eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
A psychological thriller in the vein of Kate Atkinson and Tana French that introduces Nola Céspedes, an intense and spellbinding protagonist
Nola Céspedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, catches a break: An assignment to write her first full-length feature. While researching her story, she also becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in New Orleans. As Nola's work leads her into darker corners of the city, a singular narrative voice emerges, and an even more compelling question surfaces: Who is Nola Céspedes? Vividly rendered in razor sharp prose, this novel is a riveting journey of trust betrayed—and the courageous struggle toward recovery.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250015112 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2024 |
| Series: | Nola Céspedes Novels , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 351 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Joy Castro teaches literature at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Her 2005 memoir, The Truth Book was elected an ABA Book Sense Notable Book.
Read an Excerpt
Hell or High Water
A Novel
By Joy Castro
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2012 Joy CastroAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-01511-2
CHAPTER 1
"You wanted a story, Nola." A thin folder drops on my desk, and Theo Bailey, editor in chief of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, props his gangly length against a pillar. "Here's a story."
"For real?" It's April first, after all. April Fools' Day. "Seriously?"
"A feature. Yours if you want it." For a guy who spends his days making tough calls, Bailey has surprisingly gentle crow's-feet around his eyes. He's hoping I'll be pleased.
Here in the Living and Lagniappe pit, the most serious things we report on are Jazz Fest, the zoo's new Komodo dragon, and the latest chichi boutique on Magazine Street. Here, our editor in chief Bailey — a walking emblem of the hard, painful news that's been winning awards for the Picayune since Katrina — is a rare sight. All my fellow entertainment reporters have quit talking or typing. Claire, the section editor who's sick of me, is slowly raking a hand through her long blond hair and pretending not to listen. The others are all openly staring. For months, I've been haranguing the chief to put me on a feature story — "real news," as I'd tactlessly put it, within earshot of my colleagues — and now they're waiting to see what will happen.
Slowly, I open the folder.
"It's an evergreen," says Bailey, "so no big rush. I know you'll still be working on your other stories, so just take your time."
"Word count?"
"A thousand." He's smiling like Christmas, like I should be happy with my new fluffy puppy. "Do good work. And then we'll see."
Scanning the prelim research compiled by whatever senior writer decided it wasn't worth his time, I immediately see the story's potential. It almost takes my breath away. But it's not the story I wanted. Not by a long shot.
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina downed power and Mayor Ray Nagin mandated the evacuation, more than thirteen hundred registered sexual offenders went off the grid. Now, three years later, eight hundred are still free-range — and we all know how New Orleanians love to come back home. That's a whole lot of potential perverts on the streets.
Some reporter over at the city desk had decided to take the city's pulse on the issue. Is rehabilitation effective? Does the registry law work? How can sex criminals settle back into a civilian lifestyle once their neighbors have been alerted? How do the neighbors feel about the whole thing?
This piece could be huge, a career maker, exactly the kind of break I've been begging for. But interviewing sex offenders — rapists, perverts, creeps? Frankly, the thought scares me shitless. Couldn't Bailey have come up with some nice, safe political corruption?
I let the folder fall shut. "Bailey, what the fuck?"
The room goes utterly silent. There's a strong possibility that I'm committing career suicide, and no one wants to miss my screams as I barrel down in flames.
Now, if you're a man, if you're a senior writer at the City Desk, if you're Chris Rose or one of the other guys who helped the paper win a Pulitzer, you can maybe get away with talking trash to the chief. But not me. Not a twenty-seven-year-old who's been stuck in entertainment reporting for the past two years.
And I know they think I'm loud — literally loud, blabbing out over the desks with the leftover lilt of my childhood Spanish, and loud in my clothing, my blouses too snug, too red. The crisply groomed women let their gaze linger disapprovingly on the thick black strokes of liner that wing up at the edges of my eyes, the maroon glisten of my lips, the gold hoop earrings I can slide a wrist through.
For me to say "What the fuck?" to the boss maybe isn't the smartest idea.
Bailey's smile has flattened to a tight, thin line. "Is there a problem?"
I try to talk my way out of it. "Bailey, come on. Seriously. The sex offender registry? This isn't news. This is pure human interest."
"What are you talking about? Over a thousand sex offenders in the city. Storm hits, they go off the radar. And nearly half stay off. That's a story."
"A story, maybe. News? No." I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. "Come on, Bailey. Don't tell me our readers care about the fate of a few perverts."
"Bullshit," he says. "Those guys could be living next door. For people with kids, or women alone at night? That's urgent." We stare at each other.
What kind of editor tasks a young woman with this kind of story anyway? Is this some kind of sick test, to see if I'm tough enough to hang with the newsroom boys? My jaw sets, and I hear Auntie Helene's voice in my head: Don't you take nobody's leftovers. I rise to my feet.
Hand on hip, I pass his proffered folder back. He doesn't take it. His voice lowers to a gravel growl.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" he says. "You wanted news."
"All due respect, sir, this is women's interest. Parents and kids. Strictly lifestyles." Everyone's staring. "When I said news, I meant Katrina progress. Crime. The courthouse. City hall."
"This is crime."
"No, it's fear of crime that hasn't happened yet. I thought we weren't supposed to fan those flames."
"I'm not going to ask you twice. I'll find someone else."
"Looks like someone else already dropped it," I say. "Sir." I can hear the swing of belligerence in my voice. The air around us goes dead quiet.
But Bailey's eyes look suddenly tired.
"This was Jim Larkin's story," he says. Shit, Nola. Way to step in it. Caleb Larkin is eight years old and bald. We've all seen his photo on the coffee can on the reception desk; we've all put in dollars to help with the medical bills. Dollars, it was turning out, weren't enough. "He wanted time with his son," Bailey says.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't know."
"Look, Nola, I don't have all day," he says. His voice has that crisp edge it gets when he's sick of somebody's bullshit. "Is there any reason you can't do an objective job on this story? Because if there isn't, then I'm tasking you." He looks at me. Everyone's watching. "Well? Any reason?"
And that settles it.
"No, sir," I say. "Absolutely not."
And so the story becomes mine.
* * *
In the vast, windowless, gray newsroom, where the hard news happens, the lights are kept dim to ease eyestrain, so it's always dark and cool and hushed, serious: the city desk, Money, the photo desk, the copy desk. The art department and editorial offices run along one wall. To offer me this assignment, Bailey made quite a trek.
The Living and Lagniappe pit, where I work, is a different country. Natural light pours in through two walls of glass. My colleagues prop family photos on their desks, and bright stuffed animals perch on top of their computer monitors. Our stories are equally sunny and frothy, the stuff people read to decide how to frolic. Though we share the same worn, green carpet, the same peachy-pink walls with the newsroom, the resemblance ends there. Over in the newsroom, where reporters talk in low tones about crime and corruption, looking todo serious with their loosened neckties and rolled-up sleeves, there are no cozy ornaments. Desks and floors are piled high with teetering stacks of folders, books, and lab results. Data, facts. Not the detritus of cute.
Undesirable as it is, this sex offender story could be my break.
I spend most of the afternoon online at my desk, scouring the Louisiana State Police's sex offender registry, which is user-friendly, graphic, and alarming. Little blue squares, which indicate the residences of sex offenders, overlap like roof tiles all over the map of New Orleans. Hundreds of them. When I click on the individual listings, many have red checkmarks, which means those offenders are in violation: missing, loose.
My first goal is to interview some who remain, and as long as I'm stuck with this story, I'm going to make the biggest splash with it that I can. If it gets enough attention, maybe it'll make my name and get me moved onto the city desk permanently. So I choose the kinds of sex offenders who'll push the public's buttons. Carefully, I select twenty men whose whereabouts are still known.
To pull the case files of twenty ex-cons in a functional, scrupulous, squeaky-clean town would take days, maybe weeks. There would be forms to fill out, signatures to get, tangles of red tape to gnaw through. But in a city known for big corruption, little corruptions can slide on through, unnoticed.
"No problem," says Calinda, my friend at the DA's, when I call. "One of the file clerks owes me a major solid. Buy me a drink and they're yours."
I laugh. "Sold."
"You sniffing up a story?"
"Maybe. When can I get them?"
"Tonight? If you email me the names, I can get the clerk to start on it now."
"Excellent." It's as easy as buying drugs in this city. "How long can I keep the files?"
"At least a week or two."
I offer to come buy her that drink at a bar near the courthouse.
"God, no. Get me off this sleazy street."
"How about the Vic?" The Victorian Lounge is the plush pub where my roommate Uri works. It's tucked inside the Columns, a big old historic hotel on St. Charles in the Garden District, where you can sit on the big front porch, hear jazz played live, and watch the streetcars trundle past under the oaks. It's the other end of the world from Tulane Avenue and the tough little bars near the courthouse, where bail bondsmen, wardens, cops, DAs, and freshly released criminals all sit down for a cold one.
"Uptown. Now that's what I'm talking about," says Calinda. "What time?"
"Eight?"
"Eight will be marvelous, darling," she says, practicing her uptown talk already.
* * *
At 7:55 P.M., I pull my battered black Pontiac Sunfire, its finish baked gray by the Louisiana sun, into a space between a silver Mercedes and a gleaming Jaguar the dark green of virgin forests. Angling the rearview mirror toward me, I fluff my hair and slick on a little plum lip gloss. My ride may not be all that, but no one in the Columns has to know. I slam the door and pull my shoulders back. My heels click across the parking lot and up the walk.
To enter the Vic is to step inside a chocolate truffle — a very, very expensive chocolate truffle. Mahogany walls and ceilings glow warm brown. Gold light cascades from the stained-glass chandelier, and dark leather armchairs whisper like clustered succubi, inviting you to sink down and never leave.
The bar's signature scent, magnolia and tobacco, floats over, curling under your nose like aromas in old-time cartoons. Uri told me that his job includes shaking out a measure of fine Cuban tobacco and burning it in a little incense dish. Now that smoking's not allowed, that's the only way they can keep the fragrance fresh and authentic. Out in the front gallery, the brass band plays blues and old jazz at a discreet volume: loud enough to make you certain that the world is indeed wonderful but not so loud that a gentleman need ever raise his voice to be heard by a companion. That's in the handbook. Uri showed me.
He's behind the bar tonight in his black tie and white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, his smile wide and warm.
"Hey, baby." I seat myself on a stool at the bar.
He seems pleased. "What are you doing here?"
"Besides ogling you, gorgeous? Nothing."
"Seriously."
"I've got a meeting. For work." He's never met Calinda. A wise man, he always clears out on girls' nights — and I like to keep the parts of my life in separate little boxes. Clean.
"That's different," he says, but he doesn't press it. "So what are you having?"
"Whatcha got good?"
He looks at me speculatively, pursing his full lips. "You know what you might like?" He gets out a snifter and brings a bottle over from the premium section, turning the label my way. "You ever tried this?"
There's a picture of a ship on the bottle, and it's from Martinique. Rhum Agricole, it says. Réserve Spéciale. "What is it?"
"It's rum." He pours two fingers in the glass and slides it over to me.
"Just plain like that?"
"You sip it neat. Like cognac." Dubious, I pick it up and swirl the glass. The brown liquid glints and swivels. "Most rums are made from molasses, but rhum agricole is made from pure cane juice. Just try it."
I take a sip and my tongue melts. My throat heats.
He smiles a bartender's satisfied smile. "See? I knew you'd like it."
Middle-class people aren't like the sitcoms say they are. As a child in Desire, I used to study TV shows to learn about people, to see what middle-class life would be like. But Uri is my gay roommate, and he's not comic relief — he's not even funny. And he never gives me fashion advice or talks to me about which guys we think are cute. He's kind and serious, and he works on his novel every morning and then tends bar at the Vic every afternoon and night. He's muscled and good-looking but shy, and he wears normal guy clothes and wire-rimmed spectacles that aren't a fashion statement; if he took them off right now, he couldn't see the beer taps. He's the nicest white guy I've ever known.
Uri moves off to his other customers, and I flick my nails on the rolled wood, waiting for Calinda. I'm always on time or ahead of schedule, which, in New Orleans, where time runs easy, means I usually end up waiting. But I can't shake the habit. Being prompt is a skill that got scalded into me in college.
When I first arrived at Tulane University, I was perpetually late. Where I'd come from, in the Upper Ninth Ward, it didn't matter. Time was relative. People showed up when they got there. If you missed the bus, you caught the next one. If you lost your job — well, hell, that job sucked anyway, and you'd find another minimum-wage gig soon enough.
But at Tulane, things ran by a different code. The clock and calendar reigned supreme, and professors got thin-lipped and irritable when you failed to obey. One day freshman year, when we were all crowding out of class, Dr. Taffner snapped, "Miss Céspedes!"
I turned back.
"Young lady," she said, folding her arms across her crisp linen blouse. "Let me give you a word of advice."
"Yeah?"
"In the world you apparently wish to enter, things occur on time. Classes begin and end at the appointed hour. Meetings commence when previously agreed." She raised her finely groomed brows. "Make it your business, Miss Céspedes, to be prompt. Or you will be left behind. That's a promise. And that's my advice, if you wish to ascend the social ladder." Her gaze flicked up and down. "And you're a shrewd girl, if I'm not mistaken."
She nodded, dismissing me, and though I chafed with humiliation, I was never late again. It's the painful lessons that stick.
"Nola, baby!"
I swivel and there's Calinda, smiling in her yellow silk suit, her arms flung wide. I jump down into her hug, her scent of tangerines and musk. "Girl, it feels like a year," she says. "Tell you what, this place is snazzy. I haven't been here in forever."
Calinda grew up in Baton Rouge and went north to study law at Cornell, which was, as she describes it, "freeze-your- ass-off cold, with me stumbling around in the snow, wondering where I could get some decent food." After she got her law degree, she moved down here. Calinda's love of New Orleans cooking keeps her ample, but she still has more dates than she can count. Men can spot her sensual exuberance and genuine kindness. Her skin radiates, and her copper bangles slide up and down her sleek arms as she talks. There's a sort of gold aura around her that makes you just want to sidle up next to her and soak in it for a while. She's looking for better home training than she's found — "Plenty to choose from, none worth keeping," as she says — but for now, it's all just for fun.
We find an empty corner and settle into the leather chairs to chat, crossing our bare legs, letting our sandals dangle and bounce from the balls of our feet, smiling at the fancy lawyers and stockbrokers who give us the eye. Calinda tries the rhum and I have another while we chat about work. Finally she heaves her briefcase onto the low table between us.
"Am I glad to unload these." She lifts out a thick batch of manila folders. "This thing's going to be a whole lot lighter on the way home." She stacks the files on the table, snaps the briefcase shut. "I need them back in one piece, though," she warns.
"Of course." I want to reach over and grab them at once, start fingering through them to see what I've got, but this is social, after all. As we sit and chat, I force my eyes to stay on Calinda's face, but the pile of manila glows in my peripheral vision. I clasp my hands together to keep them from reaching out.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Hell or High Water by Joy Castro. Copyright © 2012 Joy Castro. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Epigraphs,
Begin Reading,
Gratitude,
Also by Joy Castro,
About the Author,
Copyright,