Jay’s prematurely gray hair belied his youthful appearance or so he’d been told. “Man, you’re as fit as the day you won the Golden Gloves,” a Notre Dame buddy said recently. Jay relished the compliment and figured it was probably sincere. Though he’d be forty in ten months he hadn’t changed much. His legs still ached, a constant reminder of his perthes--a genetic disease that crippled him as a child and left his left leg a little shorter than the other.
Trying not to limp, Jay negotiated his way back through the crowd, yearning to breathe the rainy night air. One of the locals blocked his path.
Dr. Lewis rested his arm on Jay’s shoulder. “Did you know I was in the first Endymion parade in 1967? ‘Throw ‘til it hurts,’ that’s our motto. This year we’ll toss 2,000,000 cups, 3,000,000 doubloons and 300,000 beads.”
Jay glanced wistfully at the front door.
“Yeah? Makes me tired thinking about it.”
“The real coup was getting John Gable as Grand Marshal. He’s the most popular Vice President in the history of America. Everybody loves that guy.” Lewis’ bourbon breath was strong and smothering.
“Mo bettah, Doc.” Jay gently pushed Lewis aside and dashed under the club’s green awning, inhaling damp air tinged with beer and bodily fluids.
The day from Hell, Jay thought. It had started early with a morning parade on the West Bank, a New Orleans suburb across the river. He wore a tuxedo and played piano with the Rollin’ Blues Band in the back of a flat-bed truck. The truck kept stalling and the parade lasted four hours instead of three. This made him late for his next engagement, playing the organ for a wedding in Gretna. On the way to the ceremony, a state trooper fined him $150 for driving seventy-five in a forty-five mile construction zone, and when he finally arrived, the bride’s father, a local bar owner, was too drunk to walk down the aisle and give his daughter away.
Jay reflected on his bungled day as cool rain sprayed his face. A familiar street beggar tapped out a few steps and waved his top hat. Jay handed him two bucks. The beggar flashed a thankful, toothless grin. A thunder clap muted the trumpet intro to Basin Street Blues as Lotta Love’s crystal-clear voice penetrated the soggy night.
Jay spotted a tall, slender man with a stiff-legged swagger, similar to Duffy’s. He would have sworn it was his buddy until he got a good look at the man’s face.
Chapter Five
Wednesday February 8
French Quarter
Billy Joe Harris at Ellie’s Diner
“Ain’t seen hide nor hair of you in a month of Sundays,” the heavy-set, dark-skinned waitress said to Billy Joe Harris as he entered Ellie’s Diner.
He sat down in a corner booth, and she poured him hot coffee. Knowing he liked cream, she reached into an apron pocket and got two tiny, sealed cups of half and half.
“I’m not allowed to eat here anymore,” Billy Joe said, studying the laminated menu, his stomach growling. “Wife has me on a strict diet of bean sprouts and grapefruit.”
“A big man like you needs somethin’ that’ll stick to ya ribs.” Shonda fluttered her eyelids and flashed a dimpled grin, showing off her large, white teeth.
“You be right, Shonda. Bring me sausage, biscuits, bacon, scrambled eggs, grits, hot cakes, everythin’, stack it here.” He spread his massive, mahogany hand over the table. “And two extra plates. I’m expectin’ company.”
Shonda chuckled and scribbled his order. She tore off the ticket and handed it to the surly cook who looked up and nodded. Billy Joe waved.
“How’s Ellie?” Billy Joe asked Carlo who owned the diner with his wife.
“Lazy.”
Billy Joe ignored Carlo’s remark and wondered how anyone could call Ellie lazy. When she wasn’t cooking or waiting tables at the diner, she was a nurse at Charity Hospital. Billy Joe’s wife, Natasha, sometimes worked the night-shift emergency room with her. Natasha referred to Ellie as “our lady of perpetual motion.”
Carlo is talkin’ about himself or as Mama Sis would say: One finger pointing is two fingers pointing back. Billy Joe remembered the first day she’d said that twenty-seven years ago. He and Lilah were walking with Mama down Main Street in Gerry, Alabama, headed toward the Baptist Church. Mama was on her way to take care of the babies in the nursery. A bright red truck, with a confederate flag in the rear window, drove by. The driver yelled at Lilah, “Why ya walkin’ with them niggers?”
“Shut up, Cracker,” Billy Joe screamed back. He ran after the truck. At twelve, he was six-feet tall and fast. He jumped up on the pickup and attached himself to the driver’s window. The racist driver hit Billy Joe with a rifle butt and knocked him out, sending him sprawling senseless to the street. When he awoke, Lilah and Mama were leaning over him crying.
“Never thought I’d see the day I’d be glad you had a hard head,” Mama said.
“I hope you don’t think I’m a cracker,” Lilah teased.
In a fit of temper, Billy Joe said, “No. You one of them rich-bitch, honkies. You live in a big, fancy house, You got a lake and a swimming pool in yo front yard, and I ain’t got no home. I live on the other side of the railroad tracks in Black Town with Mama Sis. She ain’t even my real mama. She just feels sorry for me.”
Mama Sis placed a callused hand over his lips. “You shut yo mouth or I’ll wash it out. You knows I love you like you’s my own flesh and blood.”
“You love everybody. Even the kids from the houses you clean.”
Billy Joe shook his head, wishing he could shake away the past as easily. One thing was for sure, no redneck would dare call him a nigger now. Indeed, he was six-feet-six and weighed 287 pounds as of yesterday. That’s when Natasha made him step on the scales, then scolded him for putting on a few pounds. Completely unnecessary. Billy Joe didn’t have to be told. His right knee ached in protest, a constant reminder of the last day he’d played defensive end for the New Orleans Saints. On a toss-sweep play, Green Bay Packer wing back, Cal “Iron Man” Broacher, clipped Billy Joe and blew out his knee, ending a celebrated, eight-year career. Three years after his forced retirement from professional football, he decided to walk the streets as a New Orleans cop.
Now forty, Billy Joe called the city streets home. He tried to befriend everyone, rarely forgetting a name. The trouble makers feared and respected him. They knew he was an ex-football star turned tough cop who tried to do the impossible: make New Orleans’ streets safe. “There’s no meanness in a child that loving won’t cure,” he could hear Mama Sis saying.
To prove her right, Billy Joe joined residents in the Desire housing project. They’d raised fifty thousand dollars to transform a drug haven into a community playground. Realistically, he knew it was a ripple in a sea of crime and wouldn’t begin to do what was really needed: Provide every child with a safe environment and a loving role model.
His brown eyes watered thinking about the third graders he’d spoken to Thursday. They had a wide-eyed, eager innocence unlike the damn punks who attacked Mama. Now, she’d never be the same and Billy Joe felt entirely responsible. He was the one who had talked her into moving to New Orleans.
~ * ~
Shonda placed the platters of eggs, grits, bacon, sausage, biscuits and pancakes on the table in front of Billy Joe as Lilah and Angela walked in. He bolted up to greet them, gave Angela a high-five and hugged Lilah a little too tightly.
“Ah, you’ll squeeze me to death,” Lilah groaned. “You never did know your own strength.”
“Great to see you. It’s been over a year, at Sam’s funer...” Billy Joe stopped himself, feeling embarrassed. “Hey, the food’s gettin’ cold. Didn’t know what you wanted so I ordered everything.”
Shonda poured Lilah coffee. She cradled the cup in her hands and smelled the rich chicory brew. Angela ordered hot chocolate and orange juice. Oblivious to everyone else in the noisy, crowded diner, Billy Joe studied his childhood friend, a stunning woman with Scandinavian beauty. She reminded him of a young Linda Evans. To most observers Lilah might appear rela
xed in her jeans and white cotton sweater. But Billy Joe knew better. He could tell from the way she was acting. Between sips of coffee, she leaned back and hugged herself, then started chewing on her lower lip. Reminded him of when she was a child, hiding from her mother to avoid a spanking.
Billy Joe hoped to get at the truth. “From what you said when you called this morning, you had a hairy trip yesterday.”
Lilah and Angela told him about Dan Duffy’s accident in detail.
Billy Joe tried to make sense of what they were telling him. “I don’t get it. Why did Comeaux respond to the emergency? What was he doing in La Place?”
“That man is one crazy cop.” Angela said. “Last night, he drove out to see us. It was raining like hell and nobody in his right mind would be driving around in it.”
Billy Joe swallowed the last bit of his eggs. “What’d he want?”
“If Dan Duffy was carrying any luggage, and Mother told him she didn’t notice, but she did. She found his suitcase under our van when she was looking for her keys.”
“I didn’t want to deal with Sgt. Comeaux,” Lilah said. “I’m uncomfortable around him and...”
Billy Joe thought he understood. “With good reason. The talk around the NOPD is he’s a, whatcha call it? A womanizer, among other things. So, you’re right to stay away from him. Don’t worry. It ain’t no big deal about the suitcase. If you don’t want to take it to Duffy, I can. Did you bring it with you?”
“In my van out front. But I don’t want to trouble you, Billy Joe. I’ll take care of it.”
“A word of warning about leaving stuff in your van. Car thieves in this town can jimmy the door faster than you can unlock it.”
Lilah stared at her uneaten food and massaged her forehead.
Billy Joe figured she had a headache from yesterday’s accident. “You okay?”
“Oh, sure, we’re fine,” Lilah said.
“How’s that Duffy guy? Do you know?”
“I called Charity hospital this morning and they said he’s in ICU, listed in critical condition,” Lilah said.
“Natasha worked ER there last night. She probably helped admit him. You can ask her about it when you come to dinner tonight. She said tell y’all it’ll be around seven.”
“She doesn’t have to go to any trouble. Angela and I would like to take you both out so Natasha won’t have to cook.”
“Are you kidding? This is gonna be the first real meal I’ve had at home in a month since Natasha’s put me on that stupid rabbit diet. But please don’t tell her what I ate for breakfast. She’ll hit the ceiling. Man, oh, man, that woman can be a terror, and our seventeen-year-old Melissa is just like her mama. It’s a double whammy.” Billy Joe wiped his face with a napkin.
Lilah laughed. “Thanks for asking us over, Billy Joe.”
“Natasha’s expecting y’all to spend the night. No sense in you going back to the Belle right away. After dinner, you can go by and see Lotta Love perform before you interview her. And like I said, tomorrow, for John Gable’s talk at Donell Elementary, we can ride over together.”
“We’re looking forward to it,” Lilah said. “But we also want you, Natasha, Melissa and Mama Sis to come stay with us one night at the Belle. That place is too big for just the two of us.”
“Oh, girl, I don’t think so. Like I told you before, I heard it’s haunted, and they say many of the ghosts are slaves that drowned during the great flood.”
Chapter Six
Approaching New Orleans Airport
Vice President John Gable
Inside the official cocoon of Air Force Two, John Gable had the sensation of floating on the cirrus clouds below. For one brief moment he dozed until Kern McIntoch his twenty-seven-year-old, special assistant handed him a tan, file folder. “Your week’s itinerary, your speech at Donell Elementary tomorrow, and also, the background information on Lilah Sanderford.”
“Thanks, Kern. How does it look for our arrival?”
“A large reception is waiting. Among them, local officials and Governor Beckham...”
Gable pressed a portable, battery activated razor over his tanned, cleft chin. “Great.”
“But unfortunately, Sir, a group of pro-life fundamentalists are heckling the Governor and protesting the abortion pill and our stand on legalized drugs. Some of the signs they’re carrying are disgusting--dead fetuses and drug addicts shooting up.”
“Kern, my man, our Christian brethren are simply asserting their first amendment rights. As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘A little rebellion is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.’ “
“These protesters, Sir, are not only rebellious, they’re psychotic. A member of their group was found guilty of killing two doctors at a New Orleans abortion clinic.” McIntoch sighed and walked back to his seat behind a lap top computer.
Gable settled his six-foot-one-inch frame into a deluxe recliner, unmoved by the intensity of his worried special assistant. He wanted to reassure Kern, tell him all dark clouds dissipate, but he hated to preach. Better to reflect on his own good fortune and the dark clouds he’d survived.
His mother died the year he was born, forty-eight years ago. His father, the consummate Irish storyteller with a fondness for whisky, blamed John for her death. When Gable was ten, his father died from alcohol poisoning. Gable never shed one tear, though he was forced to live in an orphanage until his uncle, Stan “Kingfish” Gambrini, took him in. Stan and his wife Rose became the affectionate parents he had never known.
~ * ~
The tan folder McIntoch had given him remained unopened in Gable’s lap as he gazed at the clouds below, remembering how Rose and Stan Gambrini sheltered him. Growing up, he never heard much about the drug dealings, casino investments and money laundering. Gambrini wanted his son to become a respected member of the so-called establishment. “Listen Johnny, you’d be a great lawyer,” Gambrini had said, ruffling John’s blonde hair, a feature he’d inherited from his birth father. “Them guys rake in the dough and it ain’t illegal cause they know the law. Their clock is always runnin.’ If you ask em, ‘How’s the family,’ their clock is runnin.’ They charge you for thirty hours in a day when there’s only twenty four. And hey, if you was a lawyer, you could do anythin’; even be President of the United States.”
Gable smiled, recalling Gambrini’s gravelly voice and the way he puffed out his chest at the thought of his son becoming President. The old man would have never understood Gable’s kowtowing to a woman President. In fact, Gable had a hard time comprehending it himself as he leaned further back in the recliner and rubbed his eyelids, thinking of the days he worked part time as a law clerk for Tom Duffy, a well-known criminal lawyer in Baltimore. With Duffy’s coaching, Gable’s test scores were high enough for acceptance into Harvard Law School.
A week shy of seeing his adopted son collect his law degree, Gambrini was murdered, his body riddled with bullets, as he and Rose ate at their four-star Italian restaurant. Gable would never get over it. After more than two decades he still grimaced when he pictured Stan’s body, the face unrecognizable with red holes where eyes once were.
He was so devastated he’d concocted a plan to avenge Stan’s death. Over the years his plan had worked. He’d used his considerable wealth and power to wipe out known gang lords, Gambrini’s enemies. As a result, he’d gained fame as a law and order man with zero tolerance for organized crime.
“Mr. Vice President, before we land, I need to take your blood pressure.” The registered nurse who traveled with him snapped Gable back to reality. She wound the cuff around his arm and pumped it tight.
“Well, how is it? Will I live?”
“You certainly will,” she smiled, removing the cuff.
“How do I look?” He smoothed his blonde, sun bleached hair.
“Ready to meet the world,” she said.
“Thank you, Marie.” Gable touched her shoulder in a warm gesture and slipped his arms into the custom-made
, gray, Brooks Brothers suit coat. Instinctively, he flattened the breast front with his hands and felt the letter from Tom Duffy’s son, Dan. Beside the stamp, Dan had written, “personal.”
Chapter Seven
The White House
President Katherine Georgia Wilson
President Wilson’s cat eyes flashed from one television monitor to the next. She wanted to see John Gable interviewed on all the major networks, though she was confident he would deliver his usual stellar performance.
Gable seemed unaware of the angry pickets. Liquid charm dripped from him like a honeycomb, and Wilson wondered if she’d have similar grace under fire.
She hated tasteless conflict, always had. A loner by nature, she was someone who cherished her quiet time without interruption, few and far between in the Oval office, where she loved to sit with her long legs draped over the same desk John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton used.
With a click of her thumb, she silenced the Vice President in mid-sentence, then thought how she might just as easily commandeer the armed forces.
Wilson glanced at the paintings of Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks and Dolley Madison, hanging on the wall opposite her. She greatly admired these unpretentious, extraordinary women.
Eleanor’s face epitomized the stuggles of a world under seige. She was a brilliant humanitarian while Dolley was humorous and flamboyantly brave. Who else but Dolley would save the painting of George Washington moments before the White House burned to the ground during the War of 1812?
The portrait of Rosa Parks told of black enslavement in a white man’s society that prevented her from becoming even the wife of a President; yet, she was indisputably the first lady of the civil rights movement.
Madam President of the United States. Wilson loved the sound of that. It was a job her father, Duncan Wilson, the golf legend, prepared her for early: “Learn the game, play better than your opponent and study the winners.”
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