The Kingfish Commission Read online

  The Kingfish

  Commission

  Hal M. Harrison

  Text copyright © 2016 Hal M. Harrison

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-1535417488

  ISBN-10: 153541748X

  ONE

  The red, pulsating light made the Louisiana marsh seem even more unworldly. Every four seconds the soggy field was illuminated by the pale glow — even though the broadcast tower's lowest beacon was 150 feet above the ground.

  The night fog was reflecting the light downward, where Clarence Menard was cussing the recent storm in Cajun French. He parked his truck, got out and began trudging through the mud to the tiny radio transmitter shack some 200 yards from the pot-holed country road where his truck sat idling — safely on the pavement. Menard had been towed out of the field twice before. He was determined there wouldn't be a third time.

  Moss Point’s KAGN radio broadcast had gone suddenly silent some forty-five minutes before. A silent signal meant “dead air.”

  "Why does dis always got to happen in the middle of the night, right after a damn rain?" Menard asked himself aloud – now in “Cajun” English. His voice carried through the swamp, disturbing the frogs and crickets — and whatever else lay buried in the weeds — which began a chorus of croaking, chirping and slithering in response.

  What was even worse, the call had come while Menard had been feasting on a large plate of spicy crawfish etoufee. In fact, it had been some of the best he had ever made — and the stocky Cajun had made a bayou-full of crawfish dishes in his forty-eight years. “Stocky” would be his own generous self-description. Clarence Menard’s penchant for the preparation and consumption of Cajun food topped-off with large quantities of Abita beer had, to a more objective view, put him many pounds past “stocky.”

  He was halfway to the transmitter now. In the dark, Menard never noticed the fresh footprints that preceded his, on the path to the tiny transmitter shack.

  His flashlight barely provided enough light to keep him from stepping in any of the large puddles of muddy water.

  Puddles? Meh, dey’s sinkholes. This time he left his thoughts unspoken.

  He simply wanted to get to the door of the transmitter building with the least amount of water seeping through his rubber boots.

  "Who the hell would put a radio transmitter in the middle of a damn swamp, anyway?" He barely muttered the question, careful not to awaken any more wildlife.

  It was a question he had asked himself many times before during the last fifteen years of owning KAGN-FM. In the fall and winter, the field was perpetually wet. On the days it didn't rain, the moisture would remain trapped in the mud, then warmed by the boiling Louisiana sun, the ground would ooze with the smell of a compost heap. In the spring and summer, the clay would finally dry out for weeks at a time. The ground would yawn open revealing crevices large enough to break an ankle. It was four acres of land suitable for little worthwhile. Perfect for a radio station's transmitter.

  Clarence Menard finally made it to the door of the cinder-block building and fumbled for his keys to unlock the metal door. His flashlight revealed some new scratches on the lock — probably some high school kids drinking beer and daring each other to break in, he thought. The lock showed no significant damage, so he dismissed any real concern, opened the door and ducked under some cobwebs as he entered the stuffy shack.

  Unfortunately, he didn't duck under all of them. "Damn!" He spit and clawed at his face to remove the webs.

  This business wasn't very glamorous right now. Clarence hated making the ten-minute drive from the downtown Moss Point studios out to the transmitter — only then to confront the spiders, insects and snakes. Last year, he had entered the building and found a thin, molted snake skin draped from the wall — dangling between the window air-conditioner and the nearby electrical breaker box. Thankfully, he never encountered the former owner of that skin. Ever since, Clarence would always stand in the doorway for a few moments before entering, carefully surveying the interior of the tiny building for any slimy intruders.

  He groped the wall for the light switch and made his usual visual inspection.

  The small building was crammed with broadcast equipment. The transmitter itself was a large metal cabinet, arm's length wide and a little taller than Clarence, who stood a pudgy 5' 10". Four meters lined the top third of the transmitter. He knew just enough to know how to make note of the readings on the station log — and to determine if those readings were within normal ranges — but Menard had little clue as to what the numbers really meant. Several calibration switches were located below the meters, with three fuses and two breakers below that.

  Satisfied that no snakes were going to drop from the ceiling in a surprise attack, he began his inspection of the equipment, attempting to determine the cause of the radio station's latest breakdown.

  As always, this would be a rudimentary exam. Clarence could look only for obvious problems: a blown fuse or a tripped breaker. Anything else would require a notation of symptoms and a phone call to the station's consulting engineer, located an hour and a half north in Alexandria.

  Menard sighed in relief. It was, indeed, a tripped breaker.

  He flipped the low voltage switch and the transmitter hummed back to life. The enclosed fan that cooled the electronic guts inside the panels of the transmitter whined back to life, as well.

  For a moment, Menard thought he heard something other than the normal clicks, whirring and blowing that emanated from the old transmitter. He held his breath, listening even more carefully for a moment or two.

  He had made countless trips to the desolate site, but always felt a little twinge of anxiety, especially late at night. The closest neighbor was more than a mile and a half down the road. His skin prickled at the back of his neck.

  The transmitter began settling back into normal operation and he detected no unusual sounds. Clarence heaved a sigh of relief, embarrassed for his moment of faint-heartedness.

  He smiled. The station was back on the air, and he was relieved that it was as simple as a tripped breaker. If there was one thing he hated more than snakes, it was high voltage electricity — and of course the transmitter seethed with it. Menard always dreaded stumbling upon a problem that required anything more than flipping an errant switch or replacing a blown fuse.

  On more than one occasion he had found it necessary to call Rudy, the consulting engineer, for help in resuscitating the cranky transmitter. Rudy would usually talk him through several diagnostic steps on the phone. Clarence would follow Rudy’s directions, clumsily poking and probing the transmitter's electronics, a screwdriver in one shaking hand and his beat-up flashlight in the other. The phone would be propped on his shoulder, sweat dripping from his forehead into his eyes — as much from nervousness as from the heat. More often than not, Clarence would do only what he had to do to convince Rudy to make the drive down from Alexandria, and then extricate himself from the jaws of the high-voltage beast — thanking God he once again hadn't been fried to death.

  But this time, the task had been a simple one, and Clarence was more than ready to leave.

  He felt a sudden breeze on his sweaty neck. At the same time, an intense jolt of pain exploded down his body, beginn
ing just behind his right ear.

  He fell back against the transmitter cabinet while attempting to turn toward the door. His vision was becoming blurred and red, and all Clarence could make out was a dim figure slipping through the door.

  He tried to get up, but felt resistance. He was pinned down and couldn't breathe. Something was being held over his mouth and nose.

  Clarence struggled again to move, but every muscle in his body began to stiffen and burn.

  Then, blackness.

  TWO

  "...so if they would just dig up the brick street in the so-called ‘historic district’ and let this town join the twenty-first century before it ends, maybe we wouldn't be complaining about all of our downtown businesses going broke!"

  "Just dig it up, huh?" Rob Baldwin adjusted his headphones and checked the clock on the studio wall. He was only minutes away from a KLOM radio news update, but wanted to milk the caller for all he was worth.

  "Hell, yeah! Just dig it up! And put all the women who belong to the Preservation Society in the hole the bricks came from!"

  Now the caller was starting to go too far. After all, the members who comprised the Magnolia Historic Preservation Society were advertisers and spouses of advertisers. And if there was one thing Rob Baldwin needed for his struggling little radio station, it was happy advertisers. Not controversy.

  "All right, thanks for the call," Baldwin quickly disconnected the call, and punched up the next blinking line.

  "Good morning, you're on KLOM."

  "Hey, honey. Don't forget to pick up Valerie from her dance lessons this afternoon."

  Ah, yes. Small-town radio. No morning-show producers to screen the incoming phone calls. No ten-second delay. Just live, real-life radio.

  "Well, thanks ma'am. And what do you think about ripping out the bricks and re-paving First Street?" Rob tried to salvage the moment with a little humor.

  His wife, Abby, giggled for a moment then hung up. Rob always wondered if she simply didn't listen to the station, or if she just enjoyed embarrassing him, live, on the air.

  "Well, I guess she didn't have an opinion on that, but I suppose I'll pick up her child from dance lessons this afternoon, anyway." He paused, shaking his head with a defeated smile. "That's all the time we have today for KLOM's Contact Line, where your telephone becomes a microphone — you say what's on your mind — and Magnolia Parish listens."

  Baldwin fired off the top-of-the-hour station identification and joined the live 9 A.M. network newsfeed. Seamless. Rob Baldwin was proud of his station's on-air sound.

  After nearly 25 years in the radio business, moving from one medium-sized market to another across the south, he had finally bought his own radio station in the historic little college town of Magnolia, Louisiana. Now, he was early morning talk-show host, general manager, sales manager — and janitor — all in one 38-year-old body. And he loved it. He loved the quiet, quaint small town. No heavy pressure, no controversy. It was all about “quality of life,” he often said.

  He unplugged his headphones, gathered up some wire copy of feature stories he had used this morning, balanced his giant coffee mug in one hand and pushed away from the studio console, taking one last look around the control-room, making sure the computer automation was functioning properly.

  For a small-market station, KLOM was well equipped — the latest in computer technology provided the station a "big-market" sound with only a limited staff. Two computer monitors were suspended from the walls, with a third monitor by the mixing console supplying continuous weather radar. The tiny studio was also crammed with the usual broadcast gear; lots of lights, dials, buttons and switches.

  Satisfied the station was efficiently on "auto-pilot," Baldwin headed down the short hall to his office.

  Emma, the station’s office manager/receptionist was talking to Melinda, a sales rep Rob had hired just a week ago. The two women were sharing cinnamon rolls at the front desk.

  “I’m going on a diet next week. I want to get my figure back!” Melinda was plump, but not obese. The reverse was true for Emma.

  “Not me, girl,” Emma’s words were mumbled between bites of the giant roll, which was topped with at least a half-inch of sugar-glaze. “I can’t stand the pressure.”

  “Pressure?” Melinda was new. She didn’t know that these conversations could last for hours with such leading questions.

  “Sexual pressure.”

  Rob entered the reception area just as she made her firm admonition. He had heard the whole conversation from down the hall. “It’s a heavy responsibility, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Emma didn’t turn her head to face Rob, instead she cocked her eyes sideways in his direction, one eyebrow lifted defensively, her head shaking slightly with a “you’re gonna mess with me?” attitude. She held a dripping glob of roll daintily between her right thumb and forefinger, poised mid-flight.

  “Just being you...” He was working hard to keep a straight face. “It’s a heavy responsibility.”

  “You got that right,” her defiant attitude required no further delay in the consumption of the roll. “Your messages.” She licked some stray glaze from her thumb and handed him a wad of pink phone messages.

  "Thanks.” Rob shook the sugar from the slips and headed back down the hall to his office.

  As he neared his office he heard Emma continue, “Girl, you should have seen me when I was skinny! But, I couldn’t take the pressure, that’s all.”

  He stifled a chuckle.

  Once in his office, Rob fell into his chair and closed his eyes. He kicked his cheap-sneakered feet upon his desk. After four and a half hours on the air, he needed a break.

  It was moments like these, tired from his air-shift and before he segued into his ten-hour day of sales and administrative duties, that he sometimes reflected on his "new" life.

  It wasn't such a new life, though. It had been five years since he had scraped up enough cash to put up a meager down payment and buy KLOM.

  Ironically, it was the same station that had given him his first job in radio when he was fifteen.

  The original owner, old man John Thompson Carter, built the station from the ground up, signing on the original AM version of KLOM just after World War II. The station had seen its glory days of big profits, but long after Baldwin had left the station, KLOM had fallen on hard times. FM stations were becoming the rage, and Carter waged a futile battle against the growing popularity of the FM signals that filtered into the small town out of Shreveport. Finally, Carter relented, filed for an FM frequency for Magnolia, built the station — and then died. His heirs were not so enamored by the broadcasting business, but Carter's son, John Jr., convinced his aging mother, indifferent sister and younger brother to let him run the station. John Jr. played around at the business long enough to make matters even worse. KLOM-AM went through various format incarnations, while the FM played the hard-rock music John Jr. favored. The students at North Central State University loved hard rock, but the conservative merchants of Magnolia did not. Eventually, the AM station signed off permanently, and the remainder of the Carter clan put the FM up for sale. Rob Baldwin was able to combine his hometown connections with his many years of broadcast experience — along with every penny he could scrape together — present an optimistic business plan to Magnolia State Bank, and convince them to finance his purchase.

  And that had been five years ago.

  He opened his eyes, rubbed his face vigorously and began sifting through the phone messages.

  The bank: they probably wanted his monthly financial statement, due over a week ago.

  His wife: remember to pick up Valerie from dance lessons this afternoon. He had already gotten that message.

  A couple of clients had called. No doubt to schedule appointments to produce their own furniture or car dealership commercials, or for some other hand-holding task.

  And Sherry LeVasseur.

  Rob Baldwin decided to call Sherry first. He enjoyed their conversati
ons, and not only because Sherry placed media buys for the Tropical Treasures Riverboat Casino down in Baton Rouge. Even for a small-market station like KLOM, with small-market low ad-rates, they were some hefty media buys. No, there was more to Rob's enthusiasm in returning the call. Sherry was always in a great mood, she had an easy laugh — and, even though he would never admit it to anyone — a sexy voice. Being in radio as long as he had, Rob knew that probably meant Sherry looked a good deal less sexy than she sounded, but it was a harmless long-distance infatuation anyway.

  "Hey, Rob!" Sherry was typically enthusiastic when he got her on the phone.

  "How's my favorite red-headed media buyer?" He was already flirting.

  In Baton Rouge, Sherry adjusted her red-rimmed glasses and replaced an errant strand of her jet black hair to its proper at-work placement — neatly behind her ear — and smiled.

  "Oh, great. How's the throbbing metropolis of Magnolia?”

  Thrrrobbing. Magnnnollia. He loved her southern accent, and it was at its sexy best. The words oozed out of what he imagined to be moist, red, full lips. He pictured her tossing back a wild tangle of red hair when she talked.

  "Well, we're in the midst of the great brick street renovation controversy these days."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Oh nothing," Rob didn't want to talk. He wanted her to talk. "Hey, thanks for the buy again last month. Do you have big plans for the Riverboat next month, too?" He might as well get some business done while he had her on the phone.

  "Oh yeah, you bet!" There was a moment’s hesitation before she added, “Listen, I need a favor."

  "Anything." And he meant it. He looked up from the phone and caught a glimpse of Abby and Valerie's photographs sitting on the credenza across the office. Feeling a twinge of guilt, he cleared his throat and continued, more seriously: "What's up?"

  "I need duplicate invoices from last month's Tropical Treasures buy."

  "Are you serious?" Rob had responded to the same request just three months ago.