 Saturday, August 11, 1934, was etched permanently in John Laronde’s mind. It had begun as any other, with no premonition of the terror waiting at his office. He dallied over his breakfast, savored a second cup of coffee, and had his usual morning chat with his lovely Ruth and their beloved daughter, Helen, in the cool, old-fashioned dining room of Windsong, their magnificent plantation manse. Typical in fine Southern homes built one hundred years earlier, a magnificent, hand-polished, mahogany ceiling punkah, or fly fan, hung lazily above the Louis XIV dining table. Sterling silver trays, chafing dishes, and incidental crystal pieces—gathered over many trips to New Orleans’ antique and secondhand shops—glistened on the sideboards. An oriental rug accented the highly polished, six-inch-wide, oak hardwood floor beneath the twelve-feet-long dining table. Unique pastel frescos adorned an azure ceiling with soft, white clouds floating above detailed local landscapes and waterscapes that decorated the walls tastefully. At the frescoed horizon on one side was a large, ornate, gilt-framed mirror facing a portrait of Helen. Its décor was complemented by end-wall sconces which, when lighted in the evenings, generated a softly romantic glow. The decorative, double, eight-panel sliding door from the dog trot and two eight feet tall, glazed, divided-light windows with wide, especially milled casings, trim, and high baseboards were soft white, providing a muted, tasteful motif overlooking the rose garden with its flagstone paths and white wrought-iron benches. From the dining room into the kitchen was a double-swinging, eight-panel service door for easy access with large service trays. In his white linen suit, he strolled with one arm tenderly around the mother and the other lovingly around the daughter—three abreast—to the front porch. Tobe stood alongside the black Packard sedan waiting. With her warm, slate-blue gaze, Ruth eyed him adoringly and kissed him on the cheek. Slim, tawny-haired Helen was in a tan blouse, velvet-covered fox hunting hat, and sporting beautifully tailored brown jodhpurs and freshly polished boots. Excitement was in her eyes as she slashed at her riding breeches with her crop, anxious to be astride Snip-Snap. The lanky, prosperous lawyer stepped into his car, and Tobe started for town, winding along the driveway under its ancient oaks to its whitewashed gates. There, as usual, Tobe paused as he turned into the high road so John could wave his panama hat to the loveliest of women as she blew a kiss from her porch. Nothing was different from any of his other sunny days. Opposite his gates, across the concrete road, was a small, red bungalow. Ebba Sintram’s Scandinavian face hung over its fence for a ruddy “Good morning, Mr. Laronde,” while Tobe stopped to pick up Olaf, her husband. After two miles of smooth driving, he dropped off Olaf for his work at the McFadden Lumber Company. Tobe reached Laronde Street, named in honor of his boss. In the center of Rochelle’s business district, the Packard stopped at the Ruth Building, owned by and named for Ruth Laronde. Kearney’s Drugstore occupied its corner with the Bank of Rochelle adjoining. Between the two, a door to a flight of steps was marked by the brass plate, “John Laronde, Attorney at Law.” When the sedan halted at his door, the boss unfurled and said, “Tobe, this evening, I wish you’d stop and get Mr. Sintram first then come for me. I’ve been gone four days, and my desk will be cluttered with work that may make me late.” “Yes, sir. Mr. Sintram loves to hang around Kearney’s Drugstore ’til you are ready to go home.” Laronde, in his linen suit, climbed alertly up his own stair. He had never felt more secure. After all these unmolested years, it seemed impossible that harm could touch him now. His moral prison was a fading reality. Vindication was the furthest thing from his mind. In the entry hall at the head of the stair, Joney Applegate popped up from his porter’s seat as comically as a jack-in-the-box, snatched off a braided cap, and saluted. “Mornin’, Mr. John. I’m glad you are home agin, sir.” “So am I, Joney. Everything okay?” “Fine, sir. I kep ’em hustlin’ while you was gone.” “Bully for you! This place couldn’t rock along without Ol’ Joney.” John always paused to josh Joney before entering the main office of the spacious suite. These were different from the sparsely furnished spaces of most country lawyers. More as a friend than an employer, John passed through the stenographer area, greeting the ladies. He paused briefly at each nicely appointed individual office with words of counsel here and there to junior partners or to clerks who asked questions about cases; then he strode past the extensive law library to the door of his sanctuary marked “Mr. Laronde.” His private office was paneled in polished gum, with bookcases filled with volumes used constantly. A small safe in the corner contained his personal papers. On a flat-topped mahogany desk, his secretary had laid out four neat stacks of mail, as it had come day by day during his absence. These were matters the chief had to see for himself. Routine correspondence was handled by juniors. Everything was as it should be. With a glance of approval, John had gone to a wide front window overlooking Laronde Street when Miss Fenner, a tiny, blue-eyed wisp of competency, entered and greeted him. “Top o’ the morning, chief. Anything special for me?” John turned to face his seasoned stenographer, who had been his right hand since he established the practice in Rochelle, and said, “Don’t know yet, Miss Fenner; not until I read the mail.” “Had an exciting trial in New Orleans, didn’t you?” “Yes. Hard fight.” “The newspapers said you cleaned ’em up.” “Things turned out very well.” “Judge Coburn has been phoning and wiring from Shreveport. Here are his telegrams.” “Thanks. I must jump on that case at once.” “Chief, here are the checks I made out for you to sign in the Vulcan Oil distribution.” “Good. We’re going to be in a jam until I catch up.” “Plenty to do. Better glance over your appointments for the day. The first is with Mr. Weathersby at ten,” she reminded him, laying the memo, the checks, and the telegrams on his desk. “Now I’ll finish the Sanders brief and be ready when you ring.” In the adjoining office, her typewriter began its clicking and dinging. So far nothing had happened to frighten even a skittish rabbit. Her chief sat in his revolving chair and drew the first pile of letters to him. The mahogany slab was clear except for the four innocuous-looking stacks of mail. His past four days in New Orleans had been refreshing in spite of some trying moments filled with intricate legal maneuvers in Federal District Court. He was capable, self-assured, and humbly thankful for his successful law practice, their gracious antebellum home, and Helen and Ruth, the fulfillments of his life’s goals. His thoughts wandered back to his recent trips to the Crescent City. His arrivals and check-ins at Hotel Monteleone had always been pleasant. Turning from Canal Street’s breadth of 170 feet into Royal Street’s thirty-five feet or so made John feel like he was going from a wide plain into a narrow canyon. It had been the Commercial Hotel at Royal and Iberville streets before Antonio Monteleone bought its sixty-four rooms in 1886 and changed the name to his own in 1908. Henri, the concierge, happy to see him again, took the Packard to the hotel’s lot. He chose that location for its proximity to the courthouse as well as for the fine restaurants and shops that he, Ruth, and Helen enjoyed when they visited the city. Besides that, Bill and Jimmy Monteleone were friends, and John enjoyed talking with them and their writer guests. This was their headquarters in New Orleans. It was located centrally to the many antique shops and secondhand stores they enjoyed as they meandered their ways among them indiscriminately. During one such escapade, while John was in court, Ruth and Helen revisited a shop where John had eyed a man’s silver grooming set in a hand-tooled case complete with a pair of hair brushes, a collapsible clothes brush, a soft shoe-shining cloth, a shoe brush, a manicure set, a comb with a silver spine, and a silver toothbrush sleeve. John had felt it was too extravagant, but Ruth and Helen felt he deserved it. After cleaning each piece thoroughly and polishing its silver, Ruth and Helen wrapped this find and set it aside to give John for the coming Christmas. Thinking of Antoine’s Restaurant three blocks down Royal, he salivated recalling its delicious, mouth-watering pomme de terre soufflés (appetizing fluffed potatoes) and its pompano en papillote (pompano cooked in a parchment bag with an especially flavored wine sauce). Arnaud’s, two blocks away on Bienville, was another favorite. Its mosaic-tiled floors, linen tablecloths, starched linen napkins set at attention, lovely silver place settings, and Guillome, the gracious maître d’, were always wonderful respites after a busy day. Its second floor Mardi Gras Museum with jeweled ball gowns and memorabilia of Germaine Arnaud Wells’ memberships in the local krewes, including her reign as Queen of Carnival, were especially intriguing for young Helen. Germaine, Count Arnaud’s daughter and a friend to John and Ruth, told many stories during their wonderful dinners together and took great delight in showing Helen the many mementos from her numerous festive carnival occasions. Another of their favorites was Tujague’s, a delightful eight-block stroll from the Monteleone among the French Quarter’s intriguing stores, shops, Jackson Square, the Cabildo, and St. Louis Cathedral. They crossed Decatur Street to the French Market and the Café du Monde on the Mississippi River, where they enjoyed beignets with powdered sugar and cafés au laits every trip. When they felt particularly frisky during their walks, one of them would begin an unpredicted powdered sugar challenge by blowing some of the white, preciously sweetened substance from a beignet on the unsuspecting ones. It seemed the action occurred invariably when they were wearing dark clothes. They went from fashionable to splotched instantly. Going back to the hotel was out of the question since they were enjoying themselves so much. They went along their ways conscious of the “dustings” yet undaunted by the streaks and patches of white. John’s absolute favorite moments at the Cabildo were to admire the color and detail in Thure de Thulstrup’s painting The Hoisting of the Colors, painted in 1903 in honor of the Louisiana Purchase centennial. John often marveled how anyone could have recreated that event so vividly, with such detail. John acquired the original proof of the painting that de Thulstrup presented to the legislature for approval and exhibited it between the beautiful leaded glass windows on the right side of the massive front door in Windsong’s foyer. He admired it each time he came downstairs. Beneath the matching leaded glass windows on the left side of the door was a Louis XIV receiving table complete with a silver tray for callers’ engraved cards and a visitors’ calling registry and quill pen with ink well. From the Monteleone, John, Ruth, and Helen often stopped at Hurwitz-Mintz, Rothschield’s, Royal Antiques, Manheim Galleries, M.S. Rau Antiques, and others among their favored shops along Royal Street. They visited stores that displayed elegant furnishings; silver; crystal; or unique, eye-catching pieces. Their carefree visits often saw the three of them strolling animatedly down Royal Street’s narrow sidewalks like happy schoolchildren, laughing from shop to shop and walking hand-in-hand-in-hand as they sidestepped the iron columns supporting the wrought-iron balconies above their traipsways. Although most of the onlookers smiled when they saw them frolicking, some few looked down their noses at the cavorting. Ruth and Helen marveled openly as they examined exquisite items, while John talked with staff members and clerks to learn stories behind special pieces. When larger ones were chosen, negotiations began in earnest, and John made arrangements for their deliveries to Rochelle. If Ruth or Helen chose a piece of jewelry or a small trinket, John would have it wrapped for a festive presentation at dinner that evening. Madame Begue had opened Tujagues, New Orleans’ second oldest restaurant, on Decatur Street in 1863. Highlighting its back wall was an ancient mirror that had been in a Paris bistro for ninety years before it arrived in New Orleans, and it had a cypress bar that had survived prohibition. John remembered with great savor its shrimp rémoulade, beef brisket with Creole sauce, and its especially tasty pecan pie. Sprinkled among all these special places were spates of Dixieland jazz. Some were individuals making clarinets wail woefully along the sidewalks while trumpets and saxophones answered them, bringing plaintive tunes to life. From earlier street entertainers had grown the established music houses whose musicians played around the clock. At Hyp Guinle’s Famous Door on Bourbon Street, for example, one band would play with non-stop vigor for half an hour followed by an industrious set by another band for the next half hour. Then the first one would come back on stage. That rotation continued until all hours. Frequently, when celebrity musicians stopped, they brought their instruments with them, becoming a part of the groups as they seemed to go into trances as they played. They went on and on without regard to time but for the sheer pleasure of being together and contributing to the trademark music of the Crescent City. Enough of the memories, he thought. He began with the left stack of mail, received Tuesday, August 7—run-of-the-mill correspondence. One envelope seemed different. “Strictly Personal” had been hand-lettered across it. That caught his eye. It was a photographer’s carrier addressed to “Honorable John Laronde, Ruth Building, Rochelle, Louisiana,” with the first word underscored heavily. He reached for his letter opener and slit the envelope, removing an amateur snapshot of a college student who posed on an attractive campus wearing shorts and a sweater, cradling a tennis racket. “Well, well, well,” the lawyer mused aloud with a reminiscent smile. “Who’d think this picture would turn up after so many years?” Shifting the card this way and that, he moved back to the window for better light and examined the faded portrait of himself as a twenty-two-year-old. “Yes, I was darned good looking that year I won the singles championship.” He saw nothing in the snapshot to frighten him, and the pleased expression held as it might have lingered about the lips of any middle-aged man who looked tolerantly upon his youthful adventures. “Those were happy days. Spalding wanted to win and played like a demon in the finals. Let me think. Thirty years ago. How it all floods back like yesterday. That’s Paralee Hall in the background. To the left is our old dormitory. That’s the barracks. Wonder who sent it?” Any other alumnus might have wondered without a frown which of his college friends had remembered him, but when the thought first struck John, every line in his face began to harden as if that merry lad with the tennis racket were a thing of awful menace. Quickly he flipped over the card. At its top he saw written the lone word “Duplicate” while at the bottom was “Francis Elliot Coulter, taken May 17th, 1904.” Snatching out his linen handkerchief, John wiped the dapples of cold sweat from his forehead as he sank into a chair. Who could it be, besides Ruth, who now connected this long-missing college boy with a certain prominent attorney in Rochelle? As far as John believed, none of his classmates knew what had become of him. He had taken such great pains to obliterate every track of the student before the Louisiana lawyer began to make a track. Yet, somebody had linked him to a continuous trail. By instinct and training, John Laronde never dismissed any fact. Here was a fixed one. Somebody had discovered who he was and where he was. His legal mind reasoned that person could destroy him! No man in Louisiana would have believed the fearless advocate John Laronde might be panicked by a snapshot. But it had taken him quite by surprise. It had come so suddenly. Three decades ago, Francis Coulter had vanished from New York City to hide in a lumber camp in southwest Louisiana, where John Laronde stepped into his shoes so long ago that he felt no further dread of recognition. None of his classmates had ever heard the new name he coined for himself, yet someone must have learned the two were identical and could now put his finger on Francis Coulter sitting at the desk of John Laronde. Should any inquisitive person begin to investigate, that could be proven. Who sent this snapshot? Who could have sent it? John’s shaky fingers fumbled with the envelope while his eyes stared again and again at the address. The envelope told him nothing. It was a common type. It could have been bought in any shop. Its upper left corner bore neither a return address nor the sender’s name, but merely the written words “Mailed at New York City, August 5th, 1934.” Postmarks proved the point of mailing and the date. The letter was unquestionably authentic. John sat at his desk trying to imagine how anyone knew where he had gone. He had slipped away from his New York lodging house without an idea of destination and drifted to Dead Cypress Camp as the least likely spot for an old acquaintance to blunder into him. Since then, neither he nor Ruth had seen one solitary, familiar face from their younger days. By his most intense reasoning, John could think of no way for this hideous thing to happen. It must be a joke. He wanted to believe it was a prank and tried to dismiss it with a wave of his hand that knocked over the second stack of letters, exposing another similar envelope. “What’s that?” He jerked his hand away as if from a rattlesnake coiled on his desk. Yet, there lay the venomous thing. Must I open it? The second envelope matched the first. The address was the same. Honorable was underscored as before. Inside he found a photograph of Mrs. Bedloe’s lodging house, No. 16 Sandringham Square, New York City. On its reverse, this card was marked “Duplicate” also—nothing more. It needed nothing, for Francis Coulter recognized the roof that had sheltered him while he was at Columbia. This anonymous writer, whoever he was, had traced Francis Coulter from college to New York. He had even found the old house where he lived before coming to Louisiana. The photograph was mailed from Philadelphia on August 6, the day after Coulter’s snapshot had been sent from New York. From Philadelphia? Why Philadelphia? It was marked “Duplicate” like the first. The sender must have kept the original. In the third stack, there was only a postal card, an ordinary picture postal showing “The Residence of Hon. John Laronde, Rochelle, La.” Such a card might have been sold at Kearney’s Drugstore. And John saw no reason why this meddlesome incognito should take the trouble to send him one from Baltimore. No message was written on the card, nothing except “Mailed at Baltimore, August 7th, 1934.” Stack four offered another envelope. John opened it with the same care. This one held a photograph of the shack at Dead Cypress Camp where he and Ruth had lived during their first years in Louisiana. There was the well-remembered oak spreading its branches protectively above the roof and a fence of cypress pickets guarding Ruth’s painstaking attempts to grow flowers. In one corner of the yard nearest the saw mill stood his original office of rough boards, where he had hung out the shingle he had painted himself: “John Laronde, Attorney at Law.” In that office, John had begun his career on a table of boards that was starkly different from the beautifully polished mahogany slab in the Ruth Building. The clock on his desk ticked industriously while his mind raced backward along his trail from New York City, but he couldn’t think of even one single false step he had made. Yet, here were these photographs. Hundreds of boys had known Francis Coulter at college because of his athletic ability; a dozen or so in the New York law school might recall him vaguely and by some improbable accident might have stumbled upon his location at Rochelle as his reputation grew. But tracing him to Dead Cypress Camp could not have happened by chance. That crude little shack beneath the huge oak had been their honeymoon house, where he and Ruth had made a start starkly different from their upbringings, pulling together like dray mules. Continues... | 
The Daily Reckoning U.S. Edition
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