The Laws of our Fathers by Scott Turow Read Free Book Online Page A

sound of slamming metal, stark as a rifle shot, and Kirk departs. On the door a sheet of bulletproof glass has been mounted, but it is the bars beneath which occupy Seth's attention. They are squared off and thick with rust-resistant paint, a depleted shade of beige which is the color of everything here - the walls, the floor, even the reinforced-steel guard desk.
        'Warden's got to clear any press interviews, man.' A guard waves his fingers, tainted with pizza grease, over the form Hobie has been filling out.
        'Nobody doin any interviews, man,' says Hobie.
        'Says right here,' 'Michael Frain. Profession: Journalist." ' The guard looks from the form to Seth twice, as if to assess whether the description fits.
        'No, no, here's what I'm sayin now,' says Hobie. 'This young fella, your inmate, Nile Eddgar, he asked Mr Frain here to help him find counsel and he chose me. Okay? So he's part of the attorney visit.'
        After another go-round the captain is summoned, an erect black man who looks longingly at the pizza but shows the discipline to first finish his business with them. Hobie holds forth with characteristic bluster, and the captain, wary of messing with the press or simply hungry, lets them go. They pass from one brick guardhouse to another. Their wallets are checked in a small tin locker, and another solemn correctional officer pats them down.
        Then they are inside, enclosed in a small admitting area. The barred door with its lock, thick as a book, clangs home irrevocably behind them. Hobie takes in the sick look on Seth's face.
        'Number 47 said to Number 3,' he quips, amused. He is quoting 'Jailhouse Rock.' Number 47/said to Number 3/You 're the cutest jailbird/I ever did see. On the way over from the airport, Hobie did a complete head-trip. 'If we get on those catwalks, man, stay on the rail, don't go near the cells, those mean dudes will grab your tie, man, just for a hoot, they'll knot it around the bars and watch you strangle yourself screamin "Help!" You'll keep 'em laughin for a week.' He roared at the thought. Although they are 1,000 miles from Hobie's home in DC, this is still his world.
        Another guard points them along a path through the yard. The jail hulks about them, seven red-brick structures, remnants of the institutional era in American architecture. These buildings could be factories or, these days, schools, especially with the heavy chain-link that cages each window. They are set down amid acres of asphalt, the sole greenery the weeds and lichens worn but still persisting in the gaps between the path's paving bricks. At the
        perimeter, stout walls with freshened mortar joints are topped by nasty whorls of razor wire.
        'You think he's okay in here?' Seth asks.
        'Might be. Might not be. We're gone know in a minute.'
        'Oh my,' says Seth, 'aren't you the hard case? You know, it won't dent your armor, Hobie, if you show just a little concern about your client.'
        'Lookee here,' Hobie says, repeating one of his father's favorite expressions. After twenty-five years in which Hobie, a native mimic, has, at times, taken on the speech patterns of everybody from Timothy Leary to Louis Farrakhan, he now most often sounds like his father, Gurney Turtle. He has stopped dead, his large briefcase swinging by his side. 'Here. You call me up in DC - you happen to interrupt my personal life at a truly crucial moment -'
        'I.e., watching reruns of Dallas.''
        'Hey, you wanna play the Dozens, or you gonna listen up? I'm tellin you how this was. I was with a really excellent lady, and you hype me up, man. I felt like I was being licked by a goddamn puppy. "Black brother, you gotta do this, you gotta help this little old Mouseketeer, remember Nile? You're the best I know and so you gotta do it for me." I mean, am I accurate, so far?'
        'Close enough.'
        'Okay. So I'm here.' Bearded, Hobie, in his