Ciji Ware (26 page)

“How so?” King asked, intrigued.

“I don’t want to spoil your fun, but I will say this—at least three of the co-owners were Free People of Color, and two were women!”

“Incredible!” King exclaimed. “As early as 1840?”

“Remember, King,” the librarian said, “most people are surprised to learn that at least forty-five percent of all blacks in New Orleans at that time were
free
—not slaves.”

“About how many people is that, do you know?” Corlis asked.

“Well…” The librarian glanced at some figures she had jotted down. “There were some thirty-three thousand blacks, so… that means about eighteen thousand of them were classified ‘Free People of Color,’ and many of them owned slaves themselves.”

“Then my chances of tracing descendants of the original owners—black and white—might be pretty fair,” Corlis said. “It’d be great if I could get some modern-day family members to talk about their heritage on camera.”

“That certainly places the historical value of these structures at a much higher level than any of us had guessed, don’t you think?” King suggested.

“I think this information makes them
very
important,” the librarian whispered. “These were among the first black-owned businesses in the entire United States.” She kept her voice low in deference to other library patrons. “Not only that. A few Scots-Irish merchants, a Jewish businessman named Jacob Levy Florence, and several other merchants whose names I still have to pin down, were also co-owners in this block.”

“It sounds like what we have here is a sort of Rainbow Coalition of nineteenth-century entrepreneurs,” King declared.

“Including some women!” Corlis interjected triumphantly, and clamped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment.

King looked over at her, amused. The librarian ushered them into a small conference room.

“Even Paul Tulane was among the consortium,” the librarian said, pointing proudly to a monograph in her file that described the life of the Anglo-American merchant and first major benefactor of the prestigious university on St. Charles Avenue uptown.

Corlis felt a frisson of excitement. “Could you tell me the names of the two women owners you mentioned?” she asked, and ignored King’s gentle poke to her rib cage.

The librarian flipped open the file folder once again and scrutinized a typed list.

“So far, I’ve only found the name of one woman whom I can confirm was a bona fide owner: Livaudais… Celeste Marigny Livaudais.”

“Oh… interesting,” murmured Corlis. Oddly enough, she was vaguely disappointed not to hear the librarian pronounce the name Martine Fouché.

C’mon, McCullough. Be thankful you’re not the voodoo lady you thought you were. Forget all that stuff! Concentrate on getting a story on videotape that Andy Zamora will let you broadcast on TV!

Just at that moment Corlis’s cell phone attached to the strap on her leather shoulder bag vibrated.

She peered at the tiny screen. “Oh, Jeez Louise,” she sighed, noting the number printed in electronic dots.

“Gotta go cover a fire?” King asked.

Corlis nodded resignedly. “I wish,” she replied, making a face. “The symphony’s annual luncheon at the Pontchartrain Hotel starts in twenty minutes… a real softball event, as we say in the news biz,” she added for the librarian’s benefit. “Virgil is wondering where I am.” She pointed to the phone’s screen.

King picked the file folder off the conference table.

“Thanks a million for the photocopies,” he said to the librarian, “and let me know if you turn up anything else.” To Corlis he added, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

The warm, faintly humid March temperatures outside forecast the sultry summer heat that everyone in California had predicted Corlis would find insufferable. As they advanced down the sidewalk, a fast-talking teenager attempted to thrust into her hand a short bamboo-like stalk of sugarcane with a free, cellophane-wrapped piece of candy and a card attached by a piece of red yarn.

“Patti’s Praline Pleasure Palace. Best in N’awlings, darlin’!”

“I’m
not
a tourist!” she protested, noting the salesman made no attempt to offer any of his wares to King. “I live here!”

King chuckled and pointed to a long line of people standing patiently by a restaurant door, waiting for K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen to open for lunch.

“
There
are your customers, Remy!”

“She’s such a pretty lady!” Remy declared with a broad grin. “I can always
try,
can’t I, Professor?”

“You know that guy?” Corlis whispered, amazed as King gently clasped her by the elbow and guided her past the youthful huckster and around a couple dressed in matching shorts and tops that declared, “Been to New Orleans—Got This Stupid T-Shirt.”

“Oh, Remy’s a real character around here. He and his sister Patti have been in the Quarter for years, selling pralines like their mama and grandmama before ’em.”

“There’s my car,” Corlis announced. King leaned against the Lexus while she dug in her purse for the key clicker to open the door. He raised his forefinger to his lips, reached toward her, and gently tapped her on the nose. “Now that you and I have concluded our business meeting today, I’d sure like to—”

“King!” Corlis protested, alarmed by the magnetic force drawing her dangerously close to his side.

He continued to hold her in a riveting stare until he said, shrugging, “You take care, y’hear?”

***

Corlis had reason to remember King’s words when she and her television crew made a quick pass, with camcorder rolling, through the ballroom jammed with well-dressed symphony patrons having lunch at round linen-covered tables decorated with elaborate floral centerpieces. The “culture vultures,” as the movers and shakers of the New Orleans classical music scene were known, had turned out en masse to raise money for an orchestra that struggled to survive in a town renowned for jazz.

“This is a nonevent,” Virgil commented under his breath.

“I’d say it’s worth about a seventeen-second voice-over and call it a day,” Corlis agreed. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”

“Is that any way to treat one of our fair city’s most hallowed institutions?”

Corlis turned to identify the source of the soft southern voice laced with disapproving irony that had just whispered in her ear.

“Jack.”

“Hello, Miz McCullough.” A hunk of Ebert’s straight sandy hair skimmed the tops of his pale brows above eyes the color of chlorinated pool water. “Better not let Bonita Jeffries hear you say that.”

Damn, but this is a tiny town!
Corlis thought. Grover Jeffries’s well-placed donations over the previous decade had landed his wife the presidency of the symphony board and earned her some social clout in the bargain.

“In TV land, seventeen seconds on any subject is a lot of time,” she replied flippantly. “How are you, Jack? Heard about your new assignment with
Arts This Week
.
Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Jack said shortly. “I’ll be taking a look at the personalities as well as cultural institutions in New Orleans. The magazine’s top management has given me carte blanche.”

“Good for you,” Corlis said with false enthusiasm, wondering if her nose was growing longer, like a female Pinocchio.

“They especially want me to cover architecture,” he said with a faint smile.

“So I heard. Sounds like Beth Worthington gave you a broad mandate,” Corlis murmured, speculating where this conversation was leading.

“Has WJAZ still got you covering the controversy at the university?”

Corlis shrugged nonchalantly. “The professorship named after Mr. Jeffries? That’s pretty much died down, don’t you think?”

“It may heat up,” Jack said importantly. “Someone told me that there may be a big Jeffries project afoot for the Selwyn properties. You heard anything more ’bout that?”

“The Selwyn buildings?” Corlis echoed. “What kind of project?” She loved playing dumb for a guy too lazy to do his own research.

Jack gave her a hard look and shook his head. “Some hotel or apartment house, or something, over on Canal. Who knows if the rumors are true? I just thought you might have heard the same rumbles round town that I have.”

“What rumbles are those?” she asked innocently.

Jack pulled back the left sleeve of his white linen suit. His attire was matched by the pale warm-weather clothing worn by two-thirds of the men in the ballroom—which made the gathering appear to be a convention of Colonel Sanders clones. “Well, my watch says I’m on a deadline that’s coming up mighty shortly. I guess there can’t be much to the gossip if
you
haven’t heard ’bout it,” Jack noted evenly. “Better get a move on. Nice seeing you, Corlis.”

Yeah. I’ll just bet.

Corlis had a deadline of her own and soon headed back to WJAZ to record the voice track on today’s story about the symphony luncheon. An easy day, she thought gratefully. By five thirty she was headed down Canal Street, wondering if Cagney Cat had deposited any remains of birds or mice on her wrought-iron gallery today.

Her car came even with the ugly aluminum screen that masked the Selwyn buildings. On impulse she headed for an empty parking space in front of the large metal
S
that hung over the entrance. Through the windshield Corlis drank in the block’s amazing transformation since its construction in 1840. As she sat in her car, she pictured the stately columns that she knew stood behind the false front. Her mind drifted to the black-and-white rendering King had given her that revealed the buildings as they had appeared around 1842.

From the front door of the building, white-collar workers exited in groups of two and three. At this time of day no one would notice if she indulged in a little detective work. She locked her Lexus and strode toward the entrance. Once inside the dilapidated lobby, she headed for the rear of the buildings to see if she could determine where some of the nineteenth-century commercial establishments had once done business.

Within minutes she emerged from a back door onto Common Street, to discover that the unsightly aluminum screening extended on only three sides of the city block. On the Common Street side, the buildings were faced with painted brick, enhanced with Boston-granite piers and lintels around windows matching the ones she’d glimpsed behind the front facade. Nearby an exhaust fan from an eatery called Miss Pearl’s Saddlery with a sign that declared it specialized in “Authentic Louisiana Cuisine” pumped the odor of pancakes and cane syrup into the sultry afternoon air.

The Saddlery! That must be where a shop selling harnesses and carriage equipment once existed.

Corlis could feel her adrenaline starting to pump. Just then a large black woman in a floral caftan was escorting a loose-limbed teenager out the restaurant’s front door.

“Now, Remy, you go on outta here! My customers want
pancakes
and
cane syrup
,
not those fake pralines you and yer sister push on everyone. Go on, bother somebody
else
!”

“These pralines are real
good
,
Miss Pearl!” Remy retorted with an injured air. “Just the sugarcane sticks are fake!”

“I don’t care. On your way, boy. I don’t want my customers filled up with candy ’fore they even order their
meal
.
Now, scat!”

Corlis tried to suppress a smile as Remy, quickly recovering his dignity, sauntered toward her to display his wares. His face brightened when he recognized her. “Hey, pretty lady! You Professor Duvallon’s friend, right? Didn’t I just see you two over front of K-Paul’s on Chartres?”

“That’s right,” Corlis said, nodding.

“Here,” he said swiftly, shoving into her hand a bogus piece of sugarcane with a praline wrapped in cellophane and attached by a piece of yarn. “Have one. Patti’s Praline Pleasure Palace. Best in N’awlings, darlin’.”

“So you say,” Corlis said doubtfully, examining the round, sugary confection studded with a golden pecan.

“My sister’ll kill me if I don’t give ’em all out. Here. Take two. Now I can go get me a soda!”

And before Corlis could protest, the young man strode confidently down Common Street and turned the corner toward Canal.

Curious, Corlis removed the cellophane from one of her “gifts” and began nibbling on the edges of the sugar disk that smelled faintly like maple syrup. She strolled past Miss Pearl’s Saddlery toward a wooden door that was practically hanging off its hinges. A solitary row of sooty windows set a few feet below the roof indicated that the decrepit wood door marked the entrance to a former warehouse or storage area. She reached for the knob and easily pulled open the door.

Inside, shafts of light from the windows overhead illuminated dust motes floating like fireflies. Corlis immediately felt a sneeze gathering, the result, she concluded, of layers of grime permeating the large empty space. Her eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light as she gazed around at the enclosed area.