Ciji Ware

by Midnight on Julia Street

  Grover Jeffries remained silent then slowly shook his fist at King before turning abruptly on his heel. He stormed to the side of his waiting vehicle and yanked open the back door of the luxury car. Within seconds his driver sped away from the curb, the taillights receding until the red pinpoints disappeared down a darkened side street.

  King was the first to start clapping and yipping like a coyote on a moonlit night. Soon Chris Calvert and the rest of the protesters joined in until they were transformed into a rollicking mass of cheering humanity—with King in the center, accepting everyone’s hearty congratulations.

  Everyone, of course, except Corlis McCullough and Cindy Lou Mallory. Miss Mallory was nowhere to be seen. Corlis, on the other hand, calmly walked around the corner and then sprinted toward her car in hopes of beating her television crew back to WJAZ. She and the editor worked until the sun came up to get the high-octane drama on the morning news.

  ***

  “Can you magnify the close-up of Grover’s desk?” Corlis asked of Sam Lombardo, the video editor.

  “Yeah… gimme a sec,” Sam replied, tapping console keys in the tiny, darkened editing bay. To relieve the closeness in the small room, Corlis opened the sliding glass doors behind them, allowing air in from the office corridor.

  She looked at her watch. She’d been up for almost twenty-four hours straight. Early in the day she and Lombardo had put together “Demolition Derby,” as the story of the early morning fracas on Canal Street had been slugged on the show rundown for the morning and noon news broadcasts. She’d done additional interviews with city officials during the day concerning the implications of Jeffries’s patently illegal action to demolish the Selwyn buildings without a permit, then repackaged a longer version of the story that had run on last evening’s news magazine program. Now Corlis was intent on reviewing all the video that Virgil had shot inside Grover’s office on the night of the Jeffries’s masked ball.

  “That’s it! See the letterhead with ‘Writing Assignments’ beneath it? That’s the invoice that Jack Ebert slipped into Grover’s in-box after our crew left Jeffries’s home office on our first visit, but before we came back to shoot the interview with Mr. and Mrs. Demolition about their wonderful charity work,” Corlis elaborated. “Virgil just happened to catch the invoice when he did a pan shot of the desk. Fabulous!” She clapped excitedly. “Can you freeze frame it, magnify, and download a hard copy for me so I can read the fine print?”

  “No problem,” Sam replied with a matter-of-fact shrug.

  How in the world had King gotten access to a copy of this invoice before the city council meeting that day? she wondered.

  Just then Virgil ambled by.

  “Havin’ fun?” he asked dryly as he walked past their door.

  She nodded obliquely to the cameraman but kept her eyes on Sam’s video screen. “Now… back up… to the stuff we shot earlier, before we got the shot of the invoice,” Corlis instructed the tape editor. Then she looked up. “Hey, Virgil,” she called down the corridor, “what are the chances you might have inadvertently gotten a close-up of the memo from Lafayette Marchand we found in Grover’s in-box the first time we went into the office on the night of the Jeffries’s costume ball? The one we think indicated Grover was going to hand out campaign contributions to officials who voted his way.”

  “I dunno…” Virgil replied, his hand on the doorknob at the end of the hallway.

  Corlis turned back to the editor. “Do you remember seeing such a thing when you edited the interview with Jeffries awhile back?”

  “I edit ten stories a day,” replied the taciturn Lombardo. Corlis could tell he was tired and wanted to go home.

  “Just make one more pass at fifty-forty-two, okay?” she said, staring closely at the digital counter. Virgil retraced his steps and stood in the hall behind them. The trio watched silently as footage flew by on one of the small TV screens. “Aha!” Corlis said triumphantly. She pointed to a piece of paper on top of Grover Jeffries’s desk. Somehow it had been moved from the in-box where they’d seen it first, to a spot on the developer’s desk. “Magnify, please.”

  Into sharper focus came the first page of the memo with the handwritten comment: Direct Acct. to make CC’s to friendly city council members now!

  “Bingo…” Corlis said softly.

  Sam sat up in his chair and whistled. “Wow… there’s your proof that Grover was using campaign contributions to persuade certain council members to see things his way on the hotel project.”

  “Well, it goes quite a distance in that direction,” Corlis agreed, smiling faintly. “Sam, would you print me a hard copy of this one, too?” She turned to Virgil. “Zamora and the creep lawyer’ll have to let us go on air with this stuff, don’t you think?”

  “I dunno,” Virgil allowed. “ ’Cause that lawyer, Marvin Glimp, is a creep.” Without further comment, he headed down the hall toward the WJAZ lunchroom.

  ***

  “It is my advice, Andy, that you do not go on the air with this,” Marvin Glimp declared, pointing to the photocopy of Jeffries’s memo taken from the videotape.

  “Why the hell not?” Corlis demanded, looking to Andy Zamora for support.

  “Because there are no names of city officials he’s supposedly gonna give the illegal money to, that’s why!” Glimp declared. “All you’ve got is just the proposal on Jeffries’s part that some council members were possibly going to be offered money—if you can prove ‘cc’s’ means ‘campaign contributions,’ and not ‘copies.’ We have no way of knowing if Mr. Jeffries’s accountant gave any of them money. He could have considered it, but it is unfair to the elected officials to create smoke when we do not know, for certain, if there was actually a fire.”

  “Andy!” Corlis exclaimed, unable to disguise her mounting frustration at the direction the meeting had been taking for the last five minutes. “Jeez Louise… it’s right there on our own video!”

  “I don’t know…” Zamora said, shaking his head. “You had a solid story yesterday about Grover’s sneak attack on those buildings and the preservationists who prevented it. I say, why buy trouble when we’re on a roll? Let’s sit tight and try to get some additional proof to make this accusation a lot more solid.”

  “But, Andy,” Corlis protested, “you know this back-channel stuff is the way Grover Jeffries operates. He obviously told his accountant to spread some money or promises of future goodies around somewhere. What if the city council takes a vote before we can prove which members are on the take?”

  “That’s my point,” Zamora snapped. “We’ve gotta prove which elected officials got dirty money, Corlis, before we can go with it. That’s final.”

  “And I must remind you, Ms. McCullough,” Glimp added officiously, “that you are to continue to stay at arm’s length from King Duvallon, do you understand?”

  “Perfectly,” she replied, forcing a polite smile.

  But outside, in the corridor that led past the editing bay, Corlis could barely contain her irritation.

  “Hey, boss lady, why so glum?” Virgil asked.

  “They won’t let me use the stills from the video yet. I have to get outside corroboration as to which council members have their hands stretched out before I can even hint on the air at what Grover’s up to!” She gestured with the photocopies she held in her hand. “Alluding to the possibility that elected officials have gotten paid off would probably flush some whistle-blower out of the woodwork who could corroborate, but Glimp just put up a blockade.”

  “Yeah… well, why wouldn’t he?” Virgil drawled. “His sister is a receptionist at Lafayette Marchand’s PR joint.”

  Corlis’s jaw dropped. “I swear to God, Virgil. You know everything in this town! Do you think Andy Zamora knows this?”

  “I don’t ’spect so, ’cause she just quit the place where my sister works to go work for Marchand.” He shrugged, mildly apologetic.

  “This town is driving me crazy!”

  Virgil patted her on th
e shoulder and added, “I wouldn’t tell Zamora ’bout that yet. He’ll confront Glimp, and then Glimp’ll try to fry your oysters some other way. Save that kind of ammunition for when you really need it. But watch your back with Glimp.”

  “Always,” she replied grimly. Virgil was one smart cookie, Corlis considered gratefully.

  Just at that moment, Manny walked through the door.

  “Our assignment editor just told me that city council’s called an emergency session,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock. Be there, or be square.”

  “They’re going to ram through the demolition,” Corlis predicted, shaking her head in disgust. “I smell a railroad job, and Kingsbury Duvallon and his preservation guerrillas are about to get flattened on the tracks.”

  “You never know ’bout stuff like that round here,” Virgil replied philosophically.

  “I’ve been around just long enough to take an educated guess,” she replied morosely. “Adios, guys. See you at city council tomorrow, eight thirty sharp.”

  Chapter 25

  May 28

  The assignment editor hung up the phone and shouted across the newsroom. “Hey, McCullough! Zamora wants to see you before you take off for the city council meeting! In his office… on the double.”

  “Damn it!” Corlis muttered. “You guys go on over to city hall and set up,” she said to Virgil and Manny. “I’ll be there, soon as I can.”

  Her heart sank when she spotted Marvin Glimp standing beside Andy Zamora’s desk. Both were staring at the front page of the Times-Picayune, where a headline in the lower left corner of the front page read: “Rumored Memo Links Developer to Secret Campaign Contributions to Officials.”

  “Read the paper this morning, Corlis?” Andy asked, expressionless.

  She gazed at the headline and slowly shook her head. “Didn’t have time.”

  “Did you leak this to the Picayune?” Glimp asked bluntly. “ ’Cause if you did, young lady, you have committed a very serious offense and—”

  “I didn’t leak it,” Corlis cut in. “Any number of people on Grover Jeffries’s end could have access to that memo. I don’t know who leaked it, but I didn’t.” She stared squarely into her boss’s solemn gaze. “Do you believe me, Andy?”

  Her employer remained silent. Marvin Glimp, however, did not.

  “We can’t risk the liability, Andy,” Glimp declared. “If she’s lying, every asset you’ve got would have to be channeled into defendin’ a suit filed by Grover Jeffries, who’ll claim the station’s accusin’ him of illegal campaign contributions. It could effectively put you and WJAZ out of business.”

  “I don’t lie!” Corlis retorted with heat. “And I don’t leak information! And furthermore, Mr. Glimp, if you get me fired over this, I swear to you, I will find the best damn lawyer in America who will sue your ass for defamation and wrongful termination from here to Baton Rouge!” she threatened, taking a leaf out of Grover Jeffries’s own book of intimidation.

  Glimp appeared taken aback by the force of her words. “Look…” he temporized. “I’m just advisin’ my client, Mr. Zamora. My job is to give other people ulcers, not get them myself.”

  “Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Glimp,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Have you advised your client, Mr. Zamora, here, that your sister’s working for Lafayette Marchand, and maybe that’s why you want us to go easy on the Marchand-Jeffries crowd?”

  Zamora’s surprised expression told Corlis she’d scored a bull’s-eye.

  Glimp looked nervously at Zamora. “She’s a receptionist, for god’s sake, Andy. It hardly seemed relevant.”

  “Well, it is,” Zamora retorted.

  Corlis turned to face her employer. “What about it, Andy? Do you believe me when I tell you that I did not leak that memo?”

  Zamora hesitated and seemed to be turning something over in his mind. “Yes. I believe you.”

  “Then, do I still have my job?” she demanded. “Am I still assigned to this story?”

  Zamora inhaled deeply and opened his top desk drawer. He extracted a fresh roll of Tums and popped one into his mouth.

  “You’re still on the story, McCullough. And you’re still on probation.”

  ***

  By the time Corlis arrived at city hall, the council chambers were deserted, except for Manny and Virgil and a few other news crews who were packing up their gear.

  “Where is everyone?” Corlis inquired, gazing at the empty rows of seats. “What happened?”

  “Edgar Dumas opened the meetin’ and immediately announced that the matter of the Selwyn buildin’s required further extensive study and tabled the sucker again.”

  “You’re kidding,” Corlis replied, shaking her head. “Do you think that leaked memo to the Picayune this morning has got certain members of the council running scared?”

  “I think you could say that,” Virgil replied, smiling slyly and rolling his eyes toward his hairless eyebrows. “Some of ’em must’ve accepted money from Jeffries at one time or another, if not recently.”

  “So, now what happens?” she demanded. “I can’t believe Grover Jeffries will just roll over on the Del Mar hotel project because of a newspaper story that only hinted there might be an incriminating memo.”

  “Oh no…” Virgil agreed. “The council’s merely adjourned. Probably to allow time for Jeffries to dig up some dirt about King Duvallon and the preservationist folks.”

  Corlis blanched at the thought of the kind of “dirt” Jeffries and henchmen like Lafayette Marchand were most likely to try to dig up. She suddenly flashed on the sight of city council president Edgar Dumas ordering King Duvallon handcuffed. If Dumas accepted money from Grover Jeffries, he’d do almost anything to publicly discredit King. And since Dumas figured she and King were working hand-in-glove in the fight to save the Selwyn buildings, he wouldn’t hesitate to go after her as well. Just like Glimp, Dumas could very easily insinuate that she was the source of the rumor in the newspaper about Jeffries crossing the palms of city council members with silver. Dumas would say she’d done it in order to protect the leader of the preservationists—the man with whom the councilman would allege, accurately, she’d had an “intimate relationship.”

  Virgil waved his hand around the empty hall. “What happened here today is likely just an intermission. You know what I’m sayin’, boss? If King and his preservationist pals are interested in savin’ those buildin’s, they’d better come up with some really good stuff that’ll tug at the heartstrings of this town between now and the next city council meetin’. It’s the only way.”

  Corlis looked at Virgil sharply. “You got any particular suggestions along those lines?” she asked. She had come to understand that Virgil Johnson had never quite been the kind of disinterested fellow he presented to the world.

  “Did you ever get around to readin’ Professor Barry Jefferson’s brochure he was passin’ out at the last meetin’?”

  “Skimmed it,” Corlis replied impatiently. “I already know the background.”

  “Well, girl, I suggest you read it very carefully,” he advised, handing her a copy. “I sure hope King has.”

  Corlis glanced at the cover and opened the pamphlet to its fullest extension. Positioned in the center of the page were two oval engravings depicting the head and shoulders of well-dressed African Americans with bushy sideburns and top hats. They were attired in black business suits with starched white collars and neckcloths. In a box below, Corlis scanned a description of the lives of “two Free Men of Color whose success as tailors in the employ of white men-of-fashion in the late 1830s resulted in their joining forces with merchant Paul Tulane, Free Woman of Color Martine Fouché, the French Creole grande dame Marie Lavaudais, sugar and cotton exporter Julien LaCroix, and saddlery owner David Bates in a consortium to construct a commercial-residential block of buildings on Canal Street.”

  “So?” Corlis said. “I know all this.”

  “For a smart woman, you are sometimes real dope
y, boss lady,” Virgil said with an exasperated expression, pointing at the pictorial rendering of one of the tailors. “Now, what does it say right there under their portraits, will you please tell me?”

  Reading aloud Corlis murmured, “‘J. Colvis, Tailor’… and ‘Joseph Dumas, Tailor.’” Then her mouth formed a little O. Eyes wide, she stared at Virgil and grinned. “Dumas! Dumas!” she exclaimed. “As in city council president Edgar Dumas!” She threw her arms around the video operator. “Virgil, you are a blooming genius! It sure might give Edgar pause if he knew he was voting to tear down a piece of his own family’s history.”

  “Well, you gotta somehow prove Edgar’s a direct descendant of this tailor guy, but… ain’t New Orleans a grand place?” he said, grinning widely. “It’s the only city in America where there’s a real good chance that everybody—black or white—is related to everybody else!”

  By this time, however, Corlis was already sprinting through the auditorium toward the double doors at the top of the aisle, praying that her cell phone battery hadn’t died.

  ***

  “Aunt Marge, you’ve just got to FedEx the diary!” Corlis pleaded over the telephone. “I can’t wait for you to go photocopy it. I need it now! It could be an important starting place for tracking down specific information about Joseph Dumas, and it might give me some clues for finding out if the city council president is a direct descendant. There’s a slew of Dumases in the telephone book, so I’ve got to narrow it down. I’ve got to have absolute proof. And besides, I have no idea when the council will meet again to decide the fate of the buildings, once and for all. They could order demolition on a moment’s notice. I need that diary.”

  “Now, Corlis, calm down,” her aunt admonished. “This is primary source evidence. I’m not about to let it out of my hands without a copy, and that’s final! I’ll see what I can do about getting this reproduced tomorrow and send it along immediately.”