The Laws of our Fathers (24 page)

    'It scares me. You're twenty-two years old. You don't know what you're saying.'

    'Okay, so you're gonna head-fuck me, right?
You
tell
me
what I feel.'

    Silence. I was not satisfied, naturally, to have won the round.

    'So here's the deal, right? I love you and you don't love me.'

    'Oh, Seth. Not again. This is a drag.' Her arms went limp, allowing her shawl to lie half on the sidewalk as we stood beneath a streetlamp. Our voices were strangely resonant in the sudden isolation of the street, where small single-story houses stair-stepped the hill.

    'It's the truth. I mean really, man. What is this, you and me? Entertainment?'

    'It's life, Seth. It's living. I mean, I enjoy you. I care about you. It's better being with you. Usually.' She walked on then. She stopped in a moment when she found more words. 'Seth, you drive me crazy to say I love you, because you can't say it to yourself.'

    'Oh yeah, great.' I said. 'Great. I'm like incredibly glad you told me. Now I can save all the bread I was gonna spend on that trip to Esalen.'

    'Seth, you don't see this. Sometimes, it feels like you want so much of me that you'd like to be me.' She nodded sharply, certain that she'd scored. I caught her by the arm as she turned to surge ahead.

    'So what,' I said suddenly. 'So what? Let's say that's true. At least I know what I admire. You're the most together, the sanest -'

    'That!' she screamed, 'that's the problem. You don't know the first thing about me. I'm an imaginary person to you.'

    'Jesus,' I said. 'What are you talking about? I've like fucking
studied
you. I've listened to your batty old mother. I've met her friends. Your aunt. I've read your high-school yearbooks. I try to

    wheedle any story I can about your childhood. And you think I'm missing the point? Here's the problem, lady. You're
afraid
I'll know you. You don't want anybody to discover the shit you don't want to know yourself.'

    'What a load,' she said. She twisted in agonized disbelief. We were done then. She was the first one to the car and I half expected her to leave me. Instead, we puttered across the Bay Bridge in silence, the only noise the little engine of the Bug, which, at high r.p.m.'s, uttered a sound as if change were twirling through its carburetor. I turned on the radio finally - KSAN - where, naturally enough, they were playing a clever, larking piano arrangement of 'What Is This Thing Called Love?'

    

    

    
Sonny

    

    In the same short-sleeved blue coveralls worn by the male prisoners, Lovinia Campbell is escorted by the transport deputies from the lockup and walks alone to the stand with a loose, disaffected ease. She is a thin, dark girl, with perfect skin and prominent eyes. No wonder she is called Bug, except the name belittles her beauty. She has the exotic, assertive looks of some of today's fashion models, big-featured and proud to be more than merely cute, although this young woman seems largely unaware of her striking appearance.

    Questioned by Tommy, whose heavy grey suit looks as if it had been stuffed in a drawer overnight, the girl says she is fifteen years old, sixteen soon. When Molto asks, she looks to the courtroom ceiling to recall her precise birthdate. Her hands are in her lap and her shoulders are rounded protectively as she sits in the witness chair. Her voice is small.

    'And where do you presently reside?' Tommy asks. 'Where do you live?'

    'Sometime I stay by my momma.'

    'No, I meant right now. Are you in the Juvenile Hall?'

    'Uh-huh. In juvie.'

    'And how long have you been there? Since September?'

    'Uh-huh,' says Lovinia. 'Since I be out the hospital.' She scratches her nose and watches Tommy alertly, her mouth barely parted, sitting forward slightly to hear the next question. It is not Tommy, however, who speaks.

    'Your Honor,' says Hobie. Basso profundo. His hands, in more courtroom opera, are lifted imploringly. 'If Mr Molto can't bring out the witness's residence without leading, we may as well just administer the oath to him.'

    'All right, Mr Tuttle.' Hobie knows Tommy has a tough road here and is serving notice that he will not let him travel easy. I remind Tommy not to ask his witness questions which suggest their answer and Tommy nods resignedly. He and Lovinia move falteringly through the details of her bargain with the state. She has acknowledged responsibility - a guilty plea, in juvenile terms - for conspiracy to murder and been adjudicated delinquent. She will be in juvenile facilities until she turns eighteen. She will not, however, be tried as an adult, will not even have a criminal record when she emerges. It's a great deal, a point which Hobie is bound to emphasize on cross. Tommy turns then to B S D, eliciting Bug's gang name, her set, her acquaintance with Ordell Trent.

    'And what was your relationship to Hardcore in terms of BSD?'

    'Core no kin to me,' she answers. 'Only BSD sides me is my brother, Clyde, and he downstate.' 'Downstate' is one of many euphemisms for the maximum-security prison at Rudyard.

    'No,' says Tommy, 'no, what did you do for Hardcore in the gang?'

    Recognizing her mistake, Lovinia's eyes plunge to her shoes. 'Kinda like scramblin,' she answers softly.

    'What does that mean?' 'Sell.'

    'Sell what?'

    'Mostly smoke and crank. Sometimes blow.' Crack and speed, occasionally powder cocaine.

    'You mean you sell dope for Hardcore?'

    'Leading,' says Hobie, as Lovinia says yes.

    'As long as he's clarifying previous answers, I'll allow it.'

    Tommy nods. One for his side.

    'And do you sell for Hardcore in any particular location?' 'Round T-4. Mostly by Grace Street and Lawrence.' 'Across from the IV Tower?' 'Kinda there, uh-huh.'

    'All right,' says Tommy. Feeling somewhat steadier, he leaves the prosecutor's table and travels a few steps along the carpeting.

    'Now, Ms Campbell, do you know a man named Nile Eddgar?'

    'Uh-huh,' she says. She gets a smile, this girl, this accomplice to murder, and is at once her age, happy, even a little silly. She looks askance. 'I be knowin Nile for a long time.'

    'And do you see him in the courtroom? Point him out please and say what he's wearing.' Although all eyes in the courtroom are already turning toward him, Nile, in another of his odd moments, seems unselfconsciously merry. He has turned himself fully about in his black bucket swivel chair, his worn cowboy boots - cowboy boots! - planted on the carpet. He sports an absolutely foolish grin, as if this young woman were here to entertain him. Lovinia is not quite able to meet his eye, even as she lifts her hand.

    '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.