Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'He over there, by the big fella,' Bug says. This description of Hobie brings down the courtroom. The laughter resounds, even from me. Caught by the outburst while her slender arm is still midair, Bug once more drops her head abjectly. Like most of the homegirls, she wears a plastered mass of straightened hair, dulled wisps, stiff as a hedgehog's, that go in one direction, another shiny patch of bangs shellacked in place with spray. The Afro, the do of liberation, is long gone, one more forgotten fashion of the disrespected past.

'Ms Campbell,' I say, 'he is a big fella. You didn't say anything wrong.'

Hobie stands grandly. 'I'll stipulate to that, Your Honor. Bigger than I should be.'

Lovinia nods, somewhat mollified by all this reassurance. She is, as so many of these children turn out to be, a nice kid, without much protection at the core.

Tommy resumes. 'Now how do you know Nile?'

'He round,' she says, 'he hangin.'

'Around where?'

‘IV Tower,' she says.

'When did you first see him around the IV Tower?' She rolls her eyes again to the ceiling and guesses it was about March.

'And how often after March did you see Nile around? Once a week? Twice?' asks Tommy. 'Seem like.'

'Judge Klonsky,' says Hobie, 'he's leading.'

Tommy tries again, asking simply, 'How often?' Bug can't really say. Tommy's eyes close briefly. He says something to Rudy, seated just beneath him, and Rudy shrugs. I imagine they're debating whether to go after her, to remind her that she said something different before. But that is always the last resort for the state. Once they attack the witnesses they've called, they're admitting they have no direct road to the truth. Tommy decides to venture on.

'And did Nile tend to be with anyone when you saw him?' 'Seem like he kickin it with Hardcore.' 'He was with Hardcore?'

Something darts through her expression and her eyes flash away, perhaps toward the defense table.

'You know, seem like he be checkin out lotsa different cuzes,' she adds.

Tommy frowns. He leans down and confers with Rudy once more, then opens a file folder on the prosecution table and stares into it for a moment.

'Ms Campbell, do you recollect ever characterizing Nile as, quote, "Hardcore's road dog"?'

Lovinia passes off the question with a vague gesture.

'Isn't a road dog a best friend?' Tommy insists.

'Don't know nothing bout no road dog,' says Lovinia.

At the table, Rudy waves his long slender hand. Move on, he's saying. It's a small point, and she already gave the answer Tommy wanted before. But Molto stares darkly at Lovinia another second before accepting his younger colleague's guidance.

'Let me call your attention, Ms Campbell, to September 6, 1995. Do you remember having a conversation with Hardcore?'

Hobie makes a standard hearsay objection. He and Molto debate at length whether a preliminary showing of a conspiracy has been made, but given Nile's fingerprints on the money, I rule in the end for the state.

'Do you remember that talk with Hardcore?' Tommy asks, starting again.

'Kinda,' she answers.

'Kinda,' Tommy says. He raises his eyes to God. He's strolling now. 'Where did you speak to Hardcore?' 'Seem like in the crib on 17.'

'In an apartment on the seventeenth floor of the IV Tower?' 'Uh-huh.'

'And what did Hardcore tell you?'

'Said next a.m., real early, man, we was gone ride down on some dude on my corner.'

'What kind of dude? Did he describe the dude you were going to ride down on?'

'White dude.'

'He said your set was going to ride down on a white dude?' 'Uh-huh.'

'Did he say who the white dude was?'

'Said somethin bout some kin to Nile, seem like.' 'What kin? Did he say what relation the white dude was to Nile?'

She tosses her head around uncertainly. Across the courtroom, Molto is still, his lips drawn into his mouth. He knows for sure now. She is going to do it to him. Rudy knows, too. He has already picked up the file folder Molto had before. When Tommy gets back to the table, he takes it from Rudy and snaps it open.

'Ms Campbell,' he says. 'Do you recall talking to police officers on September 12? And September 14? And September 29? Do you remember that?'

'Seems like I be talkin to the police all the time.'

'Do you remember on September 12 that you spoke to officers Fred Lubitsch and Salem Wells at Kindle County General? And on September 14, you were released and you spoke to them at the intake area of the juvenile home? And you saw them there again on September 29? Do you recall all of that?'

Her shoulders rise and fall in mild resignation.

'And do you recall saying on each of those occasions that Core said you were going to ride down on Nile's father?'

'Maybe I say it be some kinda kin like his father.' In this brief interchange, Lovinia's youth has left her. The girl shamed by the courtroom laughter and intimidated by the setting has disappeared. Her street mask is on now. She sits straight in her chair.

'Ms Campbell, didn't you meet with Mr Turtle two weeks ago?'

Hobie rises immediately. 'Your Honor, what's the insinuation here?'

'You'll have to let me hear the question to know.'

'And wasn't it only after meeting with Mr Turtle that you suddenly began to say that you couldn't recollect which kin of Nile's it was Core said you were going to ride down on?'

'Can't only say but what I 'member. You done to' me that a bunch of times,' she says to Tommy.

‘I ask you again: Didn't you tell Officer Lubitsch repeatedly that Hardcore said you were going to ride down on Nile's father?'

Tommy has rolled up the police reports in one hand and he brandishes them for a second. He has shown her those reports often by now. There have been a dozen impassioned sessions in the little attorney interview rooms at Juvenile Hall, with their barred windows and peeling radiators. In menacing tones, he's reminded her what the cops say she told them and he's put it to her: she flips him, her deal' s out the window, she' 11 be tried as an adult, do murder time, maybe even some perjury time, too. Molto waits, while the unspoken memory of these threats is summoned.

'I don't hardly 'member,' says Lovinia. 'Might be I been sayin that.'

'Okay,' Tommy says. He's finally getting somewhere. He straightens his coat and finds his notes. 'Did Hardcore tell you who was going to ride down on Nile's father?'

'Objection to "Nile's father,"' says Hobie. 'We still don't have such testimony.'

'Overruled.' Hobie's being a pest. Judging from the opening, the state has plenty of proof that Eddgar was the intended target. But Hobie, I surmise, messed with Lovinia's testimony on this point anyway, just to throw down roadblocks for the prosecutors. I still can't quite make up my mind about Hobie. He's already done some memorable things: the way he snuck up on Montague or courted Lovinia here. But there doesn't seem to be any overall purpose or strategy. Stew said it yesterday: it's all diversionary tactics. For all his craft, I see Hobie as another charming courtroom blowhard, ad-libbing and always onstage, more interested in causing a constant commotion than conducting a symphony.

'Gorgo, he said. Said some white dude gone roll up and be askin after Hardcore. And how it be, I'm s'pose to say I'm gone go get Core, then I'm s'pose to shout out for Gorgo instead.'

'How were you supposed to shout out?'

'On my flip.'

'You had a cell phone for the dope business?' 'Uh-huh.'

'And what was the number?' She gives it.

'And after you called Gorgo, what were you supposed to do?' 'Jam,' she says. 'Get out of there?' 'Uh-huh. Leave out.'

'And was there a further plan? Were you supposed to do anything else?'

'Uh-huh,' she says. 'After they done burned a cap in him and all, then Core say like I oughta get back up to the car and put a seam on him.'