The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear (21 page)

The pure hate in his voice made one of the Secret Service agents look over at us, like a bird dog getting a scent. Jessie, slouched against the wall near the elevator, waved. She had her sunglasses back on. “I don't know. But if he keeps it up, he's going to kill somebody. Maybe a lot of people.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll cry after we win this thing.”

I started to say something encouraging, but I was just too tired. Anyway, I wanted somebody to cheer me up. I didn't want to be the one who had to go around making everybody else feel good.

“Let me deal with this woman,” I said, nodding abstractly in the direction of the elevators, where I assumed Jessie was waiting.

“What are you doing with her anyway?” Eddie asked.

“We went to high school together,” I explained.

“Don't fuck another reporter, you understand me?” Eddie demanded. “Just don't do it.”

I let it drop. “I'll be back,” I said.

Jessie seemed to have reached a silent truce with the lead agent, who nodded toward her as we finally got on the elevator. When we came out of the Windsor Court, the sun was starting to come up. The Secret Service was building a perimeter around the hotel with huge city garbage trucks and there were Humvees stationed around the hotel. It was the “America Under Siege” that Armstrong George depicted as inevitable if he was not elected president.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jessie sighed, looking around.

“I hate this city,” I said. “Nothing good has ever happened to me in this goddamn town.”

“I'll make you breakfast,” Jessie said. “Then it will be one thing.”

We walked back uptown, through the Warehouse District and the Garden District to Jessie's house. She lived on the bottom floor of a shotgun house with fourteen-foot-high ceilings and Hunter fans that looked a hundred years old. We sat in the front room, a clean, sparse space. She got us drinks and I had half of mine down before I asked her what it was.

“It's a South Dallas Martini,” she said.

“A South Dallas Martini—which is?”

“Gin, silly. Straight gin.”

I drank the rest and felt, almost instantly, drunk. Jessie looked at me and giggled. We were both filthy, covered in soot and dirt. She reached out and took the empty French jelly glass from my hand and I followed her to the bedroom.

Without ceremony, she took off her clothes. The bed was large and canopied and unexpectedly girlish. Her body was shocking: large-breasted and strong. “I lift,” she said. “But don't tell anyone. It would ruin my image.” She paused. “Are you going to just stare or take off your clothes?”

“Can I take a shower?”

“You're nervous. That's cute.”

“I'm something, anyway.”

“Go take a shower. I'll wait.”

We woke up to a loud banging. Jessie bolted up, and when I turned around in the bed she was on her feet, nude, holding the largest handgun I'd ever seen. She held it with both hands, like on a pistol course. I started laughing.

“What the hell?” she said.

“Do you know how you look?”

“Do you know how many assholes have tried to break in here?”

“A lot, I'm sure. But not twice.”

“You go to the door,” she said.

“Me?”

“You be the man of the house,” she mocked, waving her gun.

I pulled on pants and a shirt and stumbled to the door. Jessie had wrapped a robe around herself and stood off to the side, still holding the gun in both hands. “Christ, Jessie,” I muttered.

“Police!” A large, deep voice sounded on the other side of the door.

“Bullshit,” Jessie hissed, waving the gun.

“No.” I sighed, recognizing the voice. “It is.”

I opened the door. Walter Robinson was standing there with a sleepy-looking Paul Callahan. Walter glared at me and stepped inside. “Holy shit,” he said, flinching when he saw Jessie standing there pointing the large handgun in his direction. “Don't point that thing at me!” His hand rose to his holster.

“Don't touch that damn gun!” Jessie yelled.

“For Christ's sake,” Paul muttered. “Will you two calm down. Goddamn Dodge City.”

Walter didn't take his eyes off the gun. “I do not like this. I hate guns.”

“You're a cop, Walter. Get a life,” Paul said.

“Jessie, please,” I pleaded. “I am getting a serious headache—banging on the damn door, guns…”

“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've 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.”