Ciji Ware (10 page)

“Yep,” the taciturn soundman replied, angling his freight dolly with the rest of their equipment onto the curb. “Time to rock ’n’ roll.”

As the trio entered the building’s lobby, Corlis caught sight of Associate Professor King Duvallon striding in the direction of the first floor auditorium. She kept him in her sights as his handsome dark head bobbed above the crowd.

“I’m going to try to line up Duvallon to do a short interview for us after this little show is over, okay guys? See ya in a sec,” she said, hurriedly following King’s tall, lean figure as he entered through the swinging doors into the hall.

The wide, modern amphitheater was packed with spectators by the time Corlis pushed her way through the milling hordes and caught up with King. Down front, a long table adorned with a felt banner sporting the school’s insignia was set up on a raised stage. Conferring to one side were university president James Delaney, a few deans, several members of the alumni Board of Administrators, and a few bearded souls dressed in rumpled seersucker suits who looked to her to be terminally nervous members of the teaching faculty.

King, however, was an entirely different matter. His rugged jaw was smooth-shaven, and he was dressed in casual chinos and an open-collared polo shirt bathed in a wicked shade of imperial blue.

“Professor Duvallon!” she called loudly to no avail. Finally she was able to reach past a couple of people and tap him on the shoulder.

King turned around. “Hey, Ace, whatcha know?” he said, his serious expression breaking into a grin. “Covered a good wedding lately, sugar?”

“Not lately,
sweetheart
.” Then she lowered her voice and said, “Ah… King… do you mind not calling me
sugar
… It’s—”

“You mean you want me to
pretend
we don’t know each other?” he teased. “Now, that doesn’t sound like the tell-it-like-it-is straight shooter I knew in California! How do you like your new station?”

“It’s fine,” she replied lightly, not wanting to press her point about his sexist semantics. “However, your friend Zamora works us to death!” She held up both hands and added, “Not that I’m really complaining, mind you. I’m very grateful you opened that door. It’s just that I’m running around town like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off, covering two or three stories a day.” She took a deep breath. “Did you get my thank you note?”

“Sure did, sugar,” he said. “It was real sweet.”

“King!”

“What?”

“That ‘sugar’ thing again,” she muttered with a glance behind her, in case Virgil and Manny were nearby.

“Oh… sorry. This is Louisiana, sweetheart.” He grinned. “It’s just part of the language down here. All the magnolias and stuff,” he said with a straight face. “But I’ll try to remember.” He glanced toward the podium and let out a low whistle. “Mama Roux…”

“What?”

“Well, well, will you look who’s here?”

“Who?”

“Jonathan Poole and Grover Jeffries.” With a slight nod of his head, King added, “The public-spirited gentlemen who gave us the Good Times Shopping Plaza.”

“Jeffries is the same developer guy who almost got away with tearing down my house on Julia Street, right?”

“The very one. Accompanied by Lafayette Marchand, per usual.”

“What’re
they
doing here?” she asked, staring at the barrel-chested Jeffries.

Corlis suddenly remembered another man named Jeffries, standing by a coffin… but she pushed the disturbing memory away. Instead she concentrated on the sight of King’s estranged godfather, a tall, patrician public relations adviser whose full head of silver hair easily qualified him to be a stand-in for Cary Grant.

“My guess is we’ll find out real soon why that scum is here today,” King said grimly. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“Can I get your views about this appointment after the announcement is made?” she asked.

However, King had abruptly turned his attention away from her and was surveying the auditorium like a dog scenting danger. “Maybe,” he said shortly. “Let’s first see who officially gets the job, okay? ’Scuse me, will you, sugar? Gotta go talk to some folks.”

And before she could reply, Kingsbury Duvallon stalked down the carpeted stairs and buttonholed a neatly dressed young black man with a green canvas book bag slung over his shoulder. Corlis made her way through the crowd to join her colleagues on the left side of the lecture hall where Virgil and Manny had squeezed into a vacant spot among a cluster of tripods and video cameras standing at-the-ready for the big announcement.

A few minutes later the president of the university approached the podium. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, red lights bloomed on the battery of camcorders while sound technicians twirled their dials, setting voice levels for the forest of microphones bristling on the lectern.

“Good morning, everyone,” Delaney greeted his audience cheerfully.

Corlis, however, detected a slight nervousness in the way his stubby fingers clutched a stack of index cards. She leaned toward Virgil and asked under her breath, “Heard anything?”

“Just that Grover Jeffries got appointed to the university’s Board of Administrators this week.”

“Wait a minute! Didn’t he go to the University of Texas?” she protested in a low voice. “Why would they make him a governing board member of
this
university? Isn’t that reserved for the local bigwigs whose mamas and daddies go back to the year one?”

“This is Louisiana, sugar.” Virgil laughed softly. “Could be more to it than we know.”

“Why does everyone say, ‘This is Louisiana, sugar’ whenever something really outrageous happens around here?” Corlis groused, remembering that King had just voiced the same sort of cynical sentiments. She rolled her eyes heavenward—which garnered a chuckle from both her crew members.

On the right of the platform next to President Delaney, Corlis spotted the dean of the architecture school. On his left—Professor Jonathan Poole. Next to him sat the former all-American himself, University of Texas graduate Grover Jeffries. Corlis noted that the retired linebacker’s slight paunch bore witness to a fitness regimen undoubtedly derailed by too many beers consumed in his corporate suite at the Superdome during New Orleans Saints games. The balding developer, a man in his late fifties, paused to glare at a large section of the audience where King and his teaching assistant had taken their seats. Then he abruptly shifted his gaze to stare at the phalanx of media positioned below the stage. Corlis sensed him lock glances with someone who had just joined the reporters’ ranks.

Jack Ebert, the groom so recently spurned at Saint Louis Cathedral, had chosen this event to make his first public reappearance. Thin, brown-haired, he leaned against one of the paneled walls, his slender reporter’s notebook open and pen poised. He glanced to his right.

“Well, hello there,” he said to Corlis. His small, rodent’s ears almost seemed to twitch.

“Hello, Jack,” she replied, and appeared preoccupied with the words in her notebook. She’d just as soon steer clear of the guy. Obviously Jack knew that she was the reporter who had produced the now notorious piece about his aborted wedding.

To her surprise, Grover Jeffries offered Jack Ebert a friendly nod from the stage. Then she was mildly surprised to see the developer’s brow furrow once again as he shifted his glance to the dapper Lafayette Marchand. The spin doctor had wandered into the press area and stood not three feet from her. Grover Jeffries’s hard stare seemed to be communicating to the silver fox, “Keep an eye on those damned reporters!”

Meanwhile, at the podium, President Delaney cleared his throat for a second time and nodded in the direction of a university sound technician whose job it was to record this event for the school’s archives.

“We, at this university,” he declared formally, “are delighted today to announce a most generous gift… a gift that will bestow on this institution another jewel in its crown, so to speak.” Delaney seemed to gather confidence as he continued to read from his note cards. “The Graduate School of Architecture is the grateful recipient of an eight-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar donation to endow a chair of preservation architecture…”

A scattering of applause and low murmurs of appreciation percolated among the crowd.

“We are indebted, indeed,” Delaney continued, raising his voice a notch, “to such civic-minded citizens as our benefactor, Mr. Grover Jeffries, who—along with the board of directors and stockholders of Jeffries Industries—has so selflessly—”

There was a loud gasp from certain sections of the auditorium. Shuffling began to erupt in the tiers of seats where most of the students were sitting. Corlis wondered absently if videotape was sensitive enough to pick up the electricity that suddenly charged the air. President Delaney looked over the restless audience with an air of uncertainty. Then he plunged ahead, continuing to read from his prepared text.

“Mr. Jeffries has so selflessly given an endowment to fund a professorship dedicated to the teaching of historic preservation at our architecture school.”

Suddenly a loud voice from the lower right side of the auditorium rent the air.

“Sellout!”

Corlis looked to see who was protesting this turn of events in such a ferocious and public fashion. An instant of dead silence permeated the hall, only to be followed by an avalanche of other voices joining in:
“Sellout! Sellout! Sellout!”

However, the loudest voice, soaring like an avenging angel over the chanting chorus, belonged to the person who had initiated the uproar—none other than Associate Professor of Architectural History Kingsbury Duvallon.

Chapter 5

March 9

President Delaney glared in the direction of the acrimonious outburst led by a member of his own faculty, doggedly chose to ignore the hecklers, and continued to read from his prepared notes.

“We are also proud to announce that one of New Orleans’s most respected architects, and an adjunct professor here for many years—Jonathan Poole—will have the honor to be named the first Grover Jeffries Professor of Historic Preservation, and—”

This accolade proved too much for the majority of students. Hisses spewed into the air like escaping steam. Corlis lightly tapped Virgil on the shoulder, signaling him to swivel the lens of his video camera from the podium to the auditorium.

“Sellout! Sellout!” the students continued to chant.

By this time King was on his feet, the sound of his deep voice ringing out in the hall.

“Before this university officially accepts this
tainted
donation,” he thundered, “I would like to ask Mr. Jeffries one question!” The crowd instantly quieted as rows of faces turned to look expectantly at the speaker. “Is this endowment derived from the profits you made demolishing historic buildings
all over
New Orleans, sir?”

His words hung in the air for all to consider. Grover Jeffries, however, neither flinched nor provided an answer to the question, but rather stared stonily toward the rear of the auditorium.

President Delaney spoke up sharply. “Sit
down
and have the courtesy to allow me to—”

King ignored the demand and continued to address the developer in a scathing tone of voice. “I am speaking, Mr. Jeffries, of that half-built monstrosity, the Good Times Shopping Plaza, which the citizens of this state are now expected to bail out of bankruptcy. So, I ask you again, sir. Did the money you’re giving to endow this so-called Professorship of Historic Preservation come from the
profits
of your construction company… a company that has systematically laid waste to this city’s treasured store of historic buildings?”

The color had drained from Grover Jeffries’s face, only to be replaced by a flush of crimson that subsequently bloomed in his cheeks. Once again President Delaney barked from the podium, “I would ask you, Professor Duvallon, to
sit down
and be civil enough to allow me to continue!”

However, King advanced a few steps closer to the podium where the array of VIPs sat onstage, faces frozen. “I say to
all
of you,” he declared, bristling with outrage, “that if you
think
this donation’s going to buy Mr. Jeffries here, the right to bulldoze the rest of Canal Street to build his god-awful high-rises, then I suggest you consider the wishes not only of the preservation community but also of the poor people whose houses have been flattened to build that fatuous boondoggle of a megamall. A project that’s in danger of bankrupting this town—permanently!”

“I am ordering you to
sit down
,
Professor Duvallon!” President Delaney insisted, pounding on the podium with his fist.

King turned around and addressed the entire audience sitting behind him. “I charge that this is a most
cynical
attempt by Grover Jeffries and the downtown business interests represented by his henchman, Lafayette Marchand, over there,” he added ferociously, pointing to the silver-haired public relations man standing on the sidelines, “to make it
appear
that Jeffries and his ilk are interested in historic preservation. He’s trying to lull everybody into thinking he and his cronies are the
good
guys… and make us forget about the Good Times Shopping Plaza fiasco and the irreplaceable historic buildings he demolished! He thinks that as long as he
looks
like Mr. Philanthropist, papering over his past sins with dollar bills by getting this university chair named after him, lots of folks will forget about the
real
issues at stake in this city!”