The playfulness in Papa’s face disappeared. “They’re in business,” he said, his voice low and gruff. He continued watching the road, his arm sliding down the steering wheel to take tight hold of it near the bottom.
“What kind of business?” Sal ignored the change in his father’s manner. He had to if he was going to find anything out.
“It’s not important.” Papa’s voice deepened. The answer was final.
Regret washed over Sal. He’d ruined Papa’s good mood and still gotten nowhere. Stupid questions. He squirmed to make Uncle Enzo let go.
Uncle Enzo removed his hand from Sal’s shoulder. He formed a loose fist with the other hand and pressed it against his lips, resting his elbow in the open window. He directed his eyes toward the passing landscape.
The three of them traveled the remainder of the trip in silence.
When they arrived at the Illinois Central train depot, it seemed the whole population of Freedom was there. Some of the men and women were dressed as though for Mass at the Church of Our Lady. They prepared to board the passenger cars, checking their luggage with any available porter. Like Papa and Uncle Enzo, farmers in dirty work clothes mingled among them, unloading fresh produce from their trucks for shipment to other towns and states. Merchants in aprons received goods for their shops from several of the freight cars.
A few men loitered at the hitching posts still used occasionally for horses. Sal’s stomach lurched. Oh, no—three of the men from the night before!
Papa pulled up to the south end of the depot and killed the engine, the three strangers watching the whole time. Papa’s jaw clenched. He tugged the front brim of his hat low over his eyes.
Uncle Enzo scowled at the men. “Maiali,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes stormy.
Hiram climbed out of the truck bed and walked toward the depot.
“Sal, go see if Antonina is home.” Papa nodded toward Main Street and a row of brick two-story buildings connected on the sides. In one, Antonina Labato’s father once ran a bar but now ran a restaurant because of Prohibition. Papa and Uncle Enzo sometimes read newspaper stories about Chicago, over 800 miles north. There, Al Capone sold liquor in spite of the law because people wanted it. They went to places called speakeasies to drink it in secret. Sal couldn’t imagine Antonina’s father—or his own—breaking the law like that.
Antonina was Sal’s best friend, which was fine because she liked to catch lizards and play baseball instead of doing the silly things most girls did. Besides, she was the only other person at school who was exactly his age.
The Labato family lived in the apartment above their restaurant, and Sal often sat with Antonina on the balcony that overhung the sidewalk in front. Together they enjoyed a bird’s eye view of the townspeople going about their business.
Papa stopped sorting papers in his hands long enough to notice Sal still standing in the same spot. “Sal, go on.”
“Don’t you need my help?” Sal didn’t want to leave Papa and Uncle Enzo with those men hanging around. His gut told him there would be trouble, like the time a gypsy came to the farm asking for a handout, and Grandma Scaviano refused him. For spite, he snatched one of Papa’s new work boots off the porch right in front of her eyes and ran off with it. These strangers looked to be the same type.
“No, son.” Papa patted him on the shoulder. “Do what I tell you.”
“Si, Papa.” Sal had no choice but to obey.
He plodded across the railroad tracks and Main Street to Antonina’s building. At the door of the restaurant, he paused in front of the sign that read “Whites Only” in red letters. Something told him to look behind him. Mama would’ve said it was his guardian angel.
The strangers stood close to Papa and Uncle Enzo at the back of the truck and spoke to them. Uncle Enzo took a step backward, and his arm sliced through the air in a horizontal motion, his way of saying a firm no.
Papa shook his head and reached toward the strawberry flats. The short man who’d tapped Papa’s cheek the previous night placed a hand on his arm and spoke into his ear. Papa raised his head for a second. Then his shoulders slumped, and he gripped the truck’s tailgate.
Uncle Enzo’s head jerked around in Sal’s direction. When their eyes met across the distance, Uncle Enzo’s face held something Sal had never seen there before—fear.
Papa nodded at the man who had spoken to him.
Sal’s gut twisted into a knot.
Chapter 3
The Ride
Papa and Uncle Enzo kept Sal busy with chores the next day, giving him no time for questions. It wasn’t until the sun began to set behind the lofty pine trees across the road from the farm that Sal had a moment alone with his father in the family car.
“Isn’t Mama coming to town with us?” Sal sat with Papa on the front seat of their 1924 Ford Model T Tudor.
Mama stood in the doorway of the front room of the house, looking out at them through the screen. She wore a freshly ironed dress and had arranged her hair. One hand rested on her hip and the fingers of the other covered her mouth.
Why was she just standing there? She never missed a chance to ride into town and visit the shops, especially the grocery store. There she would talk with the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Costa, until after the store closed—or until Sal fidgeted so much she was afraid he would break something.
“It’s too late, Sal.” Papa’s voice rose from deep within his chest.
Too late? “There’s plenty of time to get to town before dark.” Not that it ever mattered before.
“Uncle Enzo will stay with her. You and I have to go.”
Mama came out of the house and walked up to Sal’s side of the car. Maybe she would join them after all.
Sal reached for the door handle, ready to give up his seat. “Did you change your mind?”
“No, Salvatore, I just want to kiss you before you leave.” Mama pecked Sal on the cheek and placed her hand under his chin. “You’re a good son. Do everything Papa tells you, okay?” Her brown eyes moistened with tears.
“Sure, Mama.” If she would only stop fretting over him.
“Rosa, go back into the house.” Papa’s words were measured, his tone steady. “We’ll be fine.”
Something flipped in Sal’s stomach. We’ll be fine. The anxiety in his mother’s eyes crept into his spirit and took residence.
Uncle Enzo appeared at the screen door where Mama had stood. At the squeak of its springs, she turned and walked back toward the house, wrapping her sweater close around her. Uncle Enzo held the door open, and she stepped inside.
Papa started the engine and let it run for a minute, watching the house. Neither Mama nor Uncle Enzo reappeared. Papa and Sal drove away.
When they reached the end of the gravel drive, Papa stopped the car. He looked straight ahead and said, “We’re going to pick up some men and take them into town with us.” A muscle twitched in his jaw.
Sal didn’t have to ask who they were.
Sal rode in silence on the back seat between two of the strange men dressed in black, who laughed like mules and slapped him on the head as if that would make him understand the joke they told.
Papa didn’t speak, and anger boiled inside Sal. Papa had never let anyone knock Sal around like that before, not even in fun.
“Hey, you ever been to New York, boy?” asked the one whose revolver Sal had seen when they were at the farm two nights before.
Sal shook his head, and both men seated with him exploded into laughter as though he’d said something hilarious.
In the front with Papa, sat the man who’d whispered to him at the train station—a man who smelled of alcohol and cigar smoke and whose pants pulled so tightly across his belly that he might burst out of them at any second. A fat, hairy hand that flaunted a diamond ring on its little finger rested on the back of Papa’s seat.
“Shut up, you two.” The fat man tossed his words toward the back seat with a flip of the head that almost knocked his fedora off.
The two men fell silent and stared out their windows.
Sal glanced from one to the other and frowned while he smoothed his hair back into place. Why was Papa helping these terrible men? He’d always preached to Sal about being judged by the company he kept. Now look at who they were with. He wanted to ask where they were taking these bums, but the reflected image of Papa’s eyes watching him from the car’s rearview mirror made him think better of it. Sal squeezed his eyes shut and wished he could be at home.
By the time the group reached the edge of town, darkness had crept into Freedom. Sal couldn’t see anything but the blacktop in front of them until the first streetlamp on Main Street. He searched Antonina’s upstairs windows for a sign of her before Papa turned off and drove one block west. He pulled slowly into an alley, turned off the car’s headlamps, and stopped.
They were behind the bank.
Papa killed the engine, and the other three men in the car opened their doors and got out. Right away, they popped the trunk and removed some tools—Papa’s mallet, hacksaw, and others—and lugged them to the rear door of the bank. Someone lit a kerosene lantern. There was the large, tall man who had bothered Uncle Enzo, along with the remaining two strangers who’d visited the farm.
The back of Sal’s scalp tingled and his chest tightened, his breathing rapid and shallow. They were there to rob the bank—to take the money that the Scavianos and the people of Freedom had worked so hard for. And Papa drove them! What could make him do such a thing? He never cheated or stole from anyone as far as Sal knew. If he accidentally shortchanged a field worker, he sent Sal right away with the difference.
“Papa,” Sal whispered to the back of his father’s head. But it shook with the tiniest movement.
Papa had to be sick, or he wasn’t in his right mind. Sal had to get away and tell someone. He searched the darkness for an escape route.
The large man swaggered to Papa’s side of the car. “You’ll wait in your seats, if you know what’s good for you and the boy.”
Sal held his breath and sat as still as when he and Antonina played “statues” in school. He couldn’t leave, with or without Papa.
“Angelo, come over here,” one of the men at the back door of the bank said to the large man.
Angelo turned and walked toward him. “Stupido.” He raised his hand as if to strike the man who’d called his name out loud.
“That’s enough,” the fat man with the diamond ring said.
“Sure, Boss.” Angelo dropped his hand.
Papa turned around and whispered to Sal, “Everything will be okay if we do what they tell us to.”
Sal bit his lip. He didn’t believe that, and Papa probably didn’t either. The way these crooks treated one another, why would they care what happened to Papa or to him?
The boss stood watch as the four other men attempted to open the bank’s back door. Sal couldn’t see much beyond the men’s backs, but the sound of metal against metal filled the night.
Maybe they wouldn’t be able to break the locks. Maybe they’d give up in a little while, and Papa could take him home. Sal took a deep breath and his spirits lifted.
A bright light appeared across the alley, and Sal jerked a hand to his eyes. He squinted at the silhouette of a figure taking shape in the doorway of a building.
“Hey, who’s there?” the figure demanded. A man’s voice.
Sal drew a sharp breath. Oh, no—Mr. Costa from the grocery!
Mr. Costa raised a rifle from his side and stepped outside his door. He pointed the barrel straight up into the air and fired.
Sal’s body jolted at the explosion of gunfire. Papa reached over the backseat and tried to push him down, but it was too late. Sal watched in horror as the boss drew a pistol and pointed it directly at Mr. Costa, firing three shots across the alley.
Tools clattered to the pavement. The robbers scrambled to the car, diving and piling into it any way they could. Sal’s legs were nearly crushed under the weight of one of the men, who flung himself lengthwise across the back floorboard.
Papa cranked the engine, but the roar did nothing to drown out Mrs. Costa’s screams. As they pulled away, she dropped to her knees and threw herself over her husband’s body.
The car sped from the lights of town, plunging through the blackness of the pinewoods—but not in the direction of home.
“What’d you shoot for?” Angelo asked.
“Who d’ya think you’re talking to?” the boss demanded.
Papa cut into the argument. “I know a good hiding place.”
Where could that be, out in the middle of nowhere? Of course—the shack where old Mr. Robinson used to live, abandoned since he died. Sometimes Papa, Uncle Enzo, and their friends used it when they went hunting. But why was Papa helping the crooks escape?
Papa sped farther and farther away from town, away from home, from Uncle Enzo and Mama. A full moon hung in the sky, and fog clung near the earth. Papa exchanged glances with Sal in the mirror.
They drove a few miles when the engine began to sputter.
“What’s the matter?” Angelo barked.
“I don’t know,” Papa said. The engine died and the car rolled to a stop.
“Well, you better figure it out!” Angelo lifted his gun to Sal’s head.
“I’ll take care of it. Please don’t hurt him.” Papa’s voice trembled. He opened his door and stumbled out.
Sal shut his eyes, his throat dry, the steel barrel cold against the skin of his temple. Don’t cry, he commanded himself. Pretend this is a bad dream.
Papa lifted the hood of the car. Sal couldn’t see what he was doing, but he made a lot of noise. Too much noise.
Papa had to be faking. Sal had seen him work on their car and truck many times. Papa would know right away what was wrong. He knew everything about that car.
A new sound pierced the night from a distance. A siren wailed, getting closer and closer until a faint light appeared in the fog behind them.
Curses flew as the criminals leapt from the car, tripping over one another. They righted themselves and bolted into the woods.
Sal got out of the backseat as fast as he could and hurried around the outside of the car to the front.
“Papa, what are we going to do?” Headlights loomed and descended upon them. “We’ll be caught.”
“Don’t worry.” The hood dropped from Papa’s fluttering hands and slammed shut.
A police car pulled up behind the Model T, and two policemen emerged—one much older than Papa and the other much younger.
“Having car trouble?” The driver of the police car removed his hat to reveal gray hair and a wrinkled face, which he wiped with his handkerchief.
“We ran out of gasoline,” Papa said quietly.
Sal took the first relaxed breath he’d taken all night. Papa never intended to take those men to a hiding place after all.
“What’s your name?” the older policeman asked.
“Gianni Scaviano.”
“And the boy’s?”
“This is my son, Sal.”
“Mr. Scaviano, the grocer in Freedom was just shot by someone trying to break into the bank,” the policeman said. “They may have come this way. Did you see anything?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Sal’s eyes widened in disbelief as he turned toward his father.
“Well, if you see anything suspicious tonight, please let us know.”
“I will.”
“We have a little gasoline we can give you to help you on your way.”
“Thank you very much.” Papa followed him to the police car.
The younger policeman, blond and fair-skinned, stared at Sal with pale blue eyes.
Sal twitched and shifted his feet.
The young officer edged closer. His blue eyes locked onto Sal’s brown ones. “You’re quite a ways from home tonight, aren’t you?”
Sal swallowed hard to calm the butterflies in his stomach. How could this policeman he’d never met k
now that? “Yes, sir.”
Papa poured gasoline into the car’s tank and handed the container back to the older officer. “Thank you, again.”
The younger one continued to study Sal’s face.
Sal tried to keep his expression as blank as possible. A poker face, Uncle Enzo called it.
“You’ll let us know, too, if you think of anything, won’t you?” The young officer raised his blond eyebrows.
Sal swallowed again and nodded.
The sound of an approaching vehicle provided Sal with some relief, as both policemen turned in its direction. A pickup truck containing Carlo Costa, the grocer’s son, and another young man about his age pulled up behind the police car. The older officer walked over to them.
“Let’s go home, Sal,” Papa said, his voice weary.
Sal got into the seat next to his father.
“Have a good night,” the blond officer said.
Papa started the engine and turned the car around to head back toward Freedom.
Sal had never been so happy to be going home. Maybe everything would be all right now. Please, God, make it be all right.
But as Papa and Sal pulled away, he felt the blue eyes still watching him.
Uncle Enzo ran out of the house and leapt from the front porch to meet the car when Papa and Sal drove up.
“What happened?” Uncle Enzo’s eyes darted toward the road as if he expected the police to drive up at any moment.
“They got away,” Papa said, killing the engine.
“With the money?”
“No, nothing. They didn’t get the door open.”
Sal got out of the car first, his mind and body numb, his movements slow.
“Are you all right, Sal?” Uncle Enzo searched Sal’s face and then spun him around, checking his head and back.
“Yes, Uncle Enzo.”
Papa emerged from the driver’s seat, exhaustion and sadness in his face. “Enzo, they shot Mr. Costa.” He pounded the roof of the car with his fist and released a ragged sigh.
Uncle Enzo grabbed the sides of his head. “Mater Dio. Is he—?”
The Other Side of Freedom Page 2