart lawyer. You know all the ins and outs. You work hard, like my Mary. Will you be his lawyer, Judy? Please?”

“Of course I will, Mr. D,” Judy answered, and the words weren’t out of her mouth before she was reaching for her briefcase.

And slipping her bare feet into a pair of clunky yellow clogs.

3

P
igeon Tony struck Judy as the cutest defendant ever, and she wanted to rescue the little old man the moment she saw him in the interview room of the Roundhouse, Philadelphia’s police administration building. He was only five foot four, probably a hundred and thirty pounds, and he startled as Judy burst into the interview room, lost in a white paper jumpsuit that was way too large for his scrawny neck and narrow chest. His withered arms stuck like twigs from short sleeves, and his knobby wrists were pinched by steel handcuffs. His sunburned pate was dotted with liver spots and streaked by only a few filaments of silvery hair. His peeling nose was small and hooked; his eyes a round, dark brown, almost black, under a short brow. Judy couldn’t explain his superb tan, but she gathered he was called Pigeon because he looked like one.

“Mr. Lucia, I’m a lawyer,” she said, briefcase in hand. “My name is Judy Carrier and I was sent by the DiNunzios. They asked me to come and help you.”

The old man’s only response was to squint at her, and Judy didn’t understand why. Maybe he didn’t speak English. Maybe he didn’t want a lawyer. Maybe she should have worn pantyhose.

“I’m a friend of Mary DiNunzio.” Judy took a seat in the orange bucket chair on the lawyer’s side of the counter. Five ratty interview carrels sat side by side. The interview room was otherwise empty, not for want of felons but for want of lawyers. Few attorneys bothered to come to the bowels of the Roundhouse, preferring to meet their clients where the floor didn’t crawl. “You know Mary DiNunzio, don’t you?”

The old man, still squinting, slowly raised his arm and pointed at Judy with a finger that, though crooked at the knuckle, did not waver. His sleeve slid up his arm when he pointed, revealing a surprisingly wiry knot of biceps and a tattooed crucifix that had gone a blurry blue. But Judy still didn’t understand what he was pointing at.

“Mr. Lucia? What is it?”

“Your, eh, your face,” he said, his Italian accent as thick as tomato sauce. “Your
mouth
. Is bleeding?”

Judy reddened. The lipliner. The editing pencil. No wonder the cops had recoiled at the sight of her. And she thought it was because she was a lawyer. “No, it’s not bleeding. I’m sorry.” She wiped her mouth quickly, rouging the back of her hand. “Despite appearances, I’m not a clown but a lawyer, and a fairly good one, Mr. Lucia.”

“Mariano tell me. I call him, and he tell me you come. I thank you.” The old man nodded, in a courtly way. “Also you calla me Pigeon Tony. Everybody calla me Pigeon Tony.”

“Well, then, Pigeon Tony, you’re welcome, and I’m happy to represent you,” Judy said, then remembered she could get fired for taking on a nice client. Lately she had been representing corporations, ill-mannered entities by charter. “I’ll have to make sure that my boss says my firm can take your case. I just came down today to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Pigeon Tony’s brow furrowed in confusion.

Judy reminded herself to edit her words. Her only experience with broken English had been in the legal aid clinic in law school, and Latin hadn’t helped there either. “I mean, hurt your case. Say the wrong thing to the police. You didn’t talk to the police, did you?”

“I no talk. Mariano tell me.”

“Did the police ask you questions about the murder?” She flipped open the latch of her messy briefcase, wrested a legal pad from the debris, and located a Pilot pen strictly by sheer good luck. So what if her briefcase was a little full? Sometimes you had to carry your nest around. Nobody knew better than a military brat how to pitch a tent.

“
Si, si
, they ask questions.”

“What questions?” Judy was wondering if the cops had tried an end-run around the
Miranda
warnings, as they still did. Taking advantage of a little old man, an immigrant even. They should be ashamed. “Lots of questions?”

“I no answer.”

“Good.”

“I no like.”

Judy was getting the hang of the accent thing. “You no like what?”

“Police.”

She smiled as she uncapped the pen and flipped through the pad for a clean slate. “Now what else did the police do?”

“Take me to here, take my hands”—Pigeon Tony held up two small palms so that Judy could see the ink on each finger pad—“take me a picture. Take alla clothes, alla shoes, alla socks. Take
blood
. Take everything.
Everything
. No can believe!” His dark eyes rounded with amazement, and Judy gathered he didn’t get out much.

“They took your clothes and your blood for evidence. They always do that. It’s procedure.”

“Evidence?” Pigeon Tony repeated, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “What means
evidence
?”

“Evidence is proof against you. Evidence shows you did the crime.”

“Evidence? Take
mutandine
!”

“What’s
mutandine
?” Judy asked, and Pigeon Tony went visibly red in the face, his thin skin a dead giveaway.
Mutandine
must have meant underwear.

“Forget,” he said quickly, looking away, and Judy suppressed a smile. He was so sweet, she couldn’t believe the police had arrested him for murder. Were they nuts? She was starting to no like police.

“I understand they’re charging you with murder.” Judy checked her notes. “The man they say you killed was eighty years old. Named Angelo Coluzzi. Did I say that right? Coluzzi?” She pronounced it like Coa-lootz-see, to make it sound festive and Italian. “Okay?”

“
Si, si.
Coluzzi.”

“Good. Upstairs they’ll be processing—getting ready—the charge against you. Do you understand?”

“
Si
.” Pigeon Tony’s face turned grave. “Murder.”

“Yes, murder, and I have to understand the evidence—the proof—they have against you. I’d like to begin by asking you a few—”

“I kill Coluzzi,” Pigeon Tony interrupted, and Judy’s mouth went dry. She hadn’t heard him right. She couldn’t have heard him right. She fumbled for her voice.

“You didn’t say you murdered Coluzzi, did you?” she asked, her tone unprofessionally aghast. She didn’t know what a lawyer was supposed to do when her client volunteered a confession. Probably shut him up, but that wasn’t Judy’s style. If it was true, it was awful, and she wanted to know why. “Did you say you
murdered
Coluzzi?”

“No.”

Judy sighed with relief. It must have been the language barrier. “Thank God.”

“I no murder Coluzzi.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I kill him.” Pigeon Tony nodded firmly, his thin lips forming a determined line, confusing Judy completely.

“Let’s try this again, Mr. Lucia. Tony. Did you kill Angelo Coluzzi? Yes or no?”

“
Si
,
si
, I kill him. But”—Pigeon Tony held up a finger, like a warning—“no murder. I no murder!”

“What do you mean?” Judy’s mind reeled. Antitrust beckoned. The Sherman Act was a cakewalk compared to an Italian immigrant. “You killed Coluzzi but you didn’t murder him?”

“
Si
.”

“That means yes, right?” She wanted to make sure. Clarity would be in order right now, since it was the murder part.

“
Si, si
. He kill my wife, so I kill him. No
è
murder.”

Judy’s heart lifted. Maybe it was self-defense. “Where was your wife when Coluzzi killed her? Were you trying to protect your wife at the time? Is that why you killed him?”

“No.”

“No?”

“My wife, she dead sixty years.
Murder
by Coluzzi.”

Baffled, Judy set down her Pilot pen. “Coluzzi killed your wife sixty years ago, so you killed him today?”

“Si.”

It meant yes, but still. “Why did you wait so long?”

“Si! Si!”
Pigeon Tony’s face went suddenly red with emotion. “Sixty years, alla same.
Occhio per occhio, dente per dente
. Coluzzi big, important man.” Suddenly animated, he puffed out his concave chest. “
Fascisti!
You know,
Fascisti
?”

“Yes. Fascists?” Judy racked her brain for Italian history but all she could dredge up was
The Sopranos
. She thought harder. “You mean, like, Mussolini?”

“Si! Il Duce!”
Pigeon Tony stuck out his lower lip, in imitation. “A murderer!
He!
Not me.”