The White League

By Thomas Zigal

Thomas Zigal

The White League

The Toby Press

© Thomas Zigal 2005

isbn 1 59264 115 6 hardcover

New Orleans only has thirty families.

Everyone else is there to work for them.

— A local adage

Behind every great fortune lies a hidden crime.

— Honoré de Balzac

New Orleans, 1990

Chapter one

“Mistah Paul, two callers waiting to see you,” Rosetta said, taking the briefcase from my hand as she greeted me at the door with my afternoon gin and tonic. There was nothing inside the case except my earphones and a half-dozen blues tapes. “I hesitate to call them gentlemen because I reco’nize the one of them from the news.”

She gave me a look, brow furrowed, clearly disapproving of whomever it was. Her worn eyes held a hint of accusation, as if I myself had summoned these suspect visitors to my home. I had seen that look on Rosetta’s face many times when I was growing up, usually when I’d disappointed her by doing something thoughtless or hurtful. It was a look that said, You better than that, child. I expect more out of you.

“I had them wait by the patio,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Don’t want their kind in this house while we’re setting up for Miss Julie’s birthday party.”

She turned and walked away down the long entrance hall, her bony shoulders protruding sharply through the white uniform dress, the briefcase wagging at her side. I sipped the drink and watched her disappear into the late afternoon shadows near the stairwell. Rosetta had completed chemotherapy only two months earlier for cervical cancer and her full weight had not yet returned. I was concerned about her. She had always been a large woman, with a soft round copper face, bright dancing eyes, and a quick laugh. The cancer had diminished her, shrinking the woman who had nurtured us as children, whittling her face into a gaunt, shocking study of the grave. Her legs were stick thin now, her dress draped loosely on her frame, and the light had vanished from her eyes. She was only sixty-four years old, but she appeared ancient and doomed. It was difficult for me to watch my old nanny slowly fading into the darkness. She had joined the Blanchard household when I was five months old and had remained with us, in one capacity or another, for the past forty years. I was closer to Rosetta Jarboe than I was to my own difficult aunts.

I removed my business jacket and dropped it on a Queen Anne armchair in the parlor. Loosening my tie, I walked back into the foyer and made my way down the hall. I could hear the clinking sounds of dinner preparation behind the kitchen doors and I waved at Dell and Corinne, who were placing formal settings around the long dining room table with a practiced perfection.

“Everything okay, ladies?” I asked them. “How many are coming?”

“Twenny-two,” Dell responded with a harried smile. She was a tall, rawboned black woman, early fifties, who had been with us for nearly fifteen years. “The big family plus three of Julie’s friends from school.”

“Are y’all going to survive this one?” I asked, grinning sympathetically. There was a secret to treating one’s employees with respect and appreciation. You had to mean it. They knew when you didn’t.

“Ax us tommawra mornin’,” Corinne said in her thick Creole accent. The two women laughed and continued with their work.

When I opened the beveled French doors at the end of the hall and stepped out onto the patio in the gray winter light, I saw the two untimely visitors sitting at a table by the pool. They had been offered no refreshment, a further sign of Rosetta’s disapproval. It was one of those temperate February days when the clouds settle low and heavy over the city, a tropical depression causing a dull ache in the temples. Perhaps seventy degrees, no need for an overcoat. Even so, sending the visitors outside unattended, with a moist Gulf wind scurrying dead magnolia leaves across the lawn and tarp-covered pool, was an undeniable message of scorn. Please wait in the rear of the premises, where you belong. When I saw who the two men were, I realized Rosetta’s decision was an old black woman’s revenge.

At my arrival, one of the visitors stood up formally, buttoned his dark western-cut jacket and hitched his wide shoulders, crossing his hands over his crotch like an undertaker at a funeral. He was a tall, thick-necked white man with a shaved head and a heavy black mustache. His rigid posture, dark sunglasses, and the grim expression on his face suggested that he was in the protection services; law enforcement or personal security. I turned my attention to the man who had remained seated, although for an instant I didn’t recognize him. His features had been altered cosmetically over the years, a subtle reshaping of flesh and bone, enough to throw me whenever I saw him on television or in newspaper photos. But now here he was in person. He smiled and spoke my name, and the scenario I’d been dreading for so long was suddenly unfolding, here on the secluded grounds where it had all begun. Until the moment I saw Mark Morvant sitting at my patio table with a sly smile on his face, the recurring nightmares had all but vanished and I had nearly convinced myself, with considerable effort as the years crept by, that my past was finally dead and buried.

“Hello, Paul,” he said with that memorable southern lilt. In college he had worked studiously on the timbre of his voice, practicing for the day when he would address larger audiences. “Long time no see, cuño.”

I sipped my gin and tonic and smiled at the word. Cuño was a term of endearment from the Spanish cuñado, meaning “brother-in-law.” Or possibly a dirty word, coño. Nobody knew for sure. It was like calling an old friend cuz. Somehow the appellation had been appropriated by the Cajuns and the Y’ats—the white trash New Orleanians who always greeted you with Hey, man, where y’at? instead of the usual How’s it going?

“Hello, Mark,” I said, trying to sound calm and cordial. “Yes, it has been a long time.”

“This is my associate, Louis Robb,” he said, gesturing with a long white hand at the hulking presence standing beside his chair. “Louis is a retired police officer from Shreveport. We go back a long way.” He smiled darkly. “Though not as far back as you and I.”

Louis Robb and I approached each other across the patio flagstones and he shook my hand with a silent nod. His grip could have broken my fingers, something I was sure he wanted me to understand from the outset. He was much taller than I, maybe six-three, the deep cleft in his chin measuring exactly at my eye level.

“Can I offer you gentleman some refreshment?” I asked, resisting the temptation to rub my sore hand. “Coffee? We have a shipload.” It was an old family joke that no one ever laughed at except the Blanchards themselves. “Or would you care for something stronger?” I raised my gin and tonic.

“No, thank you,” Morvant answered for both of them. There was an almost feminine grace in the way he gestured with his long hands. I remembered that several of our fraternity brothers had speculated that he was gay. “We won’t be long, Paul. But I appreciate your hospitality. That old mammy of yours seems to have forgotten her manners.”

I shrugged. “She’s been very ill,” I said by way of apology.

“And how is her boy?” he asked. “The one in prison.”

It had taken him less than five minutes to raise the question. First blood was drawn.

“Well, Mark,” I said, “he’s still in Angola. Close to twenty years.”

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola was a penal hellhole spread along the banks of the Mississippi River in West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge. Tomorrow there was a parole hearing for Jaren Jarboe, and Rosetta had asked me to attend the proceeding with her and our attorney. I wondered if Morvant knew about the hearing and if that was why he was here.

“Twenty years,” he said, shaking his head as if the figure was beyond comprehension. “Wonder if he’s got any asshole left.”

Louis Robb snorted and looked me over, head to foot. What had his boss told him about me?

“Did you drop by for my views on prison reform, Congressman Morvant?” I asked. I didn’t want this discussion to go any further than necessary. “To what do I owe this privilege?”

He was pleased that I had called him Congressman. His cornflower blue eyes shone appreciatively, their color enhanced by the tinted contact lenses. That wasn’t the only glamorous improvement to his appearance. At some point during the past few years an implant had strengthened his weak chin, rhinoplasty had reduced and straightened his nose, and a facelift had removed those puffy bags under his eyes that I remembered from our drinking days at Tulane. But the most dramatic alteration was to his hairline and coiffure. I remembered a pasty forehead receding high into his thin, boyish blond thatch, but now the line had been lowered and his refashioned hair was uniformly silver and as stiffly sculpted as an evangelist’s. Mark Morvant was a remade man. A new and improved face and wardrobe to match the new political image. The white supremacist had become a respectable Louisiana state congressman representing the white-flight suburbs of St. Tammany Parish across Lake Pontchartrain in Covington and Slidell.

“I’m going to run for governor, Paul,” he said without a trace of irony, “and I’m here to call on your help.”

I wasn’t surprised by this declaration. Two years ago, when he was first elected to the statehouse, the news media had speculated that Morvant harbored ambitions for the governor’s mansion or the U.S. Senate, but needed experience in the legislature to give him credibility. It hadn’t taken him long to make his move. Two years in elected office and he was ready to run the state of Louisiana.

“I’m always happy to help an old friend, Mark.”

It was a lie in his case, of course, and I suspected he knew it. I had avoided him for years and hadn’t contributed a cent to his extremist causes or his congressional race.

“I appreciate your support, Paul,” he said, lacing his long fingers and smiling through even white teeth. “I’m glad you’re in a generous mood. I haven’t heard from you in a long time, and I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten your old fraternity brother.”

“I watch the news,” I said. “You’re hard to miss.”

His smile spread wider. This pleased him, too. He’d craved attention and acceptance since his days at the TΣK house in the late sixties, and in spite of his notoriety he still seemed to require validation on a daily basis.

“I’ve always placed a premium on friendship,” he said. Something darkened in his eyes, as if a shadow had passed above the towering oak at the edge of the patio. “Allegiance, loyalty, the common cause. These are the foundation stones of any civilization, Paul. Honorable men are obliged to uphold the social contracts between them. I do something for you, you do something for me. I’m sure you agree with that.”

I knew where this was going.

“Old favors,” he said with a distant look in his eye. His thoughts were focused on another time and place. “Hell, let’s call it what it is. You owe me one, brother,” he said, “and I’m here to collect.”

I watched Louis Robb for his reaction. He remained standing, implacable, an exemplar of the warrior’s body language. I wondered again how much he knew.

“I’m prepared to help you, Mark,” I said. There was no point in prolonging this charade. I wanted him out of my hair as soon as possible. “How much are we talking about?”

He stood up and stared across the covered pool toward the guest cottage set back under the oak trees near the far wall. The cottage had served as slave quarters before the Civil War and as a home for domestics long afterwards, until the 1930s when my grandfather had found the close proximity of black people too disagreeable and had reclaimed the small stone structure for personal family use. When I was growing up it had provided the perfect children’s playhouse and a changing area for swimmers.

I knew why he was looking at the cottage. He’d been inside it one dark night many years ago when we were fraternity brothers.

“You have any idea how much money it takes to win a campaign for governor in this state?” Morvant asked, still facing the cottage. He cut a tall, lean figure in his charcoal gray Brooks Brothers suit.

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” I said.

“That sorry bastard Edwin Edwards spent ten million in his last race and lost,” he said. “Most of it on bribes and kickbacks. Ten million dollars.”

He turned and stared past me toward the ivy-covered wall of the manse, his eyes ranging upward to the row of second-story windows. The circumstances of his last visit had prevented him from fully appreciating the magnificent structure itself, one of the many visual splendors along St. Charles Avenue. He seemed to notice my home’s mass and distinction for the very first time.

“Beautiful place you’ve got here, cuño,” he said. “Be a damned shame if something happened and you…well, we don’t want to think bad thoughts, do we now?”

He was threatening me, the son of a bitch.

“You’ve done a fine job of carrying on the Blanchard tradition, my man,” he continued. “I admire you for that. When we were in college I used to ridicule you and your prissy Uptown ways behind your back. Envy, I suppose. You had it and I didn’t.”

Morvant had grown up in the tough working-class neighborhood of Arabi, the ugly edge of urban sprawl downriver across the line in St. Bernard Parish, and he’d attended Tulane on a scholarship he’d earned from his public high school. Though he’d spent most of his time in the bars, like all good Tulane frat boys, he’d maintained a respectable 3.0 average until he was expelled in his senior year for wearing black face to class and disrupting a Julian Bond speech on campus with his racist diatribe.

“I didn’t think you’d ever live up to the family name,” he said, glancing at me, three distinct lines etched across his cosmetically lowered forehead. “But I can see you’ve done all right, after all. ceo of the coffee business. Quite impressive,” he said, studying my features. “I’m sure it’s what your father always wanted, rest his soul.”

Yes, I had certainly changed since my fraternity days.

“And you married a Jew, I hear. Ida Benjamin’s daughter. Very good career move, cuño. You know what they say about New Orleans. ‘The Catholics built it, the Jews own it, and the niggers enjoy it.’”

Louis Robb snorted and worked his jaw.

I checked my watch. My daughter, Julie, had turned thirteen today and her birthday party was set for this evening. I wanted to get this over with and send them on their way before company arrived.

“I appreciate your compliments, Mark. I think we’ve established that we’re both doing well,” I said. “So how much do you need? I don’t think the election commission will allow me to give you the entire ten million.”

It was intended as a joke, but neither man laughed.

“Let your conscience be your guide.” The honeyed lilt to his words carried a hidden mockery. “I know you’ll be generous with your own money—for old times’ sake,” he added with a wry smile. “But you’re right, one man can’t fund an entire governor’s race. Certainly not with the new finance restrictions. I’m going to need more help than just you, Paul. I’m going to need the support and endorsement of the White League.”

I stared at him. The tumbler had grown cold in my hand and I wanted to get rid of it, along with these two intruders. “The White League?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. And I wasn’t sure he knew what he was talking about, either. “Do you mean the old White Citizens Council? That outfit run by Leander Perez?” They had been the outspoken enemy of the NAACP and New Orleans school integration back in the late fifties and early sixties.

Morvant smirked at my confusion. But then his smirk turned cruel. “Please don’t play games with me, Paul. I’ve never played games with you. When you needed me, I was there. So don’t jerk me around, cuño. That’s not very good manners.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Mark. The only White League I’ve ever heard about was that gang back during Reconstruction—the one in the shoot-out on Canal Street. There’s a monument down near the Riverwalk.”

My great grandfather had fought in the battle. As I remembered the history lesson, an organized group of local white citizens had clashed with the carpetbagger police, a troop of freed slaves and ragtag Yankee sympathizers who had replaced the regular New Orleans police force after the Civil War.

“If you think pleading ignorance is going to help you, Paul, you’re sadly mistaken. I know your family has been White League since the beginning, and I know you grew up around their activity. I’m betting that when your daddy died, he passed his colors on to you.”

I was so surprised by his remark that I couldn’t contain my amusement. “If you’re trying to join the Krewe of Jove, Mark, you’re wasting your time.”

Jove was one of the oldest Mardi Gras organizations, dating back to before the Civil War, and its membership was a closely guarded secret. It required being born into the right family. I was a member, all right, but I avoided the old farts in the krewe as much as possible and only participated once a year in the Carnival parade and evening ball.

“You can’t buy your way into Jove,” I said, still amused by his mythical White League. “And take my word for it, you don’t want to. It’s a pack of crusty old dinosaurs whose only pleasure in life is to get shit-faced one weekend a year and throw plastic beads from a parade float. The krewe doesn’t give money to politicians. They’d rather waste it on a good party.”

Morvant slid his long, elegant hands into his suit pants and ambled toward me until we were close enough to embrace like old friends. But we didn’t. He was slightly over six feet tall, and he peered down at me with an air of disappointment.

“I’m not talking about a fucking Mardi Gras krewe or Leander Perez and a bunch of irate old ladies walking a picket line in front of a niggerfied school,” he said, irritation mounting in his voice. “The White League, Paul. I know your great grandfather was with them from the start, and so was his son later on, and then your father. For nearly a hundred and twenty years you people have been pulling the strings in this town. It used to be the cotton brokers and bankers and mercantile big-wigs. Now it’s fat cat lawyers and coffee barons and oil and gas men. The deal-makers, Paul. The ones who decide who’s in and who’s out. Thumbs up or thumbs down.” He knitted his brow. I remembered that intense, driven expression from when he was in college and beginning to voice his militant views around the frat house. “If somebody poses a problem to the common good, they’re the ones who eliminate the problem.”

I realized he was under some strange misconception about the way things operated among the old New Orleans aristocrats. “You’re talking about the old boys in the Magnolia Club and the Pickwick Club,” I said, still somewhat puzzled.

The gentlemen’s clubs had existed in downtown New Orleans since the 1840s, and some were associated with Mardi Gras krewes. Their stately quarters had always provided a cloistered place where upper crust business leaders could gather and chat amiably and strike lucrative deals over cigars and brandy.

“But you’re making them sound like some kind of organized cabal, Mark. I assure you they’re not. I’m a member of the Magnolia Club and I’ve been to lunch there many times and watched those clowns trying to agree on a salad dressing. They blabber about stocks and the Saints’ season and rising crime. On their own they couldn’t organize a two-car funeral. They may’ve been powerbrokers thirty years ago, but right now they’re palsied old geezers drooling in their bread pudding.”

Morvant cut his eyes toward the bodyguard and shook his head in disgust. The gesture said, What am I going to do with this guy? Louis Robb moved his jaw slightly and cracked his neck, a menacing sound. He had the practiced glower of a professional wrestler.

“I’d hoped we could be straight with each other and discuss this like gentlemen,” Morvant said, losing patience. “We go back a long way, Paul. You did a careless thing that got you in deep shit, but I always liked you, man. I thought we were friends. I remember that phone call like it was last night.” He glared at me, a disappointed father scolding his son. “How about you, Paul? Do you remember how it was that night you called me? You were falling apart and crying like a titty baby and you didn’t have anybody else to turn to.”

“I remember,” I said, taking a long swallow of my gin and tonic. How could I have forgotten? I had relived that scene in a thousand sweaty nightmares.

“And I came to your aid.”

“You did,” I said, acknowledging what we both understood.

“And afterwards—did I ask for anything?”

“No.”

“Did I want money?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“All these years, have I ever asked for a favor?”

“No,” I said. I could feel a trickle of sweat under my shirt collar.

“Then why do you want to treat me this way, Paul? I come to your home with a simple request and you jerk my chain. Is that any way to treat an old friend who saved your ass?”

I turned and studied the French doors to see if anyone from my family was within earshot. “Why don’t we discuss this somewhere more private?” I suggested. I didn’t want Louis Robb to be a party to our conversation, either.

“It looks like I’m not welcome in the big house, Mistah Paul,” he said, exaggerating the name, mimicking Rosetta’s voice. “So I’m perfectly happy to discuss this problem out here in the open, where the whole world can participate.” He looked at his bodyguard. “Don’t you want to hear what Mistah Paul has to say for himself, Louis?”

Louis Robb smiled darkly but remained silent.

“What exactly do you want from me?” I asked Morvant, lowering my voice. This conversation was beginning to come unraveled. I could see that he was working himself into a heated confrontation, and my home was the last place on earth I wanted that to take place.

“I’m willing to make a significant contribution to your campaign, Mark. As much as the law allows. But I don’t have any juice with the old boy network—and I sure as hell don’t know anything about a White League. I stay pretty much to myself and my family.” The absolute truth. “If you’re looking for somebody plugged into the network, you’re talking to the wrong guy. I’m considered a loner in most Uptown circles, and I like it that way.”

Morvant was undeterred. He crossed his arms over his suit jacket and questioned my sincerity with narrowed eyes. “You underestimate me, Paul. Have you forgotten that I’m a student of history? I always do my homework.” He had begun to raise and lower the heel of his right shoe in an impatient rhythm. “I know all about the White League. If a man wants political support in this city, he goes to the League with his hat in hand and asks for their blessing. So that’s what I’m doing here, Paul. I’m asking for their blessing and their financial backing. I know they already appreciate what I’ve done for Louisiana politics. I’m balancing the power for white folks. I’m their kind of candidate. We believe in the same principles. But I can’t win this election without their help, and that’s where you come in, my friend. You’re going to be my go-between. You’re going to represent my interests in their circle. And when the time is right, you’re going to introduce me to the League leaders face to face.”

I studied his overheated features, the wrinkled brow and strong jutting chin, and wondered if I was witnessing a seminal episode in American political history, the exact moment the infamous Mark Morvant had gone mad. Ever since our college years he’d been a raving paranoid, like all the angry militants and antigovernment conspiracy theorists of our time, and it occurred to me that his obsessions may have now reached some irreversible stage of emotional damage. Perhaps the demons had whispered one too many dark secrets in his ear and his mind had finally snapped.

“Mark, I will be happy to write you a check,” I said, eager to dispose of this matter and see these men out the gate. “But I can’t introduce you to a group that doesn’t exist. There is no White League. You’re living in the past. That was ancient history.”

I remembered an old book in my father’s library. I had skimmed through its pages when I was a teenager but hadn’t seen it since. There was a photograph of my great grandfather and several other stern, white-bearded Confederates posing at a plaque dedication ceremony in front of a monument, sometime in the 1930s, if my memory was correct. They were the last survivors of the White League battle on Canal Street. Sixty years later, there they were, New Orleans aristocrats dragging their beloved Dixie flag with them to the grave.

“Ancient history?” Morvant smiled caustically. He reached into the vest pocket of his suit jacket. “Then how do you explain this, cuño?”

He produced a folded white page and handed it to me. At some point the paper had been wadded up and then straightened, a vein work of wrinkles like an old man’s face. When I opened the creases I saw that it was a note handwritten on my father’s distinctive private stationery—From the desk of Charles M. Blanchard—which he used only for his most personal correspondence:

Henry,

Willie gaining ground. Things getting out of hand. Must get the League together and discuss what to do. Are you available this week?

Warm regards, Charles

I was stunned. It was certainly my father’s peculiar, ornate handwriting. “Where did you get this?” I demanded. The page looked as if it had been retrieved from the trash.

Morvant was elated by my reaction. He could see that the note troubled me and he could hardly contain his joy. “I have operatives everywhere,” he said, laughing at my confusion. He glanced at Louis Robb, who worked his iron jaw and returned a knowing smile. “I may be a Y’at from Arabi, Paul, but over the years I’ve learned a thing or two about gathering intelligence.”

Even in our benumbed fraternity days he had been a fierce, unyielding competitor. He wanted nothing more than to win every argument, humiliate his opponents, and gain the approval of those who had doubted him. And here was his vindication—solid evidence for the existence of some sort of League. Evidence that I was at a loss to explain. I had no idea what my father was talking about in the note.

“Willie?” I said, perplexed.

“Wilhelmina Phillips,” he said. “That uppity black bitch on the city council. The one making noises about shutting down Mardi Gras.”

Wilhelmina Phillips was an outspoken city councilwoman who had been trying for several years to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance aimed at racially integrating the Carnival krewes and Mardi Gras organizations.

“Sounds like I’m not the only one who’d like to see her career come to an end,” Morvant said.

I studied the note in my hand. Surely there was a simple explanation. My father had belonged to the Krewe of Jove and the Magnolia Club, but I had never heard him mention membership in any sort of League. Was this one of his dry jokes? The late Charles M. Blanchard had been a private man not given to lengthy discussion or frivolous distractions. He’d spent long hours at the coffee offices on Magazine Street, six days a week, and he’d enjoyed few hobbies or passions outside of family and work. He could be ill-tempered and strict and uncompromising, but he was also a zealous protector of his children and the sheltered world in which we lived. I wondered how many secrets he had kept from me.

“I’m not sure who this Henry is,” I said without raising my eyes from the note.

Morvant didn’t hesitate. “Henry Lesseps. Good old Henry the Fifth. Your father’s drinking buddy.”

He was beginning to read my mind. The attorney Henry Lesseps was the first name I had considered.

“The Lesseps family is deep in the White League,” Morvant said, as confident of his facts as an archive librarian. “They have been for generations.”

My irritation was reaching surface level. “You know a helluva lot more about this group than I do, Mark. I should be asking you the questions.”

He smiled at the backhanded compliment, but the smile faded quickly into suspicion. “Have you forgotten who I am, cuño?” he said with one well-groomed eyebrow raised defiantly. “I’m the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried.”

I heard the French doors open and turned to find my daughter crossing the flagstones toward our conversation. I tucked the note into my shirt pocket.

Even in her prim school uniform, with her white blouse hanging haphazardly out of her skirt and her long dark hair bunched to one side and frizzed by the humidity, she still carried herself with a buoyant grace and her mother’s composure. She also had Claire’s deep inviting eyes, the prominent Benjamin nose and firm jaw, and a bright smile miraculously free of braces. A recent interest in soccer had trimmed off her youthful baby fat and hardened her thighs, and her calves were now lean and muscular under the knee-length stockings.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, throwing her arms around me in an affectionate hug. I could see she was excited about her birthday party tonight. “I just wanted to say hello.”

“Hello, sweetie,” I said, pecking her on the forehead. She was already as tall as her mother and growing like a stalk.

She regarded Morvant and Louis Robb with a shy smile, then dropped her eyes and blushed. She was at that age when older men made her uncomfortable.

“Hello, Miss Blanchard,” Morvant said, stepping forward with his hand extended. “I’m an old college friend of your father. My name is Mark Morvant.”

He didn’t expect her to refuse his hand, and neither did I. Nor did I expect her to express such a vocal opinion. She was certainly her mother’s daughter.

“I know who you are,” she said, leaning against my shoulder in a lazy slump, grappling my arm. “You’re the racist from St. Tammany. You don’t like Jews and black people.”

Morvant grinned at her remark. “I no longer feel that way, young lady,” he said. “Many years ago I said and did some foolish things.” He looked at me and aimed his words like a shaft. “I hurt people and caused a lot of anger and confusion, and I’m sorry I did that. But I’m a different person now. I’ve tried to make things right with God and my conscience. I don’t hate anybody anymore.”

He was good, the delivery rehearsed and skillful. Perhaps it was this Biblical repentance that had convinced the gullible, forgiving folks in his district to vote for him. But I didn’t believe his transformation for a heartbeat, the East Coast media didn’t believe him, and I could tell by the skepticism in my daughter’s eyes that she didn’t believe him, either. She had heard her mother rail against Morvant since the day he’d won office in St. Tammany.

“Don’t be late for the party, Dad,” Julie said, giving my arm another squeeze before releasing me. She turned and walked back toward the house without acknowledging Morvant’s homily or excusing herself, and her dismissive attitude clearly annoyed him. He wasn’t used to being ignored.

“Delightful girl,” he said, his gaze following her past the planted jungle of tall leafy ferns and banana trees. “She seems to love her father dearly. It would be a shame if she ever heard something that would change all that.”

He was trying to provoke me, the bastard, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” I said, struggling to remain untouched by his threat. “I have to get ready for a birthday party. How can we conclude this meeting to everyone’s satisfaction?”

Morvant smiled roguishly. I sensed that he’d been waiting me out, biding his time like a veteran salesman, softening me up for his best offer. “In three weeks I’m going to announce my candidacy for the governor’s race,” he said. “To win, I need big contributions and the promise of more down the road. I can’t raise ten million dollars from my usual constituents. They’re all working stiffs who send me twenty bucks after the rent check clears. Fifty if some homeboy has just broken into their crib.”

He made a half turn toward Louis Robb as if to indicate the kind of people he was talking about. Rednecks from northern Louisiana, poor white trash from the Cajun bayous, a handful of car dealers who still told nigger jokes at their Lion’s Club luncheons. They couldn’t buy him an election.

“You’ve got three weeks to deliver the White League, Paul. I want their patronage in this election. I want cash up front and payouts on a regular basis. And as soon as possible I want a clear picture of our long-term financial relationship—with guaranteed future security. Do we understand each other, cuño?”

He laughed at the shock registering on my face. I hadn’t expected him to be so brazen. I looked deep into his blue contact lenses. “There’s a name for this kind of pressure, Mark. Ask your cop friend, Mr. Robb,” I said, nodding at the ex-police officer standing at attention behind him, “if he’s ever heard the word extortion.”

Louis Robb didn’t appreciate my remark. He left his post by the patio table and moved toward us with a loping, equine movement of his shoulders. He was all heavy muscle and upper-body strength, and I suspected he had no natural speed. Morvant raised a hand, signaling him to keep his distance.

“Extortion is an ugly word,” he said, returning my stare. “Do you really want to play word games with me, cuño? I can think of some ugly words myself. How about possession of narcotics, concealing a crime, obstruction of justice?”

I did not want to battle with him and capitulated with a weak wave of my hand and a long weary exhalation.

“But we can go beyond words if you want to, Paul,” he said, pressing his attack. “We can examine historical artifacts. Like I told you, I’m a student of history. I’ve always collected souvenirs.”

He reached into the outside pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a beaded object that he held out in his palm, his body positioned to obscure it from Louis Robb’s view. Morvant displayed the long dangling earring, then quickly concealed it in a closed fist and returned the earring to his pocket. I had seen enough to know what it was. The earring was unforgettable. Wooden beads and cowry shells from the Ivory Coast. I’d bought the gift in an exotic African import shop in the French Quarter.

“You kept one, goddamn you,” I said under my breath.

Morvant stepped closer. “For sentimental reasons,” he said with a cunning smile. “I imagine the police have the other one buried away in some evidence drawer. Do you suppose that nosy colored cop—what was his name?—is still looking for a match after all these years?” He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “It’d be a shame if this thing found its way to his mailbox, now wouldn’t it, cuño?”

He could see that I was stunned by the revelation of the earring and incapable of locating my voice. He stepped back, measuring me with a triumphant smile. He seemed enormously pleased with himself. I fit his portrait of the pathetic Uptown rich boy, pampered and inept and morally weak. A necessary piece in the Mark Morvant grand scheme of things, perhaps, but on the most fundamental level, an object of pity and scorn.

“Louis,” he said, still appraising me in that judgmental gaze, “would you give Mr. Blanchard a handful of those brochures, please.”

The tall bodyguard walked toward me while reaching into his jacket. His stolid face had become animated with a ruthless devotion to duty and for an instant I thought he might produce a leather sap and strike me on the head.

“Please pass these out among your brethren,” Morvant said to me. “I want them to know where I stand. They can count on Mark Morvant to speak for them in Baton Rouge.”

Louis Robb handed me a small stack of red, white, and blue political brochures. There was a handsome, smiling photograph of Morvant on the cover, surrounded by glossy slogans:

A Real Choice for a Change

The Time Has Come

Mark Morvant for Governor

“In three weeks, Paul,” he said, “I make my official announcement. Don’t disappoint me.”

I opened a brochure and scanned Mark Morvant’s political agenda. I didn’t need to read the fine print to get the picture. The one-time extremist was now a respectable, conservative Republican. No more nigger-baiting, no more night-riding. The man had seen the light and it wasn’t from a burning cross.

“We’ll stay in close touch,” Morvant said. “I’ll call you every couple of days for a progress report.”

I stood helpless like a mute delivery boy with a stack of grocery flyers in his hand. “Mark—” I said, unsure where to begin. There was no way to meet his expectations. I had never heard of this latter-day White League he was certain existed, and I couldn’t produce any financial support beyond my own, which would be a tricky business in itself, given my wife’s contempt for Morvant and his beliefs, reformed or not.

He saw the exasperation on my face and raised a hand to prevent any more excuses from me. His patience was clearly exhausted. “Don’t bother to summon the help. We’ll find our way out,” he said, cutting me off. “I don’t want that old mammy washerwoman to go to any trouble on my account.”

He nodded to Louis Robb that it was time to leave, then gazed off toward the guest cottage and the spreading oaks near the far wall of our property. “There’s a gate back there, if my memory serves,” he said, one final reminder of the dark bond that had sealed us together on that night long ago. “It’s been a long hard road—right, Louis?—but we don’t mind the walk.”

The bodyguard laughed at something that passed for a thought. “You’re startin’ to sound like old Martin Luther Coon, boss.”

Morvant laughed at the idea, too, and clapped his man on the shoulder. They set out together past the edge of the pool, across the long green expanse of lawn. The south breeze mussed a stiff silver wing of Morvant’s hair and he patted it neatly into place. I watched them until they disappeared behind the cottage, and then I followed to make sure the gate was bolted shut. You couldn’t be too careful in New Orleans, even in the opulent splendor of the Avenue. Violence was never more than a block away, coming your direction, and an open gate was an invitation you would live to regret.