Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

But Seth looks all right now. He greets me with a chipper little smile and then a wink. Like all his gestures this week, it's slightly forward but too well-meant to do any real harm. Hello, he's saying. I'm here now, I'm okay. We're friends. And to my mild amazement, I find, before I've had time to think better of it, I've winked back.

'Ordell Trent!' Small, sallow, mussed as the weekend approaches, Tommy Molto bleats the name when I tell the prosecution to call its next witness, as we settle in after lunch.

'Ordell Trent!' Annie repeats. The name rolls on twice more, the transport deputy at the door shouting to a colleague in the rear, the second one yelling into the cage for Ordell to bring himself to the door. The keys jangle. Through the wall we hear the solid rumble of the lockup door sliding back, and the second deputy loudly warning one of the leftovers from the just-concluded bond call to stand away. Then, after a lingering moment, Hardcore steps into the courtroom. He has been here before, when he entered a guilty plea in late September. But I knew less about him then. Now, like a lion emerging from a cave, Ordell briefly blinks away the harsh fluorescence and serenely takes in a room full of persons somewhat terrified by what they've heard about him. Behold: the killer.

'Mr Trent.' I point him to the witness stand. His hands are cuffed, and one of the deputies approaches to release him. Then Hardcore, somewhat stout, hugely muscled across the chest, slopes toward me, with sufficient assurance to make it a mildly uncomfortable moment.

'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?'

'Sure do.' He drops his hand and settles in the witness chair.

Tommy is at the podium. His brief preparatory cough resounds through the courtroom, over which a deliberative stillness has fallen. Even Nile, in a blue blazer today, appears sufficiently focused to be taken as tense.

Hardcore states his name and present residence in the KCJ, Kindle County Jail.

'Are you known by any other name?'

'Gangster tag.' He rolls out the word: 'Hardcore.'

'Why don't you spell it for the reporter?' Tommy suggests.

'Oh, now,' says Hardcore. 'Get spelled any number of ways. H, a, r, d, k, o, r, p, s. Thass one I seen.' On the walls. He probably never has cause to write it himself. An odd thought: this name, this word, does not have a parallel existence in the world of letters – it's like some subatomic particle that exists only in physicists' calculations. Gang life is out there somewhere, an intense physical reality with no tie to a more refined realm of symbols.

On the stand, Hardcore looks determinedly relaxed, slumping a bit. In the gallery, amid the faces, I'm sure there are many T-4 Rollers, come to see Core. As a result, he will not allow himself to appear awed. The truth of gang life is that many are primarily hangers-on, gawkers, lookouts, the adoring masses through whom the true thugs promote their name. In other words, as it often is with kids: one bad actor and ten who think he's cool.

Hardcore is well rehearsed and far more co-operative than Bug. Tommy leads him along carefully. The prosecutors' strategy is apparent. As with Lovinia, they have made, quite literally, no effort to dress up Hardcore. He sits here in the sheriff’s-department' s blue coveralls, an ever-present reminder of his guilty plea and his acknowledged complicity in the crime. Like Bug, Core's clearly been told to be himself. He talks the same language he speaks outside. Tommy wants me to remember at all moments that this is the murdering hoodlum whom Nile Eddgar took up with as a friend.

Consistent with this plan, the first thing Tommy brings out is Core's lengthy juvenile record and his two earlier felony convictions as an adult, both for distribution of narcotics. His initial penitentiary sentence, at the age of nineteen, was for three years. His second – for possession of fourteen ounces of cocaine recovered from a car he was driving – was ten years, no parole. He got out four years ago. Like Lovinia, Hardcore has made an impressive deal in exchange for his testimony: twenty years for conspiracy to murder, which will amount to ten years inside. The criminal justice system recognizes the same rule as accountants: First in, first out. The flipper has to be rewarded.

'Now prior to your present incarceration, Mr Trent, what was your profession?'

'Gangster,' he answers.

'Were you a member of any criminal organization?'

'BSD,' he says, 'be for me.' A familiar slogan. Hardcore amuses himself. The sandy scratchings of a goatee frame his mouth and his large teeth have a yellowish cast when he smiles.

'What was your position in BSD?'

'Top Rank.'

'Were you one of the leaders of the gang, one of the shot-callers?' 'S'pose so.' 'Who is above you?' 'J. T-Roc. Kan-el.' Tommy identifies them by name.

' And how, sir, did you make a living prior to your incarceration?'

'Slanging.'

'Slanging?'

'Slanging dope.' 'Hanging, banging, and slanging' is the motto of gang life. In that street doggerel, slang, which originally meant to talk the talk, now is the term for selling drugs – a telling change.

'What kind of dope did you slang?'

'Mostly crack. Some wire.' Wire is another name for speed.

'Anything else?'

'Oh yeah,' says Hardcore mildly. Core, who is yet to be sentenced and not eager to make himself look any worse, is sluggish with his responses, but Tommy persists and forces him to admit he also sold PCP, methadone, rock cocaine, heroin, and some stolen prescription drugs. He had an organization, he says, of at least ten people working for him, which included Lovinia. 'And do you know Nile Eddgar?'

His face broadened with surly amusement, Core's thick eyes find the defendant. Hobie nudges his client and Nile, with one hand on the chair arm, as if he needs a boost, rises for the formal courtroom identification. Core continues smiling after pointing him out. Nile takes his seat, face averted, cowed and shaken, while Hardcore continues to smile.

'How did you come to know the defendant?'

'He my PO.'

'Your probation officer?'

'He keepin his eye on me for the court.' Parole has been abolished in this state in most instances. Instead, narcotics offenses and certain other crimes carry a period of supervised release.

'How long has he been your PO?'

'Seem like a year nearly. Had me couple others.'

'And how often did you see Nile?'

'Oh, you know, up the top, once a month.'

'And where did you see him?'

'T-4.'

'And what was the reason for his visit?'

'You know, man. Kinda check me out.'

'Eventually, did you begin to see him more often?'

'Yeah, how it come down, man got to be PO for a whole damn bunch of T-4's.'

'He was assigned to be PO to other members of the T-4 Roller set of the Black Saints Disciples?'

'Right,' says Core.

'Do you know how that came about?' 'Seem like he think he be kinda slammin, kickin it with us.' I sustain Hobie's objection to the witness testifying about the defendant's state of mind. Tommy tries it again.

'Did he tell you he'd asked for the assignment?' Hardcore actually appears to ponder. 'Yeah, man, cause how it were, I 'member him comin out one day -' 'When?' asks Tommy.

'Say like December, and you know, I'm like, "Dang, bo, you gettin in my shit, seein you mo than bad weather."

'And he sayin like lot them POs don't wanna get with it at the IV Tower, get they asses shot and shit, and he like, he don't mind none. You know, so he goin, "Gimme they-all, they down by me."'

'That's what he said? That he told other officers he'd accept the files because he didn't mind coming to the IV Tower?'

'Uh-huh. You know he got Winky, Crouch, Warbone, Handman, Turkey Swoop.' Together, Tommy and Hardcore try, with only limited success, to bring out the names of the remaining members whom Nile supervised. 'Dang,' says Core, 'what that cuz be named?' Tommy lets it go.