Boos and catcalls greeted this announcement. The historian leaned over the podium and glared at the members of the city council. “Do you mean to tell me that this governmental body is even considering tearing down any one of these national treasures?” he demanded acidly. “Especially the two priceless, historic buildings owned by tailors Colvis and Dumas? Behind that ugly screen stand beautiful Greek Revival structures here in our city that these amazing gentlemen built and owned at a time when the majority of our enslaved black brothers and sisters in the South were not allowed, by order of the Black Code, to own anything, including the shirts on their backs.”
More boos and rude noises burst forth on all sides of the auditorium, prompting President Dumas to bang his gavel repeatedly.
“We will have order!” Edgar Dumas shouted angrily.
Corlis glanced over at King, who was ignoring the uproar and instead was scribbling energetically on a notepad he held in his lap. Dr. Jefferson’s basso profundo rose above even Edgar Dumas’s stentorian roar.
“Do you city council people really intend to destroy this tangible evidence of our people’s history? Do you really want to erase from the face of the earth our struggle and our triumph over the evils of slavery? You’re really gonna do that?” he reproached his listeners. “By destroying these buildings, you’re going to allow the black and white children of this town to forget that—once upon a time in New Orleans—there was a whole city block that had buildings constructed by these two gentlemen right here,” he said, pointing to the antique portraits of Colvis and Dumas displayed on the easel, “who, with their partners, owned ’em and rented some of the space to several white merchants, mind you. And not only that—” Jefferson thumped the podium like a Sunday preacher. “Their neighbors and co-owners on the block included Paul Tulane and other Scots-Irish, French, and English people—and that the very land on which these buildings stand was owned by an unmarried Free Woman of Color named Martine Fouché LaCroix!”
“Yay!” burst out Althea LaCroix. Sitting next to her, Dylan Fouché began to clap wildly.
“Professor Jefferson, your time is up!” Edgar Dumas declared rudely, banging his gavel.
Ignoring him, Jefferson narrowed his focus to the two female council members. “I should think the feminists should get exercised about something like this being bulldozed by greedy developers who won’t be giving many ladies construction jobs on this new high-rise hotel project!”
A burst of laughter rippled throughout the auditorium like a drumroll.
Well glory be, Corlis thought. A word in favor of feminism. Was this the New South she’d been told about but had yet to see?
Dumas pounded his gavel once more. “Now settle down, everyone! Professor Jeff—”
Jefferson abruptly turned his back on the city council members and made a sweeping gesture that embraced the entire hall. “There’s something precious for every single citizen—black or white, man or woman—in the city of New Orleans that is contained in these buildings that the men in those seersucker suits at the back of this chamber want to turn into rubble,” he declared, his voice dripping with righteous sarcasm. “It’s our history! Our collective history. It belongs to each and every one of us… and it should be a tangible reminder to us that we’re all in this together—especially now, Edgar Dumas!”
Expert showman that he was, Professor Jefferson abruptly turned to face the dais again. With a dramatic flourish, he seized the tattered, leather-bound volume that he had placed on top of the podium. He banged the brown cover with his fist while casting a piercing look directly at the city council president.
“Your time is up!” Edgar Dumas declared firmly.
“I know that,” the historian acknowledged, shifting his tone to one that was pleasant and cordial.
King rose from his seat and approached the podium. Corlis glanced to the back of the auditorium in time to witness Grover Jeffries’s expression of astonishment turn to red-faced fury. It was obvious that the developer hadn’t caught sight of his adversary in the standing-room-only auditorium—until now.
Professor Jefferson continued talking. “Kingsbury Duvallon has just been handed a diary that was written in the 1830s and 40s by the wife of one of the white contractors hired by the Canal Street Consortium, as they called themselves, to erect the buildings that, for the moment, at least,” he added with heavy emphasis, “are still standing.”
Professor Jefferson ceremoniously handed his coconspirator the diary. Then he neatly stepped to one side to allow the younger man to take his place at the microphone. King glanced sideways across the packed audience until his gaze came to rest on the roped-off area assigned to the media. He flashed a triumphant grin in Corlis’s direction and then looked down at the leather-bound volume in his hand.
“This family treasure,” King began conversationally, “has come to us all the way from California, where it has been in the custody of a woman kind enough to fly to New Orleans—at her own expense, mind you—when she heard that y’all were considering demolishing the buildings.” A smattering of applause greeted this aside. “The diary—which we will allow the Historic New Orleans Collection archivist to authenticate to your satisfaction,” King continued, “gives a fascinating account of the amazing mix of people who were involved in the building project back in the 1840s. However, one passage, in particular, I want y’all to hear.”
“I will ask you to make this extremely brief, Mr. Duvallon,” Dumas intervened caustically.
King opened the volume to a page marked with a paper bookmark and began to read:
I paid a melancholy call on tailors Colvis and Dumas this morning to inform them of the tragic passing of their partner, Julien LaCroix, of yellow fever yesterday. Unfortunately, Mr. Joseph Dumas was not in his shop, having been summoned to the carrè de la ville to conduct a fitting for one of his roster of distinguished clients. However, his son, Edgar…
King paused dramatically, and smiled at city council president Edgar Dumas.
…his son, Edgar, treated me most kindly, indeed, while I recited my distressing news about the death of poor Mr. LaCroix. Young Edgar Dumas, who has become a close friend of my Warren, served me a goodly cup of very hot, very strong coffee…
King looked up.
“The diarist makes specific mention of Joseph Dumas’s son,” King said, speaking forcefully into the podium’s microphone while pointing at the engraving of the long-deceased tailor. “She speaks of this man’s son—Edgar Dumas.”
King then addressed the city council president directly.
“Your family, Mr. Dumas, like mine—the Kingsburys and Duvallons—has been in New Orleans for at least two hundred years, isn’t that so?” Edgar Dumas didn’t answer, nor did he interrupt the speaker or tell him to take his seat. “So, it is possible, isn’t it,” King continued in a friendly tone of voice, “that this kindly, courtly, exemplary young black man… this Edgar Dumas… whose father, Joseph Dumas, owned one of these buildings you propose to destroy… may very well… be your direct ancestor?”
The council president appeared greatly taken aback by this assertion and by the sudden attention of all eyes in the council chamber. His gaze drifted to the easel, where he studied the engraving of Joseph Dumas with evident interest.
“Now tell me, President Dumas,” King demanded, his voice shaking with intensity, “as a distinguished public servant—and perhaps a direct descendant of the celebrated Joseph Dumas and his son, Edgar—are you gonna be able to live with yourself if you vote to allow a bunch of bulldozers to demolish these national treasures, especially when you know what architectural beauty survives behind the ugly metal screen you see here?” He pointed dramatically to a photographic blowup of the site on Canal Street.
Edgar Dumas shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cast an unsettled glance at his colleague in the next chair. He opened his mouth as if to speak and closed it again. King smiled faintly and continued in a conciliatory tone.
“Do you want to be k
nown as the president of this august body who led his fellow public servants into history as the folks who turned into ruins a heritage that belongs to every single person in this country—and most especially, yourself?”
“No!” someone shouted from the back of the hall.
“No! No! No!” echoed a chorus suddenly swelling throughout the council chamber.
Corlis regarded Edgar Dumas, whose startled expression conveyed his apparent belief that forces greater than his were at work in the council chambers. He sat speechless, his hand draped limply around the handle of his gavel as King Duvallon abruptly retired to his seat next to Marge McCullough amid thunderous applause.
As if on cue, black investment banker George Barrett, a colleague of architect Keith LaCroix, rose from his seat in the second row and walked briskly toward the podium while the clapping continued at a deafening roar. Once he leaned toward the mike to speak, however, the audience grew silent.
“Tearing these buildings down is ludicrous from an economic standpoint,” emphasized the young African American banker, also dressed conservatively in a three-piece suit.
Corlis had read George Barrett’s resume. The businessman had attended a Catholic high school in New Orleans, then Yale on a full scholarship, graduating magna cum laude, and then had worked his way through Harvard Business School. He returned to New Orleans and started a small fund that invested in black-owned businesses.
“I have received commitments from private investors, architects, and loan officers,” Barrett declared, “who firmly believe that the buildings can be adaptively re-used and put to good purpose, leaving their historic facades intact.” He swiftly pulled the historic rendering of the city block off the easel. Behind it was a modern architectural drawing of the same scene with a modest hotel tower at the rear of the proposed restoration, designed in a style compatible with the existing buildings.
Corlis looked at King. She’d bet her cell phone that one of Barrett’s silent “private investors” was none other than the Hero of New Orleans! Meanwhile, the investment banker declared earnestly to a rapt audience, “You could have, say, a twelve-story hotel instead of a twenty-eight-story, steel-and-glass monstrosity, and still make a decent—but not obscene—profit. And”—he continued with rising passion—“I propose the Colvis and Dumas tailor shops, themselves, become a museum dedicated to the unique history of black entrepreneurship in this city!”
Wild cheers from the audience greeted this proposal, including—Corlis noticed—enthusiastic applause from several uniformed security guards. As the rhythmic clapping increased, the side exit suddenly opened, and the entire LaCroix Jazz Ensemble stood in the doorway. Althea jumped to her feet and shouted at her fellow musicians, “And a one… and a two… and a three!”
A maximum-strength arrangement of “When the Saints Go Marching In” reverberated loudly in the hearing room, drowning out Edgar Dumas’s halfhearted attempts to gavel the impromptu jazz band into silence. Marching in front was Althea’s brother Eldon, blowing on his clarinet. Her youngest brother, Julien, pumped a slide trombone. Beside him stood patriarch Louis LaCroix wailing on his tenor sax, while son Rufus—magically plugged into a battery-powered amplifier—strolled into the hall twanging on a bass guitar, accompanied by his twin brother, Ronald, whose soaring trumpet blasted holes in the walls.
Althea reached under her seat and pulled forth a small electric keyboard, connected by a long black cord that ran along the carpet floor and plugged into the wall next to Manny’s sound equipment. She slapped it onto her knees and pounded on the keys.
Within seconds the majority of the audience rose from their seats and began swaying to the infectious beat. A spontaneous conga line formed at the back of the hall and snaked down both aisles of the auditorium. Soon it wound its way second-line style around the raised dais where the members of the governing body of the city of New Orleans sat, trapped and impotent, in their high-backed leather chairs.
When the musicians concluded their first selection, they immediately swung into the tune that had become an anthem in the Big Easy: Dr. John’s “Goin’ Back to New Orleans.” Virgil had lifted his camcorder off its tripod and switched his gear over to his battery pack. Next thing she knew, he and Manny joined the conga line as it swung past their media outpost.
“Oh, what the hell,” she muttered, falling in line behind her soundman. There was no other way to cover this story, she reasoned, as she swayed to the hypnotic beat.
“That’s it, boss lady,” Virgil called over his shoulder. “Get down, baby. Just let the good times roll!”
She glanced over at King. In the row behind him, Cindy Lou and her mother had jumped to their feet and were both dancing in the aisle with the man of the hour.
As for the elected officials, they had two choices. They could look like stiffs and frown disapprovingly at the merrymakers dancing in the hall, or they could become part of a world-class photo op and cheer on the historic preservationists. At least four uniformed security guards were gyrating in the crowd, along with everyone else.
Corlis could see over the bobbing heads of the impromptu chorus line that Grover Jeffries, along with the flock of lawyers and representatives of the Del Mar Corporation, had gathered in an emergency huddle at the back of the room. Jeffries frequently glanced over his shoulder nervously at King and then shouted something at one of his lawyers.
To Corlis’s astonishment, King abandoned Cindy Lou and raced up the aisle in the direction of Grover’s legal team—and Lafayette Marchand. When the music finally came to its tumultuous conclusion, a virtual bedlam of clapping and cheering erupted on all sides. Mopping his brow, Edgar Dumas shouted into the microphone, “This meetin’ will stand in recess for ten minutes!” He didn’t even call for seconds to his proposal but merely banged his gavel and retired swiftly through a door in the paneled wall behind his chair.
Corlis tapped Virgil on the shoulder and shouted, “Wait here, but watch me. If I give you the high sign, beat feet fast to the back of the hall!”
Chapter 29
June 1
Corlis pushed her way through the gyrating melee engulfing the New Orleans City Council chambers, arriving in time to hear Lafayette Marchand address Grover Jeffries and his battalion of advisers.
“I do believe, gentlemen, that you’ve reached the end of the road, as far as this hotel building project is concerned.” While Grover Jeffries’s frown deepened, his public relations consultant pointed to a sheaf of papers that King, who stood within their tight little circle, held in his hand. “Mr. Duvallon has just shown me a memo that has recently come to the attention of the preservationists.”
Corlis noticed that Jeffries’s florid jowls blanched chalk white. Lafayette continued to speak in a pleasant, even tone of voice.
“As you no doubt remember, Grover, on this particular memo are your comments regarding my summation of the Canal Street hotel proposal, along with your instructions to your accountant—scribbled on the page in your handwritin’, need I remind you—to disburse certain ah… questionable contributions to the campaign war chests of sitting city council members who just so happen to be voting on the Selwyn measure today.”
“What the devil?” Jeffries growled, his nervousness at seeing King giving way to belligerence.
“The point is, Mr. Jeffries,” King interrupted with a grim smile, “our side has a copy of that incriminating memo. And now we have two hundred copies that we’ve run off.” He nodded faintly as he acknowledged Corlis’s presence on the periphery of their group. “I assure you, sir, we are prepared to distribute each and every one of them to the audience here, including the media.”
Corlis could hardly believe that she was staring over King’s shoulder at a copy of the memo she’d seen in Grover’s home office the night of the costume ball. Earlier in the week somebody had leaked word to the Times-Picayune about the existence of this damning document. But who had later given the document to King and his troops? The same thing had happened with Jack Eb
ert’s invoice for his writing services. A copy of it had obviously been leaked to King as well. But by whom?
King caught and held Corlis’s gaze. With a sly smile he made a gesture as if he were prepared to hand the memo over to her. “I’m sure that television stations like WJAZ would be very interested to see this. The same probably goes for those few members of the city council who were not slated to receive any soft money from your coffers.”
“Give me that!” Grover snarled, snatching the memo from King’s fingers. His eyes swiftly scanned the first page. “Why, this is privileged information! It must’ve been stolen!” He glared at King. “One of those buildin’ huggers of yours broke into my office. I’ll have your organization brought up on—”
“Charges?” King scoffed with a bitter laugh. “I don’t think so.” He nodded at Corlis. “Do you know, Mr. Jeffries, that there exists, as of today, a very fascinating video showing your employee, Jack Ebert, doing your dirty work at Lafayette Cemetery?”
“What in blazes are you talkin’ ’bout, boy?” Jeffries blustered. “This is gettin’ ridiculous!”
“The video shows Jack opening the padlock to one of those marble crypts out there,” King continued smoothly, “in order to let me out of the tomb he’d locked me into last night—on your orders.”
“Yeah? You just prove I told him to do that!” Jeffries hissed.
“That won’t be difficult,” replied Lafayette. He reached in his suit jacket pocket and extracted a DVD. “On this disk Jack says very convincingly that you were the one who put him up to kidnapping Mr. Duvallon to keep him from testifying at today’s hearing. That was a very unwise move on your part, and one—as your adviser—I never would have countenanced.”
The men in the seersucker suits exchanged worried looks. One of the lawyers representing the Del Mar contingent pointed a forefinger and demanded of Jeffries, “Wait a minute… wait a minute. Are you telling me, Grover, that you had the leader of the preservationists in New Orleans kidnapped and locked in a graveyard tomb prior to this hearing?”
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