"From the once famous Connor Hotel ballroom, I'm Rene Williams for Action News," there was a pause then, "Got it, Doug?"
"Yes ma'am. Looked good."
"Great, but I want more. There's got to be so many stories in here. We've been on the rooftop terrace, in the bar, the ballroom..."
"Well, there's always the sub-basement."
"Yeah? What's down there?"
Cameraman Doug Stockton smiled. "Lots of history. Racy stuff."
"Like what?"
"Well, my ex-wife gave up her cherry to me there 15 years ago."
The reporter frowned and threw her empty water bottle at him. "C'mon. Anything real?"
"Rumor has it that Bonnie and Clyde stashed some of their loot down there before their shootout in the spring of '33."
"There's a safe?"
"Oh, more than a safe, a vault."
"You mean like Geraldo and Capone's vault?
"Yeah, something like that."
"Okay, tell me more."
"Uh, let's see, for a couple of years during Prohibition the sub-basement was the classiest speakeasy in the four states.
"After Prohibition, sometime in the 40's city councilman J. Edgerton Bentley was caught 'in flagrante delicto' with Ms. Marilil Butler, a debutante betrothed to one of the scions of the one the most prominent society families in town."
"And just what does 'in flagrante delicto' mean in this instance?" The reporter asked wearily and somewhat sarcastically, cocking her head toward her cameraman.
She was hot and tired and desperately wanted to leave the building but she also wanted more of a story.
"Well, the story goes that the honorable J. Edgerton Bentley was seated on a bench in the vault while the lovely, young and completely naked Marilil Butler knelt naked before him, giving him a hummer..."
The reporter looked disgusted, mumbled something under her breath and waved dismissively to her cameraman while searching impatiently for something in her "gig" bag. "Oh, yeah, we're going to air with *that* story. How old are you anyway? 12?"
Doug laughed, "Wait! Wait, it gets better.
"J. Edgerton was nearly 60 years old. Marilil was said to be truly beautiful and a coquettish 20. The hummer was about to, uh, come, no pun intended, to fruition when Jasper County Sheriff Waldo Monahan and Mrs. J. Edgerton Bentley burst in upon the couple.
"J. Edgerton, who positively hated Sheriff Monahan because the Sheriff was banging Mrs. J. Edgerton Bentley silly and none to discretely from here to Carthage, pulled a Colt pistol from his vest pocket and shot the Sheriff dead.
"Whereupon Mrs. J. Edgerton Bentley plunged a dagger into J. Edgerton's chest dealing him a fatal blow.
"The less than virginal Miss Marilil was said to be in a corner of the vault, screaming hysterically, whilst J. Edgerton, his hand on the fatal dagger, looked up into his wife's eyes and said plaintively, "You damn fool woman, you done gone and kilt me. Why'd you have and go and do that for Marlene?"
Despite herself, the reporter laughed.
Seeing his reporter responding so well to the story, Doug continued, "Mrs. Bentley's retort, if any, is not known, but she then picked up her husband's pistol and shot Marilil."
"Oh my god? Did she kill her too?" The reporter was wide eyed.
"No. No, Marilil lived. At Mrs. Bentley's trial, when asked why she shot Marilil, Mrs. Bentley said, "The stupid little twit wouldn't stop screaming. Besides, I only winged her. The brutes from the hotel came in and wrestled me off before I could kill her."
The reporter felt her face flush and she tried to suppress a laugh but couldn't, "That's terrible!"
"Ah-Hah! You like this stuff! Admit it!"
"I will not! I still don't see how we can use this, even if any of this is true." Barely suppressing a giggle the reporter tried to look serious, tried to get back on point.
"What else have you got?" And once again she couldn't help herself, "Oh hell, whatever happened to Marilil?" Rene Williams burst into a full laugh.
"Marilil was sent back East to suffer her indiscretions in shame. The bullet did just wing her. But her social rehabilitation was less than successful and the legend has it she became a notorious madam in Boston.
"And, let's see, there's the poker game of '58 between the U.S. Senators of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma..."
The reporter grabbed her gig bag, smiled wearily and motioned to the cameraman, "Lead the way. We'll do one more stand up in," she blew out air in mock exasperation, "the sub-basement."
~~~~~~~~~~
The Connor Hotel, built in 1908, was less than 24 hours away from its demise; it was going to be imploded before it fell down. It had been the jewel of Joplin, Missouri's society life from 1908 until the end of the 40's. After the 40's she became a dowager down on her luck. She closed in 1969 and no one could resurrect her.
Inside, the demolition crew was checking charges and the fusing and setting the detonators.
Outside at the barricades, older people stood silent and misty eyed, remembering the hotel in its heyday and consequently reminiscing about their lives.
Younger people, who had no sense of history, milled about expectantly waiting for the "big bang." Street vendors hawked cotton candy, hot dogs and soda. And the other two TV stations of the area had reporters doing live stand ups for the 6 and 10 newscasts.
The third station in town, number one in the market, had enough weight to get permission to do reports from inside the hotel. The only conditions were that the reporter and cameraman could not do live reports or use a radio or cell phone inside the building for fear of setting off the radio controlled detonators that were being set in the final 24 hours.
The news director called on his new senior reporter, a woman from a network affiliate in Kansas City, to do the "biggest story in his lifetime."
Rene Williams rolled her eyes as she pointed out to her new boss, only four years out of journalism school, that he hadn't lived that long.
Rene Williams was tall and willowy with cropped platinum blond hair. She was in her early 40's and compared to the other stations' younger assignment reporters she wasn't as attractive.
Worse than being unattractive, the marketing consultants said she was "plain."
Rene Williams was a serious journalist. And while she knew that age and looks for a woman in local TV news were important she always thought the quality of her work would compensate. One day, she thought, she might find herself doing network news.
She never understood the fact that work quality, at least in the market she was in, would not completely compensate for her age and plain looks. That is, until she found her contract being sold to the number one station in Joplin, Missouri because the marketing consultant said her ratings were "trending lower" than the younger female reporters that were not only eye catching to the viewer but costing considerably less in salary and benefits.
Southwest Missouri: the proverbial "sticks."
But Rene tried to put the best face on her situation as she could. Maybe after one of the Yuppie spawn that trained at being anchors in these smaller markets moved on to a larger market as a reporter she'd spend her final on-air days behind the anchor desk.
Maybe.
~~~~~~~~~~
They moved single file through a narrow corridor, lit only by one bare light bulb hanging from improvised wiring.
The walls were brick from 1908 and they were slimy with condensation. They were two levels below the street, the basement and 9 stories of building above them.
The corridor opened out into a large room with an arched brick ceiling; the air was dank. In one corner was the entrance to the vault, black and foreboding.
The cameraman stood next to the reporter at the threshold of the room. "This was the speakeasy; I've seen pictures of it during Prohibition, it was really quite classy. Maybe you could get some archival shots from the University.
"Over there is the vault. Come on."
He took her hand. She was surprised at the familiarity her cameraman was showing her. She didn't know him - or anyone at the station - particularly well. But she was fascinated and there was something about the room that echoed the past he had told her about like familiar spirits.
When they got to the door of the vault he pulled out a high powered flashlight and shone it inside.
Safe deposit boxes lined the back wall. A heavy round, oak table stood in the center of the rectangular room and padded benches were built along each wall.
"Doug, how are we going to do this?"
"Well, ah, we could, ah, we could start at the threshold of the speakeasy and just kinda tour around and end up in the vault."
"Okay, okay, I get the visual but I still don't know what to say that either the FCC or the local ministerial alliance won't have a screaming fit about."
Just as Doug was going to offer another suggestion he heard something up the corridor.
