The Laws of our Fathers (50 page)

    'Do you intend to cross on this subject, Mr Turtle?' Hobie averts his face, looking for a dodge he can't find. 'Sure,' he finally says.

    'Then you may as well hear the rehabilitation. Go ahead, Dr Eddgar.'

    'I was very reluctant to disclose my political involvement with Hardcore. I realized it was likely to be controversial. And I didn't think it had any relationship to June's death.'

    I'm sure Molto and he have worked on this answer for some time, but it's a good one. Political self-preservation, Eddgar is saying. He didn't want to be publicly allied with BSD. But no matter how artfully packaged, this is the first trace of the Eddgar of old. He was instantly capable of a cold-hearted decision: June was dead, anyway, why soil his skirts? Tommy walks along a moment, studying his shoes.

    'Senator, let me cover one final subject with you. I'm sure Mr Turtle will bring this out, sir, but I believe you have told the police that you don't know of any motive for your son to do you harm - is that fair?'

    'That's my view.'

    Tommy nods equably, as if this is all right with him. 'Senator, let me take you back to the meeting with the gang leaders and Nile in the limo. Had you informed your son that you were going to suggest this plan to T-Roc and Hardcore for BSD to become involved in politics?'

    'He claimed I hadn't. As I said, I've mentioned the subject to him often through the years, but I suppose he paid less attention than I imagined.'

    'He told you afterwards you took him by surprise?'

    'Right.'

    'And what was his emotional state as he told you this?'

    'He was put out.'

    'Do you recall what he said?'

    Eddgar has stiffened slightly. Apparently, Tommy didn't give him a preview on this line of questioning. ‘I believe he said I was using Hardcore.' 'Did you and your son argue?'

    'Nile and I have always had our moments. We had a somewhat heated exchange standing there on the street, and then within a day or two we both calmed down.'

    'But he was very angry at the time?'

    'At first.'

    'At first,' repeats Tommy. Hobie has ceased the note-taking and is watching Molto intently. Like Eddgar, he has seemingly been taken unawares. Beside him, Nile has lowered his face to the defense table as he twiddles with a rubber band. It's impossible to know if he's even listening.

    'Now, you told us, Senator, that Nile introduced you to Hardcore. Correct?'

    'Yes.'

    'And whose idea was that?'

    'Mine, I think. We were having one of these discussions about what Nile was doing, his work, how it was going, a father-son talk, I guess, and he mentioned this concern about Kan-el's parole and I said, "Nile, well, why don't you have him talk to me, I might be able to help." Something like that.'

    'And how did he respond to that suggestion?'

    ‘I don't recall.'

    'Did you bring up the subject again?'

    Eddgar looks to the ceiling. ‘I believe so.'

    'So you had to suggest more than once that it would be a good idea for you to meet Hardcore?'

    'Yes. I'm sure I did. I had this notion about the gangs, that -Well, I've testified to that.'

    Tommy takes a step closer. 'Did Nile talk to you about his work often?'

    'All the time. As I said, the subject interested me.'

    'Did Nile tell you he'd requested assignment to Grace Street cases?'

    'Oh yes.'

    'Do you happen to remember, Senator, whether you suggested that assignment to him?'

    'I might have.' Eddgar nods serenely, but a certain calculating light has come over him. He's trying to recollect everything he may have unwisely admitted to Tommy in their many interviews. ‘I believe I did.'

    'Now, his job as a probation officer, Senator- do you remember who suggested that line of work to Nile?'

    'I'm sure I did.'

    'You did?'

    'Yes. Nile was at a point - Well, he was like many younger folks, he was casting about, and I suggested it, I said, "Go on back to school in social work, you like all that." '

    'And how long did it take him to do the school work?'

    'Eighteen months, as I remember.'

    'Did he do a thesis?'

    'He did.'

    'What was the subject?' 'Street gangs.'

    Molto looks at Eddgar. 'Yes, I suggested that to him,' Eddgar says. 'And you helped him get his job, too, didn't you?' ‘I made some calls.'

    Tommy assesses Eddgar, straight on. 'And can I ask, Senator

    did you ever feel, sir, that Nile was undertaking these activities

    school, the job, the assignment, arranging the meeting with Hardcore - in any way because he was pleased by your interest in him?'

    As Eddgar is deliberating, Hobie rumbles to his feet. 'Your Honor, I'm sittin here just wonderin whose side he's on anyway?' His hand, big as a paving stone, is directed at Tommy.

    'Is that an objection, Mr Turtle?' Hobie, of all people, is hoping to cue Eddgar, who still seems to have little idea all this is coming at his expense.

    'I'd say it's an observation, Your Honor. My objection is that Senator Eddgar can't testify to what the defendant felt.'

    'Well, Mr Tuttle, I'd say, Keep your observations to yourself. The question is what the Senator believed. And I find the line of questioning directed at impeaching earlier testimony. Proceed, Mr Molto.'

    Eddgar speaks enough of the lingo to catch the drift. Accustomed to being in charge, he swivels my way in the witness chair, looking both stumped and somewhat imperious. The question is read back.

    'I'm not sure I ever thought about it in those terms.'

    Tommy eyes him briefly before he nods in the same sage manner.

    'Now, let me see if I get this, Senator. Your son had spent more than three and a half years following your suggestions about his education, his thesis, his job, his cases. And then, according to what he said to you, he suddenly found out as he sat in the back of that limousine that in everything you'd suggested to him, you had a political agenda of your own?' Tommy utters this question in a placid tone. He might even be said to sound somewhat respectful, but everything else in his manner is stone-cold. I see what's going on now. Molto is one of those grey men of the bureaucratic world whose whole life has been spent in service to the likes of Eddgar, the savvy pols with the winning public manner and the unrestrained private appetite for glory. For such men, Tommy has risen and fallen, with few of them bothering to look back to him in the dust. And now he has the opportunity to call one to account. In what may be the most bizarre moment yet in an entirely unorthodox case, Tommy Molto, prosecutor for life, stands before the bar, advocating the defendant's point of view and lacerating the crime's intended victim with the professional calm of a surgeon. In his emotional funk, Eddgar seems to be the last person in the room to recognize what has taken place.

    'Oh, please,' he says suddenly, with a distinct echo of old-fashioned Southern hauteur, 'please. You are mixing apples and oranges. Nile was as interested in all of this as I was.'

    'You said he became angry -
very
angry after you left the limo?'

    'Briefly. For a day or two.'

    'He said someone was being used?'

    
'Hard-core,
he said. He said Hardcore was being used.' Eddgar shakes his shoulders to straighten his jacket. 'You really don't see this clearly at all,' he tells Molto.

    ‘I don't?' asks Tommy, and with that takes his seat.

    

    

    
Seth

    

    June and I spoke very little in the intervals between her calls to my father. Because my parents never vacationed, I had been in motels only three or four times before in my life, that is, if you did not count the U. Inn back home, the site of innumerable bar mitzvahs and sweet sixteens. I still experienced a childish thrill at the sight of the little free soap bars, the protective paper cap over the glasses, and the sanitary band on the toilet seat. Just for me. The odd environment of this tiny chamber and its purchased privacy seemed to heighten even more the peculiarity of what was occurring. Threadbare chenille spreads covered both beds. The floor was asbestos tile, while the dressers were strictly 1950s, with glass tops and a creamy lacquered finish. The owners, you could tell, still took some pride, but it would be swept away soon enough, and they would be renting by the hour.

    There was a narrow balcony, no more than a yard wide, with

    a single aluminum-framed beach chair overlooking the Alameda Freeway. June had brought along some fruit for lunch and I sat out in the sun, eating my pear, watching the traffic race by, all these happy Californians on their way to who knows where. I decided that when I got to Canada I was going to get drunk. I would have liked to score some dope, but that of course was out of the question. Misdemeanors of any kind, anything that could lead to deportation, were now to be dreaded. I sat there abstractly, making plans I did not fully believe I'd ever carry out.

    We were in Damon's poorer neighborhood, the black patch, as Eddgar would have it, abutting Oakland, and I surveyed all over again the diminished look of poverty. The military had come and gone in this part of town decades before, leaving a lot of unsound construction, light stucco buildings now seamed with tar. The stores on the commercial strip below compared dismally to what was only a mile or so east. They had painted signs above the doors, rather than neon, and merchandise was sparse in their windows beside the foldback grates. Watching the traffic, I noted for the thousandth time how black people still drove these terrible American cars, the big heaps meant to rust out and die within five years. Knowledge always comes hardest to the oppressed. That was what Eddgar would say. In glimpses between the crowded buildings, you could see the salt flats nearby, a terrain of marsh and mud beside the brackish waters of the Bay. Seabirds still nested there, although you could see the network of white pipelines and tanks from the refineries a mile off in Richmond, smell their grotty effluvium on a wayward wind.

    Below us, a portly black man with a spirited walk went by. He was wearing a large cloche hat. I thought it was Hobie and my heart unpredictably lifted. I actually stood to wave, until I realized my mistake.

    'Do you think you can find out where Hobie Tuttle is?' I asked June. I stood on the threshold to the balcony. They had to have known, I realized, given the connections to Cleveland. ‘It'd mean a lot to me to see him before I go.'

    June leveled a hand over her eyes to protect them from the afternoon sun. She was wearing a simple shirtwaist dress, meant to be unobtrusive. Two barrettes were in her light hair. She used a few fingers to motion me inside.

    'We don't think you should be out on the street. You can never tell what happens if someone sees you. Control the random element,' June repeated. It must have been from one of their revolutionary manuals, something said by Stalin or Giap, whoever it was they read on tactics. I knew better than to overtly quarrel with the notion of discipline. It was part of the revolution.

    'Look, I'll be careful. Real careful. Like I said, it would mean a lot.'

    She said she would see. I was encouraged that she didn't deny the possibility outright. She looked at me intently until I realized I was expected to return to the balcony before she would lift the phone to have whatever furtive, coded conversation she was going to undertake with whomever - Eddgar or someone else.

    When I came back in later, she was sitting in the room's one straight-back chair, her feet propped on the bed as she read. The book she'd brought along was a hardbound copy of
Mr Sammler's Planet,
unlikely reading, I thought, but you could never tell with June. She had never fully renounced fashion. She told me she had no word yet regarding Hobie, then lifted her healthy arms, the book still in hand, and groaned a bit as she stretched. I had another sudden, forceful intimation, which seemed to broil off June like heat from a sun-soaked stone, of how easy it would be for us, if we were only just a little different, to fill this time with sex. It could be abandoned - crazy, happy fun, a reminder that life only became complicated when the human population exceeded two.

    I sat for quite some time, adjusting to the change of light. There was a single picture on the wall, turned to an angle of ten degrees. A woodland scene. Something restful for those who could not find slumber as the freeway thrummed. I wanted to read, too. The Gideon Bible was in a drawer of the crummy, chipped dresser. I paged through Deuteronomy trying to find the words that had

    been in my mezuzah, as if they were a message in a bottle. I read: 'Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the ordinances and judgments, the law I teach you, for to do
them,
that ye may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you.' Jehovah's line. It meant nothing to me. It was the rumble of the rhetoric, the weight of the words that seemed connected to the world of unchosen obligation and duty that I was seeking to shirk. 'Patriarchy,' I said.

    June smiled. She was the wife of a theologian.

    Around noon, June called my father back to describe the ransom plan. She instructed him to phone immediately one of the major casinos in Las Vegas - the Roman Coin - and to inform them that he wanted to open a betting line for his son, in preparation for an upcoming trip. People did it all the time. He would fund the line with a wire from his bank direct to the casino.