The Laws of Our Fathers

by Scott Turow

  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.

  MAY 4, 1970

  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.

  'Tomorrow, Seth is going to the cashier there to draw the $20,000 in chips,' June told him. 'He'll have his driver's license for ID. Don't think about any heroes from the FBI rescuing him, because he's also going to have some plastique taped to his belly and a detonator on a remote-control switch. Do you know what that is?'

  'No.' As my father answered, I was standing beside her, my head close to the telephone earpiece. 'It's a high-powered explosive,' she said. 'Oh my God.'

  'Very safe,' said June as my father said, 'Oh my God,' again. 'Very stable. Just as long as nobody hits the button. Which they won't. Because we are going to get the money. Right?'

  'Without question.'

  'Sure. Without question.'

  I would mail the chips Special Delivery to a post-office box in San Francisco. I was free to go at that point. Someone would then drive back and redeem them, not at the Roman Coin casino in Las Vegas, but at the one in Lake Tahoe, as a precaution in case the chips had been marked in some way. Eddgar, I was sure, had been on the verge of delirium in plotting all of this. It meant something that this whole scheme had flung him as far as possible from Maoist drab into worlds he never entered. Gambling. Casinos. How did Eddgar even know about such crap? How was it that he had absorbed so many of the rules and customs of the life he abjured? Envy, I decided, was a motive force of revolution.

  'Now, when we get the money, Seth is free to go. He'll give you a call. Only one condition. He's on parole.'

  'Parole?'

  'Right. Parole. Like parole. Like, he's okay if he's a good boy. See? See, now this whole thing is fucked up, right? We're thinking this guy's like the son of Rockefeller or something and he's not. But we're not sitting in any pig slammer because we made a mistake and are dumb enough to say so. Do you understand me? We get covered for our expenses, bygones are bygones, blah blah blah. But not if it's us instead of him. Understand?'

  'You wish to go free as well.'

  'Exactly.'

  'This desire is not surprising,' my father said.

  'Irony, right?' June asked. 'That's just what we want. No surprises. We don't want Seth here giving physical descriptions. Or making sketches. Or you opening up your mouth.'

  My father pondered. Static sizzled on the line. It was, I realized suddenly, a great match, Eddgar against my father.

  At last he said, 'I give you my word of honor that we shall disclose nothing.'

  'Thanks. Well, that's great. That's outta sight. No, I think we need to do a little better than that. Just a little.' She laughed, meanly. She was, like any actor, in love with the part. 'And don't treat me like I'm a fucking moron. Because I'm not. Have I treated you like that?'

  He didn't answer.

  'See, we have a problem. And it gets worse. Because the way I get this, okay, your son - your son was supposed to show up and get his ass drafted sometime today, last week, whenever. And he ain't there, and so the boys in the blue suits and shiny shoes are gonna be looking for him. You following?'

  ‘I believe so.' He paused again to calculate. 'Under the circumstances, I would think that Seth is no more eager than you to speak to the FBI.'

  'Now you're getting close, mister. What's that thing about great minds? The only thing is he plans to see the northern lights. Isn't that his gig? He's going to run away. And once he's up there he won't be afraid to take a call from the Bureau. And neither will you. Now it's "Hi, how are you, let me tell you about these douche bags who ransomed my kid." So that's how come he's on parole. Remember parole?'

  'Yes.'

  'Okay, I'm talking fast because I'm running out of time. Don't want to break the rules. Here's the scoop: For the next six months, he goes where we say. We'll pick a place. Somewhere in America the beautiful, okay? Somewhere from sea to shining sea. Somewhere we can watch him. He can live there, work there. Whatever he likes. We'll get him some papers, a social security card, that kind of thing. He can be underground. Just so long as he keeps in mind that we got a ton of people who can check on him. He knows just what we expect. He doesn't disappear, not for ten minutes, without we know where he is. And he never, repeat never, talks to any kind of police. No pigs or any other farm animals. Local cops. FBI. Old Mother Hubbard. Same for you. Absolutely. Bureau comes around, you don't have the foggiest idea where he went. We get hinky in the least, Seth so much as has a cup of coffee with a meter maid, we call the FBI and tell them just where they can find little Seth. We bolt for Algeria and he heads for slam city to do eighteen months to three. Are you following me?'

  ‘I have the entire picture,' my father said.

  'Goodbye.'

  She called back in forty minutes.

  'Any questions?' 'None,' my father said. 'The money cool?'

  'I have spoken directly to the banker. The funds will be wired before the end of the day. The casino is on alert and will oblige Seth whenever he arrives.'

  'No problems?'

  'None whatsoever. The banker was somewhat curious, but I explained that for some time, as a hobby, I have been studying the laws of probability and blackjack. He was quite interested and recommended a book.'

  'Far out. Here's your son.'

  'Dad, I'm sorry.' I meant it, of course. In triumph, I was wretched and remorseful.

  He didn't answer. He was, I was sure, torn by unbearable emotions - insane with rage and washed clean by the relief of hearing my voice.

  'I want to be sure you understand what happens afterwards,' I said.

  'You will call us.'

  'I meant after that. The FBI will be looking for me. Within a few weeks. You won't be able to call me, to write me. Do you understand? Nothing that will trace.'

  'Your mother will not endure that.'

  'I'll
call every few days. A pay phone. Just so you know I'm okay. That's all I can do.'

  'Will we know where you are?'

  'It will be a lot safer for you if you don't. Really. If you can just say "I don't know" when those people show up. I don't want you guys to get in trouble.'

  'Trouble,' my father repeated. 'My Lord, Seth.' But as the shape of what was ahead settled in, he voiced no further complaint. This fit my father's needs too well. He would never see through it. Were it not for the pain of surrendering the money, he would regard all of this as perfect.

  'Is Mom okay?' 'She knows nothing.' 'Great. Look. It'll be all right.' 'I pray,' my father answered.

  Afterwards, I sat with my hand still on the phone, while I wrung myself out one more time. It was over now. In all practical respects. I'd done the worst, and everybody had survived. No one had had a coronary. No one knew they'd been betrayed. I waited now to experience the uncertain mood of freedom. The traffic fumes, the whine from the road, flapped in with the curtains as they were tossed by the wind.

  'You know, there's a lot of cruelty in life, Seth,' June said, behind me. 'That surgeon who saves your life - there's a little part of him that likes the blood when he cuts.'

  'Which one of us are we talking about?' I asked, although I had no doubts. I was dangerous and neurotic. I would have to accept that about myself. But I took no pleasure from the fact. I already sensed the bilious weight that would fall over me whenever I thought about this episode for the rest of my life. But for June, I could see, epic events were an essential measure: the heat of the spotlight, the rush of applause. Things that go boom. Change. Catastrophe. A new lover at night. She was turning out to be easier to comprehend than I'd imagined.

  ‘I was trying to let you know how I look at this,' she said. 'You're helping something important. I know this riles you up. I can see it's painful. But we all make sacrifices for the revolution.'

  The phone rang then. June listened and said nothing, before she put down the handset.

  'You might find Tuttle at Africa House,' she said. 'And be careful. There's a lot of irresponsible behavior with Cleveland inside. He kept his entire cell in line. That's another reason we need him out. Let's say one hour.' She looked at her watch. I rooted in my pocket for my car key, then turned back.