The Laws of our Fathers kc-4

by Scott Turow

  Core stares, motionless, feral. Hobie's finally got him. 'Huh?' asks Hobie. 'You and T-Roc had this one checked out, didn't you?'

  Core just shakes his head.

  'You went there thinking you were going to bribe Senator Eddgar, didn't you?'

  Aires unfurls his lanky form from his folding chair and raises his hand tentatively. 'Judge,' he says, ‘I have to be heard.' Suddenly -in one of those light-switch moments – it's clear what Jackson's doing here. He's not just protecting Hardcore. He's looking after T-Roc, Kan-el, his entire client base in B S D. I wave Aires to his seat and Hobie asks me to have the court reporter read the question back.

  'No way,' says Core. 'You trippin.'

  Hobie's nostrils flare in a sudden disbelieving exhalation. It's the first moment in which I know for certain Hardcore has been caught lying. Core and Aires have covered this one. If Hardcore acknowledged a conspiracy to commit bribery, T-Roc's supervised release would be in jeopardy. Worse, Core would have dimed out his own, not the way to commence a ten-year stay at Rudyard.

  'So are you telling us, Hardcore, that you never offered or received any money directly or indirectly through Senator Eddgar? Is that what you're saying? Do you understand what I'm asking?'

  'Nigger, I understand you fine.'

  Hobie stands with paralytic stillness. The sole movement – an involuntary one – is the tip of his tongue sneaking forth between his teeth. The word, of course. The entire gulf of black life, that heritage of disrespect, stands between them for a moment.

  'Read the question back,' he tells the court reporter, finally, without taking his eyes from Hardcore. It's my job to issue that instruction, but under the circumstances I do not intervene, just nod to Suzanne.

  'No money, nothin,' Core says, 'ain nothin like that.'

  'Nothing like that,' Hobie says. Standing over his notes at the podium, he takes a few more seconds to collect himself, shifts his shoulder, and rebuttons his handsome, green-toned Italian suit. Over in the jury box, in the journalistic dog pound, there is a steady murmur. Bribery! This case is too much, something great each day. I see Dubinsky and Stuart Rosenberg huddled together, but turn away abruptly when I sense Seth trying to catch my eye.

  'Now, Hardcore, most of what you're saying about Nile -there's no kind of record of it, is there?'

  'Record? What kind of damn record, man? I ain no D Jup here, man. Record,' he huffs.

  'No documents. Nothing to prove what you're saying is true. For instance, this phone call you say you made to Nile the morning of the murder, after he beeped you. There's no record of that, is there? Not so far as you know?' The state has already stipulated to this. Hobie's on safe ground.

  'They's the money, man,' says Core.

  'Right,' says Hobie. 'The money. That's the only thing backing up your testimony, right?'

  Hobie's correct, but it's an argument not a question and I sustain the prosecutors' objection.

  'Well, haven't the prosecutors told you, Hardcore, how important that money is?'

  'Money be money, man. Make the world go round.'

  ‘I think that's love,' Hobie says, over his shoulder. He's moving again, on the prowl, working his hands, his fancy alligator loafers scudding across the worn courtroom carpeting. 'You understood that bag of money you delivered to the prosecutors – you knew it was the key to corroborating your testimony, didn't you? You couldn't have gotten your sweet deal without the money to back you up, right?'

  'Yo, man, chill. That wasn't no thang, man, cause I had the damn money, okay?'

  'Oh, you had money,' says Hobie. 'How much money, Hardcore, did you make every day slanging dope – $5,000?'

  Core equivocates. He doesn't know.

  'Two thousand?'

  Hardcore shakes his head.

  'How many people did you say you had working for you? Did you say it was five? Wasn't it more like seventy-five?'

  'Oh, no, man, no way. You sky-up.'

  ‘I am? Let's talk about your cars, Core.' Hobie takes him through it all. Jewelry. Houses. Women he supports. Hobie has the police reports from the Force narcotics unit – informant information and occasional surveillance. Core is clearly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

  'Core, you have $10,000 cash dope money sitting around any day of the week, don't you?'

  Aires is sitting forward alertly now. Hardcore, sensing he's being trapped again, flares up.

  'Look, nigger, he gimme the money, Jack, so just get behind it.'

  Hobie again comes to a complete halt. His eyes briefly flicker my way. Which is all the invitation I need.

  'Mr Trent, the next time you address Mr Turtle in that manner, I'm going to hold you in contempt. Do you want to talk to Mr Aires?'

  'That's all right, Judge.' Standing again, Jackson waves the back of his hand in a schoolmarmish way at his client. 'You behave,' he says across the well of the courtroom.

  On the stand, Core lowers his head and mutters to himself. I make out a few words. 'Buster, man.' It's Hobie he's referring to. A drag, he means. Hobie goes back to the prosecution table for People's Group Exhibit 1, the money, divided in two clear envelopes, and the plastic newspaper bag it supposedly was delivered in.

  'So it's your testimony that Nile Eddgar gave you this bag and $10,000 in late August this year?'

  'They fingerprints, man.' Core snidely smiles. 'That didn't surprise you, did it?'

  'Ain surprise, man, cause I knowed who dogged me the money.' 'But you expected the money and the bag to have prints on it, didn't you?'

  Core shrugs. 'Maybe.'

  'Sure you did. You kept this money safe, didn't you? You didn't even take it out of the bag, did you? Isn't that what you said?'

  'Straight down.'

  'You didn't spend any of it, did you?' 'Nope.'

  'You had other money to spend, right?' 'Right.'

  'You didn't let this get mixed up with any of your other money, did you?'

  'Yo, you hear what I'm sayin? That the money he give me, man.' Core's been instructed. By Aires. By Tommy. The money's the case. He knows he can't come off it, not an inch.

  'You kept this bag secure because you knew if something went wrong, you'd have a way to give up Nile? That you'd have his prints. That you'd have this to hand over to the po-lice. Right? Isn't that how it was?'

  Hardcore considers the implications of the question at length. The weird yellowish fingernails, recalling some Chinese mandarin, appear as he scratches the incomplete goatee, and I see his eyes again drifting to Jackson. There's a trade-off here for Core. By acknowledging these nasty calculations he can explain why he had the cash to back up what he was saying. But in admitting he was prepared from the start to give up Nile, he's confirming the central tenet of the defense. Worse, perhaps, he's dissing his own character. The bangers, wild with the ravages of wounded ego, can rarely endure that. Yet across the courtroom Jackson's chin drops no more than a quarter of an inch, and Hardcore gets it.

  'Could be,' he says at last. Hobie tries not to look as if he was hurt by the response.

  'Sure. You had that thought, didn't you? "If I have this bag, if I have his prints, I have Nile? I'm always going to have something to give the laws, if worse comes to worse?" '

  He shrugs.

  'Yes? Is the answer yes?' 'Yessss,' hisses Core.

  'It isn't the case, is it, Hardcore, that you took this bag and a few bills that Nile had handled and put $10,000 of your dope money in here and made up this whole story, is it?'

  Core's head rifles back. He snorts, 'Get over yo'self, man. Just get over it.'

  At the podium Hobie evens his stack of notes and closes his folder. He rests an elbow there.

  'Now, Hardcore, I'm going to do something no good trial lawyer is supposed to do. I'm going to let you explain, all right, man? I'm going to be fairer to you than you've been to Nile.'

  In the moment of suspense, Molto fails to object to Hobie's rhetorical flourish. Purposefully, Hobie strides up to the witness box, ho
lding the three exhibits: People's 1, the blue bag and the two packages of bills. Facing Core, Hobie makes another long, melancholy inspection of him.

  'Now, I want you to look at Judge Klonsky, and I want you to tell her why, if this is the $10,000 Nile Eddgar gave you in August, if this is the money you kept safe, if this is the money you never took out of this bag, tell the judge why the West Side Forensic Laboratory says there's a high concentration of cocaine residue on nearly all of these bills?'

  Molto, Singh both erupt. Tommy screams, 'Oh my God!' and is halfway to the bench before I even catch sight of him. He's bellowing.

  'Objection, objection, objection, Judge! Judge, I'm supposed to get the results. You said, Judge, that the People were to get the lab results. I never got those results. Judge, what is this? What is this?'

  I find I have my hand on my forehead again. Hobie has remained before the witness, holding out the second package, the one which he sent to the lab, but he has turned my way with a sheepish, little-boy face.

  'Your Honor, I didn't know if I was going to use it.'

  'Judge! Oh my God, Judge,' yells Tommy. I point to Singh, ten feet behind Molto, and suggest Rudy calm him.

  'Mr Turtle, am I supposed to believe that? The discovery rules are clear. And my order was clearer.'

  'Judge Klonsky, they knew I was having the money tested. You allowed it.'

  'Judge!' screams Tommy. ‘I asked him for the results. I was standing right there.'

  'And I told you,' Hobie says. 'No blood. You mentioned blood. They didn't find blood. You mentioned gunpowder. They didn't find gunpowder. That's what you asked.'

  'Oh, Mr Tuttle,' I say.

  'What?' he asks, as if he didn't know.

  Rudy, who's kept his wits, comes to the bench and moves to strike the question and exclude the lab results. I order a ten-minute recess and direct Hobie to turn over his lab report. Molto and Rudy are given permission to consult the witness. I broil a moment in rage. Lord, Hobie is a scoundrel! There are certain defense lawyers who become rogues with their clients, enjoying a commando existence, striking from the borderland beyond the rules. It's the one part of their job I knew I could never handle. What did Seth say about Hobie? He could have been more. Instead, he's just another courtroom tomcat. From the defense table, where he's sorted through the banker's box to find the chemist's report, Hobie approaches the bench with my copy. I hold my head aloft, unafraid to convey my dim judgment of him. A musing, philosophical look crosses his features in reply.

  Nonetheless, I have to deal with the facts. In chambers, I study the lab report. Eighty-eight items of US currency from People's Group Exhibit iB, each identified by serial number, were examined first by washing, then by testing the residue with a mass spectrometer. Every item showed the presence of cocaine hydrochloride, with the residue on each bill weighing between 390 and 860 micrograms. No question, this is the result Hobie hoped for from the outset. It's why he wanted the bills tested. And he calculated well. The law, like everything else, plays its own game of ends and means. With warrantless searches, if dope is discovered the courts always think of an exigent circumstance justifying the intrusion. And Hobie's excursion beyond the rules has also produced its own excuse: Hardcore lied. Hobie caught him, he proved it. No one, even these days, would exalt procedural regularity over a defendant's right to combat prosecution perjury. When the finger-wagging is over, I will not exclude the lab report. And, when my anger subsides, I'll take in more fully what I already sense: that the state case, which hinges on the money, has been badly damaged. At a deeper level, I remain stuck on the question of motive. There's no reason Core on his own would want to kill Loyell Eddgar – or June, for that matter. It's likely Nile was involved somehow. But it may never be clearer than that. Hobie has taken a giant step toward raising a reasonable doubt.

  When we reassemble, Molto urgently renews the state's motion to exclude the lab report. Cocaine traces have rubbed off dope money onto most of the currency in the US by now, he claims. That's true enough, but Hobie's chemist said the concentrations he identified were between fifty and one hundred times incidental levels.

  'I'll reserve ruling,' I reply, 'until the report is offered in the defense case.' Hobie plays his part, wailing in anguish, as if he takes my threat seriously. Perhaps he does, but shamefaced groveling is part of the standard routine of the courtroom rascal. I offer the prosecution the chance to reopen their examination of Hardcore. They've had a few minutes together to account for the heavy cocaine residue on money Core claimed was never outside the plastic bag, but as Hobie anticipated, they have not been able to come up with much.

  'Man, you know,' says Hardcore, when Tommy asks him to explain, 'could be I had some shit in that drawer over by Doreen's. Sides, man, I can't be figurin what-all Nile be doin when he kickin.'

  Tommy nods, as if those responses were fully satisfactory, and concludes. Hobie stands at the defense table, for brief recross.

  'You know you make a urine drop when you come into the jail, don't you?'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'And do you know that Nile's drop was clean for cocaine?'

  Objection sustained. But Hobie's point is made. Both lawyers say they have nothing further and I call the luncheon recess. I stand on the bench, but on second thought motion to Suzanne, the court reporter, to remain.

  ‘I want to say one thing, Mr Tuttle. On the record. Any further violations of the rules of discovery and there will be two consequences.' I count off the warnings on my fingers. 'First, Mr Molto won't even have to bother with a motion to exclude. I don't care if the Pope is here as a character witness for your client, if he hasn't been disclosed to the prosecution, his testimony won't be heard in this courtroom. And second, there will be severe sanctions for you personally. And I'm not kidding.'

  Hobie's whole substantial upper body sways obediently. 'Yes, Your Honor,' he repeats. I stare him down, even as he continues mumbling reassurances.

  'What do we have next?' I ask Molto. 'After lunch?'

  He blinks, taken aback that in the confusion of the morning I've forgotten.

  'The Senator,' he answers.

  Typically me. Most feared is last remembered.

  In the meantime, the transport deputies in their brown uniforms have approached the witness stand to return Hardcore to the lockup. One of them, Giosetti, a large man with an unbarbered mass of grey hair, motions him down. Core rises to full height and, looming there, takes another instant to glower in the direction of the defense. Hobie catches him at it and, poised by the paper-strewn table, answers him with an unwavering humorless look. It's not so much personal triumph Hobie communicates as a lesson, a declaration of faith: My way is better. Don't you see, it's better? The moment goes on. In the end it's Hardcore, streetside master of a ruthless look of primal malevolence, who, with the excuse of the deputy's beckoning hand, turns away.

  Marietta's TV is held fast before her as I enter her office. The grey glow of her noontime soap is broadcast on her cheeks, but her eyes nonetheless veer toward me an instant. 'What?'

  She does not bother with an answer, but hands me a small striped gift box, with a note attached. Back at my desk, I open the envelope first.

  Sonny -

  Thanks again for dinner. I'd say more, but I don't want to break the rules.

  I thought Nikki might enjoy these things. I hope they'll hold her for the time being. Please tell her that meeting her was the nicest thing that's happened to me in weeks. (I mean it!) Seth

  P. S. The cops found my father's car. It was parked around the corner. There was no damage and the doors were locked. The cops interviewed a neighbor who knows my dad and said she saw him park in that spot three days ago. She's sure the car hasn't been moved. Apparently, he just got confused.

  I guess I'm going to have to do something.

  Seth. Like a blinkered pony, I've stifled an urge to glance at the jury box all morning. Even so, in this solitary environment, the thought of him forces up the warring feelings t
hat have visited me occasionally for two days now, the adolescent zing of romance, and a stubborn dread verging on doom. Saturday night I found myself numbed by the madness of being kissed. I sat in the living room, in the pure white light of a long-armed halogen lamp, attempting to read. Every ten minutes or so I found my fingertips on my lips, from which I promptly removed them.

  Inside the box Seth has dropped off, there's a large plastic tooth the size of an apple. It opens at the top, and within it are a number of dime-store items: those wind-up teeth that chatter and bounce along the tabletop, and a crude set of false buck teeth, like the ones on which Jerry Lewis based a career. Nikki will be thrilled.

  'Where'd that guy go to?' she asked on Sunday morning, as if it made any sense at all to think he might still be around.

  'He went home, silly. Did you like him?'

  The whole head moved, the dark bangs fluttering. She bit her lip and did not speak momentarily, attempting to cope with the reality that he'd left her behind. 'He should make a beard,' she finally told me.

  Maybe he should. I amuse myself with the thought of facial hair, last refuge of the balding. But sobriety returns quickly. I reach the same conclusion every time I think this through. Just let it go. That's adult life, isn't it? Small eruptions of insanity, and a regathering of forces for the long march of responsibility. Rereading Seth's note, I shake my head over his father, then I repack Nikki's gift. I use the back door so I can avoid Marietta on my way out for lunch.

  All of us – Hobie and Seth and me – have been warped by time. Balder, fatter, altered in a way. But recognizable. The sight of Loyell Eddgar is shocking. I've seen photos in the paper on occasion, but they must have been taken more than a decade ago, when Eddgar first struck out on his career in local politics. Not for a moment had it occurred to me that he is now in his late sixties. His hair, naturally, is shorter, thinned, and preponderantly grey. He has gained, over the years, thirty or forty pounds and his posture is reduced. Eddgar, whom I never imagined softened, is softer.

  He stands before the bench now, waiting for instructions. His mere appearance is intensely dramatic, the father his son purportedly meant to kill. The reporters are on alert; the gallery again is SRO. Behind the bulletproof pane, the anxious, curious faces seem as remote as figures on TV. Back by the doors, Annie has stationed another sheriff's deputy to keep order, directing the standees left and right, to make sure there is still an open lane for egress. Even Jackson Aires has returned, his duty done but his curiosity apparently high. He sits in one of the front-row seats generally saved for representatives of the PA's Office.