Excerpt:  Outside Child

Chapter Five

IMPACT

A horn honked.  Ladonis sped up.  She didn’t see the pothole until the last minute.  The water-filled dips and cracks on Bayou St. John Street were invisible.  She pressed down on the brakes.  Her car skidded, swerved inches from an electricity pole.

“Jesus,” she muttered.

The pre-dawn rain had ebbed into a dark cloud, leaving the street slick and gray, the way her meeting with Monique had left her spirits.  She thought about hiring someone to break the heifer’s knees.  No, she had to sidetrack Monique.  Conduct an in-house investigation and get the jump on the police.  Lord, Lord.  How was she supposed to handle the police?

A hundredweight of butterflies, wings flapping, invaded her inners.  What had she gotten herself into?  Tim had plunged to his death into the Mississippi River, and she felt compelled to find out why.  These were the cold, hard facts, and they were as foreboding as a category five hurricane warning.

She gasped, rolled down the car’s windows.  The air was thick with  moisture.  Both the sun and the rain were stuck in the clouds, unable to break through.  She glanced at the impatiens-lined median across from City Park.

“P.J.” she yelled.

The sound of her own voice gave her a jolt.  Since they had been freshmen in college, P.J. had played tennis on the same court in City Park every Saturday morning.  Only a storm with pouring rain stopped her.

Ladonis swung around into the park’s Esplanade Street entrance as if a power had seized her.  Why hadn’t she thought of P.J. before?  Even in Louisiana with its Catholic parishes as opposed to a county form of local government, the mayor had the power to command the police.  And P.J.’s uncle was the sitting mayor.

She parked and walked past the New Orleans Museum of Art, a white neoclassical building near the  green-clay tennis courts a couple of blocks away off the City Park Avenue side of the 1,500-acre park.  She spotted P.J. right away, her little red pleated skirt, matching visor and jewels.  That girl would accessorize her bedclothes if she could. 

P.J. and three other women weren’t hitting balls, but yakking and laughing.  P.J. was big on tennis etiquette and had told her more than once that it was considered rude to interrupt a tennis match.  The perfect time to interrupt a tennis match.

“P.J.,” Ladonis called out, walking onto the court.  “I need your help.” 

“What are you doing here?” P.J. said.  “I thought you had to go to work?”

P.J.’s lips curled down from a smile.  Her expression showed that she wasn’t pleased by the interruption.  P.J.’s tennis buddies weren’t welcoming either.  They headed back onto the court without so much as a good morning, beckoning to P.J. not to hold them up.

Ladonis stopped, took a step back.  She hadn’t expected such a glare of annoyance from P.J.  She hadn’t expected to become friends with the half-white, zirconium-and-gold wearing prima donna when they had first met either.  But, after four years of sitting beside her in classes at LSU, she’d learned to respect P.J., even to mimic her social savvy.

“Okay,” P.J. said.  “Who died?”

“A friend,” Ladonis mumbled, choked by a burst of sadness.  “And we worked together.” 

Her heartbeat raced.  Without any of the shenanigans, Tim was dead.  No more.  P.J. stepped closer to Ladonis, put a hand on her arm. 

“I need a favor,” Ladonis said.

“Ladonis, we agreed, remember?” P.J. said, again sounding less than a sympathetic friend.

“I know,” Ladonis said.  “But this is a matter of life and death.”

The mayor’s niece and Ladonis had made a pact at graduation.  Had sworn never to exploit each other’s positions no matter where they ended up working.  Unlike every other successful New Orleanean Ladonis knew.  Especially politicians.

“Life and death?” P.J. said, waving her racket.  “Girl, please.  That’s what you said when you woke me up before daybreak after you let that fine ass Jack get away.”

Ladonis frowned.  Whatever had made her think two Creole debutantes would understand what making her own success meant to her?  Everything they did was to catch a man.

“Okay,” P.J. said.  “Make your point.”

Ladonis ran down the details she knew about Tim’s death.  She emphasized how important it was for the CEO to get to the facts before the media started speculating.

“Before this thing is broadcast all over the world,” she said.  “We’ve got to make sure that the Floating Palace and the city’s name are not dragged through media mud.”

“Ladonis, you know as well as I do that the mayor does not have a controlling influence on the day-to-day work of the police or the district attorney.”

Who was she kidding?  What went on in City Hall was pure soap opera.  Would put life on television soaps to shame. 

“Please, P.J.,” Ladonis said.  “This is important.”

“Important to whom?” P.J. asked.

Ladonis sucked in a gulp of damp air.  How could she answer that?  Her conscience was still grappling with the answer.

“I don’t know about this, Ladonis,” P.J. said.  “I don’t think my uncle should get involved.”

“The mayor shouldn’t get involved in protecting the city’s assets?” Ladonis said.  “Visitors are this city’s lifeline, aren’t they?”

A stretch, but it might work.  P.J. had a real passion for her city.  For her uncle’s mayoral legacy.  That was why she hadn’t accepted that big Starbucks corporate job in Seattle after graduation.

“Have you forgotten,” Ladonis said, “that the Floating Palace relocated its successful business here to a graveyard port?  And, I might add, not only brought in new jobs, but enhanced tourism worldwide.”  She almost choked.  “Your uncle should be eager to audit the press on this, for the city.  A city that banks on tourist dollars.  A city that gets enough bad press as it is.”

P.J. sighed.  A look of surrender made its way to her eyes.  Ladonis’ body slumped with relief.

“This is a city emergency,” Ladonis said, wavering between pride and shame at how well she’d manipulated the city’s position to accommodate the Floating Palace Steamboat Company.  “Couldn’t you broker a meeting for sometime this morning?”

“No, I cannot,” P.J. answered.  “My uncle is in Washington.”

“D.C.?” Ladonis asked.  Deflated energy softened her tone.  What else could she do?  Who else could help her?

“Relax,” P.J. told her.  “He’s expected back late tonight.  But I’ll get to talk to him at my grandmother’s house before then.”  P.J.’s high-society grandmother was her mom’s and the mayor’s mother.

“Would you explain this situation to him then?” Ladonis asked.

P.J. waved to the three women summoning her from the other side of the tennis court.  Ladonis exhaled loudly.  This had to work.

“Okay, Ladonis,” P.J. said.  “I’ll tell the mayor what you said and ask him to suggest to the police and district attorney to hold off making public statements until after he speaks with you guys.”

“Thanks,” Ladonis said.

“I’m not promising you he’ll do it,” P.J. said.  “Either way, I’m sure he’ll be in touch.”

“Fine,” Ladonis said.  She wanted to get the monkey off her back.  “Have him call Bret Collins.”

“Ladonis,” P.J. said.  “Don’t make this a habit.”

P.J. turned to walk away.  Ladonis had told P.J. the same thing last year when P.J. had asked Ladonis for a favor.  Could Ladonis get the Floating Palace to donate six weeklong cruises to her grandmother’s book club?  And Ladonis had, saying pretty much the same thing.  But without the edge she had just heard in P.J.’s voice.

“Oh, another thing,” P.J. said, turning back.  “The mayor will have to know from the police how the investigation is going before he does anything.”

The tone of P.J.’s voice changed from protective to authoritative when she switched from “my uncle” to “the mayor.”  How did P.J. do that?  Remain loyal and loving to her uncle and a responsible employee at the same time?

“I know that,” Ladonis said.

“Well, if the police tell him that the investigation has turned up evidence indicating foul play,” P.J. warned in that protective tone, “the mayor will probably encourage the police to go public or face cover-up allegations.  Which, by the way, is not an option.  With all the gaming stuff going on, that kind of focus on a city already under federal scrutiny—well, that’s no good for anybody.”

Foul play?  How could two four-letter words have the impact of a hurricane?

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© 2007 Alice Wilson-Fried, All Rights Reserved