“Mateo never would have thought about music for the girl if the Jewish whore hadn’t gone to work on him. Me, I’ve worn the same dress to Mass for six years running, but the Jew bats those big eyes and he shells out money we don’t have so the girl can pretend to study music. He doesn’t think about me, his own wife, let alone Frankie, who’s the one with the future in this house. Frankie could play in the big leagues, that’s what Mr. Scanlon told us. No, it’s what the whore wants; Mateo takes bread from my mouth so she can buy those fancy Italian shoes.”
“My mama doesn’t buy fancy shoes,” I started to say at one meal, but Gabriella hushed me in Italian.
“Carissima, your aunt is a pipe carrying water in two directions. Don’t pour into it at this end; it will only bring satisfaction to Signora Guzzo if she thinks her spiteful words bother us.”
What really enraged Stella Guzzo wasn’t the waste of money on something as frivolous as music, but the way Annie began quoting my mother on every conceivable subject.
“Mrs. Warshawski says the sky is bigger than what we see in South Chicago and we girls should go where we can see the stars at night. Mrs. Warshawski tells Victoria if she gets a bad grade from laziness that’s more of a sin than saying a lie, because being lazy is acting a lie. Mrs. Warshawski says smoking hurts the heart but dishonesty kills it, she says—” until Stella smacked her and said if she heard Gabriella Warshawski’s name one more time, she wasn’t going to be responsible for what happened next.
“We all knew Ms. Guzzo’s temper,” I said to Ira and Eunice. “The fact that you remember her, remember the case after all this time, makes me wonder if something special went on at the trial.”
Ira and Eunice looked at each other again: Should we trust her?
Ira made an impatient gesture, but he said, “We didn’t want Joel to take the case. We didn’t think he had enough experience, certainly not for criminal law. It was hard on him, it took a toll.”
“Why did you let him do it, then, instead of handling it yourself?” I asked.
Eunice shook her head. “Joel wasn’t working here—we thought he should have wider experience, and if he’d been here, he’d have always been in Ira’s shadow. Joel started with Mandel & McClelland, doing general law. The girl, Anne Guzzo, worked as a file clerk there part-time. Making money to help pay for college, if I remember correctly. When she was killed, Mr. Mandel felt responsible, felt they should do something.”
“And that something included providing her mother with a defense attorney?” I was puzzled, not to say incredulous, but I tried to keep my tone one of polite inquiry.
“It’s a tight-knit neighborhood, or it was. You should know that, having grown up there.”
“Yes, but—”
“Mr. McClelland went to the same church as the Guzzo family,” Eunice said. “He thought, at least I believe he thought, that the murder, including the mother’s defense, was the community’s business. Ms. Guzzo couldn’t afford an attorney, and he probably believed that even someone as inexperienced as Joel would be better for her than an overworked, underprepared public defender.”
There was a scrabbling at the lock as she was speaking. Joel Previn came in before she finished.
“And of course, we all know how wrong he was,” Joel said. “Why are we rehashing my earliest failure? There are so many others, more recent, that would be worth recounting.”
MINOR LEAGUE
Joel Previn was taller than his father, but he had the same heavy cheeks. On Ira they were sagging, like kangaroo pouches, but Joel’s were still upright, pushing his eyes up so that he almost had to squint. The likeness between father and son was remarkable, but so was the resemblance to his mother: Joel had Eunice’s high round forehead, her short flat nose, her biscuit-colored skin. What belonged to Joel alone was the unhealthy beading of sweat across his face. His appointment outside the office had been with a bottle.
I walked over to him, holding out my hand and introducing myself. He ignored the hand. I felt foolish, as one does.
“Did you know Stella Guzzo had been released from prison?” I asked.
Joel looked from Eunice to Ira, not the silent signals his parents shared, but as if he were seeking guidance. If they’d sent him to another law firm to keep him out from under Ira’s shadow, the strategy hadn’t worked well.
“I knew, yes,” he said. “Her parole officer told me, in case Stella wanted any legal advice.”
“Did she?”
“Not from me. Why would she? I’m the guy who couldn’t keep her out of prison in the first place.” He had his father’s baritone, too, but in him the undertone held a whine.
“So would you be surprised to learn she’s thinking about trying to get exonerated?”
“Am I on the stand here? Do I know, am I surprised, do I care? No, no and no.”
“I know it was a long time ago, Mr. Previn, but I’m wondering what she said during the trial to help with her defense.”