Ciji Ware (11 page)

“Where’s security?” Delaney shouted. “Get campus security!”

Meanwhile, King turned around again to confront the phalanx of dignitaries who were staring at him with various expressions of horror and dismay.

“And what truth is there to the rumors, Mr. Jeffries,” King exclaimed loudly, “that your company has some
other
big ideas about tearing down a lot more historic buildings along Canal Street? We all hear you’ve got some mighty big plans concerning a twenty-eight-story
hotel
you’d like to construct on the site where there are a whole raft of buildings that have stood in the 600 block for a century and a half!”

The exit doors on both sides of the auditorium suddenly burst open, and a dozen campus security men, plus several members of the uniformed New Orleans Police Department, streamed into the hall. President Delaney glanced first at Grover Jeffries, who appeared near a fit of apoplexy, then pointed in King’s direction. “Him!” was all he said.

Undeterred, King shouted to the audience, “Our sources warn us that already on the drawing boards are a number of
other
mammoth projects for central New Orleans.” He swiftly glanced to his right, where a wedge of officers was advancing toward him. “If we don’t reject this offer of dirty money the university is accepting to offset their own red ink, then Grover Jeffries, Jonathan Poole, and Lafayette Marchand will
lay waste
to the historic landscape for at least another decade! We’ve got to stop them!”

Before King could open his mouth again, an officer barked to his uniformed companion, “Arrest this man for disturbing the peace and trespassing on private property!” The security guard reached for one of King’s wrists. King ignored him and glared at President Delaney.

“I have a constitutional right of free speech and assembly!” he shouted. “I am a teacher of architectural history and historic preservation
at this university
! Accepting this money and naming a professorship after Grover Jeffries, of all people, is an insult to—”

“Get him out of here!” Delaney yelled at the arresting officer.
“Now!”

After this, pandemonium broke out. King was quickly handcuffed and hustled out the side door, surrounded by the campus police. While the camcorders whirred, the students and faculty in the audience were in an uproar, crowding into the aisles of the lecture hall and surging toward the stage, nearly engulfing President Delaney, the dean of the architecture school, and Grover Jeffries himself.

The sound of high-pitched whistles pierced the air as another brigade of campus police officers and NOPDs poured down the aisles of the auditorium, roughing up anyone who was unfortunate enough to be standing in their way. The CEO of Jeffries Industries cast a ferocious glare in the direction of Lafayette Marchand, as if to indicate that this entire fiasco was his fault.

Corlis shouted into Virgil’s ear. “Are we still rolling?” When the cameraman nodded affirmatively, she exclaimed, “Then keep following Duvallon and get some good shots of them putting him in the squad car! I’ll go see if I can nail an interview with Jeffries about his reaction to this ruckus. Meet you here in ten minutes, okay, champ?”

Virgil and Manny made a beeline for the side door. However, by the time Corlis turned back to the stage, President Delaney and his benefactor were just disappearing through an exit door that slammed shut with a bang.

Holy moly! Corlis thought, her heart pounding from the excitement. That King Duvallon is
something else
!

***

“Good job, McCullough,” Andy Zamora said gruffly, nodding at one of a bank of television sets installed at the far end of his office at WJAZ.

Corlis leaned wearily against the doorjamb, sensing the adrenaline draining from her body now that the mad dash to get her story on the evening news was finally over.

“Thanks,” she said shortly. “Got a minute?”

“Sit.” Zamora gestured toward a chair opposite his desk.

“While I was on the air, a voice mail message came in from the star of our little show today.”

“No joke? King sure got out of jail fast.”

“No, he
didn’t
.”
Corlis said. “In fact, King wanted to know if I’d go up to Central Lockup and bail him out.”

“And?”

“That’s all he said,” she replied, puzzled. “Now, why wouldn’t he ask someone in his family to do a thing like that?”

The news director leaned back in his chair with a thoughtful expression.

“Well…” he considered slowly, “his sister, Daphne, is back up north, finishing at Juilliard and laying low after her wedding blew up. His favorite aunt Bethany doesn’t drive. His grandmother, Mrs. Kingsbury, is eighty-five and slightly gaga. And I’ve heard tell that King’s never been on the best of terms with his mama and daddy. Plus, I ’spect he wants to advance his cause with
us
.
Get his story out through the media. He’s obviously gonna fight this endowed professorship deal,” Zamora concluded.

“Well, it’s a great story, Andy. President Delaney calling in the campus cops and the NOPD to arrest a member of his own faculty is bound to escalate the level of protest against Jeffries Industries, don’t you agree?”

“Sure will.” Zamora threw his pen down on his desk. “Okay, McCullough, I’ll authorize you to bail Duvallon out of jail—but
only
if the bond is under three hundred dollars. And get a receipt. I’ll call our company lawyer and get a judge to set his bond.”

“Great,” Corlis promised, standing up.

“But fork over the money
only
if King’ll talk—for the record—
on
camera.”

“Just getting him to talk off the record about being manhandled by the cops at the behest of his own university should certainly help us advance the story.”

Zamora shook his head firmly. “He’s gotta talk
for
the record—on camera,” he repeated sternly. “And the interview’s got to be exclusive to WJAZ. We air it, and
then
he can talk to the other stations if he wants to. Tell him that’s the deal. Otherwise, keep your pocketbook zippered with your WJAZ money
inside
, do you understand?” Corlis nodded her agreement. “Do you think he’ll do it?” he asked. “Talk on camera, I mean?”

“Oh, he’ll talk,” she assured her boss breezily.

However, Corlis was not at all certain that King would speak on the record. But if he declined her request for an on-camera interview, she had an alternative plan. She’d bail him out of jail on her own nickel and get him to talk
off the record
, just for background and not for attribution. Corlis reckoned he must be a fountain of information on the byzantine political scene in New Orleans—and she was determined not to fall into any bear traps again covering
this
story!

Corlis smiled jauntily at her boss and headed for the door, humming under her breath. “It ain’t necessarily so…”

Once outside the nondescript brick building that housed WJAZ, she walked toward her Lexus, which she had unceremoniously parked adjacent to a Dumpster overflowing with fast-food remnants and empty bottles of Dixie. She swiftly flipped on the air-conditioning and waited for the car’s interior to feel less like a convection oven, musing that she’d been too Californian and too shell-shocked when Jay fired her in LA to give up her status-symbol luxury car. Now she’d give anything to own a vehicle with payments that didn’t rival the mortgage on her New Orleans apartment!

She shifted the car into gear and nosed out of her parking space. With a growing sense of excitement, she began to consider the elements of this classic David-and-Goliath story: a wrangle between a fearless professor of historic preservation and a pugnacious developer. She figured there was probably a lot more to the recent altercation than had been revealed publicly, especially if Grover Jeffries had his beady little eyes set on tearing down more historic buildings along Canal Street in order to build a high-rise hotel. A huge project like that might provide jobs and publicity that would be irresistible to the local politicians.

Yep, she thought, joining the stream of rush-hour traffic heading out of the city, the controversy had “juice.” And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that King Duvallon was in for the fight of his life.

***

“City of New Orleans… central jail… how may I direct your call?” said the voice on the other end of Corlis’s cell phone. She leaned against her car’s sumptuous leather headrest. The loan payments might be killing her, she considered briefly, but a Lexus certainly provided her a comfy traveling office.

“My name’s Corlis McCullough, from WJAZ-TV,” she explained to the operator as she sped up the ramp to I-10. “I received a phone page from this number.”

“Oh! Hi Corlis!” the operator exclaimed with easy familiarity. “I see you all the time on TV! Imagine! Now I’m talking to you in person!”

“Hi there,” Corlis said, trying to sound gracious despite her constant amazement that the viewing public considered people they saw on the tube their old friends. “By any chance, can I speak to a prisoner? He called me about an hour ago. His name is Kingsbury Duvallon.”

“Oh… Professor Duvallon!” the woman said in an admiring tone of voice. “We don’t get many prisoners in here like
him,
I can tell you that! Is he a friend of yours?” she asked wistfully.

“Well… kind of,” Corlis replied, feeling awkward to be answering the woman truthfully. “I covered the big uproar at the university today. I think Professor Duvallon is calling me about that.”

“I’m real sorry, sugar, but I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone. The prisoners are having supper. A judge just set his bond though,” she added helpfully.

Corlis thanked the operator and was about to hang up when she blurted, “Can you get word to him that his message got through to me? Tell him I’m coming down to the jail.”

The operator’s voice sounded muffled, as if she’d put her hand over the telephone mouthpiece for privacy’s sake.

“I will if I can… or get somebody else to, okay, sugar?” A brief pause ensued. “Can you get me a WJAZ T-shirt, or one of them cute rain ponchos I’ve seen you wearing with the station logo on the back?”

“Will do,” Corlis agreed instantly. “Leave me a voice mail at the station with your home address… and thanks for telling Professor Duvallon I’m on my way. You’ve been very nice.” Then she pushed the “end” button on her cell phone and stared out her windshield at the bumper-to-bumper traffic, lost in thought.

Kingsbury Duvallon was still in jail. He’d decided to call WJAZ and asked for her. What a lucky break! Or was it?

***

For the better part of a half hour, Corlis fought evening rush-hour traffic all the way up I-10, exiting to Broad and Tulane avenues. Just before six thirty, she parked beside a deserted curb in the city complex that included the criminal district court, police headquarters, and Central Lockup.

While securing her car door, she gazed across the street at the gray, cinder-block construction that housed the jail. What a perfect architectural example of form following function, she thought grimly.

Postmodern brutal.

The building was so sterile and devoid of ornamentation that it looked as if it could also have served just as well as an auto body shop. Once inside, Corlis concluded that the linoleum floor and turquoise plastic seats were the lobby’s most attractive features. A window with a large “Bail Bonds—Pay Here” sign beckoned. She approached a barrel-chested clerk and inquired about the process of springing Associate Professor Kingsbury Duvallon out of the clink.

“Judge Bouchet says that’ll cost you three hundred dollars to get him released, ma’am,” the clerk announced. “You pay in cash, traveler’s checks, or a Western Union money order.”

“Right. Got it,” Corlis replied, digging into the zippered compartment of her leather shoulder bag for the cash that WJAZ issued its reporters, along with their cell phones, for precisely these sorts of emergencies. She’d pay the money first and find out afterward if King would agree to an interview. If he wouldn’t go on camera, she’d simply have to reimburse the station.

Ten minutes later King emerged through a door that led from the holding tanks. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his chiseled jaw. For a split second she imagined what he’d look like in a towel shaving in front of a mirror and was immediately chagrined by the power of such impure thoughts to stir her imagination.

The prisoner halted at the threshold, a pleased look spreading across his features.

“Hey! California! This is great. I got your message that you were coming here, but I never thought you’d get here so fast!” He strode across the linoleum and enfolded her in a bear hug.

She was startled by this effusive display but allowed him to hold her in his arms for several seconds longer than necessary, merely because it felt so good. Then she took a step back and cocked her head to give him the once-over.