Ciji Ware

by Midnight on Julia Street

  Not to mention having been whisked back as latter-day eyewitness myself!

  Corlis yearned to reveal what she’d “seen” of Julien LaCroix and Marline Fouché’s unusual partnership in commerce, as well as romance. Instead, she returned her attention to Keith LaCroix’s genealogy records.

  “Well, Professor Jefferson’s chart proves that black Fouchés are definitely related to our branch of the black LaCroixs, as well as to Etienne and Julien LaCroix—the white father and son who owned Reverie Plantation in the 1830s.”

  Althea suddenly squared her shoulders and demanded of Corlis, “And you tell me this Grover Jeffries character wants to demolish these historical buildings—once owned by black folks during slavery times?”

  “That’s what I hear,” Corlis said with a sly smile. “Want me to give you two a really interesting tour of the 600 block of Canal Street?”

  ***

  WJAZ’s cafeteria was deserted, except for Virgil and Manny, who sat slumped in one corner recovering from four days of grueling work. Corlis poked her head through the door.

  “Now, that’s what I call a great crash,” she said cheerfully, the adrenaline still pumping a good five minutes after she’d left the news set. “A three-part series that actually said something! How’d you like that shot I used of Dylan Fouché and his eighty-year-old mother standing in front of the Saddlery restaurant?”

  “Hey, baby,” Virgil groused, “you’re getting the reputation for being the Queen of Crash!”

  “And didn’t you love the sound bite of Mr. Levy saying he had no idea that Jewish families had been in business on Canal Street so far back?”

  “I never shot so much stuff so fast in my life, and that’s the honest truth!” Virgil declared, shaking his head.

  “We musta done interviews with every damn descendant of every damn bricklayer that ever worked on those buildings!” Manny said. “Man, oh, man, Corlis—half this town can claim that somebody had something to do with that place. They’ll probably turn it into a holy shrine, now you’ve got done with it.”

  “I don’t think Grover Jeffries wants the Selwyn buildings turned into any shrine,” declared a voice from the door to the cafeteria. Corlis whirled in place and came nose to nose with her boss, Andy Zamora. He tapped her on the shoulder and pointed down the hallway. “The very man himself is on the phone in my office, along with Lafayette Marchand—a lawyer, as well as a PR guy, in case you didn’t know,” he warned. “Come along with me, McCullough, and you’d better have gotten every single fact right on this one, m’girl.”

  Corlis grimaced and obediently followed Zamora into his small office. Seated at another phone extension was Marvin Glimp, the station’s attorney. Glimp had been called in at the eleventh hour to read her scripts for the three-part series. The final episode aired earlier that evening. A small, neat man in a Brooks Brothers shirt and bow tie, he looked nervous.

  “Now, Mr. Jeffries, if what you claim is true,” Glimp was saying soothingly into the phone’s receiver, “I’m sure Ms. McCullough won’t object to making a correction.” He paused, listening. “Certainly, on the air.”

  “I’ll do what?” Corlis whispered hoarsely. “Let him prove one thing that’s inaccurate in those reports!”

  Glimp looked up and pushed the button to activate the speakerphone.

  “Why, here she is, right now. I’ll let her explain her relationship with Mr. Duvallon herself.” Glimp pantomimed putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

  “Grover… why don’t you let me speak to Ms. McCullough first,” another voice intervened. “Corlis? Lafayette Marchand here. How are you tonight?”

  “Fine, Mr. Marchand,” she said, but her heart was racing. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can damn well retract every flippin’ lie you put in that report of yours, young lady!” Grover interrupted belligerently.

  “Now, hold on, Grover,” Marchand cut in. “Let me just try to get a few things sorted out here, will you? Corlis?” he said, his velvety tone of voice alarming her more than Jeffries’s bluster. “I was just saying that I’m sure you can clear up for us why you and King Duvallon were having what looked to outsiders like myself as an… intimate dinner à deux at Galatoire’s that night when I was dining with Jack Ebert.”

  Corlis’s heart shifted into overdrive. She had been scrupulous with Marv Glimp to show documentation for every single statement she’d made in all three pieces, but even so… Marchand had seen her with King at Galatoire’s being fussed over by his “private waiter” Cezanne, who probably hinted at romance to all his other patrons. And even a whiff of romance meant that Grover Jeffries could make a legitimate claim of bias on her part in favor of King’s point of view about the controversial hotel project.

  Even though her dinner at Galatoire’s had taken place before she and King had kissed so passionately in front of her door, had her increasing fondness for the man influenced even one line in her script?

  No! Every single thing I said is supported by the facts!

  “Corlis?” Marchand said sharply. “Are you there?”

  “I’m just listening,” she said with as much aplomb as she could muster.

  “Well… let me ask you this,” Marchand continued. “You and King and your television crew were all dressed alike at the Jeffries’s costume ball, so I assume you were… ah… keeping company with King that night as well. Do you have any special relationship with King Duvallon that would interfere with your objectivity on this series that you’ve been doing—saying such damaging things as that Mr. Jeffries engages in undue influence through questionable campaign contributions?” His soft, insistent tone of voice was more threatening than any loud legal posturing. “And do you have proof to back up your insinuation tonight—despite your prudent use of the word ‘allegedly’—that Mr. Jeffries has given anyone money in relation to the Canal Street project currently before the Planning Commission? Any proof whatsoever?”

  Corlis thought longingly of the printed memo from Lafayette Marchand to Jeffries, along with Grover’s explicit handwritten comments that he would be contacting his accountant to dispense campaign contributions to certain members of the city government. She’d bet Aunt Marge’s dental bridge that such shenanigans were common practices for Jeffries Industries. But—proof? No, she had no concrete proof.

  Another thought suddenly struck her. Had Grover or Lafayette suspected she might have spotted the damning memo in the out-box on Jeffries’s desk during her interview of his wife and him the night of the ball? Maybe Marchand was merely trying to find out for sure, as part of his efforts at damage control? Perhaps this speakerphone duel was just a cat-and-mouse game.

  “I stand by every single thing in my story,” Corlis said quietly.

  Regardless of King Duvallon, she’d done her due diligence on this series and hadn’t been in contact with King while she’d established the solid link between the present-day LaCroixs and Fouchés and their forebears.

  Yes, in her journalist’s judgment she believed that King Duvallon raised legitimate reasons why these buildings should be saved from the wrecker’s ball, and she had said nothing in her series about Grover Jeffries and his past actions that wasn’t true. If Grover hadn’t crossed the palms of certain city council members with silver yet, he certainly intended to, and probably had done so on previous crucial votes. And besides, in this week’s TV series, she didn’t say he had given city politicians money to get them to vote his way on the Canal Street project—just that his critics had reason to believe he had. She’d win in a court of law.

  Corlis looked at Marvin Glimp and Andy Zamora, who stared back at her with worried expressions. Would they support her? Would they have deep enough pockets should Grover Jeffries decide to file a suit for libel or defamation just to scare off WJAZ?

  “You haven’t answered his question!” Grover’s voice boomed into Zamora’s office. “Are you gettin’ it on with King Duvallon, Miz McCullough? Just how unbiased can you be if you’r
e spreadin’ your le—”

  The line went dead. Corlis stared dumbfounded at her employer and his lawyer, who peered back at her, equally nonplussed. Within twenty seconds the phone rang again, startling them all. Andy Zamora picked it up.

  “Yeah? Well, we wondered what happened when the phone went dead. Okay, Mr. Marchand… thank you. I’ll do that. We’ll be in touch.”

  “They had some problem with their speakerphone,” Andy explained.

  “The hell they did!” Corlis said, her heart returning to its normal rhythm. “Marchand cut Jeffries off before he could defame me in front of three witnesses. Those guys are bluffing, Andy. They won’t sue us because they know we’ve got the goods.”

  “You haven’t shown me any bona fide list of campaign contributors,” Glimp hastened to point out. “And before you mention that aspect of the story in any follow-up reports, I’d have to see one—in black and white.”

  “Right,” Corlis agreed immediately.

  Now, how in the world was she going to get her hands on something like that?

  “And another thing,” Zamora said, wagging his finger. “The only time I want to hear of or see you in the company of Duvallon is when it’s strictly business. You’re advancing the story, nothing else. Got that, McCullough?”

  “Got it.”

  “And as far as I’m concerned, having an intimate dinner at Galatoire’s with a source and appearing to be… close… was an error in journalistic judgment. You’re on probation.”

  “Double got it.”

  “Good. Now go take Virgil and Manny out to a decent dinner. I hear you work those poor guys to death.” Zamora began to unroll his shirtsleeves and straighten his tie. “And if you keep the tab under sixty dollars, you can charge it on your expense account. Good job tonight. Now get outta here, will you?”

  Chastened, and also relieved to still have her employer’s support, Corlis retraced her steps to the lunchroom and announced to her crew she was taking them to Miss Pearl’s Saddlery to celebrate. It was cheap enough, and she was curious to see what the former stable and livery supply shop looked like.

  “Dinner on WJAZ? Boy, this is a surprise,” Virgil volunteered. “We thought we all were getting canned again.”

  “You guys go on ahead,” she directed, ignoring his quip. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant in twenty minutes. I have to make one quick call.”

  ***

  An odd fluttering in her chest accompanied her dialing King’s home number. It seemed sensible to tell him, as dispassionately as she could, about her recent conversation with her boss concerning her three-part series on the preservation controversy. The phone rang, unanswered. Eventually King’s voice mail picked up.

  “Have a decent day,” King’s voice concluded wryly as always.

  That’s not so easy these days, Mr. Preservation!

  Corlis wondered if members of King’s family, or his colleagues working on projects at his home office, ever picked up his messages for him.

  “Ah… this is a message for King Duvallon,” she said self-consciously when she finally heard the signal to record her message. “Corlis McCullough here. Need to confirm some facts on the story I’m doing about the buildings. Call WJAZ, and they’ll track me down. Thanks.”

  She figured it was best not to let even King’s confederates know their leader had her cell number speed-dialed into his own. And better to deal with King on the phone about this latest problem involving Grover and Lafayette’s threats against WJAZ, she thought resolutely.

  And besides, she didn’t trust herself to be alone with King anymore, especially when she had to tell him there could be no more dinners at Galatoire’s—or kisses on Julia Street.

  ***

  Corlis parked a half block from Miss Pearl’s Saddlery, the restaurant situated on the ground floor at the corner of the Selwyn buildings on Canal Street. For a moment she sat silently in her car, musing about the telephone byplay in Zamora’s office. Grover Jeffries meant business. He’d bring her down if he could, and he had a lawyer-cum-slick PR consultant on his payroll to help him do it.

  It was at times like these that Corlis yearned to be just a nine-to-five assistant to a local dentist, or a travel agent with a nice house, two kids, and a husband to come home to. Once again she felt a blanket of familiar loneliness settle over her. She began to tap her fingernails on her steering wheel, mulling over what Andy Zamora and the station’s lawyer had said. Maybe there was no need to make a dramatic announcement to King that they’d have to keep their distance, she thought ruefully. After all, he hadn’t called her following any of the three broadcasts this week, had he? There’d been no bouquet of flowers or box of chocolates to mark the final program tonight, had there? And she’d certainly been too busy editing those hours of digitized images all week to call him.

  Cool your jets, Ace… You’ve been reading too much into everything, as usual.

  Their kisses outside her house on Julia Street probably didn’t mean that much to him, she considered with regret. Better just to leave it at that.

  ***

  Virgil and Manny were waiting for her at the restaurant entrance.

  “Sorry, sugar. No go tonight,” Virgil announced. “We just got paged by the assignment desk. Bailey got wind ’bout ten minutes ago that some country-western star I never heard of is arriving at the airport in a half hour, and we’ve gotta go grab a shot of him getting off the plane. Nothing fancy, but we gotta do it.”

  “How ’bout a rain check, boss?” Manny suggested hopefully, “ ’specially since Zamora’s picking up the tab. We gotta encourage this free stuff at WJAZ!”

  “Bummer!” Corlis replied with regret. “So, definitely catch you later, guys… like maybe next week?” She heaved a sigh, waved her crew good-bye, and walked inside Miss Pearl’s Saddlery. She hadn’t eaten anything decent in more than eight hours, but she sure didn’t feel much like celebrating the broadcast of their miniseries alone.

  Settling into an empty wooden booth, Corlis glanced around at her surroundings. It wasn’t difficult for her to imagine the place as it must have looked in the early 1800s when it was actually a livery stable and shop where all manner of horse paraphernalia had been sold. A waiter dressed in a leather blacksmith’s apron handed her a menu decorated with sketches of bridles and other equine equipment. Corlis glanced over it with little interest, wondering absently how long it might take a person her age to train as a dental assistant. Her morose speculations were interrupted by the depressingly cheerful waiter who returned to take her order for a bowl of shrimp étouffée.

  While waiting for her food to arrive, she could see that the restaurant retained the aura of the livery stable that the place had been more than a hundred years ago. As part of the decor, antique saddles were suspended on invisible fishline from the ceilings, along with leather harnesses and oxen yokes that had been nailed on the wall space above each of the wooden booths.

  Idly Corlis reached up and seized a leather rein from one of the bridles, sliding her thumb over the smooth, saddle-soaped patina. The aroma of leather polish and cowhide grew even stronger as she pulled the slender strap toward her. An earthy odor of horse sweat floated up from the rough side of the leather.

  Gradually the sounds of clinking glasses and boisterous laughter from the adjacent bar faded, and in their place, the steady clip-clop of horses’ hooves falling on brick flooring assaulted her ears. The other diners in the room seemed to vanish slowly, as if into the mists of Brigadoon, and Corlis inexplicably found herself outside on Common Street, around the corner from Canal, surveying the entrance to the very same structure that had mysteriously altered in the blink of an eyelash.

  For indeed, according to a freshly painted sign overhead, Miss Pearl’s Saddlery, “Home of Fine Louisiana Cuisine,” had unaccountably transformed itself into Bates’s Saddlery—an establishment, so said the sign, that sold all manner of “Horse Tack, Animal Feed, and Wagons by the Day.” The livery stable also boarded horses and provide
d “Carriages to Gentlemen of Means” who didn’t maintain their own stables in the city.

  And standing in the doorway was a flush-faced Corlis Bell McCullough, who appeared mad as a water moccasin, and twice as ready to bite someone!

  Chapter 18

  May 21, 1842

  They’re common thieves, those two!” Corlis Bell McCullough muttered, catching sight of her husband inside the livery stable’s gloomy interior. In addition to the insufferable heat, the heavy atmosphere smelled pungently of animal feed, leather saddles, horse tack, and manure.

  Randall was standing halfway up a ladder, supervising several Negro laborers who balanced precariously on scaffolding twenty-five feet above the newly installed brick flooring. The workers were plastering the last area of ceiling space inside the row of buildings that had been bankrolled by Julien LaCroix, André Duvallon, and a consortium of free black tailors and white merchants on land owned by Martine Fouché. Meanwhile David Bates, the new lessee of the saddlery, was proudly leading draft animals into spacious wooden stalls whose floors were lightly dusted with straw.

  Corlis wrinkled her nose at the mixture of odors that assaulted her nostrils. Angrily she surveyed the stable’s interior, hoping to confront that scoundrel Ian Jeffries at the same time she gave Randall McCullough a piece of her mind.

  She swore by all that was holy that she would not be the wife of an out-and-out swindler whose partner was a trickster of the same stripe!

  “Why, Mrs. McCullough, what can I do for you?” inquired Mr. Bates genially. “Come to see your husband put the finishing touches on the place, eh?”

  Corlis cast her eye heavenward. Randall appeared absorbed in a lengthy discussion with the men on the scaffold and seemed unlikely to break free any time soon. Well, there was no point in creating a public scene, she thought grimly, though the Lord knew that might be the only way to shame Randall into undoing his latest bit of chicanery.