“You’re right. He enters it into evidence and it’s a public record, everyone in Chicago gets to know that he—what? Is harassing Annie? That she’s making fun of him? If it painted him in any kind of unflattering light, he was so morbidly sensitive he couldn’t bear the humiliation of it being made public. Maybe that’s what he was afraid of—does that ring a bell with you, Rafe?”
Zukos flung up his hands, annoyed. “You mean, did anything he said back then make me think he knew about a diary? I can’t possibly remember. But was he so sensitive he wouldn’t use a document that betrayed his private feelings? Yes, I can believe that.”
So if Stella had found the diary before the trial, Joel might have persuaded her to keep it quiet on the grounds that laundering Guzzo family business in public would harm her. It made a certain sense.
“Also, I can’t picture the way my cousin is being painted in this lurid picture. He was reckless and attractive and a lot of women went for him, but I can’t see him threatening a woman the way Stella’s claiming is in Annie’s diary.”
“You think it’s a fraud?” Ken asked.
“Yes, even though your argument makes good sense. However, I don’t understand one thing about the trial, about Mandel & McClelland involving Joel, about Stella doing her time and now trying to get exonerated. Maybe Rafe’s right: I’ve been like Ahab chasing a great white whale of paper, and it’s time to let it go.”
When I got up to leave, Ken went back to his easel. He added a few more strokes, which made it look as though a leaflet was in the waves, the pages blowing so that you could imagine they formed the wide-open mouth of a whale.
I laughed, but I knew that in the morning I would be going back to Jeffery Avenue to talk to Joel Previn again. Early, before he fell into the Pot of Gold.
BUY ME SOME PEANUTS
As it turned out, Joel was able to get quite a long lead on his vodka the next day. After leaving Rafe and Ken, I drove to my office, where I learned that the media obsession with Boom-Boom’s alleged involvement with Annie Guzzo hadn’t abated. A car was parked in my space in the lot by my building, meaning I had to pay to use a meter on the street. When I walked over to confront the driver, he jumped out with a handheld mike and a video cam. Another crew emerged from the coffee bar across the street.
The guy in my parking space shoved his mike into my nose. “Les Fioro with Global, Vic. How do you feel about these accusations?”
I backed away. “Sorry, what accusations?”
Another mike appeared—the people from the coffee bar were piggybacking onto Les’s interview.
“Your cousin, wasn’t he?” the second mike said.
“My cousin? What cousin?”
“Haven’t you seen the news? Stella Guzzo is claiming your cousin killed her daughter,” Les said.
I shook my head. “My cousin has been dead for a good decade now. I doubt he’s come back as a zombie to murder anyone.”
Les was getting exasperated. “This happened before he died.”
“Ah, that would explain it,” I said.
“So how do you feel about it?” the second mike demanded.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I went to the front door to type in the code, but Les wasn’t so easily put off. He came up behind me, telling me about Annie’s murder, and Stella’s claims. I dropped my briefcase and when I stood up with it, knocked the mike out of his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said, smiling. “I didn’t realize you were standing so close to me. I hope it still works.”
The second mike retreated to the street: I was too unstable to waste more time with. I retyped the code and went inside while Les was chasing the mike, which had rolled to the curb.
I stood with the door open a few inches. “Mr. Fioro, my first phone call is going to be to a towing service: you are in a space that is clearly marked as reserved for tenants. Unless you want to pay towing fees, move your car.”
Once in my office, I scrubbed the avocado off my jacket as best I could, but the lapel of the wheat-colored linen now had a green cast to it. It can always get worse, I reminded myself, so don’t curse what’s already gone wrong. At least the tostada had been light and crisp, the vegetables fresh, the beans homemade.
I opened my file on Stella and tried to type in what I’d learned today. Not much of anything. I couldn’t see a trial transcript, no one knew if she’d been going to blame Boom-Boom in court when he was still alive and could sue for slander, no one knew why Sol Mandel made the hapless Joel defend her.
I’d told young Bernadine that I was going to get information but so far, the score was Stella ten, V.I. nothing. Or maybe one: I did have one new fact: Mr. Mandel’s first name had been Sol. And I knew, or at least was pretty sure of, another: that the diary hadn’t been in the Guzzo house twenty-five years ago.