The Kingfish Commission

by Hal M. Harrison

  Rob realized that the rush of static coming from the radio was not helping his dark mood. It was still tuned to the emptiness of the now silent KAGN frequency. He turned the radio off, and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, focusing his attention on the winding curves of Highway One, Louisiana’s legendary original north-south main artery. The silent drive would serve as his therapy. No thoughts. No radio blaring. Just silence and the road.

  Nearly ten minutes out of Moss Point, Rob saw a slender finger of metal pointing up from the red clay of a nondescript pasture. The gloom now washed over him completely. It was the KAGN transmitter tower. It was strange that he hadn’t even noticed it on the drive down, he thought. But, here it was — Clarence Menard’s last breath was taken there. Rob slowed his car for a moment and considered stopping. But why?

  Why the hell would I want to stop here? Don’t I spend enough time at my own transmitter site, let alone stopping to see one that has just killed a close friend?

  He punched the accelerator and renewed his drive north. Get home. Get out of here and get this all behind you.

  No more talk about Sherry LeVasseur’s problems. No more speculation about Clarence Menard’s death. No more questions about some mysterious Red File. Just get home, see the family and run your damned little radio station. ‘Quality of life,’ remember? No hassles. No complications. No controversy.

  He was nearly past the tower, when it caught his attention.

  A car.

  The eight-year-old Subaru hatchback was practically invisible slogging through the pasture. The drab exterior of the squat car was exactly the same color as the Louisiana mud it was now treading. It would be difficult to determine if that was because of its uninspired original factory paint job, or due to the years of mud baked onto the finish.

  The tires stirred the soup, desperately clawing for a greasy grip, gaining just enough traction to sustain a creeping forward motion. The automobile’s low center of gravity, combined with four-wheel drive, made it legendary for its ability to travel in unfriendly terrain. Plus, it had the added advantage of supplementary ballast: The Subaru had no back seat. The unnecessary accouterment had been stripped from an already Spartan interior and replaced with a large wooden toolbox. In fact, it was more than just a toolbox. Extending from just behind the driver’s seat — completely through the passenger section, all the way to the trunk — the wooden apparatus was actually a series of drawers, shelves, racks and cubbyholes. Every conceivable type of electronic part and tool was tucked, placed, hung and stowed onto and into the wooden behemoth. There were even more parts, belts and wires hanging from the interior roof of the car. Batteries, flashlights, meters and more were strewn on the floorboard. Maps, schematics, manuals and wiring diagrams were scattered on the front passenger seat — along with empty Mountain Dew cans, large key rings with dozens of unidentified keys, and two cell phones.

  The Subaru was Rudy Williams’ office on wheels.

  The car would fishtail every moment or so, large waves of thick, brown water winging out from its fenders. Eventually, the circuitous journey was completed at the front door of the KAGN transmitter.

  Someone had finally thought to call Rudy, the consulting engineer from Alexandria, to get the radio station back on the air.

  The late-night announcer, a college student working for minimum wage, had recounted the entire event on the phone about an hour ago. He told Rudy how the station had gone off the air around eleven the night before. Clarence Menard had been alerted to the problem, and a while later the station came back on for a few minutes, only to go back off the air, this time for good.

  The driver-side door of the Subaru opened and a pair of black wading boots emerged. Rudy Williams rarely wore any other kind of footwear. He was used to tromping through muddy transmitter sites and had long ago tired of changing into the boots on a moment’s notice. So, he wore them all the time. And Rudy also wore thick eyeglasses. Really thick eyeglasses. In fact, some folks claimed he was legally blind, but he drove his own car, so friends assumed that he must be able to see well enough to pass the vision exam of the Louisiana driver's test.

  Then those same friends would whisper to each other: They do still check vision down at the driver's license bureau, don't they?

  He was a small, gaunt man, with thinning, oily, black hair combed straight across his head.

  Rudy's shirt held a pocket protector stuffed with what seemed to be everything but his lunch: pens, spare glasses, tightly folded papers, small screwdrivers, business cards of everyone he had met since the last time he cleaned out his pocket — even a roll of mints.

  Maybe he did carry his lunch in his pocket protector.

  Once inside the KAGN-FM transmitter, it took Rudy about three minutes to put the station back on the air. He didn’t even have to go back to the Subaru for one part or tool.

  He scratched his head and wondered:

  Why didn't Clarence just check the low voltage breaker? It's the first thing he should have seen when he walked in the door! Why was he crawling around in the back of the transmitter, when all that was wrong was a damned tripped breaker?

  Rudy shrugged his shoulders.

  What a damn shame. Clarence could have called me. I would have told him to check the fuses and the breakers first, before crawling around inside the damn thing.

  He decided he couldn't blame himself.

  Rudy dug deep into his shirt pocket and pulled out the roll of mints. As he unwrapped the roll and put a mint on his already white tongue, he shrugged his shoulders again.

  What a damn shame.

  Rob saw that the small import automobile was parked at the edge of the pavement, near the gate that led to KAGN’s transmitter.

  Who would be out here now? Everyone connected to the station has been at the funeral. They were all back in Moss Point, still telling Clarence Menard stories. They would stand around at the cemetery for a while, and then gather at some relative’s home, to eat all the food that accompanied such morbid occasions — and to tell more stories.

  The car looked somehow familiar to Rob, but he didn’t know why. He slowed as he approached, straining for a better look. He could see that the car had no passengers. He looked down the rutted mud path to the base of the tower. The door to the small transmitter building was opened slightly. Someone was inside.

  Baldwin pulled off the road, just past the automobile. He felt the mushiness of the road’s shoulder under his Explorer’s tires and was careful not to stray too far from the pavement. The rains had left the Louisiana clay moist and loose.

  He got out of his truck and walked through the gate, toward the transmitter. He glimpsed back to the car, confirming that no one was behind the wheel. The interior of the car looked cramped and dark, but there was definitely no one inside. As he walked, his feet sank deep into the mud, and Rob felt the cool goo seep into his shoes, soaking his socks. His foul mood worsened. Clouds had begun to obscure the brilliant sun. The weather was finally going to suit his mood.

  It was a long walk from the road to the transmitter shack. As he came closer to the open door, he could hear someone moving inside. His breathing quickened and his muscles tightened. What if whoever was inside was somehow responsible for Menard’s death? Would Rob be next to meet a sudden and tragic ‘transmitter accident?’

  He held his breath as he neared the door. His feet made a slow sucking sound as he trudged through the mud. Thinking the sound might eliminate his element of surprise, Baldwin quickly grabbed the doorknob and threw open the door.

  “Who the hell —”

  Rob’s shout was cut short by the sight of a small man, his back to Rob, facing the transmitter. The man turned quickly around to face Rob.

  “I was just —”

  Rob instantly recognized the terrified face as Rudy Williams. He had met the technician on more than one occasion — at broadcast conventions, once at a KAGN crawfish boil — Rob had even hired him once to do some emergency repair to the KLOM transmitter wh
en he had been off the air and was unable to locate his regular consulting engineer out of Shreveport.

  “Rudy? Man, you scared the hell out of me! What are you doing out here?”

  Rob was relieved to see a familiar and non-threatening face. Rudy was squinting through his thick glasses to make a similar determination.

  “Rob? Rob Baldwin? I — I was just looking things over again!” Rudy’s voice was breathless and even higher than usual. He was digging into his massive shirt pocket as he spoke. “You know, I have a key and all. I mean, Clarence called me all the time, and then they found him out here—” He fumbled around in his shirt pocket for a moment more, then patted his back pants pocket, found what he was looking for, and wiped his glistening forehead with a handkerchief.

  “It’s OK, Rudy. I just didn’t know who was out here. You know, everyone with the station was at the funeral, and I was worried—”

  “Funeral? Oh yeah, right. I — I didn’t make it to the funeral.” Rudy was beginning to catch his breath now. He took off his glasses and began wiping them off with the handkerchief, and Rob noticed that Rudy’s eyes looked much smaller without the glasses. They were almost too small for his face, and squinted and darted back and forth, in a vain attempt to make sense of the even blurrier world now around him.

  “I don’t do funerals, you know,” Rudy continued. “I just can’t go to ‘em. I figure when a man’s gone, there’s just no sense standing around talking about him. I’d just as soon remember him as he was…” Rudy’s voice trailed off as he replaced his glasses. His eyes returned to their normal, magnified appearance.

  “Is everything OK out here?” Rob walked into the cramped building as he changed the subject.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s all fine. All fine.”

  Rudy turned to face the transmitter panel as Rob moved around the side of the large cabinet of equipment. There was a strange odor that Rob quickly decided must just be the dank smell of drying mud. It must be.

  Rudy looked like he was lost in thought, as he tapped a meter and twisted a test knob.

  “Yeah, it’s all fine,” Rudy re-stated, and then after a moment: “That’s just it.”

  “What’s just it? What do you mean?” Rob hated it when engineer’s talked in circles. And they often did.

  “Everything out here is fine, and has been. Even when they called me out here the other morning.”

  “I don’t understand, Rudy.” Rob was getting impatient.

  “Well, they called me out here, after they found Clarence, you know. And all I found was a tripped breaker.”

  “But Rudy, they said he was electrocuted.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what they said. But, there was no need for him to open it up and work inside the thing.” Rudy was pointing at the transmitter as he spoke. “I came in here and just found the low voltage breaker was tripped.”

  “Well, maybe that happened after — you know — after Clarence was electrocuted.” Rob felt uncomfortable discussing the circumstances of his friend’s death.

  “No... No. I reset the breaker and everything worked fine. I even took the panel off the back and looked inside. Nothing’s been changed. No parts replaced, nothing. It’s all just as I left it last month after I put in a new final tube.”

  Rob walked around to the back of the transmitter and stared at the spot where Clarence Matthews had been found.

  “But wouldn’t Clarence have seen the tripped breaker on the front of the cabinet? What would he have been doing back here?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  The two men stood silently for a long moment, both staring at the transmitter.

  Finally, Rudy broke the silence:

  “What a damn shame.”

  FOURTEEN

  Dr. Henry Bellemont had suggested Hooters as the meeting place with Niles Sloan. Of course, the restaurant/bar was not necessarily known for its food. The waitresses were young, barely dressed and amply endowed. It was one of Bellemont’s favorite places to eat, but Niles had no intention of staying for lunch. He just wanted to take care of the business at hand and get away from the college crowd as soon as possible.

  Hooters was located just off College Drive, in a corner of a renovated strip center. It was just before noon, and already the parking lot was nearly full. As he entered the door, three hostesses, obviously very pleased with their own looks, greeted Sloan. He wondered how often they had to touch up their architectured hairstyles, in between dishing-out orders of soggy French fries and greasy baby-back ribs.

  Sloan worked to get a clear view through the myriad of LSU memorabilia and gawking patrons, until he spotted Bellemont at the bar, watching a waitress stoop to serve a couple pitchers of beer to a table full of KA’s. Bellemont was ogling the beer almost as much as the waitress.

  Sloan walked up to stand beside Bellemont and cleared his throat to get the professor’s attention.

  “Oh hello, Sloan. The service is great here, isn’t it?”

  Sloan thought the entire scene to be quite sophomoric, and was not about to feign interest.

  “Oh, really? I hear the filet mignon is to die for.”

  “Hmm. I’ve never tried their steaks.” The sarcastic remark had slipped right by Bellemont, who wasn’t wasting any eye contact on Niles Sloan, but had returned his attention to the young waitress in the tight halter top and skin-thin stretch micro-shorts.

  “What’ll you have?” Bellemont asked as he motioned to his half-empty draft beer. He was anxious to get attention from the waitresses as often as possible.

  It was before lunchtime on Saturday, and Sloan thought it a little early for a drink. Obviously, it was never too early for Bellemont. Still, he was not particularly enjoying the task at hand, and could use a little something to deaden the dread.

  “Well, since I haven’t seen their wine list, why don’t you just surprise me?” Niles Sloan was anxious to get this meeting over with. “Can we get a table in a corner somewhere and be just a bit less conspicuous?”

  “Oh, sure. Miss?” Bellemont motioned to a short, Asian waitress that was the latest Hooter Girl to get his notice.

  “Hey honey, you’re at the bar, not at one of my tables,” she said, in a voice so nasal it was disconcerting, at least to Sloan. He bet Bellemont didn’t notice her voice at all.

  “Well, why don’t you show us to a table that is yours, and get me and my buddy a couple of drafts?” Bellemont purred the words out of the side of his mouth, in a manner that he must have thought comely, but in reality looked perverted and a touch deranged.

  “Sure, honey.” You could tell the poor woman would do anything for a tip. “You guys just park it over there and I’ll get your beers.”

  ‘Park it over there.’ What a charmer, thought Sloan.

  Bellemont led the way to the table, taking as much time as he could to parade through the room, his head bobbing back and forth, not missing a moment’s view.

  “So, how is the world of academia?” Sloan’s attitude was manifesting itself in an ever-deepening acerbity.

  “Oh, fine. Great, really.” Bellemont had finally noticed Sloan’s tone and returned it with equal measure. “Shaping the minds of the financial geniuses of tomorrow is a challenge from which one can never tire.”

  “Certainly not. And I’m sure you find your civic work to be equally challenging.”

  “Ah, yes. I take my work in the community very seriously, as you well know. It’s very demanding, but can be equally as rewarding.” Dr. Henry Bellemont took great care to emphasize the word ‘rewarding’ and match it with an upraised eyebrow and a knowing glance to Sloan.

  Sloan found the gesture transparent and distasteful and opted to ignore its obvious intent, by acting as if the inference had slipped his notice.

  “Well, I know it takes a great deal of your spare time, and probably limits the amount of notice you can gain among your peers. Why, I suppose you haven’t had any of your papers published in years.”

  It was a
direct hit that startled Bellemont with its power and precision. Sloan knew that Bellemont held very little respect among the LSU faculty, and his lack of academic credentials had cost his tenure time and time again.

  “So, what’s the purpose of our little meeting, Sloan?” Bellemont had decided to stop the sparring, and his tone was now hard and cold.

  The Asian Hooter Girl brought their beers and asked for a lunch order, which Sloan quickly denied.

  “We’ll just whistle if we need anything else,” Sloan said. The waitress appeared hurt for a moment, but as she noticed Sloan’s obsessively neat manner and dress, combined with his obvious disinterest, she quickly reconciled his rude behavior as being the result of a non-compatible sexual preference. Satisfied the put-off was a result of something far out of her control, she rushed to meet a new crop of fraternity brothers at the door.

  Sloan took a sip of his beer before he spoke. It was served too cold for a beer of any quality. He was pleased that he had the sophistication to notice.

  “How are the hearings going?”

  Bellemont smiled. He knew he was about to make some more money.

  “Oh, you know committees. We’ve got a split down the middle, as usual. Everyone’s got their own agenda.” Bellemont finished off the dregs of his first beer, and took a long sip of the new one.

  “Everyone but you, right?”

  “That’s right. I don’t have an agenda. As you know, I’m proud to say I don’t give a damn how it shakes out. It could go either way, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Well, then we have to be sure we find a way to see that you do give a damn, then don’t we?”

  “Oh, don’t be misled. I still won’t give a damn. I’ll just do what you pay me to do, just like always.”

  Sloan cut his eyes away from Bellemont and surveyed the room. No one even knew they were there. Sloan saw the table of KA’s getting louder, as the room filled with college students, mostly male, a couple of businessmen here and there — most likely car salesmen on their Saturday morning lunch break, as well as a few young fathers with their small children. No doubt, Mom was out with the girls doing some shopping, while Dad volunteered to take the kids to lunch “somewhere.” Sloan imagined what the Moms would think of Dad’s choice for lunch.