As she walked through the front entrance, she began rooting around in her shoulder bag for her trusty wad of WJAZ cash. Her head down in concentration, she heard King’s deep, distinctive voice before she saw him standing near the bail bond window.
“Let me take you to dinner. It’s the least I can do for coming all this way to rescue me.”
Startled, Corlis halted, a broad smile beginning to unleash itself across her face when suddenly she became conscious that a second voice had begun to speak.
“Why King, darlin’, I’d love to! Can we go to Galatoire’s?” Cindy Lou Mallory begged with a coquettish smile.
Tonight the maid of honor of the short-circuited Duvallon-Ebert nuptials wore a stunning imperial-blue jacket and matching skirt that showed plenty of leg. It was the perfect outfit for a woman who assumed she’d be taken to dinner because of her good deeds.
For the second time in her entire life, Corlis literally wanted to scratch a woman’s eyes out. Instead, she swiftly reversed direction and headed for the exit.
“Corlis!”
Oddly, King’s exclamation had the force of a command. Corlis stopped midstep and reluctantly turned around. Blood pounded in her temples; it seemed her heart would leap out of her chest.
Talk about déjà vu all over again!
She stared at the sight of King and Cindy Lou standing side by side and felt as if she were the victim of an emotional hijacking. In two strides, King was by her side.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I… ah… I…”
Corlis held up her left hand in the stance of a school crossing guard forbidding a pedestrian to step off the curb. She shifted her gaze to the perfectly made-up countenance of Cindy Lou Mallory. She was bearing down on them with a determined look in her eye. Corlis turned to face King.
“Well?” King pressed. Then his face softened and he added, “It’s nice to see you in person again, Ace. I was planning to watch you on the late news tonight from my cell.”
“I-I just wanted to talk to you about what happened at today’s city council hearing… and I had a few… questions to ask about the revelations concerning Jack Ebert. But I see now’s obviously not a good time.” Why in the world would King offer to take this woman out to dinner? she fumed. Why would he even speak to Cindy Lou Mallory again?
Rather than voice this question, however, she thrust out her hand in Cindy Lou’s direction. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Corlis McCullough. WJAZ.”
“Oh… everybody in New Orleans knows who you are,” Cindy Lou retorted archly. “And anyway, how could I forget?”
So much for that supposed Louisiana politesse that King had once described as being the hallmark of a magnolia in the Bayou State!
Cindy was gazing at King with a forgiving smile. “It’s so sweet of you, darlin’ to offer to take me to dinner,” she purred. “I accept.” She smiled with a dismissive air in Corlis’s direction. “ ’Bye, now. Nice meetin’ you.” The former Mardi Gras Queen tucked her well-manicured hand through King’s arm. “Shall we get you out of this horrible ol’ place, sugar? Daddy said he’d talk to Judge Bouchet in the mornin’.”
“You hungry, McCullough?” King inquired abruptly.
Corlis was starving.
“Thanks, but I have a dinner date.”
She turned on her heel and marched on ahead of the happy couple. She was already nosing her car out of her parking place by the time King gallantly opened the driver’s door of the fire-engine-red, seduce-me Mustang.
Double merde! Corlis cursed under her breath.
***
King shifted in his chair outside the dean’s office and glanced at his watch. He’d been a free man since nine thirty that morning, and as of this moment, he’d been waiting forty-five minutes beyond the time he’d been requested to appear before an interdisciplinary committee of the university’s architecture and history departments.
“Mr. Duvallon?” said a neatly dressed woman who stuck her head through the door and was smiling nervously. “Please come in. The committee’s waiting for you.”
Dean Avery Labonniere, along with his colleagues, sat in a small sterile conference room that had been designed some five years earlier by a flunky in the employ of Grover Jeffries. A woman whom King didn’t recognize—attired in a female version of a pinstripe suit—sat perched in an uncomfortable chrome-and-Naugahyde chair positioned against the wall.
A lawyer, he surmised. Present so that she could make this all nice and legal.
“How y’all doing?” King asked pleasantly, wondering if they could really toss him out of his department two months before he was due to be granted tenure.
The missing person in the room was Grover Jeffries, of course. Grover and his henchman, Lafayette Marchand. Their names were never mentioned, but everyone present knew what this meeting was all about.
The dean cleared his throat. “I am sorry to have to say this, Mr. Duvallon, but this committee has determined that you have behaved in a manner that brings dishonor to this institution and the alumni who support it.”
“For acting on my conscience as an architectural historian to try to save the Selwyn buildings?” King inquired evenly.
“Your conscience is not at issue in this situation,” the dean replied sharply. “You’ve been arrested twice and had your name in every newspaper and magazine in this state. You’ve publicly accused one of this university’s staunchest supporters of—”
“Ah… Mr. Jeffries is upset with me. But what about my rights of free speech and assembly?” he asked, casting a faint smile in the direction of the lady lawyer.
“The issue here is what’s in the best interest of this institution,” Dean Labonniere countered, tight-lipped. “I must have your word that you will not in the future do anything that will heap ridicule on your colleagues in this department or the university in general.”
King heaved a silent sigh of relief. As with Judge Bouchet’s earlier pronouncements from the bench that morning, he was being let off again with only another warning. Well, he would allow them to have their pound of flesh today, he thought, lowering his eyes in a false show of respect. He knew the drill. He would simply appear sufficiently chastened so as to allow himself the time he needed to nail that son of a bitch Grover Jeffries! After that, whatever happened to him regarding tenure at the university was up for grabs.
Smiling faintly, King said, “Of course I don’t want to embarrass anybody. And certainly, I agree never to do anything that compromises the School of Architecture’s commitment to saving worthy historic structures or the university’s solemn pledge to uphold that ideal.”
The committee members exchanged confused looks. Dean Labonniere glanced at his watch.
“Well… ah… that’s good to hear, son,” the dean replied. “I shall hold you to your word.” He gazed at his fellow committee members, who nodded their agreement. “I think that about winds up our business here today. And please, King, do give my regards to your sweet mama. I shall never forget serving with Lafayette Marchand in her court that year!” He smiled broadly at the other two male professors. “I do declare that Antoinette Kingsbury was the prettiest Mardi Gras queen New Orleans has—or will ever—see.”
King shook hands with his superiors and hurried out of the conference room.
He would have to move mighty fast if he was to stop the demolition of the Selwyn buildings and gain tenure as a professor at this goddamned incestuous university, he thought grimly.
***
The phone next to Corlis’s bed rang in the darkness. However, it was the motion of Cagney Cat’s twenty-three pounds leaping off the mattress that roused her to full consciousness. She made a grab for the receiver, her heart pounding. Had something happened to Aunt Marge?
“Sorry to disturb you, Ace,” King’s voice said gruffly. “Don’t worry. This is purely a business call.”
Corlis sat up in bed, uncertain whether to be relieved that King was following the rules she h
ad set down, or upset that he sounded so cool and detached. She hadn’t seen or even heard about what he was doing in more than a week.
“What’s up?” she asked cautiously.
“We’ve just gotten word that the good Mr. Jeffries is planning a little demolition derby about three this morning. I thought WJAZ might be interested in covering it.”
“How do you know this?” Corlis demanded.
“Can’t reveal my sources,” King shot back. “But trust me, Ace. There’ll be lots of dramatic pictures of big ol’ bulldozers doing their thing.”
“And what do you plan to do?”
“Some friends of mine and I plan to lie down and catch a little shut-eye… at various spots around the 600 block of Canal Street.”
Corlis leaped out of bed and began to shed her nightclothes as she stood holding the receiver to her ear. “I’m on my way! I’ll get a hold of Manny and Virgil—”
“Already did that,” King interrupted.
“You did what?” Corlis countered indignantly.
“This is war,” King declared in a chilly tone of voice.
“Yeah… but Virgil, Manny, and I are the war correspondents—we’re not the combatants, and you can’t order us to the front unless I say so!” By this time she was really steamed and was glaring at the telephone. “Don’t you get it, Mr. Preservation? WJAZ is not your private PR department. You and I have different functions!”
“Yeah… Well, get that good-looking derriere of yours in gear, and start functioning as a reporter! Gotta go.”
And with that the line went dead.
Corlis called Virgil on his cell phone and directed him to meet her on Common Street behind the Selwyn buildings to avoid being seen by anyone on Canal Street. She wanted the trio to remain inconspicuous until they were geared up and ready to go.
At ten minutes to three on this early May morning, the neighborhood of three- and four-story buildings was silent except for the Saddlery restaurant where patrons at the all-night bar were still whooping it up. Corlis gazed up and down the street and began to wonder if King had been pulling a practical joke.
Without warning, Chris Calvert, King’s teaching assistant, sprinted around the corner and dashed through the entrance to the restaurant, looking for all the world like Paul Revere shouting, “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
“This is it!” Corlis shouted. “Let’s move it! Start rolling now!”
They entered the restaurant in time to capture the last of Calvert’s announcement made to some very familiar faces that were clustered around the bar.
“They’ve just about finished unloading the heavy equipment,” Calvert declared, panting for breath. “I think it’s time we get going!”
King leaped up onto the bar and surveyed the group of some thirty preservation stalwarts, plus Cindy Lou Mallory, who wore a pair of crisply pressed blue jeans, a white silk blouse, and a stunning, squash-blossom turquoise Navajo necklace. Everything about her soigné appearance shouted “par-tee!”
“All right, everybody!” King bellowed. “Settle down!” He flashed a smile of recognition at Corlis. “Y’all have your stations and assignments?”
“Yes!” they shouted.
“Then let’s move on out! Go! Go! Go!”
Like a well-trained battalion—with King serving as their marine drill sergeant—men and women of various ages filed briskly out of the restaurant.
“Stick with Duvallon,” Corlis shouted hoarsely amidst the hubbub. “I’m guessing he’s going to lie down in front of the bulldozers at the main entrance of the building.”
“Right!” Virgil shouted back. “Just follow me.”
Canal Street had been transformed into a stage for a modern enactment of a medieval passion play. Large work lights were positioned near generators that had been parked opposite the aluminum facade obscuring the Greek Revival structures. A gigantic crane with a wrecker’s ball was poised near the front entrance. The metal monster was flanked by two enormous yellow bulldozers, fifty feet distant on either side.
With amazing precision, King’s preservation guerrillas fanned out in front of the demolition equipment, their large placards declaring: “Save Our Selwyns!” and “Free People of Color, Unite!” along with one that said “Jeffries Industries Do It Illegally.” The silent protesters stood with their backs to the woven metal screen and squinted into the blinding work lights. Corlis noted that Cindy Lou picked a spot that was five or six volunteers away from where King was standing directly under the twenty-foot-high metal letter S.
A sleek black late-model Lincoln Town Car pulled up near one of the bulldozers, and a barrel-chested man got out of the backseat. The expression on Grover Jeffries’s face revealed his surprise—and wrath—at the sight of King Duvallon and his band of protesters.
“You’d better clear off, Duvallon,” Grover shouted furiously, “ ’cause I own these buildings, and my men have orders to pull ’em down—now!”
“This is an illegal action,” King yelled into a battery-powered megaphone, his own rage barely contained. “These buildings are in a landmarked historic district! The city council has not voted yet—”
“Fuck the city council!” Jeffries said. “They’re just a bunch of pussies. Payin’ the fines they’re gonna assess me for pullin’ these eyesores down is just the cost of doin’ business, boy! This is my property, and I can do whatever I damn well want with it, so clear out, or y’all are gonna get run over—and I sure as hell ain’t payin’ your hospital bills, I can tell you that! You were warned!” He waved his right arm over his head to signal the bulldozer crews should begin moving toward the buildings.
Corlis banged her microphone into Virgil’s shoulders, their signal she wanted a tight close-up.
The cameraman hissed. “I got it. I got it, boss! You’ll see the guy’s tonsils flapping in the shot!”
The sound of the behemoths’ engines revving up was deafening. Several other news vans drew up behind Grover’s car, and their camera crews tumbled out, scrambling for position. Virgil, Manny, and Corlis had already taken places between the bulldozer on the right and the crane with its heavy wrecking ball suspended from an enormous chain.
Grover Jeffries glared at the assorted members of the media and waved a piece of paper clutched in his hands. He seemed on the verge of an apoplectic fit.
“I own these goddamn derelicts!” he cried. “This is my deed! I’m doin’ the public a service pullin’ ’em down and not costin’ the taxpayers money while pussy preservationists like him—” He jabbed a trembling finger at King Duvallon. “Un-American guys like him, here, delay and maneuver and use the law to twist the meanin’ of the goddamn Constitution that’s supposed to protect private property!”
However, the cameras were ignoring the furious developer except to record audio of his expletive-laced tirade. Instead, all lenses focused on the line of protesters that stood defiantly in the glaring lights with backs pressed symbolically against the aluminum-shrouded wall and arms waving protest signs. Corlis knew instinctively that Grover Jeffries had no idea what a bonanza he was handing his adversaries. It was going to be page one in the Times-Picayune and the top of the newscast at WJAZ and everywhere else, possibly even the national morning news shows.
“Do it!” Grover screamed at his work crew. “Do it, goddamn it! Take ’em down!” Jeffries signaled emphatically to the bulldozer operator on the right. “Take out the front door and that big ol’ S first!”
The engines shifted from idle gears into a roaring wall of sound. Black diesel smoke billowed out, jettisoning choking fumes toward Jeffries, the television crews, and Corlis and her colleagues. The bulldozer nearest her began to inch forward, crossing in front of the wrecking ball, creeping closer and closer to the spot where King had taken up his protective post.
Twenty feet distant, the second bulldozer did likewise, inching toward a stunned-looking Cindy Lou Mallory. The closer the bulldozer approached, the more horrified Cindy Lou’s pretty featu
res became.
Corlis tapped Virgil on the shoulder and shouted, “Get the redhead! Get the redhead!” Just at that moment Cindy Lou looked desperately to the right and left at her stationary colleagues. She bolted like a startled gazelle, running past the lumbering bulldozer and disappearing in the darkness beyond the perimeter of lights. With great aplomb Chris Calvert moved over five feet and immediately took Cindy Lou’s place. The others adjusted themselves in similar fashion. She wasn’t even missed.
Meanwhile, King was still standing under the S like a defender of the Alamo as a bulldozer bore down on his section of the human chain.
In an adrenaline rush Corlis screamed at Virgil over the roar of the mammoth engines. “From now on, stick with Duvallon, no matter what!”
She stared at the unfolding drama as if she were viewing a film one frame at a time. The enormous piece of equipment drew closer… and closer… yet King didn’t flinch. Closer and closer, until the gigantic scoop was only three feet away. The man showed no sign of blinking first.
“Preservation chicken…” Corlis muttered to no one in particular as she and Virgil took a step toward where King stood, rooted to his spot.
And still the bulldozer advanced.
Corlis arched her neck to stare into the cab of the giant machine and suddenly locked glances with the burly driver. Shoulder to shoulder with Virgil, who now had both King and the front of the bulldozer in his viewfinder, Corlis kept her eyes glued to the operator, unable to watch the front of the machine roll ever closer to King.
Then suddenly she heard one engine conk out.
The bulldozer nearest King had shut down.
Astonished, Corlis turned just in time to watch the other heavy equipment operator lean forward and turn the ignition key, silencing his roaring beast as well.
Grover Jeffries glared first at one of his employees, then at the other. Finally the engine of the giant crane with the wrecking ball dangling from a chain also went silent. The crane operator pointed to the giant S on the building in front of him and said, “We’re not pullin’ anything down tonight, Mr. Jeffries.” He gestured in the direction of Corlis and her crew. “Everybody in the world sees I do that, somebody gets hurt, and the city’ll pull my license and cancel it—forever. I’ll be out of business. Sorry, sir, but this is a no-go.”
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