chapter 8 
(The Legitimate Daughter) 

Moïse Berri 

and the Reconstruction of the Haitian 

Space Agency 

by Jude Jarda 

8 
The Legitimate Daughter 

Meanwhile, back in Santa Monica, California, Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria Legitime is trying her best to subdue her angry employees. All the paychecks issued last Thursday by Legit Imco Media Corp bounced. Her film and documentary production and distribution company is not a familiar name in the entertainment business and it was never ranked or even mentioned in the Fortune 500, but the sum of its entire staff's salaries represents a very small percentage of its net capital. Therefore, there is no way Jeanne-d'Arc-Victoria should be experiencing any liquidity shortage. According to Article 12, precisely in Clause 7, of her father's testament, the reconstruction of the Jean-Metellus Hospital and the major renovations, currently in progress at the Mission Baptiste du Calvaire clinic, automatically made a large chunk of her inheritance available a week ago. The total amount she received is close to twenty million dollars, so Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria expects a call and a serious apology from Bank of America anytime soon. To save some time, the heiress of the Legitime family sent her most trusted accountant to a JPMorgan Chase branch of Beverly Hills, where she keeps a last resource contingency fund, to withdraw enough money to pay her people and get them back to work. Mrs. Bradshaw came back with disconcerting news: the missing money situation is due to a massive transfer of Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria's entire financial assets to a private bank of George Town, in the Cayman Islands. 

Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria is fairly aware that she has no allies on her side at this point. Even the usually quiet employees from payroll are raising their voices in the cafeteria. Some of them are already talking about mixing cigarettes, garbage cans and accelerants; prison items and terms that are generally associated with arson without casualties and insurance claims procedures for serious work injuries. Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria understands that it is practically impossible to negotiate with that boisterous crowd. She approaches a group of relatively tranquil people and picks three mediators among them. Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria gathers the janitor, the union delegate and the assistant director of the sales department in the archives room. 

Finding a solution to the crisis is urgent, but signing more checks is out of the question and useless because they would come from the same checkbook. The salary of the thirty-six members of the personnel amounts to seventy-five thousand dollars. That's the kind of money the two brothers of Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria could send her in a blink of an eye. It is indeed during such troubled times that she realizes how stupid little wars and power struggles between siblings are futile and unproductive. She spent too much time in her youth fighting Achilles and Ulysses to prove herself their equals. Asking for their help has become a challenge. After careful reflection, Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria finally takes a reckless decision, but in perfect harmony with her self-taught career and record. To prove her honesty and determination to fix that flagrant injustice against her loyal employees, she gets in touch with her ex-fiancée, the insufferable Philbert Hans-Orville Grosbois Junior. 

According to his numerous victims and a number of lawyers from the Burbank area, Junior Grosbois is one of the most contemptible and dishonest human being known to have walked on the face of the earth since Cain, son of Adam. Because of the emergency, Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria knows that she will have to ignore the provenance of the money and accept a staggering interest rate on the loan. A deal is quickly reached. The cash will be delivered before twelve by a dude driving a funerary vehicle. That courageous and altruist move made by the Legitime heiress rapidly defuses the conflict and restores the trust between the company's staff and their boss. Once informed, all the working force of Legit Imco Media Corp gets back on the job with a business as usual attitude. 

Lunch time is particularly festive. Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria even convinced the gloomy usurer who brought the loan, a full-body tattooed Comanche, to participate in a small party destined to boost the morale of the team. A phone call from Haiti takes Jeanne d'Arc away from her karaoke duet with the Native-American hearse driver. 

“Jeanne d'Arc Legitime?” 
“Hi, hello, how are you? This is Hervé Lecadré of the Reconstruct Haiti Right Now Project. I'll be brief in case the phone line cuts out. We're experiencing major trouble down here. My crew and all the men and women working on the production just voted for a general strike.” 
“They're not even unionized. What's wrong with them? Don't they need food anymore?” 
“The morning was rough. The bookkeeper of Vilaj Espwa complained about not being able to withdraw the monthly pay of the people you employ from the bank. The production team automatically ceased the cameras and the heavy machinery. Before you know it, everybody was going nuts. Sane people with no history of mental health issues suddenly began to speak in tongues and started calling themselves martyrs, ready to put on a vest. What kind of vest? Do I really need that information? Before you know it, the property masters were spreading rumors about a worldwide Freemasonry plot to conquer the planet, beginning with Haiti. The sound man were holding a very aggressive and anti Semitic speech that got people applauding and yelling death to Hollywood, down with Wall Street, burn Davos and all tax havens, dynamite The Capitol and execute every living Yale member of Skull and Bones. I could not assure the production of our documentary in these conditions, Miss Legitime. I must remind you that in Haiti, revolutions are never orange or made of velvet. They tend to be a little bit on the rough side.” 
“Get me Mr. Berri on the line, Hervé.” 
“Who is Mister Berri?” 
“This is not a good time for antics, young man! Is there anybody more important than Moïse Berri in Mizerikod?” 
“Listen to me carefully, Miss Legitime. I lived and worked in Haiti. This is not Oz or Silk country. I escaped from the city as soon as I found a car, right after the first manifestation of discontent. I'm calling you from Grand Saline, a little drive west of Port-au-Prince. You have to understand that a hammer is not really a carpenter's tool once you put it in the hands of a desperate and angry young man. I know my people. I remember history class. Fix the situation from your ivory tower and I will get back there to do my job. These normally law-abiding citizens start behaving like untamed simians when you lie to them. If you want to get in touch with me, call my sister in Queens or my cousin, Anasthase Pierre-Paul Lecadré, in Long Island. They'll know how and where to find me.” 
“Can you put me in touch with the film's director?”  
“Rosa Liz is sick. Many believe that she is dead as we speak. Some say she was intentionally poisoned. She was last seen at Madame Consuelo's restaurant. I wouldn't be surprise; the place stinks so much that even stray dogs boycott their backyard and stay the hell away from their dumpster.”  
“What a complete mess. I cannot believe what I am hearing. You really don't know who Mr. Moïse Berri is, Hervé?” 
“Why should I know him, I have never seen his name on my paychecks?” 
“Mother, have mercy! Am I running a circus here or a movie production company? It's not funny anymore, Hervé. Moïse Berri is the president of the Zanmi d'Haïti Foundation and the actual chairman of every organization doing something good in Mizerikod for the last three years. Are you kidding me? You eat fresh because of Moïse Berri. If you have access to clean water, you owe it to this great man. He is the corner stone of the documentary, the man you have been filming for almost twelve months. He is the Alpha and the Omega of your shitty town. Moïse Berri should be the most popular human being of the Antilles, an object of worship, nothing less.” 
“I'm sorry, boss. It's a bad habit from us around here. Everybody calls everyone by their nicknames. It's just love. I know the president of Vilaj Espwa by the name of Billionaire. I had no idea he was named after a Hebrew prophet. But I'm not alone playing games with names. The kids call the director of the Foundation, Superstar; women, Savior; officials, Brain or The Architect; the Mayor just call him Thief. They don't get along. No one has seen that nice mate in the last three days, though. Some are even worried sick, thinking that Billionaire might have been kidnapped. But you know how it is in Haiti. A guy goes on a vacation, people talk, people drink… someone throws a joke and bang! Gossips spread. The most solid story I heard, concerning Billionaire's disappearance, is that he went gambling with the wrong crowd and ended up owing money to a powerful drug lord from La Gônave, an extremely brutal outlaw named Willy Bossal. It looks like Willy went after the president to send a message of don't fuck with me to the rest of us. If that rumor is true, Billionaire is already dead and buried, Miss Legitime. Well, it's a big damn shame. That man knew how to dance and to handle a party like a real socialite. We'll miss him, profoundly.”