Ciji Ware (64 page)

While Virgil recorded the man’s departure, Ebert turned and slowly limped in the direction of a small, open gate, sandwiched in the middle of the wall running along a side street. The camera operator swiveled in place just as King ducked under the tomb’s low threshold and stepped onto the grass. He stood to his full height and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. Then, recorded by Virgil for all to see, King pulled Corlis toward him and enfolded her in his arms.

“What is it with you, Ace?” King murmured into her hair. “You always seem to be bailing me out of jail.” His arms tightened, and she felt all the coursing adrenaline gradually subside.

“Thank God you’re all right,” she whispered into his chest.

“I’m fine,” he reassured her soothingly, stroking her hair. Then he held her gently away and stared down at her. “Are
you
okay?”

She smiled ruefully. “Barely,” she replied. Now that the danger was over, she was beginning to tremble.

King kept a steadying arm around her shoulders while he reached over and shook the hands of the television crew. “Hey… Virgil… Manny!” he exclaimed. “You guys are unbelievable!”

Still peering through his viewfinder, Virgil countered with undisguised admiration, “Yeah… well, maybe… but
this
lady, here, was nothin’ but balls-to-the-walls.”

Just at that moment a breathless Lafayette Marchand rounded the corner of the Milling tomb in a dead run. For a while, King and his godfather took each other’s measure. King broke the silence first.

“Will someone explain to me what in hell
he’s
doing here?” He turned to address Marchand directly. “You do know, don’t you, Laf,” he declared, his eyes narrowing, “that this little caper could earn your boss Jeffries a criminal indictment?”

“Well, now… wouldn’t that… be nice?” Lafayette replied, attempting to catch his breath.

“You could get nailed, too, if you’re an accessory,” King added, his temper barely under control.

“I wasn’t,” he said shortly. Then he pointed a well-manicured finger in the direction of Corlis and her crew. “What I’ve revealed about Kingsbury Duvallon’s… detention… is off the record… and not for attribution. I have given WJAZ-TV this information only as deep background
until
I lift the embargo regarding today’s events. You have my word I will do so before the final vote is taken this afternoon on the demolition of the Selwyn buildings.”

“Wait a minute,” Corlis snapped. “What if Jeffries gets Edgar Dumas to postpone the vote again today when he sees King walk in?”

“You and I will have to negotiate.”

“Well, then,
will
you agree that I can broadcast what we have on video concerning Jeffries’s illegal activities within a week—or before a final vote is taken, whichever comes first?”

“I will agree to your using this material in such a way that the Selwyn buildings will be saved from demolition but that my privacy is maintained. How’s that?”

“
His
job is to save the buildings,” she reminded Marchand sharply, indicating King, who was watching their discussion like a spectator at a Ping-Pong match. “
My
job is to keep the public informed about issues that affect their lives and pocketbooks.”

“You’re gonna have to trust that I’m keeping both matters clearly in mind,” Marchand countered tersely.

Before Corlis could reply further to Marchand’s skilled horse trading, King shouted, “
Trust?
Why in the world would you even
consider
trusting a guy like this? Will
somebody
please tell me what’s going on here?”

“Okay,” Corlis said abruptly to Marchand, ignoring King for the moment. “If this business isn’t settled at city council today, I’ll negotiate with you in the public’s best interest as to how much of what we shot today we put on the air.”

“And the
personal
side of this story is strictly confidential, agreed?” Marchand pressed. He held Corlis’s gaze. He had indicated that he was willing to put his personal fate in her hands—if she would risk putting her professional future in his.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I’ll agree to that, too.”

“Corlis,” King exclaimed. “What in hell is this all about? And why is Virgil
still
shooting video?”

“Because he never stops rolling until I tell him to,” she explained succinctly. “It’s a pact we made when we first started working together.”

Lafayette Marchand addressed Virgil. “Will you make me a copy of what you’ve shot in your news van right now—for my records?”

Virgil, still rolling, looked to Corlis for confirmation. After a long pause, she asked Marchand, “You’ll use it to arm-wrestle Jeffries, correct?”

“Smart lady.”

“Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t, but okay—if you swear it’s for nonbroadcast purposes.”

“Agreed.”

She turned to Virgil and asked, “And we’ve recorded the entire story,
including
this visual record of our agreement with Mr. Marchand, correct?”

“Yep.”

“Then make him a dub of what you got today.”

“Corlis,” King exclaimed again. “Are you
crazy
?”

“It may look that way, but no…” she answered with a sympathetic smile. To her cameraman she said, “You can stop shooting now.”

Virgil flicked a switch on his camcorder, lowered the piece of equipment from his shoulder, and set it to rest on the grass. Manny pulled his earphones from his head and allowed them to dangle around his neck.

“Well, then,” Lafayette said with an ironic smile. “It’s nearly three thirty. Let’s see about dubbing the video, gentlemen. Then I say we all hustle down to city hall. This should be a very interestin’ meeting.”

And with that the nattily attired media expert strode off with Virgil and Manny toward the wrought-iron archway to the cemetery that bore his name, while King stared after him, dumbfounded.

“We’d better get going, too,” Corlis said.

“And you’d better tell me what in hell is goin’ on here, Ace,” King said in a low voice etched with anger and fatigue as they, too, began to walk toward the cemetery gates.

Corlis shook her head regretfully. “I can’t do that,” she replied with an apologetic smile. “Not until after the vote is taken by the city council, and I’m officially off the story.”

“Oh, come on, Corlis,” King exploded. “I’ve just spent seventeen hours locked up in a graveyard! One of my liberators turns out to be Grover Jeffries’s main lieutenant… and
you’re
gonna hold to some silly rules of television reporting? Give me a break! There’s a little bit more at stake here than Journalism 101.”

Twenty feet from the entrance gates, Corlis halted dead in her tracks and turned slowly to face King. “What’s at stake here, Kingsbury Duvallon, is not
just
the buildings, as precious as they may be,” she retorted, stung. “You are not in possession of all the facts. You’re making judgments based on half the evidence. There’s
a lot
at stake that you know nothing about.”

“Then
tell
me what I need to know,” he exclaimed, exasperated.

Corlis shook her head, discouraged. She knew they were both exhausted, and their tempers were at the breaking point. Clearly she and King had different agendas this day. King wanted to save irreplaceable Greek Revival buildings from being demolished, while her professional obligations were to the public.

“Look, King,” she said earnestly. “My mandate is to diligently seek out the facts, protect my sources—and that means
all
my sources,” she added as an aside, “and to cover the story fairly, regardless of what ultimately happens to the structures on Canal Street. I know that doesn’t seem enough by your standards, but that’s what I’m paid to do.”

King’s response to this statement was stony silence. Corlis touched his arm,
willing
him to understand things from her point of view, but he merely stared over her head across the cemetery.

“I realize,” she said sharply, her exasperation getting the best of her, “that to
you
,
all this might seem a quaint notion in this era of tabloid news, but there it is. Fairness, objectivity, and
protecting sources
represent everything Aunt Marge and I have always believed in in the news business. It’s my
credo
,
don’t you understand? Just like saving historic buildings from the wrecker’s ball is
yours
.”

She waited for him to reply. Nothing.

“King,” she said softly, reaching for his hand. “I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t rooting for your side. I hope you
win
.
Having said that, however, I can’t be part of that, and I can’t betray my sources. I can’t use what I know to tilt the balance in your favor… just as I would never pass on the information I gained from you to the other side, even if I happened to think a new high-rise on Canal would be good for the city’s economy—which I don’t.”

“But this isn’t just a little skirmish,” King said finally, breaking his silence. “This is
war
.
You know it, and I know it. This calls for extraordinary measures, just as Grover Jeffries employed extraordinary measures to keep me away from the crucial city council meetin’.”

Corlis held his hand more tightly. “I completely understand how you feel! It’s just that
I
can’t be the one to tell you what I’ve learned from Lafayette Marchand,” she exclaimed, feeling miserable. “Not until it’s over. You’re a source.
Marchand
is now a source. You two can talk to each other if you like, but I have to respect
everybody’s
confidentiality. Otherwise I’m just a fact-twisting PR pimp… an information opportunist—and the kind of journalist you and I both despise.”

“By the time this little shindig is over, none of this hairsplitting will matter. It’ll be too late,” King retorted, abruptly releasing his hand from her grasp. “Those 1840 buildings will be a pile of rubble. Let your overactive reporter’s conscience chew on
that
for a while.”

Exasperated, Corlis cried, “Look, King. You have a choice. Either allow me to play by my rules, as I’ve allowed you to play by yours, or… or… you can
walk
to the goddamned city council meeting!” To her mortification, she was close to tears. She turned her head and wiped her sleeve across her eyes. King took a step closer and put a hand on each of her shoulders.

“That goon, Grover Jeffries, had me kidnapped and locked in the cemetery so he could run roughshod over everyone else,” he reminded her urgently. “I
need to know
what kind of lion’s den I’m about to walk into at city hall—and
you
have that information.”

“I’m so sorry…” she whispered, “but I can’t tell you why Lafayette Marchand asked me to meet him in the cemetery
until
all of this is over. Then, if Marchand agrees to release me from our agreement, I’ll tell you absolutely everything. Please understand.”

And I’m certainly not the one to reveal that he’s your father.

King’s mouth drew into a straight line. “As far as I’m concerned, my falling out with Lafayette—way back when—is all blood under the bridge. What I need to know from you has to do with Jeffries’s current schemes and why Marchand has pulled this latest stunt involving you.”

“Don’t you
get
it?” Corlis shouted, finally at the end of her tether. “All this has nothing to do with me or how I feel about you. I
love
you,
damn it! I was terrified something awful might have happened to you today. But, right now, I
cannot
tell you everything. I can’t, and I won’t!”

King’s look hardened. He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Well, then, as far as I’m concerned… if you’re using Lafayette Marchand as one of your trusted sources to nail this story and beat your competition,” he said sarcastically, “you’ve either got terrible judgment, or you’ve gone over to the enemy, McCullough.”

Corlis declared hotly, “Good God, you see
everything
as black and white!”

“The same might be said of you and your god-almighty reporters’ rules,” King retorted.

The pair stared silently at each other for a long moment.

“I am really sorry…” she repeated forlornly, “but I can’t be the one to help you.”