ROMANCING MO RYAN (34 page)

Nikki’s hopes of finding anything juicy at all began to dash.
 
“I see.
 
She was a little too liberal for the judge, hun?”

Lynette looked at Nikki.
 
“Too liberal?
 
Child, please.
 
Too conservative.”

Nikki was about to toss her notepad back into her hobo bag.
 
She looked at Lynette.
 
Did she say what she thought she said?
 
“What did you say, Lynette?”

“Nancy Block wasn’t no liberal.
 
She was too conservative for Judge French’s taste.
 
Nancy, from what they told me, didn’t believe in abortions and thought that women should be submissive to their husbands, stuff like that, and she and the judge argued about it all the time. Until the judge had enough of her.”

Nikki shook her head.
 
“You’re confusing me now, Lynette.
 
Why would a conservative judge like Jameela French have a problem with a conservative secretary?”

“That’s what you wrote in that paper,” Lynette said.
 
“You called Judge French conservative, over and over.
 
I wondered why.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing conservative about Judge French, girl.
 
Nothing.
 
You should see some of the papers she have me typing, where she’s giving advice to all of these wacko organizations.
 
You’d think she was on their payroll the way she’s always writing to them.”

“What kind of organizations?”

“The Women’s this and The Women’s that, I can’t remember those names.
 
But you know the ones.
 
They always be talking about how women should have the same rights as men and should be paid the same and all.”

“Do you have copies of any of these letters?”

“Me?
 
No way.
 
Judge French don’t play that.
 
I type’em while she’s standing right beside me.
 
That’s why she’s always complaining that I type too slow.
 
If she wasn’t standing over me like some dark shadow I could get it done faster, you know?
 
But she stands right here and waits for me to finish.”

Nikki stared at Lynette.
 
“But her court decisions are conservative.
 
She’s no flaming liberal on the bench by any means.”

“That’s because she’s in Macclenny.
 
If she wants to keep that judgeship she’d better not be a flaming liberal.
 
And she plays the game now, I’ll give her that.
 
She plays the game.”

Nikki sat back in her chair.
 
She went for the obvious, and the obvious just might turn out to be the wrong answer.

With a little digging, Lynette was able to find an address for Nancy Block.
 
238 Booker Avenue in Macclenny.
 

Nikki got directions from Lynette, hurried to her mustang, and drove with a racer’s speed to Booker Avenue.
 
It was a dead end street just across railroad tracks.
 
The shack of a house was surrounded by lazy looking dogs.
 
But Nikki took no chances.
 
She blew her car horn.

“Yes?” an older black woman in a blue house dress came to the door and asked.
 
“May I help you?”

“Hello, ma’am, I’m looking for Nancy.
 
Nancy Block.
 
Is she at home?”

“Nancy?
 
She’s at Topaz.”

“Topaz?”

“Yeah, Topaz.
 
Are you deaf?”

“No ma’am, but where exactly is this Topaz?”

“On Folsom, where else?”

“Okay.
 
I’m not from around here, so perhaps you could help me out.
 
How do I get there from here?”

Since Nikki didn’t have any type of GPS system in her car, the woman gave her directions.
 
Although she lost track after the fifth street the woman named, she was able to ask a few people and eventually she found it.
 
Topaz Liquors.

Nancy Block was behind the cash register watching
The Bold and the Beautiful
on television in between serving her customers.
 
Nikki knew it was her because the old lady gave her a description: late thirties, dark skinned, thin as a rail.

“Nancy Block?”
 
Nikki asked as she walked up to her.

“Depends on who wants to know,” Nancy said.

Nikki smiled.
 
“My name is Nikki Tarver.
 
I’m a reporter with the Jacksonville Gazette.”

“The Jacksonville Gazette?”
 
She looked suspiciously at Nikki.
 
“What’s this about?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Nancy.
 
We’re doing a story on Judge Jameela French, and we heard you once worked for her.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

Get to the point, Nikki, in other words.
 
“She fired you.
 
I need to know why.”

A customer sat a pint of whiskey on the counter top.
 
Nancy took care of the order.
 
When the customer left, she leaned against the countertop.
 
“We didn’t get along,” she said.
 

“And?”

“Ain’t no and.
 
Me and the bitch just didn’t click.
 
That’s it.”

“What kind of person was she to work for?”

Another customer paid and left.
 
Nancy Block sighed and folded her arms.
 
“Look, I don’t know what this is about so I don’t have a thing to say, okay?
 
You’re wasting your time here.”

“I heard she fired you because of your beliefs.
 
That’s illegal you know.”

“What’s illegal?
 
What you talking about?”

It was Nikki who wanted to sigh now.
 
“You’re a conservative, right?”

“A what?”

“I was told that Judge French hated your politics,” Nikki said to her.
 
“Your pro-life stance?
 
Your belief in traditional values?”

Nikki may as well had been talking Greek because Nancy Block wasn’t feeling it.
 
“First of all,” she said, “I was fired because me and Judge French didn’t get along.
 
Period.
 
My politics wasn’t none of her business.
 
Besides, I didn’t have no politics, okay?
 
Now whoever told you that I did, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
  
Just runnin’ off at the mouth, like you’re doing now.”

Nikki shook her head.
 
That damn Lynette and her grapevine.
 
She could kill her!
 
She looked at Nancy.
 
“If you had to describe Judge French’s politics, would you say she was a conservative or a liberal?”

“How should I know?
 
I just cleaned the office.
 
Judge French didn’t like the fact that she put some file on the wastebasket one night and it fell in. So naturally I threw it out when I changed the bags.
 
Hell, I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be in there.”

“So you didn’t know anything about her politics?”

“Of course not.
 
Why should I?
 
That was something her and Karla was always getting into it about.
 
Whenever they stayed late I’d hear’em going at it.
 
But I just did my cleaning and left.”

“Who’s Karla?”

 
“Karla.
 
Karla Davenport.
 
She clerked for the judge.”

“And Judge French fired her?”

“She quit before she got the chance.
 
Judge was going to fire her, but Karla was too smart to just sit back and let somebody get rid of her.”

Nikki pulled out her writing pad, praying that this wasn’t more wrong information.
 
“What did they argue about?”

“Everything.
 
Now Karla, she was the conservative.”

Nikki looked up.
 
“Are you sure?”

“Hell yeah.
 
She was conservative and a black girl too, could you imagine that?
 
Judge French didn’t like it.
 
She said she was betraying her own race.
 
She said those conservatives were nothing but a bunch of racists.”

“Judge French said that?”

“She sure did.
 
I heard her one night.
 
And Karla went off on her.
 
That’s how Karla was.
 
She didn’t take crap from Judge French.”

Nikki’s heart soared again.
 
“Do you know where I can find Karla Davenport?”

“Not really.
 
Last I heard she had moved to Atlanta, but I might be wrong about that.
 
Her mama might know, though.”

Nikki’s eyebrows stretched.
 
“You know her mother?”

“Yeah I know Miss Mae.
 
Knew her all my life.
 
She lives right over there on Portsmouth.”

And within the hour Nikki, thanks to Karla’s mother, had Karla on the telephone.
 
And less than thirty minutes later Nikki was headed to Jacksonville International Airport, to catch a flight to Atlanta, to meet with the woman who just might have the answer to the magic act called Jameela French.

They met in a small café in College Park.
 
Karla, a young attorney with an infectious smile, sat at the small table with Nikki and attempted small talk.
 
Nikki allowed it for a few minutes, although she was dying for information, and then got to the point.

“Why did Jameela French fire you?” she asked her.

“She didn’t fire me.”

“You quit before she could.
 
Why?”

Karla exhaled.
 
“She didn’t like the way I viewed things.
 
She felt that she and her law clerk should be on the same page.
 
We weren’t.”

“Politically, you mean?”

“Correct.”

“You were too conservative for her?”

“Yes.”

“So what are you?
 
One of those fringe dwellers?
 
One of those far right wing ideologues?”

“No, I was not.
 
I have some mainstream conservative views, but I consider myself pretty moderate.
 
But she didn’t want a moderate.
 
She wanted a left wing zealot like her.”

“A zealot?
 
Judge French?”

“Yes.
 
Absolutely.”

“But...her rulings from the bench aren’t liberal.”

“A lot of them are.
 
If you look closely.”

“Okay, so you decided to quit because you and she just couldn’t agree.
 
Is that it?”

“Yes.
 
It kept getting worst.
 
Especially after I found out about SOS.”

“SOS?”

“Yes.”
 
And then she frowns.
 
“That’s why you’re here.
 
Isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course,” Nikki said, trying like hell not to show her ignorance.
 
“But why don’t you explain it to me again, just explain it to me, because I’m not sure if I understand it.
 
And also tell me your role in all of this.”