The Laws of our Fathers (74 page)

    'The whole thing with the money Nile gave Hardcore? That was all fairy tales.'

    'Music to my ears.'

    'One day it was dope money. Then it was campaign money.' 'Okay.'

    'Well, which was it?'

    'Hey.' Hobie briefly turns. 'I'm the question man. Him, Moldo, whatever his name was, the prosecutor, he's the answer person. I'm the this-don't-make-sense guy.'

    'But look. Like the bank books? You were going to put in all

    Nile's financial stuff to show Nile couldn't have given Core $10,000 of his own, right?' 'Pretty slick, huh?'

    'But Nile paid your fee. You told me that. So where'd that money come from?'

    Hobie stops now. He looks around for a sheet of newspaper and lays it on a beaten wooden chair, where he takes a seat.

    'And here's the real thing,' says Seth. 'Nile told me straight up - he never handed Hardcore any goddamn $10,000. Campaign or no campaign. He said it was a stone lie. Remember? I told you that the day in the jail.' Hobie has watched him, holding his whiskered chin.

    'Listen,' he says, 'listen, I'm gonna tell you something. 'He said. The defendant said. Shit. Listen, when I got hired as a PD in DC, 1972? I got into a prelim courtroom right away, cause they wanted brothers moving up fast as possible? And, man, I didn't know what the fuck I was doin. First preliminary I had, I remember, I'm representing a guy named Shorty Rojas. You know, as it is, you get about two minutes in advance to confer with your client and this dude, no fuckin lie, he can't talk. He's some kind of calypso spade, but I couldn't suss out what blood this dude had in him. I mean, he starts in, it's like, What motherfuckin language is this? This idn't street, this idn't island, this ain't Puerto Rico, this is just like fuckin glossolalia or somethin. And the case is a knifing, okay? Shorty, he performed a splenectomy out on the avenue. And thank God, the victim made it, and he's up there on the witness stand, and the prosecutor gets the victim down, "Show the judge just what Shorty done to you." So here's this motherfucker, he's stabbin away with the actual knife, about two inches from the judge's nose, you'd think you're watching Zorro. And Shorty, who I've understood maybe two words he's ever said, pipes up, "That's a lie. All lie. No right. No right."

    'And I hear this and I'm like, Holy smokes! Hold on, heart! I got myself an innocent client! I got so fuckin excited. I cross-examined like some ferocious motherfucker. And lost. Naturally. Never win

    a prelim if the victim says that's the guy. But I'm blue, I'm whale-shit low. So I go over to the jail that night, I walk up on the tiers to see my client. "Hey, man, Shorty, I'm sorry, we'll beat it at trial.'' He starts in again.' 'No right. No right. No right.'' And somehow, I'm walkin away and it dawns on me, he's still shaking one hand at me. And I go back, I say, "You mean, he's lying cause you didn't stab him with the right hand, it was the left?" Seen the fucker smile, you wouldn't believe it. "Left, left, left. No right." So don't tell me that the defendant said it was a lie, all right?'

    'Well, what does all that mean?'

    'It means what it means.' Hobie stands again to ponder his painting.

    'Nile was lying to me? Nile really paid him? What?'

    'See, this is why I didn't want you involved. This is why I was telling you, stay away from him. Cause you can't handle this. Man, I knew you, Jack, when you cried cause you found out Mary Martin was flying with strings. And you ain't changed. So leave it be. Scat.'

    'Hobie. Something happened there. Someone was murdered. I've known this boy almost his entire life.'

    'Look, I ain't gonna tell you what he said to me. I can't. Privilege holds unless he's dead. And he ain't dead.'

    'You sure?'

    'Pretty sure.' Hobie smacks the canvas with his brush. 'Why, you afraid Eddgar murdered him, too?' 'It's crossed my mind.'

    A rankling snuffle shoots from Hobie's nose. 'You the only fucker on Planet Reebok who hates Eddgar worse than I do.' 'Maybe I've got more reason.' 'You know your problem with him?'

    'I have a feeling you're about to tell me. Sock it to me, bro.' 'You envy him.' 'Say what!'

    'Yep, I think that's what it is. See, man, I hate him for the shit he did. But you hate him for that and what he is now. You look back to all that stuff you were going through twenty-five years ago and you say, "Wow, that was exciting, that's when I was political, idealistic, committed. But I quit that nonsense." And you blame him because you think he's basically the one what forced you to give it up. Yet here he is, that dog, talkin all that shit you'd still love to believe, doin it too, and you find that infuriating.'

    'No,' says Seth. 'I mean, yeah, I see it. And I know I still believe it. I mean, not all of it. I can't. It was a children's crusade and some of it was childish. But I recycle my bottles. I vote for the good guys. But it's the wild hopefulness I really miss. All that time, it didn't seem there was any difference between love and justice. You could have them both, without conflict. We were going to revise life, down to the essence. We were going to abolish unhappiness. It was glorious.'

    'Right,' says Hobie. 'We asked the essential questions: How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a cab?'

    'Thank you for your support.'

    'Shit,' says Hobie. Momentarily, neither speaks.

    'How about just a yes or no on one thing, Hobe? Did Eddgar get Hardcore to off June?'

    Hobie's sole response is to draw his mouth down into an irked little pouch.

    'Goddamn,' says Seth. 'You just want to be Captain Marvel.'

    'Oh, fuck you, motherfucker. All you're doin is lookin after yourself. This is the single thing in this life I am any good at, leastwise that means something to anybody else. And I'll be goddamned if I will treat it with disrespect, just cause you got the blues or some Holy Grail about some boy you looked after when he used to wet his pants. It's in the books, man: I can't tell.'

    They are within a few feet of one another in poses that would look combative to an outsider, staring each other down. Seth turns away first, wandering from Hobie's room, and takes a seat on the basement stairs, picking at the metal runner. The cellar is a collection of musty smells. Glancing menacingly over his shoulder, Hobie emerges but stalks off in the opposite direction. In the darkness, beside the glimmering sheet-metal venting of the furnace, Hobie rummages in the banker's boxes where the trial records are stored. Swearing in all the romance languages, he throws the top two aside to reach the herniated carton below. When he returns to Seth, he is holding a sheet of paper.

    'Not so fast,' he says, turning the paper to his chest. 'Not so fast.' He sits on the step below Seth, his bulk occupying the entire space of the stairwell. 'Now look, you're such a journalistic hotshot,' Hobie says, 'maybe you can figure this much out. See this prosecutor, what's he called? Moldo?'

    'Molto.'

    'I got onto him right from the start. You gonna be a PA for life, man, you gotta be an angry fella, you gotta be lookin to see the right people kick the shit out of the wrong people, you gotta get off on that, day in and day out. So I'm hip, and I start runnin some changes on him, and pretty soon he's so sore at me, he ain't even thinkin bout Nile, cause he figures I'm the evilest, most deceptive bastard ever walked into a courtroom. Which is just fine with me. All right?'

    'Are you going to say anything plainly?'

    'Lookee here,' he says, 'just listen up. Now here I am at the end of this trial, and I pull the rabbit out of the hat. State says my client brought $10,000 to this gangbanger to get him to commit murder, and lo and behold, I go and show Nile give him $10,000 cash okay, but it was from the DFU. You remember that part?'

    'Are you looking for applause?'

    'You be fresh, I can just go back to paintin’ on my picture.'

    'Fine, I apologize. So what's the point?'

    'Now, if I know from day one, from before that trial starts, that skunk Hardcore is lying through his gangbanging booty about what that $10,000 is and where it came from - and I do, I surely do know those things for fact - then why wouldn't I go in and say, "Now now, Mr Prosecutor, you done made one hell of a mistake, here's the check, go see the folks at DFU"? Why wouldn't I do that? How does Moldo answer that question?'

    'Because you're the evilest, most deceptive bastard that ever walked into a courtroom?'

    'Right on. I just get my jollies pullin his chain. That's what he thinks.'

    'And what's the truth?'

    'You supposed to tell me.'

    Seth thinks. 'It's a smoke screen, right? I would say you waited because you didn't want him to have time to look into this. Something about the money was wrong.'

    'Doin good, bro. Now I'll tell you the truth, man: There's a lot about that money, a whole lot, that's wrong, and I can't tell you but a little tiny part of it'

    'You didn't want Molto to ask Hardcore about it?'

    'No. Hardcore, he had to tell the lies he told before. Jackson gave him a script - that whole thing was so Jackson, man - and Core stuck right to it. Wasn't worried about Hardcore. See, what I didn't want Moldo and them to do was go out to that bank and talk to the teller who cashed that check. Cause she might tell them what-all she told me.'

    'Which was? Is that privileged too?'

    'Not really.'

    'So what'd she say?'

    'She remembered Nile. She remembered him cause he acted like his usual dumbbell self. She handed him $10,000 in cash - 100 one-hundred-dollar bills, by the way, no fifties or twenties. And he stuck them in an overnight delivery envelope. And she says, "You shouldn't oughta do that, it says right on the form, like, Don't send cash," and he says, "Neh, we've done it before," and 'fore he leaves out, asks her is Fed-Ex around the comer.'

    'So he didn't give money to Core? That's the point?' 'No.'

    'He did give the money to Hardcore?'

    'I'm saying that's not the point.' 'Well, who'd he send the money to?' 'That's the point.'

    The paper which Hobie's been holding is a printout from microfiche, white on black and heavy with toner, reflecting the data about a Fed-Ex delivery last July. Nile is listed on one side of the form as the sender. On the other is the destination:

    

    Michael Frane RR 24

    Marston, Wisconsin 53715

    

    When Seth looks back, Hobie is studying his reaction abstractly, waiting to see how long it takes to sink in. 'April Fools?' Seth asks. 'This here's no foolin.' 'It's him, right?'

    'Be a funny coincidence if it wasn't.'

    Seth stares at the paper again. His arms feel weak.

    'How long were you going to wait to tell me this?'

    'Probably forever. I'm probably doin somethin I shouldn't, as it is. Only you're breakin my heart with that hangdog shit, fuckin Oliver Twist or something, waitin for more. And this is a goddamn secret, Jack. The judge doesn't hear word one about this. I had enough lectures from her about withholding evidence to last a lifetime.' Hobie nods. 'You forgot to ask me when I got that from Fed-Ex.'

    'When?'

    'Night before Nile run off. One hell of a surprise, too. I'd asked them to dig it up weeks before. I opened the mail. It's like "Ee-yow!" '

    'He hadn't told you?'

    He shakes his head again, not a reply, but a sign he cannot respond.

    'He couldn't have told you,' Seth says. 'You just said you were surprised.'

    Hobie merely looks: a great stone face, which in fact it is, a face that would be worthy of some sculptor's efforts. 'What else did I miss?' Seth asks. 'Name of the town familiar?' Marston. 'Is that where June lived?' 'Bingo.'

    'He's been living there with her?'

    'Not with. Not so far as I can tell. But he'd been in those parts twenty-five years, same as her. Ran a little TV/radio/stereo kind of store since the eighties. Big chains, volume discounts finally put him out of business. Left him with some heavy debts.'

    'Is that what the money was for?'

    Hobie points. Bingo again.

    'Apparently, bankruptcy wasn't an option. Some folks didn't like the notion of a credit check on Michael or anything like that. You know, he'd sort of kept the name, case he ever ran across somebody he used to know, but he changed the spelling so he didn't step on your toes. Remember, you had his social security number. So his must have been a phony. Which meant they didn't want anybody pokin round about his background. That's how I figure it. Seems he's kind of a sensitive guy, anyway, not too good with stress. Had some kind of breakdown years back. He was working around there as a farmhand originally and cut off half of one foot in a threshing machine. That's like 1971.1 think that's when June showed up. June and Nile. Kind of nursed him back to health.'

    'Where the hell do you get all of this?' he asks Hobie. 'Not from Nile, right?'

    'Nope, else I wouldn't be telling you. No, I spent quite a bit of time on the telephone, starting with lunch the last day of the trial. While you were beatin the streets? I talked to the banker, realtor, chamber of commerce. Everybody liked Michael. Sweet, peaceful fella. Kind of strange. The boy we knew. I guess he stayed pretty close to my client over the years. Kind of like you and my client? Anyway, that's who I was trying to rustle up - my client. I've always figured this is where he bolted. Wanted to warn Michael his cover was blown.' 'That's why he took off?'

    'Partly, I'd guess. In part. I'd say, overall - strictly an estimate, not a confidence - Nile wasn't very pleased by the direction of the defense. He was ripshit with me already, by the time I showed him that piece of paper. But I think this here's a secret he'd always sworn to Mom he'd keep. I'm damn sure he didn't want me to go into all of this in court. Which, of course, I'd be obliged to do, if he would have let me. And then again, I think he might have worried I'd let word slip to you.'