New Orleans June 27
Addis and Rudd were halfway through New Orleans International when a black women rushed toward them. She was carrying a sign that read “Stop the Killing.” Behind her were a dozen other black women; several were holding on to small children. She had recognized Addis.
“You have to tell the President, that new President Mumfries, what’s going on down here,” she shouted in Addis’s face.
“Please do something,” urged another. “Our babies are dying. Our people are being killed.” Others surrounded Addis.
Rudd stepped to the side. She picked up a leaflet the women were distributing. The literature cited New Orleans as the city with the most murders per capita. It noted that the local police force was underfunded, corrupt, and inefficient—the worst in the nation. It asked all tourists visiting New Orleans to express their concern about public safety in the city.
An airport security guard pushed the women away from Addis. But Addis dismissed the guard, and he calmed the group. He asked them to explain what they were doing. He listened intently. He promised he would bring their leaflet back to the White House.
“Bless you in Jesus’ name,” said a woman wearing a red hat. She engulfed Addis in a hug.
He wished them well. Then he and Rudd proceeded to the rental car counter. “Think you can help them?” Rudd asked.
“No,” he answered.
They checked into a bed-and-breakfast in the lower French Quarter. It was several blocks from the small hotel where they had stayed four years before. Their suite looked like an antique shop, cluttered with pieces and knickknacks from various periods. Dark red drapes hung over the windows.
The wallpaper had a fish pattern. In the main room was a four-poster bed with a feather mattress. The door to the adjoining room was open, and Addis tossed his bag on the bed there—a clear reminder, he thought. He asked Rudd if she wanted to have lunch at Antoine’s. Sure, she said. He told her that he first had to make a few phone calls.
“That’s alright,” she said. “I’ll walk to the river. I can never get over that the river is above the city.”
How strange is this?
“Have fun,” he said.
After Rudd left, Addis went to the pay phone in the alcove off the lobby. He called Whalen and arranged to visit him that afternoon. He then tried Harris Griffith, the accountant, and got the answering machine again. He called directory assistance and obtained an address for Griffith. Next Addis dialed Mickey Burton, the parish chair in Alexandria, and made plans to see him the next day. He returned to the room. When Rudd came back, they went to lunch.
The maitre d’ at Antoine’s hugged Addis at the door. He cried and offered his condolences.
“He was loved,” the host said. “You see that now.”
“Yes, he was,” Addis replied.
The maitre d’ did not ask if he had a reservation. He seated them in a booth and wiped his face with a handkerchief. He patted his moustache.
“And how long are you in town?” he asked.
“A few days. A short break.”
“And you are staying where?”
Always working. Everybody is always working. Tell him; he tells the Times-Picayune, and there’s a photographer stationed there. A trip to New Orleans by a senior Hanover aide counts as news here.
“Nearby,” Addis answered. He knew to expect a reporter outside the restaurant by the end of the meal. That could not be avoided, and that was the point. Best to hide in plain sight, he thought. Better to be photographed, he figured, than to be caught avoiding being photographed. Having Rudd at his side helped.
“Can I have the chef prepare something special for you and your friend?”
“Please.”
The meal arrived—a crayfish stew. And when they were done, the waiter refused to provide a bill. Instead the maitre d’ came over and said the meal was a gift from him.
“But I’m not allowed to accept gifts,” Addis explained.
“Then it is a gift for your lovely friend.” He nodded toward Rudd.
“Thank you,” she said.
A reporter was waiting for Addis outside the door. He was a young man, his face pock-marked. Next to him was a photographer.
“Nat Ridenhauer,” he said. “The Picayune. Don’t want to be a shit. But would you mind if I ask why you’re visiting New Orleans?” He held out a tape recorder.
“Not a problem,” Addis said. “I just wanted to get out of Washington for a few days with a friend.”
“And her name?”
Rudd had moved away.
“If you think it’s necessary. It’s Holly Rudd.” He spelled the last name.
“And what line of work is she in?”
“That’s not important,” he said. “She’s an old friend, that’s all. But I’m sure you can find her on Nexis if you’re determined.”
“And no business here?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to stop in on the governor, then, to talk about—”
“It’s nothing personal, but no—”
“About what President Mumfries is doing next—”
“Really, I’m here on personal time. A few days. So I’m not going to get into any—”
“Well, then can you share your feelings about what you think Mrs. Hanover should do?”
“Not today, Nat. Is that enough? … I think that’s about it.”
“I guess it will have to be,” the reporter said. “Thanks a lot.”
Rudd joined Addis, as he walked away. She tried not to pay attention to the photographer shooting them.
“Thanks again,” he said. “I owe you.”
“No you don’t,” she said. “But it does bring back memories.”
Good? Bad?
“Do photos of you still make the wires?” she asked.
“Not as much as they used to.”
“That must make life easier.”
“Guess I haven’t noticed,” he said.
She chuckled, and Addis asked why she had laughed.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
Addis dropped Rudd off at the Tulane law library. She had brought work with her and preferred to sit in the library rather than in their suite. He told her he’d be back in a couple of hours.
Flip Whalen lived near the school. Set back from the road, behind a cast-iron fence with a rose pattern, the house was pure Greek Revival,
built, Addis recalled, in 1856 by a molasses mogul. Fluted Corinthian columns flanked a veranda in front. Jefferson Davis had spent three weeks here after the Civil War. The first time Addis had visited, Whalen escorted him through the grounds. He showed off the trees: crepe myrtle, sweet olive, pear, Japanese plum.
Addis walked the path that led from the driveway. He remembered the late-night sessions that Whalen hosted here during the campaign. In leather chairs in the library, Hanover, Addis, Finn, McGreer, Whalen, Margaret, and the others strategized and fine-tuned the campaign. Whalen’s father had been the chief counsel to one of the oil companies that used to run the state, and he left his only child with a fortune. Whalen had devoted a portion of that inheritance to Hanover’s first political campaign, when Hanover ran for attorney general and attacked the system that had done so well for the Whalens.
The front door was open. Addis shouted hello. No one came. He went to the back and found Whalen and his wife Amelia in the sunroom. The stereo was playing Bach. Whalen was helping Amelia get comfortable on a flower-patterned couch. Addis had not seen her since the inauguration. Her hair was gone, her skin pale yellow. Cancer had been traveling through her body: first, breast, then lymph nodes, and, most recently, throat. Addis waited by the door until Whalen finished arranging the pillows for Amelia.
“Flip,” he said. “I let myself in. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Nah, buddy,” Whalen replied. “Mi casa es … you know. Come here.”
The two men embraced. There was little between Whalen’s chest and back. Addis wondered if Whalen was getting slimmer. One good squeeze, and he would break like a breadstick.
Addis bent down and kissed Amelia on the cheek. It was hard for her to speak. She forced out a scratchy “hello” and then grabbed his hand. He felt her fingers trembling.
“Good to see you,” Whalen said. “Here, sit. Can I get you anything?” Addis shook his head. “You know we were sorry we couldn’t be in Washington for the … . But”—he looked at his wife—“we couldn’t because … She had a few bad days.”
“Everyone knows,” Addis said. “They do.”
“Yeah.” Whalen stared out of the room and toward a flock of grackle on the back lawn. He was wearing a jacket and a tie. Even at home, Whalen always dressed up.
“How’s she doing?” Whalen asked.
“Pretty well, I think.”
“Ready for the run?”
Does he mean me or her?
“I don’t know. I’m staying clear. What does she tell you?”
“And how’s Jackie-boy?”
“He’s holding up. Spending a lot of time with Lem.”
Whalen shot out a laugh. “That Lem. Always by their side.” He pulled a cigar out of his coat pocket and unwrapped it.
“Don’t smoke’em,” he said. “Just chew’em … . What can I do for you, Nick?”
“It’s about that reporter. The one asking about that land deal in Rapides.”
“Yeah, he came by. I’d gone to the store. Patty, the cleaning woman, let him in. I came back and found him trying to talk to Amelia about all that. I escorted him out. Roughly, too.”
His wife managed to smile at him.
“Told you most of what I know on the phone. But there was another little problem we had. Margaret was asked to be on the board of this company building day-care centers. Turns out one of the backers was a lawyer in Metarie who represents mob guys. The Picayune got ahold of it. We got her out. She gave the money back. Twenty-five grand a year. Real money for them.”
“You mentioned an ethics officer who vetted the finances of state officials.”
“Yeah. I checked after we talked. I should have remembered. But I was blind-trusted and never had to deal with it. His name was Cummings. George Cummings.”
“And where’s he now?”
“Maybe chatting up a storm with Bob. Died a few months ago. Prostate.”
“And the records of his review?” Addis asked. “Would they be somewhere?”
“Supposed to be,” Whalen replied. “All supposed to be preserved like holy texts until Kingdom Come. But you go try to find something in the state archives. They couldn’t even locate the central files of our first term when I was thinking of doing that book on the early years. Then there was a fire. They can’t even tell us what was lost.”
“Tell me about the accountant.”
“Griffith, Harris Griffith. Didn’t look like an accountant. Tall, thickly built fellow, with this full beard. Looked like a lumberjack. Don’t know how they chose him. But he got into trouble with the feds. He was the accountant for one of these S&Ls. The bank crashed, had to be bailed out, upwards to thirty mil. You know the drill: bad real estate loans, lending to directors, et cetera. The officers and directors got caught with empty pockets. So the feds went after the lawyers and the accountants who had signed off on reports saying everything’s jim-dandy. A while back, I got a call from Griffith. Asked if I could talk to Bob about him. I said, ‘Nope.
Can’t do it.’ He said he understood. The feds kept after him. The firm kinda fell apart.”
Amelia was making a stuttering sound. She was pointing at her mouth. Whalen went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and a straw. He placed the straw in her mouth and held the glass for her. With his free hand, he stroked her head.
“Do you think that Mason could have been involved?” Addis asked.
“With that land deal? Doubt it. After that first campaign, the blood was so bad. Those stories were true. Didn’t have to make it up for that TV movie. Boy, did Chasie hate me. He and my daddy did business together. I was a traitor to the regime. My daddy once told me that he had seen Chasie at the Jefferson Club in Baton Rouge. This must’ve been when Bob was still AG, but right after Jackie was born. ‘Don’t it break you up you can’t see him?’ my daddy asked. ‘Yeah, sure,’ Chasie said. ‘But he’s still my flesh and blood. And they can’t ever take that away.’ You know, I don’t know if Chasie ever got to see the boy. That is, in person.”
Whalen removed the straw from his wife’s mouth and placed the glass on a table.
“What’s the deal with Margaret and Mumfries?” Addis asked. “I still can’t figure that out.”
“Don’t see how it’s related to this. But Mumfries’s family owned a bunch of businesses here. Some freight companies. Natural gas. Construction. Bunch of local papers. Had to be some crossover with Chasie. Sam, though, never went into all that. Cut out on his own. Got far, far away. All the way to … the state next door. They never liked each other. But, you know, funny thing is that if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be President today.”
Addis’s expression asked why.
“Was on her advice,” Whalen said, “that Bob took on Sam.”
“I never saw her push for Mumfries. In all those meetings, she only asked questions about whoever was being discussed.”
“I was there, too. But I was also here, in this room. Night before he made up his mind. She asked if I wouldn’t mind leaving them be for a minute or so. I did and went to the kitchen. But I could still hear them. She said he had to pick Sam. For the obvious reasons. He balanced out the ticket in politics, and he could give them Texas. ‘Thought you hated him,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Only one thing matters.’ I got to feeling guilty—listening in like that—and went out to the veranda.”
He paused. “First time I think I ever told anyone that. Right, Amelia?”
She nodded.
“Except for Amelia.”
She smiled again.
“And the thing of it is, we would’ve won without Texas. But who knew that then?”
“You think Margaret has reason to worry about this deal?” Addis asked.
Whalen rearranged the books on the coffee table in front of Amelia.
“Not that I know, but she’s a thorough woman. Always has been.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. Her husband did not notice. For my benefit? Addis wondered. Or an involuntary sign of discomfort?
“Guess I should be going,” Addis said.
He said good-bye to Amelia. There was a tear at the edge of her eye. Whalen removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at it. He then took Addis by the arm and escorted him from the sunroom.
“Gets pretty emotional. You can imagine.” Before Addis could reply, Whalen was on to another subject: “Was playing golf with Bob a few months back. He told me that he thought Sam was being a bit too friendly with this woman in the White House. Katie somebody. But then Bob always thought that about everyone.”
Addis knew whom he meant. She worked in the domestic policy shop. He had heard the rumors. He didn’t want to be drawn into this conversation.
“Do you think Margaret should?” Addis asked.
“Don’t think Bob would have any problem with it. Probably get a kick out of it.”
At the door, Whalen gave Addis a hearty handshake.
“Flip, one more thing,” Addis said.
“What’s that?” Whalen asked.
Addis discerned a trace of irritation in Whalen’s voice.
He knows what I’m going to ask about. He must. Or is he just tired? Didn’t he already say there was nothing to it? The guy was on drugs. His other stories didn’t check out. Case closed, right? A stiff swinging in the county lockup. A suicide. Case closed. Live with it.
“Nothing, Flip. It was great to see you and Amelia.”
“She’s a fighter, Nick, I got to tell you. She’s a fighter.”
“I can tell.”
Addis stood before a rundown building a few blocks from the criminal courthouse, an area of unused warehouses and cheap office space. There were three bail bondsmen storefronts on the street. In the lobby, he found a directory written on a piece of cardboard and taped to the inside of what once was a glass case. He started up the stairs, grabbing the wooden railing. A slab of dry paint came off in his hand.
On the third floor, Addis rapped on a grime-encrusted glass door. No one answered, but the door opened. He stepped in gingerly.
“Harris, you mother-fucking—”
A woman ran out of the other room in the suite. She was tall, her hair platinum blond. She wore high heels and a short black skirt. She was waving a gun and came to a stop when she saw him.
“You’re not Harris.”
“Thank God,” he said.
She put the gun in the shiny black purse slung over her shoulder.
“He gave it to me,” she said of the gun, and shrugged.
No one else was in the suite. The room held two filing cabinets. One desk had a cheap calculator on it. A stack of papers sat on another desk. Cardboard storage boxes was piled against the wall. On the opposite wall, a calendar was turned to the wrong page: a bucolic snowy scene of a country church.
“You know where he is?” she asked.
“No. I just came by to see him.”
“That shit. I went to the safe deposit box. Two pair of earrings, a necklace, a broach, and a bracelet—all missing. He gave them to me when he was riding high. Told me I had the only key to the box.”
Her nails were bright red, her lips the same. Orange patches glowed on her cheeks. She wore flashy rings on six of her fingers. She was in her late forties, he thought. But the skin around her eyes was drum-tight.
“So I came to get them back. What do you want with the snake?”
“To talk to him about some old business. I guess you don’t know where he is?”
“No, and his lawyer won’t say where he’s at. I want this divorce over and done with. His asshole creditors are driving me nuts.”
Addis asked for the lawyer’s name. She pulled a business card out of the purse.
“Can hardly say it. Fucking Polack.”
Addis wrote the name and number on a scrap of paper.
“I think I’m going to wait a while,” she said. “See if the scumbag shows.”
She took a seat and put her feet on a desk. She patted the bulge in her purse. Addis started asking questions. She told him that Griffith’s firm had fallen apart after the banking investigators began their inquiry. At the same time, his investments—primarily risky future options—collapsed. He filed bankruptcy. She kicked him out. She let him back. He tried to keep a practice going. He hooked up with this export/import guy whom she suspected was smuggling dope. And Griffith was using. She booted him again. She let him back again. She came home one day, and he and the export-import dealer were in the house with two bimbos. There were
coke lines on the coffee table. She threw him out, and that was it. Their attorneys were in charge now. The bank case was going to trial. Her jewelry was gone.
“If you find him before I do, let me know, hon, okay?” she asked.
He promised.
“Tracy Griffith,” she said.
She recited her phone number and waited for him to write it down.
“Thanks a bunch,” she said. “And close the door for me on the way out. I’d like this to be a surprise. He probably forgot I have the keys.”
He moved to the door.
“And, hon, sorry about Mr. Hanover. I didn’t vote for him’cause of the capital gains stuff. I needed the break. But I’m sorry all the same.”
Addis found Rudd in the Tulane law library. She asked for fifteen more minutes. He called McGreer’s office. There was nothing for which he was needed. He checked his messages—no calls from Dunne. Then he called the lawyer with the Polish name.
“Yeah,” a man answered.
Addis stumbled over the pronunciation.
“Just say, ‘Joe Mik,’” the gruff voice advised.
Addis introduced himself and said he was looking for Harris Griffith.
“Listen,” Joe Mikolajczyk said, “I’m not sure I should even tell you I know where he is. What do you need from him?”
“Some old paperwork needs to be resolved. I thought he could help.”
“I gotta tell you: he’s not in a very helpful mood these days. And as one of the people he owes big I do try to encourage him to spend his time in pursuits that enhance his financial position.”
“I understand. Please ask him to call me here or in Washington.”
“And I gotta tell you, don’t think you can come around and expect us to jump. I don’t play the game everyone else down here plays. Got that? I don’t jump. Not for dead guys. Not for live guys.”
“I do, Mr. Mikolajczyk.” He spoke the name deliberately.
“That’s good. You almost got it right.” Mikolajczyk hung up.
On the way back to the library, Addis passed a student lounge. The news was on the television. Wynn Gravitt, the House Majority Leader, was on the screen criticizing the lack of progress in the assassination investigation. Addis paused to watch and ignored the students’ stares.
“As a member of the commission, I am simply appalled that we don’t know more than we do,” Gravitt was proclaiming. “This is not the time for partisan shots. But I have sent a letter to President Mumfries setting out my concerns.”
Wesley Pratt might be too polite to exploit an assassination, Addis thought, but not Gravitt.
As Addis and Rudd drove back to the bed-and-breakfast, she asked if they could swing by First Street and Liberty.
“Sure,” he said. “Why?”
“There’s this book that’s a favorite of a friend of mine. Part of it takes place on that corner. Just wanted to see it. Tell him I did.”
“Okay.”
She’s not going to volunteer more. I’m not going to ask.
When they reached the corner Rudd turned her head to absorb each quadrant of the intersection: a brown brick church, an empty lot covered with litter, a child-care center with wrought-iron security bars on the doors and windows, a white cottage with blue trim. A young black man was pacing by the lot. He looked like he was waiting for someone.
“Not too special, is it?” Addis said.
“No, not at all.”
He glanced at her. She was looking out the window and smiling.
“Maybe K-Paul’s tonight?” he asked.
“More photographs?”
“Maybe.”
“If that’s what you need,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said and glanced at her. She was looking at the corner as they drove away.
Jeff’s favorite book, right? She’s comparing us.
“I’d ask you how it went today,” she said, “but I don’t think I’d get much out of you.”
“Not yet.”
“Someday?”
“Maybe. When I can.”
“That’s what I thought.”
At the bed-and-breakfast, there was one message for him. It was from Evan Hynes-Pierce, and the number was local.