Chapter Fourteen
THE LIGHTS SHIMMERED like constellations over the ballroom. Three stories above the Quarter’s clamor and a few miles upriver from the Ninth Ward, the gala at the Four Seasons radiated luxury with velvet chairs, monogrammed menus, and white-jacketed waiters.
Beyond the glass windows, the Mississippi moved without urgency, wide and dark and meandering through the hundred miles of swampy, unusable land until it reached the Gulf.
Inside, New Orleans’s elite drifted from bar to banquette, each step choreographed, each smile stage-lit.
There were judges and socialites, donors and retired generals, tech founders and law enforcement officers, all under the bright lights of the Crescent City.
Derek Matheson preferred the views from the thirty-third and thirty-fourth floor event spaces because he equated elevation with power, but the third floor ballrooms could accommodate more guests. Tonight was about quantity.
Nominally, the gathering was to benefit a charity called New Leaf NOLA, a youth initiative whose mission focused on mentorship, education, and opportunity. But nobody in that room had shown up to save children. They came to be seen saving children.
That was especially true of Matheson, who believed he was the only one who could claim to have actually saved children with the products he created in his labs.
He leaned against the white-linen edge of a sponsor’s table, swirling a Topo Chico sparkling water in his hand.
As a physician, Matheson eschewed alcohol, reminding anyone who asked him that the liver worked overtime to remove it precisely because it was a toxin.
Moreover, his body was a temple. He liked his suits tight. Alcohol was empty calories.
At his side, Walt Kimbel tapped his arm.
“See those two by the bar?”
“I do.”
“They’re the local Bureau honchos.”
The word local rankled Matheson, reminding him of the screwup with the media.
“The one with the white hair’s Augie Lloyd. He’s the SAC.”
“What’s that again?”
“The special agent in charge. The head FBI guy in town.”
Matheson surveyed the lawman.
“He looks a little old to still be in the job.”
“He looks even older than he is. Fifty-seven is mandatory retirement, but he’s asked for and been granted several extensions from headquarters.”
Lloyd sipped bourbon with a man who looked to be roughly his junior, a tall black man with a cropped haircut and classic horn-rimmed glasses. His jacket was buttoned like a military tunic.
“And the other?” Matheson asked.
“Jarrett Stanton,” Kimbel replied. “ASAC, assistant special agent in charge, New Orleans Field Office.”
“You call Lloyd the S-A-C but the A-S-A-C, A-sack?”
“Yeah. It’s a Bureau thing.”
As a young lawyer, Kimbel had battled the Bureau in court on occasion. The experience had made him valuable to Matheson when it came to fighting through government red tape.
“Why did Lloyd bring his number two?”
“Stanton runs the criminal branch and is also heading up national security. I hear he’s being groomed for the top spot.”
“Is he a problem for us?”
Kimbel grinned. “Not if he’s here.”
Matheson nodded, only mildly soothed, then noticed an impressive figure across the room, a black man, tall, broad-shouldered, his scalp not only shaved but polished.
He was talking with a statuesque woman in emerald, Matheson’s ex-girlfriend Irene Isaacson, now the district attorney of Orleans Parish.
Kimbel saw his boss looking at the woman. “She’s talking with Cornelius Bates.”
“FBI?”
“New Orleans PD. Rising star. You watch, she’ll mention him from the dais tonight.
Bates works out in the Ninth, a special division that does outreach.
He wants to be chief. The most dangerous position in the city is to stand between Bates and a TV camera.
Do me a favor, don’t get near him. I’m meeting with him after the event tonight. ”
Matheson turned slightly. “Noted.”
Kimbel knew how to stage-manage the boss. There could be myriad reasons why he did not want Matheson meeting with an NOPD police lieutenant.
“I’m pretty much going to steer clear of everyone,” Matheson said. “Not even sure it’s worth it to be here.”
“You had two solid interviews on the way in,” Kimbel said.
“Local TV. Not the best optic. I should go.”
“No, you shouldn’t. We need to stick around through Icy’s speech,” he said, using the district attorney’s nickname.
Isaacson was the keynote speaker. It would not be a good look to leave before she spoke.
“I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m avoiding her,” Matheson acknowledged.
The lights dimmed by a degree. The jazz band in the corner struck up a smoky swing, clarinet tight as a wire, bass murmuring underneath. Bartenders in ivory tuxedo coats flamed sugar cubes for Sazeracs, the scents of lemon and rye wafting through the room.
Carolyn materialized beside them, tablet in hand. “Icy’s on in five minutes,” she said, referencing the digital agenda. “Time to take our seats. The media’s expecting her to announce something big tonight.”
Matheson exhaled through his nose. He was still irritated with Carolyn over the logo and local media, but he had to keep up appearances. It wouldn’t do to look sour with one of his employees in public, especially one as visually stunning as Carolyn.
“Where’s our table?” he asked.
“Near the back. Just like you asked so you can slip out whenever you like.”
They moved among the crowd, the room thick with conversation. Matheson offered tight smiles and firm handshakes, oiled enough to appear gracious, yet indifferent enough to feel powerful.
At the table, Matheson introduced himself to the guests with polished charm. They were pleasant but forgettable: an energy consultant, a foundation director, and someone with a yacht.
Sipping his sparkling water, he scanned the room.
The partygoers’ smiles were tentative. The laughter arrived late.
Somewhere beyond the stage, a shift was pending, and every person there, from the judge on his third gin to the chief of police by the punch bowl, was bracing for it.
The music faded and the spotlight flared to amber at the podium.
As the room light dimmed, so did the conversations.
Matheson shifted his gaze toward the side of the stage as Irene Catherine Isaacson entered, not like a guest but like the reason the room existed.
Her tan skin glowed under a gown of green sequins, designed not to shimmer but to strike.
Her dark hair had been swept to one side, gleaming under the lights.
At forty-five, she still had the athletic good looks of the tennis star she had once been at Tulane.
And those legs. Matheson remembered them well.
Theoretically, this was a night to talk about resurrecting the portions of the city that still needed attention after years of neglect. That meant respectful applause instead of wild cheering. The audience was in on the charade as much as the speakers.
While she smiled and thanked the crowd, Matheson felt a flicker of something that lived somewhere between nostalgia and dread.
Matheson had hired her before she became Orleans Parish district attorney, back when she was fresh off a stint as an assistant U.S.
attorney arguing federal appeals before the Fifth Circuit.
Even then, she knew how to work Washington and how to navigate the FDA.
It was Kimbel’s idea to hire her. It was Matheson’s idea to sleep with her.
He had paid her a fortune to push that HPV drug across the finish line, and like she was stewarding her own investment, she’d reeled him in too.
They were both married, but that hadn’t mattered until the spouses found out.
Icy’s husband left without a fight, knowing better than to take on the shark that she was.
Matheson had enough money that he raised the white flag.
His wife had taken her newfound fortune to Europe.
Isaacson waited until the last clap died. “Thank you,” she said into the mic, her voice low and deliberate, a slow-burn drawl, velvet over steel. She’d always known how to play up her southern roots.
“Let’s skip the pleasantries, shall we?” A ripple of amusement moved through the room. “Yes, we’ll get to the auction. Yes, New Leaf does vital work. And yes, I’ll be asking you to open your wallets, your calendars, and your reputations for this cause. Of that, I give you fair warning.”
Laughter.
“But first, let’s talk about progress.”
A few people in the audience exchanged glances.
“Our partnership with the NOPD and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has brought the city’s homicide rate down 31 percent over the last three years,” she began.
“Though our shared dedication to this mission has lowered crime, drug addiction, and homelessness, we are not satisfied, nor near the goal we have set for ourselves. The work is not even close to being done. But I do think it’s fair to say that we’ve laid the foundation for what we must now build. ”
She didn’t just scan the crowd, she measured it.
Calculated it. Matheson could picture her rehearsing this speech in her head while running five miles before dawn, while reviewing the attendee list, while slipping into her designer gown and string-thin underwear.
Every word was a move. Every pause, a trap.
“…armed robberies down 15 percent. Assaults down 22.”
Matheson thought of the quote often misattributed to Twain: There are lies, damned lies—and statistics. Icy knew that. She’d once explained to him the anatomy of persuasion: ethos, logos, pathos. Credibility. Facts. Emotion. Aristotle’s formula, sharpened to a blade in her hands.
She already had the ethos, the credibility, partially inherited, partially earned. Here she was delivering the logos through the numbers. And now, finally, came the pathos.
“I met a mother in the Ninth Ward,” she said. “In 2003, she had twin boys. One was lost in Katrina. The other, she nearly lost to the silence that followed, the abandonment, the despair. Until last year, when her son met an officer from Lieutenant Bates’s COPE unit.”
She paused, letting the acronym settle.
“For those unfamiliar,” she said, “COPE stands for Community Outreach through Police Engagement. A specialized unit created by Superintendent Franklin and led by Lieutenant Cornelius Bates, both of whom are with us tonight, and both proud supporters of New Leaf. Supe. Lieutenant. Please stand.”
Bates rose, all toned muscle and high-wattage smile. The applause was warm, practiced. Kimbel leaned toward Matheson.
“She’s laying it on thick,” he whispered. “She and Bates must have a deal.”
Matheson nodded, though he saw it differently. Kimbel was a technician, good at execution, blind to the architecture required to build an enterprise. He didn’t see the scaffolding beneath the speech. The ethos. The logos. The pathos.
But as Bates soaked in the spotlight, Kimbel caught on. “That’s smart,” he murmured. “Depending on where she goes next.”
And on Isaacson went, slicing through the crowd, name by name, favor by favor.
She knew who she owed. She knew who would owe her.
She recognized judges and clerks. She recognized Augustus Lloyd, the FBI New Orleans SAC and his deputy, Jarrett Stanton, both of whom stood up, claiming a share.
It was a neat trick, Matheson thought. She had managed to make it look like they all worked for her.
She recognized the key sponsors of the event: hoteliers, restaurateurs, the New Orleans Saints football team, and finally, Genyra Pharmaceuticals.
Pointedly, though she knew Matheson was there, she didn’t call him out, a calculated slight, he thought.
All’s fair in love and war. This was New Orleans, where the rules were fluid and the game was rigged, but only if you didn’t know how to play.
Isaacson competed at a master-class level.
Matheson watched her, his mind drifting as she spoke. These days, the wealth ensured that when it came to women, he had his pick of young, eager ones who didn’t ask questions. But none of them could match Icy. His hubris had driven her away. And suddenly, he regretted it.
Would she take him back?
No, he concluded. She knew him too well.
“We’ll get to that auction in a moment,” she said.
The crowd was glowing now, lubed up by alcohol and admiration.
The pathos had lowered their guards. The jokes had landed.
Someone new to the game might have guessed Isaacson’s act was meant to increase the haul for New Leaf.
She had been a lobbyist once, after all.
But Matheson knew Icy did not work like that.
The speech was too good. Something bigger was coming.
“Before we all start shaming each other with bids,” she continued with an enchanting smile, “I thought I would address something to avoid the distraction, to keep the attention on New Leaf. You know how it is here in our beloved Crescent City. Nothing can distract like rumors and gossip. Sometimes I hear gossip about myself that I find so delicious that I even wish it was true!”
After the laugh, she turned serious, the killer prosecutor who never lost. Depending on the stakes and the juice that flowed between the state and defendant, she might take the case, she might not.
But when she did, the result was never in doubt.
“So let me say what some of you have been expecting of me for some time.”
Her words drifted outward, landing in silence. No clinking glass. No coughs.
“This city raised me. It shaped me. And it taught me that our problems are never solved in one night. Or at one gala. Or by one worthy organization. Those can all help, but real systemic change can only come through force of will, with clarity of purpose, and above all, accountability. So let me take accountability right here, right now.”
Matheson gauged the pause before her next sentence, created to maximize the yield for whatever was to come.
“My name is Irene Catherine Isaacson. And tonight, I am announcing my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Louisiana.”
Silence turned to thunder.
Matheson didn’t clap. He didn’t breathe. His hyper-intelligence kicked into gear as he thought through the innumerable angles of what he had just heard. Favors and secrets would be turned around, new ones created, old ones betrayed.
Beside him, Kimbel muttered, “Well, no need to report this to Vargas. He’s got eyes in the room, right now.”
Matheson thought through the repercussions of Icy’s announcement, hoping the drug lord’s eyes weren’t focused on him.