The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear

by Stuart Stevens

  “Can we make some coffee?” Paul asked.

  Jessie slowly lowered her gun. “ ‘We’?” she asked. “Who the hell is ‘we’?”

  “I’ll make it,” Paul said. “I’d love to make it. Just point me toward the kitchen.”

  Walter seemed to notice Jessie, and not just her gun, for the first time. “I know you. You’re Jessie Fenestra. You’re famous now. You were married to a guy we played with. Wayne Thibodeaux.”

  She turned to me. “See?”

  “Sorry about waking you up. I didn’t know this was your place. Paul just said J.D. was here.”

  “Well,” Jessie said, “that’s true. And it’s really sweet that you like my work and everything, and I really appreciate it, but just what the hell are you guys up to?”

  Paul looked over his shoulder. “Jessie, great to see you. Been a long while.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, “what happened?”

  Paul and Walter looked at each other, then at Jessie. “Can we make all this off the record?” Paul asked.

  “That’s good,” I said to Paul. “You know the drill.”

  Jessie burst out laughing. “You guys. You’re worried about talking in front of me because I do that reporting thing. I think it’s a little late for that, seeing how you already sort of broke into my house.”

  “They didn’t really break in,” I said.

  “You too?” Jessie said. I held up my hands in surrender.

  “You’ll be cool with all this, right?” Walter said.

  “I am the coolest half-naked chick currently awake with three men in her apartment in the Garden District.”

  Walter smiled. “How did Wayne let you go?”

  “When he quit drinking, he was boring.”

  “I can see that,” Walter agreed.

  Ten minutes later we were sitting around her little retro Formica kitchen table with big mugs of coffee.

  “Woodpeckers?” Walter asked, holding up the mugs. They were glazed pottery, with handles like woodpeckers.

  “Shearwater Pottery,” Jessie said. “On the Gulf Coast.”

  “He got another letter,” Paul said, nodding toward Walter.

  Walter reached inside the black backpack he was carrying, and from a pocket took out a sheet of yellow legal paper held in a clear plastic case. “Came from the bomber,” he said.

  “That’s it?” Jessie asked. “That’s it? Legal pad? What is this guy, a law student?”

  “Could be,” Walter said. “You might be on to something there.”

  “I think if I were a bomber and were going to send out letters, I’d at least get some nice stationery. Maybe have some kind of bomb graphic.”

  “Can you please just read the thing?” I asked Walter. The convention started in about four hours. I needed to be down at the Superdome in our command trailer, trying to put together our moves on the first floor vote condemning the bombings. We had our first meeting in the war room in—I looked at my watch—forty-five minutes. And here I was at Jessie’s. Christ, what was it about women that made me lose my mind? And a reporter? Another goddamn reporter.

  Walter ceremoniously unfolded the letter.

  “This guy might as well have used Big Chief writing tablets,” Jessie said. “How insulting.”

  Walter looked at the typed paragraph on the sheet and chuckled. “Good ol’ Ignatius. If he could see what’s happened to his city.”

  “How do you think he’d like it?” Jessie asked.

  Walter thought for a moment. “I think he might enjoy just how fucked up things are. I really do.” He read from the letter. “All it says is: ‘The buses shall roll. America for America.’ And then there’s kind of a poem.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Walter took a deep breath and read:

  Racial pride ain’t no racist hate.

  Cops beat down, no it’s not too late.

  On the news, in the streets,

  Doin’ it right, still take heat.

  Point a finger,

  Truth don’t matter,

  Got a gun.

  Get it done.

  Whole world’s gone crazy.

  We’re losin power but it just won’t last.

  Screw bodycam. Change is comin and it’s comin fast.

  Babies in the crib

  lyin in wait.

  grow up to game the system,

  But it ain’t too late.

  Clock strikes. Time ticks.

  Hold on. Don’t quit.

  Turn back time to when America was goin’ strong.

  Keep the faith. Do what’s right because it’s all gone wrong.

  Our walk, long walk. Our fight.

  Get yourself straight. Get it right.

  We’re losin power but it just won’t last.

  Screw bodycam. Change is comin and it’s comin fast.

  When he finished reading, Walter Robinson looked up, shrugged. “Any ideas?”

  I found myself staring out the barred window of Jessie’s kitchen toward Poydras Street. I played the words over in my head. There was something about them that was familiar.

  “Yes?” Jessie asked me. “What?”

  I reached out for the plastic-wrapped letter. There was a little Confederate flag at the bottom. And the initials C.D.

  “C.D.?” I asked. “C.D.?”

  “You talk to Tobias?” Paul asked, sounding sleepy. “Because I’ve been expecting him to call me and I haven’t heard.”

  “Tobias?” Jessie asked. “Tobias Green?” She snorted. “He tried to fuck me at the Make-A-Wish charity fundraiser.”

  “Sounds like Tobias,” Paul said.

  “Make-A-Wish,” Jessie mumbled, disbelieving. “Dying kids, for Christ’s sake.”

  I’d realized why the words were so familiar. “Come on,” I said, standing up. “We’ve got to go.”

  —

  We drove on old Airline Highway, moving against the traffic coming into the city from Metairie.

  “This twenty-four percent unemployment, it’s got some advantages,” Jessie said, peering out at the abandoned businesses along Airline. “One way to clean up a neighborhood.”

  I worked the radio for news. The most recent bomb had knocked every other story off the air. There was no mention of the abortion push polls. What had been the hottest story in America for a few hours had disappeared with the flaming bus. I figured Sandra had dropped the phone story completely to follow the bombing. The mayor had called for calm and insisted that New Orleans was as safe as any other city in America. He didn’t seem to believe it himself.

  “Not saying a whole hell of a lot,” Walter Robinson laughed.

  —

  Just that morning a family of farmers in Sioux City, Iowa, had tried to rob the Farm Credit Bureau that foreclosed on their farm. Six people had died in the shootout, including the farmer’s thirteen-year-old son, who had managed to kill two state troopers with his Ruger Mini-14 before a sniper took him out. Thirteen years old. In Sioux City.

  I called Eddie. “Jesus, J.D., where the hell you been?” he yelled. “You disappeared on me! You’re roaming around the lobby of the hotel at four a.m. and then you’re goddamn MIA.”

  “I’m working on something.”

  “I’m looking at the feed of the nets setting up for Armstrong George. He’s holding another of his press conferences at the bombing site. This is not going to be pretty, J.D. You know what this place feels like? These delegates want blood. Jesus fucking Christ, we might as well be trying to elect goddamn Gandhi as World War Three breaks out. Mrs. Goddamn Gandhi. Some are talking about leaving. Everybody is scared shitless. Where the hell are you?”

  “Like I said, I’m working on something.” I sighed.

  “You’re with people,” Eddie said. “And can’t talk. Right?”

  “Yeah. Talk about it later. But here’s what I think we should do. Get Hilda to hold a press conference a half hour earlier and release the resolution we talked about. Preempt George’s presser. You’v
e got it drafted, right?”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t say anything about some lunatics blowing up a bus.”

  “So add a line or two. I’d do the press avail someplace neutral.” I thought for a minute. “We want to tone this thing down as much as we can. Just do it downstairs at the hotel. Use a ballroom. Get on it now; we got to get the notice out.”

  “Why do you think I’ve been looking for you? Where the hell have you been?”

  “I’ll meet you at the convention. If you have a problem with Hilda, call me back.”

  “This thing you can’t talk about, is it going to help us? Tell me it’s going to help us.”

  “It’s going to help us.”

  Eddie sighed. “That was your J.D. ‘Feel better’ voice, not your J.D. ‘I really believe this’ voice, but thanks. Got to go. Onward Christian soldiers.”

  “But Eddie—”

  “What?”

  “You’re an atheist.”

  He hung up.

  Jessie was staring at me, a faint smile on her lips. “I suppose that was off the record, too?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m not sure this is going to work,” Jessie said. “How are we going to have a relationship if everything is off the record?”

  Relationship? Relationship? Is that what we were having? I was thinking about that as we pulled in to the Body Shop parking lot. Heat waves were already rising up from the asphalt.

  “This place open?” Paul asked.

  “This place is always open,” Walter answered.

  “How do you know?” Jessie asked.

  Paul laughed. “Yeah, asshole, how do you know?”

  “I’m a law enforcement official,” Walter said with a smile. “It’s my job to know these things.”

  As soon as we stepped inside, it felt like we had entered a cave—cool, dark, vaguely dangerous. Two hulking men, one white, one black, were in the doorway. They wore identical blue blazers and turtlenecks emblazoned with the Body Shop logo. They nodded at Walter. “Officer,” the large white one said.

  “Walter,” the black man said, nodding.

  Jessie giggled, taking in the club: a half-dozen girls, a pair of Japanese businessmen, a couple of college students, an attractive couple in their late thirties who seemed to have ended up here after a night on Bourbon Street. Two of the dancers slowly walked over to check us out and I realized I’d seen one of them when I was here before. “Hey, big boy, good to see you back,” she said, then gave Jessie a look. “This is tasty.” Jessie beamed.

  Their long, sequined gowns glinting in the reflected light of the mirror ball hanging from the ceiling gave them the look of forties movie stars. One was short and Asian, pretty, with high cheekbones and white teeth. Her unnaturally large breasts burst from the gown. The other was tall and blond, just a few chromosome twists from gorgeous. But her jaw was too large for her face and her teeth were oversized. There was a bit of horse somewhere in that gene pool. Not a bad-looking horse, but still.

  “Hi, girls, you look fabulous,” Jessie said, and seemed to mean it.

  They smiled at Jessie but closed in on Walter, Paul, and me. “Lap dance?” the tall blonde asked. She drew out the words in a long Texas drawl.

  I pulled Walter, who was staring appreciatively at the two women, aside.

  “You know these guys?” I asked, tilting my head toward the beefy men in blazers.

  “It’s a small town,” he said. I nudged Walter toward the two men. They looked at us with blunt, bored expressions. “We’re here to see Tyler,” I told them. This was met with absolutely no response at all.

  “He’s not here,” the black man finally said. He looked at Walter Robinson. “This a friend of yours, Walter?”

  Walter smiled. “Cops don’t have friends who aren’t cops. You guys know that.” They nodded and didn’t argue. “Tyler here?”

  “Nope. Haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “Can we just take a look in his office for a second?” I asked, standing beside Walter.

  “Fuck you,” the black man said evenly.

  I looked at Walter. “We need to get in the office.”

  Walter sighed. “Okay, look, guys, you come with us, but my friend says we have to look in the office, and I think we have to look in the office. Christ, let’s make this easy, okay?”

  The two men looked at each other. Their necks were so large that it made it seem like their heads had been placed on top of posts. The black man seemed to be in charge. “You want to know something, Walter, I really don’t give a shit. You want to look, you look. What the hell.”

  He led us down the same neutral hallway that I had walked down the day before. Paul and Jessie followed us. The door to Tyler’s office was open. The large metal cabinet was unlocked; the gun racks inside were bare. The drawers to his desk were pulled out, empty. The large Confederate flag that had hung behind his desk was gone.

  “He left,” the large black man said flatly.

  “Why?” I asked. Somehow I had never really expected to find Tyler, but seeing his office like this gave me a sick feeling of dread.

  The black man chuckled. It was an odd sound coming from the overbuilt body. “Let’s just say he didn’t say. Took everything but his stereo,” the black man said. “Too damn big to move.”

  I walked over to the metal shelves holding the sound system. The same CD player was connected. I hit play and in an instant the song I’d heard in the office the day before boomed through the speakers. This was why I wanted to come back to the club. It was loud, grating, mixed with crowd sounds. A live recording. A harsh voice wailed:

  Racial pride ain’t no racist hate.

  Cops beat down, no it’s not too late.

  On the news, in the streets,

  Doin’ it right, still take heat.

  Point a finger,

  Truth don’t matter,

  Got a gun.

  Get it done.

  Whole world’s gone crazy.

  We’re losin power but it just won’t last.

  Screw bodycam. Change is comin and it’s comin fast.

  Babies in the crib

  lyin in wait.

  grow up to game the system,

  But it ain’t too late.

  Clock strikes. Time ticks.

  Hold on. Don’t quit.

  Turn back time to when America was goin’ strong.

  Keep the faith. Do what’s right because it’s all gone wrong.

  Our walk, long walk. Our fight.

  Get yourself straight. Get it right.

  We’re losin power but it just won’t last.

  Screw bodycam. Change is comin and it’s comin fast.

  —

  The song ended.

  “Always listening to that shit,” the black man said. “He loved it. You know what he called his piece-of-shit band? The Confederate Dead. He thought that name was funny as hell.”

  “C.D.,” Jessie said. “You want to play that again?”

  “Damn,” the white security guard said. He was now giving Jessie a careful look. She did look great. “Worst stuff in the world.”

  I played it again.

  “What’s Tyler to you, anyway?” the black security guard asked.

  “He’s our brother,” Paul said quietly. Then, when I glared at him, he added, “Half brother.”

  Chapter Seven

  IT TOOK ME ONLY an hour and a half to get there. It had been years since I’d made the drive, and remembering how short it was only made me feel worse about how long it had been since I’d seen Renee. Renee. The name had been a touch from her half-Cajun mother.

  Paul hadn’t argued against me going alone. He was happy for me to do it. We needed to find Tyler, and the best place to start was with his mother. The woman—the girl—who had been my babysitter when she was fourteen and my father had seduced her, if that was the right word.

  The distance from New Orleans wasn’t why I hadn’t seen Renee Hutchinson in years, so many I couldn’t really remem
ber. It was the embarrassment. No, that was too easy. It’s embarrassing to show up at a party in a white dinner jacket when everyone else is wearing a tux. I’d done that once to an afternoon summer wedding of some friends of Sandra’s in Newport. Goddamn Yankees. In the South it would have been perfectly acceptable, complimented as a bit retro. But those Yankees thought I was a waiter and asked me to get drinks for them all afternoon. Sandra thought it was hilarious. I should have ended it then, driven back to D.C. and left her there.

  It wasn’t embarrassment, it was shame. A good old-fashioned, Old Testament kind of shame.

  She still lived in the same shotgun cottage bought with the money quietly raised by a couple of phone calls “up north” that Tobias had made. He never told us who gave the money, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out that someone with Tobias’s skills could make it pretty clear why it would be a disaster if a prominent movement figure like Powell Callahan were spotlighted with transgressions that no one would defend. And that was the thing—it was transgressions, as in multiple.

  Everybody in their little inner circle—Tobias and the cozy crowd who used the movement as their own fishing pond constantly restocked with attractive women—knew that my father had a thing for girls far too young. If one scandal had hit the news, odds were that other girls, women now, would come forward. It had been going on for a long time. And then there was my mother. They all loved my mother and wanted to preserve her dignity, or at least what was left of it. So it was very, very important to make sure that Renee Hutchinson had what she needed to have her baby and start a new life and not blame the great Powell Callahan. No one would have called it hush money, but of course that’s what it was. Not that the girl didn’t deserve the money.

  Shame. Shameful. That’s what I felt. But I should be used to it. I’ve felt that way since I was eight years old and just sensed, in that way kids have of knowing stuff, that something was really wrong. I parked in front of the small house at the end of the block. When we left the strip club, Paul, Walter, and Jessie had dropped me off at the Superdome. I’d taken one of the electric cars General Motors had lent the convention to showcase their newest model. It was a terrible imitation of a Toyota Prius, but at least it was silent, and Renee didn’t hear me approach her house.