The question was so absurd, Mary didn’t know what to say.
“I heard Frank Sinatra sing a duet with Bono, and it was great. Bono is great, don’t you think?”
Bono wishes he were Sinatra.
“I heard there was a mural of Frank Sinatra, somewhere in town.”
“There is, at Broad and Reed.” Finally, something Mary knew about. “It’s almost seven stories tall. It’s a painting of that photo where he has his jacket slung over his shoulder and his hat is tilted. It’s really amazing.”
“I don’t know that photo.”
“Oh.” Great. Maybe it wasn’t a good time for Mary to mention she was the only member of the Sinatra Social Society under age sixty-five, now that Yolanda had passed.
They fell silent.
Mary said, “Mario Lanza is on a mural, too, at Broad and Dickinson.”
“Mario Lanza? Who’s he?”
Ouch. Mary felt stupid for knowing, which seemed somehow ironic. “Mario Lanza was a great tenor and he was born in Philadelphia.” She didn’t add that Mario Lanza was her mother’s favorite. Or that Vita played his classic “Be My Love” on a continuous loop every Sunday, after Mass. These were colorful details Jason Pagonis would never hear. He was missing the best parts of the conversation. “They even have a new museum to him, on Montrose.”
“Montrose, where’s that?”
“In South Philly.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Jason said, his tone surprised. “When did he sing? Or perform?”
“In the forties.”
“The nineteen forties?”
Again, Mary didn’t know what to say. Yes, Frank Sinatra.
“That was a long time ago.”
That’s what makes it classic. Mary broke into a sweat. She couldn’t relax. She needed a drink but she didn’t drink, especially not Japanese sake, which tasted like warm balsamic and came in ceramic thimbles too small for Italian noses.
“So.” Jason cleared his throat. “Anne tells me you’re working on a really interesting case. Wanna tell me what it’s about?”
No. “Sure. It’s to get reparations for a man who was interned during World War II and committed suicide.”
Jason’s eyes flared. Suicide didn’t get guys hot, and Mary tried to recover.
“I went to the National Archives and saw all these documents that were typed on real typewriters. The documents are from 1941 -”
Jason laughed softly.
“What?” Mary asked, interrupting herself, which had to be a first.
“You have an old soul.”
“I do?”
“Listen to yourself.” Jason paused. “You love old things. Old music. The past.”
Is that bad? Mary wanted to ask, but she couldn’t because her throat constricted. She felt tense and, suddenly, sad. Sad that she was here with Jason, and sad that since Mike had died, she didn’t belong with anyone. She had stopped fitting in anywhere. She wasn’t a member even of her own generation; somehow she felt older and younger at the same time.
Mary thought unaccountably of the Venn diagrams she had studied in grade school, and how they overlapped. But she didn’t overlap anybody, anymore. She remained in her own circle, and she couldn’t seem to change that, turn it around, or make it better in any way. All she knew was that she wished with every cell of her being that she could go home, take out her contacts, and lie down.
“You two ready to order?” asked the waitress, appearing at the illuminated table.
Five
WORLD WAR II ROOM, read a paper that Mary had taped to the conference room door, and she and Judy had spent all Sunday searching the remaining documents from the National Archives for Amadeo’s file. By nightfall, twenty cardboard boxes full of USELESS documents lined the wall, and at dead center of the table rested a single white memorandum.
“We found something!” Mary said, leaning over the document.
“One lousy page? St. Anthony slacked off.” Judy sank into a swivel chair, crossing her legs in jeans and a striped tank top. Cirque du Soleil meets the Freedom of Information Act.
“No, he didn’t. You wouldn’t let me pray while we were looking, and that’s the only way his prayer works.”
“He’s picky.”
“He’s a saint.”
Judy sniffed. “I’m still mad at you for not marrying Jason. Anne said he was really nice.”
“Let her date him.” Mary picked up the document, feeling a tingle of excitement. Not only that History Channel thing, but what her mother had said. A new suspicion that there was a reason Amadeo’s file had gone missing. She reread the document for the tenth time:
CONFIDENTIAL
MEMORANDUM BY THOMAS WILLIAM GENTILE, Pvt. 4433366698.
On March 22, 1942, the undersigned monitored a conversation between MR. JOSEPH GIORNO, GIORNO amp; LOCARO, Columbus amp; South Broad Streets, Phila., Pa., and Internee AMADEO BRANDOLINI, ISN 3-31-I-129-C1, at Area “B” of this Internment camp.
MR. GIORNO took out a Mass card and asked permission to show it to SUBJECT. MR. GIORNO then informed SUBJECT that his wife Theresa died when she fell down the stairs at home. MR. GIORNO informed SUBJECT that his son, PVT. ANTHONY BRANDOLINI, had been so informed by mail. MR. GIORNO explained that they hadn’t told SUBJECT of the death earlier because this was the soonest he could make the trip.
Mary felt a spike of anger. She couldn’t imagine Amadeo hearing such awful news this way, and she wanted to know more about Joe Giorno. The name of his law firm was Giorno amp; Locaro, which must have been an earlier incarnation of Giorno amp; Cavuto, the firm that represented Amadeo’s son, Tony. The address was the same, too. The lawyer for Tony’s estate was Frank Cavuto, and he had brought her the case because he knew her from the neighborhood.
MR. GIORNO then asked SUBJECT how they should dispose of the house and the car. MR. GIORNO said that the car contained four gallons of gas, which should increase its value. SUBJECT rubbed his hands, then started to cry. MR. GIORNO said, “Don’t do that.” SUBJECT’S nose ran as well, and the scene was unpleasant.
Per request, a copy of this memorandum was forwarded to Director, Military Intelligence Division, and Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Signed, Pvt. THOMAS WILLIAM GENTILE, Pvt. 4433366698.
The memorandum ended there. The bottom of the page bore no number, so it was probably the first and last page of the memo. It raised more questions than it answered, and Mary’s thoughts churned. “Judy, don’t you wonder why they monitored Brandolini’s conversation?”
“No, I’m too tired.”
“In the individual files, only a few had memos of monitored conversations, and they were of internees the government actually believed were dangerous, like that guy who ran a fascist newspaper. Why would the FBI care about a fisherman from Philly?”
“Let’s call it a day, Mare.” Judy smoothed her bangs back but they popped forward again.
“Why did they keep the FBI informed? It says ‘per request.’ ” Mary couldn’t stop looking at the document. Oddly, she’d found it among correspondence from the camp commander’s office about coffee rations, milk orders, and laundry schedules, the quotidian business of running an internment camp during a world war. “Aren’t you curious why this page was stuck in the correspondence file?”
“You’ll figure it out. We’re tired. Very tired.” Judy patted Penny, who had curled into a neighboring swivel chair and fallen asleep. Dogs were allowed up on the furniture at Rosato amp; Associates, which was the sort of thing that happened at an all-woman law firm. That, and the refrigerator was full of Lean Cuisine.
“And think about what we learned from the files of the internees who died in the camps.” Mary reached for the three files of deceased internees and stacked them in front of her on the table. “Each one has a death certificate and burial arrangements. These files are thicker than the others, that’s why I noticed them. So where is Amadeo’s death certificate?”