Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'So I be thinkin, Oh, you done it now, nigger, this PO, he gone get in yo face how you rippin on his daddy. "I's just talkin shit," I say, and soon as I done said it, I can see, you know, like he busted.'

'Disappointed?' asks Tommy.

'Right,' says Hardcore, 'right. So maybe two weeks later, man, I like, "So how is it, dude, you really be wantin me to smoke you daddy?"

'And he say like that, "Yeah, I do." '

'Who's he?' Tommy asks. 'Who were you talking to?'

'Nile.'

'The defendant?' 'Yeah, right.'

Nile, when I look, has his chin at Hobie's shoulder. He is speaking to him with greater animation than he's shown at any point until now. Hobie is nodding emphatically, as his expensive pen races across the yellow pad.

'And where were you? When you had this talk? Who was around?'

'Just me and him. You know how it is, when he come down round T-4, I's sort of, you know, gettin him back to his 'mobile, so he don't get jacked or nothing.'

'So you were escorting him down the street near T-4 to his car?'

"Xactly,' says Core. "He like, "I give you $25,000, you fade him."

'And I go like, "Yo, you bent, man." ' "Uh-uh", he say, "hell I am anyhow, I mean what I say, you do it."

'I like, "Man, motherfucker, I see you motherfuckin money, we gone know you mean that you behind it."

'Whoa! Dude not down with that. He were burnin, ready to tear it up. I ain never seed him like that, man. He get up in my face.

'"I know you here slanging dope and shit, Hardcore. You think I don't know? Put you nigger-ass back in the Yard any time I say. You under paper as it is, Core. I pull you down whenever I like. Man, don't be trippin wit' me now. This here yo idea from the jump."

'"No way, motherfucker, this nigger ain but goin on.'*

'We trippin on that some, who say do it, but I seen he stomp-down on this, and I ain takin no ride.'

'You agreed to do it, rather than have him revoke your release?'

'Say I gone think on it some. And you know, then, every time I see the dude, he on me, "You gone do this, nigger, or ain you? Thought you was some bad-ass Top Rank gangbangin motherfucker, but you just some bitch-ass sissy like all them elderly niggers down the corner by Best Way Liquor with they forty zones of Colt." He on me all the time.'

Tommy stands a moment and frowns at his witness, clearly afraid that Hardcore, caught up in his performance, has gone straight over the top.

'Did you finally agree to kill Senator Eddgar?'

'Ain never finally agreed, till one day he come up, he got that newspaper bag.' Core points, and from the prosecution table, Tommy retrieves People's 1, the money and the blue newspaper bag in which it was wrapped. 'He gimme that.'

'Where were you?'

'T-4. On Grace Street. He by his ride, ain't even got hisself out. He just come up by there and tell Bug, "Go fetch Core." And I come on down, there he be, and he hand me that-there through the window. Say, "I give you the rest when you done it."'

'When was this?'

'August. Hot.'

'And what did you say?'

'I say, "Motherfucker, you fixin for me to do this?" 'He be like, "Uh-huh, I am."

'So I figure, well, okay, then gone have to get wit' it, otherwise he gone pull my paper sure enough.'

Tommy finishes laying an evidentiary foundation for the money. Hardcore says he took the bag to the home of Doreen McTaney, the mother of his son Dormane, and left it there until after the killing. He identifies his initials, next to Montague's on the evidence tag. With the money and the plastic bag now fully tied to the defendant and the crime, Molto moves for admission of the exhibits.

'Any objection?' I ask Hobie.

He purses his lips. 'Can I reserve for cross?' Hobie knows every trick. Having no basis to keep the money out of evidence, he wants to delay its admission in the hope that in the welter of last-minute details, the prosecutors will forget to reoffer the proof. Across his shoulder, Tommy tosses an irked look. By now he expects Hobie to be difficult. I admit the money, subject to cross, and Tommy picks up the thread with Core, whom he asks about preparations for the killing.

'Got with Gorgo and them. Tell Gorgo get him a good clean spout' – 'A clean spout' would be a weapon that would not trace – 'we got us to put in some work. Then I went rapping to Dooley Bug.'

'Is that Lovinia Campbell?' 'Uh-huh.'

'What did you tell her?'

Probably to keep Core from getting rolling again, Hobie objects for lack of foundation, meaning that Core has not said precisely when, where, and with whom the conversation took place. Tommy starts to explain, but Core has been around enough courtrooms to understand and interrupts.

'This here's day before we done it. Up the IV Tower. Just me and her.' He looks toward Hobie and sneers: Think what you think, motherfucker, but I ain dumb. I doubt, however, anyone here has made the mistake of questioning Core's smarts.

'And what did you tell her?'

'Put it down to her. Whole scene, you know.'

'What did you tell her specifically about Nile?'

'Nile and me, we fixin to gauge his daddy.'

'What did she say?'

'Oh, you know. "Why-all we gotta be doin like that?" That kinda shit.'

'And you said?'

' "Yo, freeze up, ho. You just be working here." ' The unvarnished accuracy and vehemence with which Core recalls his response provokes momentary laughter in the courtroom. Core smiles, as if he had fully calculated his audience's reaction in advance.

'Did Bug know Nile?'

'Hell yeah, she know Nile. Lotsa time he come round, she be rappin to him. He like her caseworker or some such. She kickin on them benches wit' him, rap for hours seem like. She know him good.'

Tommy glances my way, just to be sure I've registered that: Nile was nice to Lovinia, she'd want to protect him.

The remainder of the direct is somewhat anticlimactic. Core explains the plan, how Lovinia called him when June showed up. When he gets to the point where June was shot, Core winds his head around sorrowfully over the mistake.

'And when was the last time you spoke to Nile Eddgar?'

'Morning all this comin down. He beep when I's fixin to leave out, so I give him a shout off the pay phone down there in T-4, say all this cool.' Tommy takes hold of the computer records from Nile's phone and directs Core's attention to the call to his pager at 6:03 a.m. Core affirms this is the page which he answered from the pay phone outside the IV Tower. Then Tommy cleverly uses the various stipulated phone records to review the entire direct. 'Was this call on May 14 around the time you agreed to meet Senator Eddgar? Was this call on August 7 around the time you agreed to kill him?'

When he's done, it's near 4:30 and we adjourn. The transport deputies cuff Core to walk him back. His lawyer, Jackson Aires, who has watched the proceedings from a folding chair just inside the Plexiglas partition, approaches Core at the lockup door and rests a hand on his shoulder as they consult, nodding emphatically, telling Core he's done well. Hobie has gathered up his boxes quickly, and pushes Nile, who is still gesticulating toward Hardcore, out of the courtroom. Tommy and Rudy – and Montague, who's entered to help haul things downstairs – are lingering at the prosecution table, smiling among themselves. They've had their ups and downs but the week has ended well. The reporters have disappeared, as if by magic, all racing to beat deadline with today's spicy item: 'A convicted gang leader testified today that the plot to murder Senator Loyell Eddgar began when gang leaders angrily rebuffed Eddgar's efforts to turn the Black Saints Disciples into a political organization.'

A weird story, but it has the eerie resonance of a tale too odd to be untrue. In the subdued clamor of the spectators' departure, I sit still on the bench, gripping my pen and staring at the pages of the bench book, which are covered with the hurried notes I've made today. The critical line from Kratzus – 'My father was supposed to be goin over there' – is underscored at the top of the upper left-hand side. Considering it all, an omen bounds home in me: I'm going to find Nile Eddgar guilty.