Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [64]
DeCegli reentered his office. “Excuse me, gentlemen. We’re almost through. Carmine Martello, he was the laborer who was friendliest with Nunzio Pontillo and the one who found his body. Correct?”
“If you say so.”
“Why, if your motive for this agreement was simply to avoid rumor and superstition, did you take the trouble to track down Mr. Martello in Pennsylvania? Surely he couldn’t spread rumor and superstition in the Allegheny mountains about a Brooklyn construction job?”
Wood jumped out of his chair, indignant. “I’m tired of your innuendo! You people should be grateful! We let you into this country and gave you work, and you have the audacity to question us!”
His attorney tried to stop him, but Wood continued, sputtering, “If there was any problem on that job, it was hiring a pack of unskilled Italians and not losing more of them!”
DeCegli smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Wood. Thank you.”
SEVENTEEN
Lucrezia swabbed Giovanna’s head with a cool cloth. She was in her seventh hour of labor, and Lucrezia knew there were still many more to go. She told Rocco to take the girls to Teresa’s apartment and to stay there. Clement would remain behind in case Lucrezia needed anything. Rocco left, awkwardly nodding good-bye to his wife and sternly telling Clement to come get him quickly if he was needed.
Clement settled on his cot in the kitchen and tried to rest as Lucrezia instructed. The apartment was spacious by tenement standards. It had two small bedrooms, a large kitchen, and a closet with a toilet. Giovanna labored on her and Rocco’s double bed, above which she had hung pictures of the saints and her palms from mass. Borrowing from Sicilian tradition, she had encircled the bed with a turnialettu, a deep flounce of cloth to hide storage under the bed.
Lucrezia went to the sink for more water. The sink was also surrounded by drapery. Lucrezia smiled at the fussiness of this no-nonsense woman. It was hard to imagine Giovanna draping fabric or pinning religious medals on palm fronds and stepping back to see how they looked, but it was evident that she had.
While the labor was long, it was uncomplicated, and both she and Giovanna knew it. They simply had to settle in and wait for Giovanna’s body to cooperate fully. Giovanna was far enough along in her labor that Lucrezia had stopped making feeble attempts at telling jokes and stories between contractions and instead was letting her rest.
When Giovanna was ready to push at four in the morning, she did so with an intensity and concentration Lucrezia rarely saw. Lucrezia slowed her down to prevent her from ripping, teasing, “I sound like you.” When the baby’s head was birthed, Giovanna bent forward, and during the next contraction she delivered the rest of her baby’s body into the world.
At the first sound of the baby’s cry, Clement, who had feigned sleep through the delivery, jumped up and called, “I’ll get Papa!”
Lucrezia left the room, and in the quiet, Giovanna cuddled baby Angelina, examining every finger and every toe, crying with bittersweet happiness.
EIGHTEEN
1906
Elizabeth Street was bustling. It was late afternoon and the block was crowded with people selling, buying, and socializing, and with children playing among the barrels and boxes. Rocco looked at the few heads of cauliflower left in his cart; it had been a good day.
He surveyed the scene, and spying a short man with a beard, he called, “Fresh cauliflower! Only a few left.”
Hearing Rocco’s voice, another vegetable vendor looked up. “Cauliflower! Caul…” Rocco saw the vendor scrutinize the little man and change his call to “Fresh parsley! See the parsley!”
Yet another vendor joined in, louder than usual, “Parsley!”
Rocco looked around, confused. He hadn’t seen parsley on the carts today. Turning to the vendor selling clams next to him, Rocco asked, “Do you see parsley?”
“Yeah, there’s parsley right there,” he answered, pointing to the short man with the beard.
“What are you talking about?”
“Petrosino, the sergeant in charge of the Italian Squad.