Ciji Ware (12 page)

“Hi jailbird,” she drawled. “You owe me three hundred bucks.” She lowered her voice and said in a stage whisper, “That is, unless you’re willing to do an exclusive on-camera interview. Then it’s on WJAZ.”

“Ah… I see. You want me to tell your viewers all about the barbaric torture methods I endured in here, is that it?”

“Did you get roughed up?” she asked, taunting him lightly. She guessed from his hearty nature that nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, he looked handsomer than ever with a five o’clock shadow darkening his face.

Cut it out, McCullough. This is business, remember? He’s just another source.

“Nobody roughed me up, but the food’s lousy here. In New Orleans,
that’s
news, I suppose.”

“Look, King, all I would like is for you just to give me some idea what it was like in there and what you and your supporters intend to do now that you’ve thrown down the gauntlet.
Speaking
of
which,” she added swiftly, “how come none of your friends or a family member came to bail you out?”

“None of them had three hundred in cash handy, and besides, it’s more fun having
you
do it, sweetheart,” he shot back.

“Yeah… sure,” she scoffed. “Let’s not forget that the president of the university you
work
for has had you arrested and thrown in the brig, soldier. What’s your response to all this? Are you going to resign?”

“Hell no!” he said, laughing. “Like some Yankee said up north, ‘I’ve just begun to fight!’”

“So… will you say all this on camera?”

“Depends on what you ask me when the cameras are rolling.”

“Well, just so you know,” she added apologetically, “it’s your pal Andy Zamora’s edict to offer you the bailout in exchange for an exclusive on-camera interview. If you talk to us first… after the piece airs on WJAZ, then you can tell your story to whomever you like.”

“Don’t worry… I’ll give you an interview ’bout some of what you want to know,” King replied obligingly, “but I’ll also pay you back the bond money. They don’t take American Express in this place, and I didn’t have that kind of cash on me when I was arrested.”

“If you want to pay your own bond, that’s totally up to you. It’s WJAZ’s nickel,” Corlis said, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t care if it were Grover Jeffries’s nickel,” he replied, looking at her steadily. “No special interests pay
my
way, and I’ll talk to whomever I choose whether or not it’s Mr. Z.”

“I’m impressed,” Corlis said in a slightly mocking tone, and privately, she was. “But here’s the deal about the interview. I need something substantive to get Zamora’s attention. Can you advance the story any and let me air the interview before you talk to other reporters? Like, do you feel President Delaney’s latest move is a strategy to shut you guys up and threaten your jobs?”

“As a matter of fact, I
do
have a few thoughts about that. I also have a great line about lying down in front of bulldozers should Grover Jeffries decide to threaten to demolish any more historic buildings in New Orleans. But first,” he said, chucking her lightly under her chin, “you gotta feed me. Supper here was inedible.”

“Food first. Then we talk?”

“You betcha.”

He tucked his hand under her elbow in a courtly fashion, and added, “But first, do you mind if we swing by your place and let me take a shower?”

“My
place!” she said with mild shock.

He rubbed the dark stubble on his jaw. “I feel—and probably smell—pretty ripe. And I’d just as soon not deal with certain members of my family who are bound to be calling me all night or laying in wait for me at my place,” King disclosed. “And there’s another reason.”

She reminded herself of Aunt Marge’s number one edict: a reporter should never get palsy-walsy with a news source—and allowing King, naked, into her bathroom definitely fell into the even-the-appearance-of-intimacy category.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You live on Julia Street, correct?”

“You know that.”

“Haven’t you ever noticed who your neighbors are?”

“Yeah. Sort of,” she replied, mystified by his line of questioning. “All those art and photographic galleries on my street… plus, I occasionally run into people going in and out of the row houses next to me—that is, on those few nights when I get home before dark.”

“Ever run into anyone at 604 Julia Street near the river end of that block?”

“King! You make me feel like I don’t have a life! Okay… so, tell me…
who
lives at 604? Cindy Lou Mallory?” she quipped, and then could have bitten off her tongue.

“Hardly. She’s your
Town and Country
Garden District type of girl. Seriously, Ace… haven’t you ever noticed the discreet little sign that says ‘The Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans’?”

“Oh? Yeah! Now that you mention it. I just never paid attention.”

“Well… here’s your chance. I need to check in there and find out about any late developments.”

“Sounds good to me,” Corlis replied, salving her conscience somewhat, since allowing King to take a shower at her house was merely in the line of duty. “Could we shoot the interview there… at 604? I’ll call Virgil and Manny on my cell and get them over there in an hour.”

“Tomorrow we shoot the interview,” he countered firmly. “Tonight we eat and drink wine.”

“And tomorrow you also show me the historic buildings on Canal Street you think Grover Jeffries has slated for demolition, agreed?”

“All
that
for merely bailing me out of jail when I’m paying you your money back?” he said with mock dismay. “You’re one tough cookie, McCullough.”

Corlis shot him an odd look.

“No, I’m not. But do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” he agreed. “Now get me outta here.”

***

In the end, Corlis ran around the corner to the Hummingbird and picked up a big takeout order that included gumbo and corn bread, while King made use of her shower and the pink plastic razor she used on her legs.

Arms full, she used her heel to close her own front door and was mildly unnerved by the way her breath caught when she heard King’s deep baritone singing behind the closed bathroom door.

“Blue eyes… baby has blue eyes…” he warbled in a fair imitation of Elton John’s classic melancholy love song. His loafers were parked beside the white upholstered chaise longue in her bedroom.

Corlis continued down the hallway, through her living room, and into the small kitchen, where she deposited the paper bags containing their dinner. As each minute passed, she became increasingly affected by King’s masculine presence, which seemed to permeate every nook and cranny of her home. She heard the shower water turn off, and after a few minutes, the door to the bathroom open.

From the hallway she heard King chortle, “Well… hello again, big guy! You are by far the
largest
ol’ tomcat I’ve ever seen. I
love
that orange fur! Come here, you…”

Corlis peered around the corner. King stood at the threshold of the bathroom with one of her big, fluffy white towels wrapped around his trim waist. The hefty feline looked up at him with a worshipful stare the likes of which Corlis had never witnessed in the animal’s entire life.

And for good reason, too, Corlis thought, swallowing. King looked
great
in just a towel. Who needed Calvin Kleins?

“I… uh… I’m sorry if he’s bothering you,” she said. “He usually ignores everyone—especially me, so you should consider that adoring gaze a high compliment.”

“What a specimen,” King said, laughing as he bent down to rub Cagney’s belly, which the cat had made completely accessible by flopping on his back and extending his four paws straight into the air. King appeared totally unself-conscious to be standing, nearly naked, in his former adversary’s hallway.

“I don’t believe this,” Corlis murmured. “He’s turned to putty in your hands.”

After a moment King rose to his full height and said, “I’ll just throw on my clothes. You must be famished, too. How’s the gumbo?”

“Totally fabulous,” she replied. “I’ll go heat it up.”

“Great. I’ll be right out,” he promised, and padded toward her bedroom with Cagney Cat trotting obsequiously in his wake.

“Mind if I use your phone to let some folks know I’ve escaped prison?” King called over his shoulder.

“Sure… it’s right beside the bed. Be my guest.”

If he was steering clear of his family, she wondered who he would be calling.

No concern of yours, dearie. You’re just covering a story, remember?

“Yeah, yeah, Aunt Marge… I hear you!” she muttered under her breath.

Chapter 6

March 9

In Corlis’s bedroom, the telephone next to her massive four-poster bed rang before King could pick up the receiver to make his calls. By this time, however, Corlis was standing in her tiny kitchen on a step stool, attempting to retrieve a seldom-used soup tureen in which to serve their main course.

“Damn!” she muttered, holding the unwieldy piece of crockery in her arms. “King? Can you get that?” she called out.

She gingerly backed down the kitchen stool, speculating that Andy Zamora might be trying to get in touch to see whether or not she’d gotten King to agree to an interview. She set the large bowl gently in the sink to rinse off dust that had undoubtedly made the trip with her from California. She turned on the water full blast, swiftly soaped and rinsed the ceramic interior, and tipped it upside down, expecting to be summoned momentarily to the telephone. From the depths of her bedroom, she heard King chuckling. Tea towel in hand, she walked down the hallway toward the sound of male laughter.

She leaned against the doorframe and whispered curiously, “Who
is
that?”

King, still wrapped in his bath towel, sat on the edge of her bed, grinning. He put his palm over the mouthpiece and said, “It’s your aunt Marge.”

“Aunt Marge—?”

King laughed again at something Corlis’s great-aunt said, and nodded. “Yes, ma’am… I’ll surely tell her to do that. Absolutely.” He cupped his hand over the receiver again. “When I told her my name, she said she thinks you and I have some sort of a New Orleans ancestral connection, way back when, and she wants you to check it out,” he disclosed with an amused look on his clean-shaven face.

On King’s chest a nap of dark hair spread across an expanse of muscle groups harking back to his days as a U.S. Marine. Now that she stood only two feet away from him, she concluded that the former soldier would have done his drill sergeant proud. Even ten years later Corporal Duvallon had one fabulous body!

Hey, Ms. California! Snap out of it!

Corlis shook her head. “Now, why would Aunt Marge think that you and I were—”

“She found the name Duvallon in a diary written by a forebear of yours who lived in New Orleans before the Civil War. Here,” he offered, holding out the receiver. “She wants to tell you about it.”

“R-Really?” Corlis stammered, reaching for the phone. “Aunt Marge? Is everything all right?”

“Fine, fine!” Marge McCullough said briskly. “Is that the Hero of New Orleans you emailed me about? The one you got the authorities to throw out of UCLA?”

“The very one,” Corlis said, turning to face the wall so that King would have some privacy while he dressed. “I’m preparing for an interview with him tomorrow,” she said by way of explaining the reason a man was answering her home phone after nine o’clock at night. “What’s this about Corlis Bell’s diary?”

For years Aunt Marge had referred to a journal kept locked in a safe-deposit box that the original Corlis—nee Bell—McCullough had penned.

“Well, remember awhile back, you told me all about the disastrous Ebert-Duvallon wedding, and about that builder—Grover Jeffries, you said his name was? Didn’t you tell me that he was the person who once tried to demolish your apartment on Julia Street to build some big old post office substation?”

“Yes,” Corlis replied as strange, unsettling sensations began to flutter in her chest.

“Well, for the longest time, I kept thinking about what a terrible thing that would have been if that beautiful building of yours had been destroyed. Then I happened to be at the bank today, and suddenly the name Jeffries went ding-dong in my head!”

All her life Corlis had never ceased to marvel at Marge’s steel trap memory, which was even more remarkable now, considering the woman was in her eighties.

“Don’t tell me you found somebody named Jeffries in the diary?” she demanded apprehensively, recalling the strange scene—or whatever it was—of a man named Jeffries, who along with Corlis Bell and Randall McCullough, stood beside the corpse of somebody named Henri Girard.