For reasons that will become obvious, today’s RED STICK passage ranks among the longest we’ve published in a single post. There’s too much magic happening, as Kevin Hart might say, to stop before this crucial chapter ends.
Brace yourself. By the end of the RED STICK encounter between governors in the snowy shadow of Huey P. Long’s statue, something sinister enters. A question lingers over the scene: Why do people who deserve to suffer least, suffer most? We won’t solve the age-old mystery of suffering in this chapter, but we will shed light on what happens when avarice overcomes reason. And illogic runs amok. Strap on your snowshoes …
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RED STICK
Chapter Thirty-Six | Part Two
At 5 a.m., by force of habit, Milford Albin raised himself on one elbow and punched the snooze button on the clock-radio in Betty Breckwoldt’s guest room. He reached for the TV remote on the nightstand and turned on the small set nestled in a bookshelf against the beige wall opposite his bed. Traffic, weather and crime news were cranking up on the local station, and the early morning anchors reminded Mil and the hour’s small audience that Thanksgiving Day had arrived like a lion.
Mil fell against his pillow in disappointment. The Spanish Town Bank & Trust would not be opening today. He twiddled his thumbs through the chatter, then sat up suddenly when the camera panned to weather forecaster Karen Keaton.
“All right, Patrick and Tiffany, let’s just be thankful on this Thanksgiving Day that most of us will not be venturing out to work. This is an uncommonly wintry day in the Red Stick — and across South Louisiana. Bitter temperatures — we’re at 23 right now — and we’re not expected to make it above the freezing mark today. But the big news is ice, sleet and snow. Across the viewing area, depending on your location, three to six inches of accumulation have made this the first White Thanksgiving in anyone’s memory.”
Mil hopped from his bed and squinted through the window into the darkness, broken only by the glow of a streetlamp at the Grand Pré Grocery corner. He gasped. In the lamp’s halo, snowflakes swirled furiously toward the ground. Several inches of snow blanketed Spanish Town Road, and the three parked cars Mil could see on Seventh Street were magically iced over.
“All right, Karen, thanks for that weather update. The rare winter storm, of course, is our top story. But we have breaking news coming out of the St. Francisville area. We’re told authorities are looking for the following men — they’re calling them persons of interest at this time, not suspects — in the brutal, execution-style slayings of three men in the Lake Rosemound community. Our Frankie Granier has more on this story. Frankie? …”
Slack-jawed, Mil left the window and staggered across the carpet. He stared in disbelief at the mugshots on the screen: Perry Mitterwald, Franklin “Flugie” Carmichael, Gaddis Saik and Johnny Chastain. Mil punched the remote to begin recording, grabbed his shoes and jacket, and ran from the room.
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“Oh, leave me alone …” Toni Denicola groaned. She reached across her down comforter and groped toward the sharp pinging alert of her mobile phone on the bedside table. “What’s this nonsense? Perry? Flugie? Gad … oh, my God.”
Toni stared in shock at the mugshot lineup of the Four Horsemen, as captured in a screen grab by the novice mobile phone owner, Milford Albin. Her shock morphed into abject horror upon reading the message Mil had texted: “Police want Perry, got to go warn him now — Mil.”
Toni’s mind thrust into frantic reverse mode. Just hours ago — how long had she been asleep? — Toni had been at Perry’s house talking to Gad and Perry while Rollie closed his pre-holiday cooking marathon for the night. After handing off her copper pennies casserole to a grateful Rollie, Toni had followed Perry to the back of the house and the pine-paneled study where Gad worked intently on a map of some sort, sitting at a bridge table amid the all-too-familiar milieu of the Society of Nawaganti.
“Oh, you poor soul, Gad,” she’d remarked. “When will you misguided men lay down your mindless ambition and give up the ghost on this hopeless quest for gold?”
Perry had sighed. “I gave up a long time ago, Toni, but Gad here ain’t gonna let it go.”
Gad looked up with a ferocity flashing across his blue eyes. “It’s not a matter of letting it go. It’s a matter of survival now. Powerful men want what lies at the end of this treasure map. And we have no choice but to send them on another wild goose chase.”
“And who gets to lay the golden egg this time?” Toni said, clucking her tongue. “At Cat Island, it was me. Who’s taking the fall this time? I just can’t stand the thought of seeing one of my dear friends get hurt. Or worse.”
Gad and Perry exchanged conspiratorial glances. Toni caught the portent of trouble in their faces. She’d pressed until they finally wore down and confided their appointment with two governors at dawn. She insisted on accompanying them to the Capital Park rendezvous, but they talked her down and convinced her that the presence of unexpected persons would heighten the potential for harm.
Hours later, Toni stared at the mugshots of Gad, Perry, Flugie and Johnny and realized that what Mil had texted was no small matter. She was staring at a police lineup. Mil had photographed their friends on a TV screen, and the Four Horsemen were now the most notorious men in Baton Rouge. But why? What could the police know about Nawaganti? Who else had been hurt in the quest for gold?
Clearing her cobwebs and calming her racing heart, Toni jumped into the clothes she’d lain at her bedside the night before — a gold blouse, purple slacks and fur-lined suede jacket — and she raced down the steps of her bungalow, pausing just long enough to slip into a pair of purple pumps at the door.
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Perry switched on the hood light over the stove and scrawled out a brief note to Rollie, who was sleeping off his marathon day of cooking. Perry knew he would be up soon, though, with a million finishing touches to put on his Thanksgiving feast. “Brother,” read the note, “I’m running some errands to get ready for the crowd today. Be back soon, Perry.” Best to keep things cryptic, Perry thought. That way he can’t catch me in a lie — and these were errands, in a manner of speaking.
By 5, Perry was gone into the bone-shivering morning. He banged on the door of his neighbor, Denny Cabrizio, coaxing the photographer from bed and into a round of equipment gathering that yielded a full bag of camera gear. For the few blocks they trudged to the Capitol, Perry and Denny blazed a fresh trail of footprints in the predawn blanket of snow. At the Capitol Park lawn, they hustled to the shelter of a massive magnolia tree, part of a formal landscape design installed over eight decades ago by gardeners from Avery Island, home of the Tabasco empire. Boxwood hedges lined the garden quadrants and the diagonal sidewalks that converged at the Huey P. Long statue. Today, like Huey, they were flocked in snow.
At the magnolia, Perry and Denny huddled with their compatriots: Flugie, Mac, Gad and off-duty officer Israel Joseph.
“Where’s Nungesser?” Perry asked.
“Went for coffee,” the ex-governor said. “He’s meetin’ me and Flu at the Pentagon Barracks in a few.”
“All right, make sure he high-tails it over here to join Israel at the big sweet-olive tree after it’s over,” Perry said before dispatching Flugie and Mac to their Pentagon Barracks mustering post across Third Street. Before 6 a.m., Flu and Mac — with Hugh Nungesser in tow — would begin their march east to the Huey Long statue. There, if the plan held up, Gov. Joe Feki would meet them with his security detail.
“All right, Gad, you know your part?” Perry asked.
“Hang out at the big holly on the northeast corner of the lawn,” Gad said, hugging his coat-padded arms around his chest. “And make a feeble but futile attempt at staying warm. If someone approaches, I whip out my phone and surreptitiously video them.”
“Right, and I got Israel ready to radio ‘Taxi’ Monteleone at five past six. Taxi will show up in the vicinity of your holly, so we’ll have an on-duty police presence we can trust.”
“Perry?”
“Yeah, Gad?”
“What on earth is ‘Taxi’ Monteleone’s real name?”
“Salvatore, I think, why?”
“Ah,” Gad said with a shiver. “That’s perfect.”
“How come?”
“Salvatore is Italian for ‘savior.’”
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Of the dozen figures atop the eastern rampart of the State Capitol steps, Denny Cabrizio was the lone figure not chiseled of frozen limestone. Hired by Perry Mitterwald to capture a salient moment in Louisiana history, Cabrizio fired his camera through as many frames per second as possible until he witnessed “the shot.” A lanky figure had passed before the snow-draped statue of Huey P. Long, and the right arm of the live figure matched the rhythm and arc of Huey in an impossibly artful gesture of frozen grace. Denny flew through the images on his digital screen and let slip a whoop of joy: The winter scene was picture-perfect.
“Dude, it’s like their arms are swinging in rhythm in the snow,” Cabrizio told a chattering Perry, who struggled up from his incognito station on the steps. “If I don’t get this woman’s ID, the paper will never run the shot. Be back soon.”
“Damn you, Denny!”
Perry struggled to keep pace with Cabrizio’s descent, but somewhere along the glazed Tennessee and Ohio steps, Perry’s legs took flight. His bottom hit the cold granite first. His whole body launched into a tailspin. His arms finding no purchase, Perry flailed helplessly, his body slithering wildly until his head banged against a step. His legs sprawled to a stop at the two o’clock position, relative to the towering 34-story Beaux-Arts structure that loomed overhead like a colossal stalagmite.
Perry’s temples pounded, his eyelids fluttered, and all he could think about as his mind turned black is that the Capitol Park police would discover him on the steps where he’d worked 45 years. Dead.
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“Who in the hell is that by Huey?” Hugh Nungesser whispered hoarsely in former Gov. Chester McEnaney’s ear.
“Son of a bitch,” Mac replied with a low whistle. “It’s that transgender friend of Perry’s, what’s-her-name that got smoked out of the Cat Island cypress.”
“Toni Denicola,” Flugie said in Mac’s other ear.
The men were slowly marching from the west toward Huey.
“Mil! Oh, Mil! Where are you?” Toni implored, stopping by a tourist plaque near Huey and turning 360 degrees in search of her Spanish Town Bank & Trust colleague.
“This ain’t in the script is it, Gov?” Flugie asked.
“Hell no.”
From across the snowy sunken field that lay between the Capitol parking lot to the north and the heart of Huey’s gardens to the south, a wildly waving photographer appeared to be trying to capture their attention.
“Is that in the script, too?” Hugh asked.
“Hell no, again,” Mac said, picking up his pace as fast as his 85-year-old legs could carry him. “Let’s get to Feki as soon as we can before all heck breaks loose. You’d think a Thanksgiving dawn cold enough to freeze the balls off a deer would afford you some privacy but, no, that would be too damn much to ask …”
“Gov, I see Feki’s security up ahead,” Flu said. “And that’s him, I think, over there by that group of green cedars.”
“You got the package ready for me, Hugh? The professor’s treasure map?”
“Here it is, Boss.”
Hugh and Flu fell in step behind McEnaney as the ex-governor strode cautiously toward the snow-draped statue. From shrubs and benches, several men from the Governor’s Office of Protective Security emerged in black peacoats, dusted in snow along the shoulders. Mac wagered they held handguns in their coat pockets.
“Well, well — if it ain’t the Right Honorable Joseph Feki, 56th governor of the great state of Louisiana,” McEnaney said. He stopped 10 feet from Feki and brandished his manila envelope like a fragile, precious object.
“Governor McEnaney,” Feki said, stepping closer to within 5 feet. His agents flanked and followed him. “I’d return the greeting in-kind, but you were in and out of office so frequently, and in and out of trouble so often, I just can’t seem to recall the sequence of it all. Was it 48th, 50th and 52nd or 53th governor — something like that?”
Mac laughed at his counterpart, who wore a navy hoodie and insulated ski jacket, jeans and camel boots. “Ha! Joe, you always were the ultimate redneck hipster. I’d bet money those boots have never had bayou mud scraped off the soles. Good money.”
Feki took several more steps forward. Their faces were close enough now to commingle their frosted breath.
“You might be surprised, Mac. But all I need you to do is to bet your future on a permanent furlough.” Feki pulled a white envelope from his jacket. “Here’s a permanent commutation of your sentence. You’ll go home and sleep in your own bed in Bunkie tonight … if you give me what I want.”
Feki feinted with his envelope, pulling it back in a teasing gesture, then cocking his head. “Flugie,” he said, noticing Mac’s rear guard for the first time. “I’d expect Hugh to hang onto Mac’s coattails. But you? My sergeant-at-arms of the Senate? I’m hurt.”
“I’m everybody’s sergeant-at-arms, Governor.”
Nearby, a breathless Denny Cabrizio pulled out a notepad and began jotting down the identification of Toni Denicola.
McEnaney pointed his manila envelope at Feki’s chest, pulling it back when the Governor attempted to snatch it away. Mac held his ground and extended an open right palm from his pocket.
“You first, Governor.”
Reluctantly, Feki placed his white envelope in McEnaney’s pink palm. Mac backpedaled a few paces.
“For the love of God,” Feki said, “I should never have expected a con to play fair.”
Mac waved his white letter of commutation after pulling it out to read and savor the message. “Ex-con to you, Governor.”
Feki advanced several steps and stuck out his hand expectantly, his fingertips brushing Mac’s suede jacket. The ex-governor placed the manila envelope in the governor’s olive palm. Rid of the package, Mac pivoted in a near military about-face and rejoined Flugie and Hugh. Mac grinned broadly at his aide-de-camp.
Feki slapped the document he’d pulled out of Mac’s manilla envelope. “This is not what I bargained for. It’s some kooky map of the Capitol Park lawn. Nonsense!” The governor advanced toward Mac in protest, his security officers pressing closer.
“No nonsense, Governor. It’s a map that directs you several hundred yards to the northwest — over there — where you’ll find the final treasure details.”
One of the Governor’s guards grabbed Toni Denicola, who’d been inching ever closer along the sidewalk to gain a view of the map in Joe Feki’s hands. The guard wrestled Toni back through the box hedges, causing her to stumble and fall into the sunken field stretching back toward the Capitol. Feki jabbed the map into McEnaney’s chest in outrage.
“Chet, you crooked …”
A sharp cry, an unearthly banshee wail, cut off the governor’s complaint and startled the entire entourage. From behind the green cedars, a blocky figure darted across the snow, causing Feki to throw up his arms in a protective gesture. Misinterpreted from the lower Capitol roofline, the governor’s gesture precipitated the crack of rifle fire.
“Stand down!” Col. Myra Treppendahl shouted as she emerged from the cover of a tall blue cedar to the east.
The warning came too late. Milford Albin fell in a heap beside a triangular bed of rose bushes. Treppendahl and the governor’s security ran to the fallen body as another cry erupted.
“Mil! Mil! Not my precious, Mil!” Toni dove between the security officers and fell upon Mil, sobbing convulsively. “What have you done, you brood of vipers!”
Falling in behind Mil’s body, Denny swung his camera in the direction where Mil had come running and continued to pan until he reached the Capitol steps.
“Oh … my … God,” Denny said. “Perry’s down on the Capitol steps. Something’s happened to him.”
Everyone but Toni turned to the Capitol. Sirens began wailing in the distance. Focusing his telephoto lens, Denny continued, “He’s not moving. He’s either dead or unconscious.”
One of the governor’s protective officers strong-armed the camera from Cabrizio’s grip.
“Hey! Give that back! That’s thousands of dollars of equipment.”
“The governor!” shouted another member of the security detail. At once, the band of four protective officers and Treppendahl broke toward the northwest corner of the park. Joe Feki, his hooded ski jacket flapping in the wind, had a healthy head start on them and was fast approaching a huge holly shrub.
Chet McEnaney, Flu and Hugh Nungesser remained behind with the photographer, who stared dumbfounded at a weeping Toni Denicola and the immobile form of Milford Albin. Denny, shorn of his main camera, pulled a point-and-shoot from his belt and trained it upon the Capitol. Emergency medical technicians carefully advanced a gurney down the icy steps, with the bulk of Perry Mitterwald resting atop the carriage. Denny looked back down at Toni and Mil.
“My God,” he croaked. “That must be what happened.”
What?” Mac and Toni echoed in near unison.
Denny nodded down at the body. “Mil must have seen Perry fallen on the Capitol steps and thought someone over here had hurt him. And then Toni got knocked down by the Governor’s men. Mil was just trying to protect his friends.”
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Deep within the dense branches of a holly shrub that had grown into a rotund mound of yellow-green leaves and bright red berries, a large blue trash can lay in hiding.
Breathless, Joe Feki plowed into the branches, turned over the can and ripped into a black plastic bag inside the blue container. Stacks of cash fell to the ground under the bush. From behind a row of box hedges lining the sidewalk, Gaddis Saik filmed the governor’s cash windfall with his phone. Convinced he had sufficient video evidence, Gad placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled. He pointed to the holly as Sgt. Salvatore “Taxi” Monteleone came rumbling down the sidewalk.
“My pleasure,” Taxi said with a wide grin. “This’ll go down as the biggest collar of my career. That’s for sure.”
Monteleone began wresting the governor out from under the holly as the security detail and Col. Treppendahl arrived. A heated argument ensued. Gad had begun a new video of that exchange when a voice startled him from behind.
He turned to face Capt. Art Cangelosi.
“What the hell?” said Gad.
The Capitol Park chief grinned. “You didn’t expect me to miss this for the world, did you?”
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Breathless. That’s how I felt after writing that scene. And I’m at a loss for words upon reliving the scene now. When there are no more words for something, sometimes there is a song.
People Come and Go. That song (listen above) by the grand Greek-American folk singer Steven Delopoulos is something I now think of as Mil’s Song. “Fire can be friendly, raising perfect pain,” Delopoulos croons.
For the RED STICK crew, the pain is palpable. Milford Albin lies slain in the snow. EMTs are scraping Perry Mitterwald from the Capitol steps. Avarice unbound, and danger all around.
Yet the Delopoulos song isn’t merely about the passage into death. People Come and Go is an elegy for the living, too. People are fickle. We vacillate between strength and weakness. And, as my late mother-in-law would say, we struggle with the vicissitudes of life.
“To always be so weak, and never want to know,” the singer concludes.
A sad song? Maybe. But listen closely and there’s a hint of hope at the end, as the reverberating chorus yields to a final reflection from the singer. A sense of wonder endures.
Now it’s up to the RED STICK crew to wonder: Is the quest worth continuing?
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