Ciji Ware (15 page)

“Is Judge Bouchet some cousin on your mama’s side?”

“Close. My paternal grandmother’s brother-in-law.”

“How did I know that?” she asked rhetorically.

As they quickly tidied up the kitchen, Corlis found herself surprised by the odd sensations she experienced merely standing next to King at the sink. They were only inches apart, and suddenly she had a fantasy of using her dish towel as a lasso and pulling that long, lean body toward her to feel its comforting length pressed against her own—as it had been when he’d greeted her with a big hug at Central Lockup earlier.

Whoa, McCullough! The guy was merely saying hello. The next move on your part is not jumping on his bones! Get a grip, girl!

“I’ll just let the rest of these dry on the drainboard,” she said abruptly, hanging her dish towel on a nearby hook.

Five minutes later, they walked down the block, halting at an overhead fanlight window mounted above a white Georgian door. King held it open for her as she entered a modernized interior of a building that had been constructed two decades before the Civil War. In the main room, stripped brick walls and track lighting provided a cheerful workspace where a few late night stalwarts hovered around a computer.

After introductions were made all around, King’s teaching assistant, Christopher Calvert, beckoned to them. “Hey, you’re not going to believe what Grover Jeffries filed with the City Planning Commission this afternoon,” he said.

“Let me guess,” King said, furrowing his brow in a study of mock contemplation. “He’s applied for an order to demolish.”

“What else is new?” Chris said, shrugging. “Can you guess what for?”

“The Selwyn buildings on Canal.”

“Right,” Chris confirmed with a gleam of admiration in his eyes.

“And he wants a zoning change to nullify the historic district designations for the block that he now wants to develop.”

“You got it. Can you tell me what he intends to build on that site?” Chris asked.

By this time others in the office had ceased their chatter and were listening intently.

“Our Grover Jeffries wants a use permit to put up a twenty- or thirty-story hotel.”

“Okay, Professor… tell me something else. How did you
know
the specifics of all that?” Chris demanded while the others emphatically nodded their heads.

“The Boston Club,” King revealed coolly. “Why do you think I keep my membership current in a place where everybody prides himself on having ancestors who were in New Orleans when it was a genuine swamp? Believe it or not, I heard about this proposal in the men’s room two weeks ago,” he disclosed, smiling with bitter irony, “but I was hoping it was just talk. A company called the Del Mar Corporation wants to team up with Jeffries because they think he’s got city government wired. They’re apparently betting that he can ram the project through, despite its sitting smack dab in the middle of a designated historic district.” King squinted at the computer screen. “What I
didn’t
know was that Jeffries Industries would move so fast on this project.”

“No wonder ol’ Grover wanted that eight-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar gift to the university announced this week,” Chris Calvert said angrily. “With something like this, he’s gonna
need
some good friends downtown.”

King shot a glance in Corlis’s direction that said,
Get it, now?

“And no wonder the powers that be wanted to throw me in jail and harass the rest of you,” King noted dryly.

Chris said, shaking his head, “You know, from what we’ve been hearing around town today, Grover Jeffries has put on about as much pressure as you can to try to get this thing jammed through fast.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” King cautioned soothingly. “We don’t know what role the Selwyn family plays in all this. After all, they’ve been in New Orleans a very long time and have owned those buildings for more than thirty years. Remember,
they
have to agree to the Del Mar Corporation’s little schemes.”

“The Selwyns have already sold the property,” Chris announced, pointing to the screen.

“To whom!” King exclaimed.

Corlis leaned forward to have a look.

“Ah…
finally
a piece of information you
don’t
know!” Chris exclaimed. “The entire block has been sold recently to some entity held offshore, or in Delaware, or someplace. We haven’t been able to track it yet.”

“The sale’s already a done deal?” King demanded, making no effort to hide his dismay. Corlis was yearning to jot down what she was hearing, but she chose, instead, to concentrate so she could remember everything later.

Be a fly on the wall! That’s when being a reporter is the most fun…

Aunt Marge was always right about such things, Corlis thought. If she began taking notes, King and the others would start to censor themselves.

“Sure looks like the Selwyn sale’s gone through,” Chris confirmed.

“I wonder if the Del Mar group bought out the Selwyn family by making them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” King mused.

“Possibly,” Chris said, nodding. “And even if we succeed in slowing this project down, King, I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly we have an unexplained 3:00 a.m. fire in the 600 block of Canal. This is a huge project. Millions of dollars involved.
Lots
of jobs at stake.”

Corlis observed the steely look of determination in King Duvallon’s eyes.

“At the risk of sounding a tad dramatic—and I only speak for myself, mind you,” King announced, glancing at his colleagues in the room, “but I swear to y’all, I will lie down in front of the damned bulldozers and get hit by the wrecking ball
right
between my eyes before I’ll let those buildings on Canal Street become a pile of rubble.”

Chapter 7

March 10

Virgil pointed his television camera lens in the direction of a row of three-story buildings facing Canal Street. The facade was a roof-to-sidewalk expanse of dingy, weather-beaten woven aluminum that stretched nearly a city block.

“This is
it
?”
Corlis asked, unable to conceal her disappointment.

“That’s right,” King nodded.

A big metal
S
,
denoting that a family named Selwyn once owned the buildings, loomed overhead at the entrance to the ugly structure.

“
These
are the next batch of buildings the preservation crowd wants to save?” she asked, incredulous. “Didn’t this style of architecture go out with sweatbands and tie-dyed T-shirts?” she demanded, silently recalling a wedding picture of her parents taken in 1961, in a field, on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. In the photo, her mother’s skimpy dress and her father’s short-sleeved shirt sported matching appliquéd sunflowers. To Corlis’s way of thinking, the outdated style of the Selwyn buildings was equally tasteless, and, like her parents’ marriage that had ended bitterly, deserved to be forgotten.

Corlis glanced at her watch. She was feeling pressured to dispatch her crew to their late lunch break following a long morning of work. Today’s skipped meal was typical; there just hadn’t been time to grab a bite anywhere en route. Earlier, in front of the half-completed Good Times Shopping Plaza, she and the crew had interviewed King about his earlier arrest. He had, indeed, been fresh from his municipal court appearance, where as predicted, he’d gotten off merely with a stern warning from Judge Bouchet. Immediately the foursome embarked on a tour of the abandoned hulk, located a few blocks from the river.

Before they entered the unfinished structure, King handed Corlis an unmarked envelope.

“For you,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“WJAZ’s bail money. I got it back this morning, so…
you
get it back.”

She smiled at him and said, “Man of your word. Thanks.”

“Thank
you
,
sugar,” he replied.

Corlis rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head in silent resignation. King cast an amused glance at Manny and Virgil, who were looking on with unabashed curiosity. “Oh,” he said solemnly. “Sorry ’bout that ‘sugar’ thing.”

Later, when her crew had wandered off to shoot “B” roll background shots, King led Corlis inside the bankrupted megamall project. She noticed King pause and stare in silence at a section of a vast, unadorned wall that flanked Tchoupitoulas Street.

“What are you looking at?”

“The house of a friend of mine once stood here.” He balled his hand into a fist and struck his padded flesh with force against the new building’s wall made of poured concrete. “Right
here
!”

“Who was it?”

“The nicest ol’ lady you’d ever want to know,” he said, his voice tight. “In fact, I call her my black mother. She cooked and cleaned for my grandmother for more than thirty years.”

“And
this
was the exact spot where her house stood?” Corlis asked, touched by an intense sadness.

“Emelie’s family’d lived for generations here in a little Creole cottage. In less than five minutes, the whole thing was a pile of rubble. She ended up warehoused at her son’s place, upriver in a room that used to be the laundry porch.”

“God… that’s awful!”

A few minutes later their group had exited the looming, half-finished structure. King’s mood soon improved. They’d strolled up Canal Street in the direction of the Selwyn buildings and the woven aluminum facade. By this time Corlis was gazing at the unsightly structure, shaking her head.

“This block doesn’t do a thing for you, huh?” King asked with a faint smile.

“No!” Corlis declared bluntly, pointing at the rusted screen that soared three stories over their heads. “I don’t get it, King. Why get all upset about demolishing a place like this? Let’s face it… a lot of folks, including
me,
would call this a major eyesore.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he admonished, shaking his head in mock disgust. “C’mon… let me show you something.”

“You guys can take off,” she directed her crew, “and I’ll meet you back at the station by four o’clock.”

In her opinion, there
was
no story here, and she wondered silently how King’s passion for saving buildings could extend to this monstrosity.

“Now just cool your jets, California,” King urged. He bid the crew farewell and led the way toward the glass and metal-edged revolving doors, also part of the 1960s-era makeover. He halted before entering the building and dug into his briefcase, pulling out a large flashlight. “Stand right here.” He placed his free hand on her shoulder while pointing his light and shone it between the three-story-high woven screen and a series of older brick and stone structures to which the screen was attached. “Now, look straight up there…” he directed, waving the beam of light on two feet of airy space that divided the original buildings from the aluminum facade.

“Look
where
?”
she demanded, craning her neck.

“Right
there
,”
he replied. “Can you see? Those are the buildings’ original Doric columns… fifty-four of ’em, I think… supporting the second story above them.”

Corlis squinted. “Oh… wow…” An impressive row of fluted columns holding up a stately arcade marched all the way down the block—behind the ugly aluminum screen—as far as she could see. “They’re
beautiful
!”

King waved his flashlight higher above their heads. “This stupid three-story screen that the Selwyns erected to ‘modernize’ the place in the 1960s casts the upper floors into really deep shadow, but you can get a glimpse of the original windows with their granite lintels. These eleven buildings were once part of a complex of
twenty-three
row houses, with commercial shops on the bottom floors and living quarters on top. The entire structure was built in 1840 to look kinda like a Greek temple.” Excitement tinged his voice. “Sadly, over the last one hundred and sixty years, twelve row houses have already been demolished.”

“What were the shops downstairs used for originally?” she asked, awestruck that this phenomenal beauty had been disguised so long.

“They started out as a commercial center for cotton and sugar merchants,” King explained. “We know that there were also tailors and women’s hat shops and even a saddlery in here… with rather elegant living spaces built above on the third and attic floors.”

“They’re just gorgeous,” Corlis murmured, reaching between the multistory screen and the building to touch a granite column. “It’s almost as if all this aluminum, hideous as it is, kept them
protected
from the elements for decades. Look how smooth and unpitted the stonework is!”