A car’s headlights along a dirt road sent him diving behind a tree to keep from being seen. He jumped at every noise. Was someone following him?
By the time he reached the railroad tracks, all the shops had closed, their windows dark and foreboding. A light shone behind the front balcony above Labato’s Restaurant. But no Antonina. He crept around to the side street to access the alley.
As soon as he entered the edge of the courtyard, Antonina appeared from out of the shadows behind the restaurant. She held up a hand to stop him from approaching and scurried over to meet him.
With a backward glance toward her building, she whispered, “Let’s take a shortcut to the police station.”
They were in Antonina’s territory, so Sal followed her instructions without question. They stayed in the shadows and cut across the courtyard to the alley on the opposite side of the block. On the next block they climbed a fence, scurried through a grassy field, and exited over the fence again.
“Okay, let’s go around to the back, and I’ll show you where your papa is.”
She pointed to a barred window high on the brick wall. “His is the second to last.” She picked up a pebble and fired it at the open window. It passed through the bars and made a clinking sound from within the cell.
In a second, the top of Papa’s head appeared.
“Papa,” Sal whispered.
“Sal! What are you doing out at night by yourself? Is everything all right?” Papa clutched the bars with both hands, his mouth hidden from view.
“Antonina’s with me.” That was a useless thing to say. “Everything’s fine, but I wanted to see you. Are you doing okay?”
“Yes, as good as can be expected, locked up like this. You left Mama by herself? Or is Uncle Enzo there?”
“There’s a sheriff’s deputy protecting Mama.” Maybe Papa wasn’t told everything and didn’t know about Uncle Enzo, but Sal couldn’t say more for fear of being overheard.
“There’s one here, too, guarding me.”
Sal took a deep breath and said a silent prayer of thanks.
“Did Uncle Enzo come back?”
Sal swallowed. Tommy hadn’t told Papa. “Not yet, but he’s fine.”
Papa’s eyes grew wide, and he whispered, “Sal, get down.”
About a hundred feet behind them, Officer Hammond passed alongside a small white house, his cap and uniform silhouetted against it. Did Papa know about Hammond?
Sal dropped flat on the ground. Antonina crawled to a bush and crouched behind it.
In a few seconds, Antonina emerged. “He’s far away now.”
Papa’s eyebrows pushed together over his nose. “Sal, you’re not doing anything wrong, but it doesn’t look good for you to sneak around here. Why didn’t you wait until morning to visit me?”
Sal got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Papa. We—we’d better go.”
Papa sighed. “It was good to see you, son. Be careful, and give Mama my love.” His head disappeared behind the wall.
Sal and Antonina exchanged one glance and raced toward Costa’s Grocery.
A roadster’s shiny blue body twinkled as it passed under a streetlamp. This car was new to Freedom. Sal and Antonina shrank back behind the corner of Doctor Cardarella’s office.
“One and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten,” Antonina whispered and then stepped out onto the sidewalk. “He’s turning the corner. Let’s go.”
They entered the courtyard near the restaurant. Antonina crept dangerously close to the rear of the grocery.
“Here!” Sal waved her back toward him to a barrel cistern next to a vine trellis. Just in time, as the back door of the grocery opened. His breath caught.
Carlo and Hammond emerged and stood like statues under the eaves, arms folded across their chests.
“What are they doing?” Antonina’s voice held impatience.
“Just wait,” Sal whispered.
In a second, a figure dressed in a black suit and wearing a fedora rounded the corner of the grocery.
Sal grabbed Antonina’s arm. “Angelo.” Sal choked on the name.
Antonina scowled. “He must be crazy, coming here with the police looking for him.”
“Don’t you see? Hammond is the police. They’re in this bootlegging thing together.”
“But the gang shot Mr. Costa.” Wrinkles formed between Antonina’s eyebrows, and she moved her head from side to side. “How could Carlo …?”
The facts gathered and wove in Sal’s mind like fishing worms in a can. Hammond was bought off concerning the attempted bank robbery, but when did this relationship with Carlo begin? Sal held a hand against his throat. Could Carlo—had Carlo sacrificed his own father?
Shaking, Sal lowered himself to the ground. He lost his balance and collapsed against the trellis. A strip of wood snapped.
The three men turned in their direction.
Antonina gasped and yanked Sal’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sal clambered to his feet. Hammond strode toward them, withdrawing his pistol along the way. It was either stay put and be caught, or leave their camouflage and make a run to safety.
Sal and Antonina ran to the back door of the restaurant, but it was locked. “Papa! Help!” Antonina shook the door handle. Hammond raised his gun in the air.
“Antonina, come on!” Sal shouted, as he ran to the other side of the courtyard. He had to believe Hammond wouldn’t shoot them in the middle of the courtyard where anyone around could see.
She caught up with him, and he took her hand. They slipped through the alley to the next street.
Sal willed his voice to remain steady. “We can make it to the police station.” It was their only hope, although a slim one.
Darkness was their ally as they climbed the fence of the vacant field adjacent to the station. Then Sal had an idea. He pulled Antonina down into the tall grass with him. “Quiet,” Sal whispered. He crawled farther into the field, into a cluster of scrub brush, Antonina behind him. They lay face down, side-by-side and listened, the distant hooting of an owl the only noise in the night. The smell of dirt and green life filled Sal’s nose.
Feet pounded the soft earth and legs rustled the grass. The sound began as a hint of movement but grew louder. How close was he? Sal held his breath.
Click.
So, this was how it was going to end ... He stretched a trembling arm across Antonina’s back and began to whisper, “Our Father, Who art in heaven …”
A gunshot sounded, but from a distance. Not a pistol, but a rifle.
Antonina tore herself from Sal, jumped up, and screamed.
“No! Antonina!” Sal scrambled to his knees and reached for her but grabbed a handful of air.
Hammond fired into the darkness in the direction of the rifle shot. The rifle fired once more. Then there was silence. Hammond’s body leaned backward, defying gravity for a moment, and slammed to the ground with a thud.
Sal rose to his feet on shaky legs. He snatched the pistol from near Hammond’s hand and bounced around on his toes in a nervous dance while pointing it at him.
“Antonina!” Mr. Labato ran toward her, still holding his rifle. He opened an arm, and she flew into it.
From the direction of the police station, Tommy raced toward Hammond’s body with his own pistol drawn. “Sal, give me the gun.” Tommy extended a hand, his eyes and pistol still directed toward the body.
Sal turned the handle toward Tommy and placed the pistol in his outreached palm.
Faint cries from Papa’s jail window reached the field. “Sal! Are you all right? Sal! Sal!”
Tommy tilted his head toward the station. “Go through the front, and tell them to let your papa know you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry about the way I treated you and your mother the other day.” Mr. Labato offered his hand to Sal, who sat next to him and Antonina in front of Tommy’s desk.
Sal couldn’t blame Mr. Labato for looking out for his own famil
y. Papa might’ve done the same thing in his shoes. And Mr. Labato had saved not only Antonina’s life, but Sal’s.
Sal rose to his feet and shook Mr. Labato’s hand. “I accept your apology, sir.”
“Please be my guests at the restaurant soon.”
“Thank you. I’ll let Mama know.”
Tommy rose from his seat and handed Mr. Labato his rifle. “I think we’re finished here, at least for now. Hammond was taken to the hospital, and Carlo was arrested and taken to the parish jail. But Angelo is still at large, so Sheriff Husser will drive you all home.”
Sal turned to go, and Tommy grabbed his arm. “Stay with your mother, okay?” Dark crescents lay below his eyes.
“I will.” Sal pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry, Tommy.”
“You’re lucky no one innocent was hurt.”
“I know.”
“I understand you miss your father, but he should be home soon.”
Sal nodded and joined Antonina and Mr. Labato waiting at the door with Sheriff Husser.
Chapter 22
Proposal
“Papa!” Sal pushed against the screen door just as his father opened it, and Sal plunged to the threshold in a jumble of arms and legs.
His dignity bruised only a little, Sal dissolved into laughter. Papa’s deep-chested chuckle joined in. To laugh again—and see Papa laugh—erased the pain of the past few weeks. Papa lent him a hand, and in one movement, Sal righted himself and wrapped both arms around him. “Are you really home now?”
Papa cleared his throat. “Yes, I am.” He squeezed and patted Sal’s back as Sal hung on.
“For good?” Sal smiled but was almost afraid to believe it. “I never thought I’d be so happy for all of us to be together on this farm.” He shook his head and caught Mama’s eye. She stood nearby, laughing and crying at the same time.
Papa pried Sal loose and nodded toward the doorway to the keeping room. Tommy and District Attorney Cranch stood silent in the opening.
Sal’s smile drooped. Not them again. “What is it now?”
Papa’s hand cupped Sal’s shoulder. “Son, I need to ask you a question, and I want you to think about it before you answer.” He took a deep breath and looked into Sal’s eyes. “How hard should we try to make sure Angelo doesn’t ever hurt anyone else?”
What was there to think about? “As hard as we can, of course.”
Cranch inched closer to them. “Sal, are you willing to tell a jury everything you’ve seen and heard since Angelo and the rest of the gang first came to the farm?”
Sal hesitated and rubbed his neck. “I guess so. If it means that much.”
The muscles in Cranch’s face relaxed a bit. “It would mean a lot, Sal. You’re our best witness. You gained firsthand information that even your father wasn’t aware of at the time. And you’re credible.”
Sal swallowed. “Okay.” But something bad was coming. He sensed it the way Bruno did a storm, his body trembling, ears perking, and hair ruffed around his neck.
“You did some good detective work and outsmarted a gang of grown men.” Cranch spoke with an unnatural calm that put Sal on edge. “You helped us acquire some of the evidence needed to prove they carefully planned their crimes, which can bring a harsher sentence.” Cranch lowered his voice. “And they’re not going to forget that.”
“What do you mean?” Sal shot Tommy a quick glance but got nothing from him.
“Are you prepared to testify even if it puts you in further danger?”
Sal turned to Papa, who spoke in a voice as low and sad as anyone’s at Mr. Costa’s funeral. “We’d have to move far away from Freedom if you do.”
Leave Freedom? He’d wished for that, longed for the day it would happen. But now? He certainly never planned to stay there forever, but he wasn’t ready to go just yet. He wasn’t even finished with school—and Mama and Papa loved their farm. How could they consider leaving? He looked from Papa to Mama and couldn’t read their faces, so he turned toward Cranch again. “Where would we go?”
“It’s up to your parents, but someplace where no one knows you. You’d have to change your names and pretend to be someone as different from your real selves as possible, so the Mob would never suspect it’s you.” Cranch’s face was solemn, his voice quiet. In his black suit, he was a funeral director, helping them plan the death of their lives as they once knew them. “The Bureau will do what it can to help, but a lot will depend on you to maintain your own safety.”
“Is this what you think I should do, Papa?”
“I want you to do whatever you think is the right thing to do, Sal. I’ll have to testify anyway, and that’s a risk for us in itself. But it will be my word against theirs in some instances. Like Mr. Cranch said, people will believe you. You’ve never given them any reason not to.”
“Neither have you, Papa.”
“But some people may think I was tempted by the promise of money, even if for a little while.” Papa turned his eyes toward Cranch.
“Sal, even though your father won’t be on trial, remember that your testimony can convince people once and for all that he was coerced into helping the crooks.”
“We won’t have to feel ashamed anymore,” Mama whispered.
“What difference will it make, if we’re not here anyway?” Sal yelled at her, raising his hands in the air, fingers spread.
“Sal!” Papa grabbed Sal’s arms and yanked them down.
Sal shook his head and sighed. He didn’t mean to raise his voice and sound so angry, but he was. Only it wasn’t at Mama—or Papa either, but at the evil that had brought them all to this point. “I’m sorry, Mama. I shouldn’t speak to you like that.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask of you, Sal,” Cranch said. “It’s a hard decision to make.”
He’d be a target as much as any animal the Scavianos hunted. He had to be sure before he agreed to anything. “Mr. Cranch, may I think about it and let you know?”
“Of course. I’ll check back with you in a day or two.”
Tommy had stood silent, arms crossed, lips pressed together in a thin line. As he and Cranch headed toward the door, Tommy sidled up to Sal. “You’d be doing a very important thing, helping make it safe to walk the streets of Freedom again. And not only here, but in the rest of the state and the country, too.” Tommy clapped him on the shoulder. “Deputy Jim will stick around until after the trial.”
That evening, Sal lay fully clothed on his back across his bed and counted the boards in the ceiling. The total wasn’t half the number of places Sal had read about in books and considered living in some day. Back when leaving Freedom was something he looked forward to—and something that was going to be a choice, not a necessity.
He admired Grandpa and Grandma Scaviano even more now. How afraid they must have been, taking only their little boy Gianni and a few belongings and moving so far away from everything else they loved.
As much as their Italian family blood did, the farm connected them all and gave them something to cling to. They belonged to it just like it did to them. How would he and Mama and Papa have the courage to start all over in a strange place? And without Uncle Enzo, too.
Sal stifled a flow of tears, sending them down his throat. Enzo wasn’t only his uncle. He was also Sal’s friend. Each morning when Sal awoke, he checked the other bed, just in case a miracle had brought Uncle Enzo back home during the night. His absence left a hole in Sal’s heart that no one else could fill. How would Uncle Enzo ever be able to find them if they left the farm? They’d have different names. And they’d never be able to find him if he had to move around all the time like Cranch said. How far apart would they be? At any time, they might be across the country from one another—or across the world.
If Sal and Mama and Papa would have to leave their old identities behind and create new ones, Uncle Enzo probably had already. Was it safe for any of them to be Italian anymore, with Italian names? What if they had to be something completely different and maybe diffe
rent from one another? That would make Sal feel even more separated from Enzo. Sal tried on the idea of being ordinary, an everyday citizen with generations of American ancestors and nothing Italian to connect the four of them. He didn’t like the way it felt. He squirmed and sat up.
And how would they live? Could they farm somewhere in another state? Farming had been their whole life, with Papa not knowing much else but a little carpentry and automobile repair. Mama knew how to cook and sew and raise chickens. Would they have to try to survive in a city?
They’d hate the crowds and noise and dirty air. Mama would hate wearing short dresses and bobbing her hair like in photos of women in New Orleans and Chicago. Papa wouldn’t want her to look like that either.
And what would he, Sal, do?
He got out of bed and stepped out of his trousers. He might have to get up every morning before dawn to sell newspapers on a street corner or run errands at a train depot or loading dock. Would he get to finish school? Would he miss it? Would he miss the people of Freedom?
He stopped on the third button of his shirt.
Antonina.
Chapter 23
Dilemma
Sal went from wishing to be with Antonina before Papa got out of jail to hoping and praying he wouldn’t run into her. At least not until he figured out what to say. He couldn’t pretend everything was normal again. If anyone would see right through him, she would. So, he had to live another big fat lie.
Sure, it was a relief for Papa to be home. Mama laughed again. Marie didn’t pity Sal with her big soulful eyes and ask, “How’re you doin,’ baby?” each time she saw him. He and Hiram adjusted to picking up the slack left by only one man’s absence instead of two, while handling their regular chores.
Sal could almost make himself believe that Uncle Enzo was riding the train to visit some of the small cities along the northern route, trying to drum up more business.
The Other Side of Freedom Page 10