She’d collected more than her share of political enemies. Be it somebody who didn’t get a city contract, somebody she beat in an election, somebody else she didn’t endorse, or still others who simply did not like her hard-boiled, take-no-prisoners style. That was the cost and tax of doing business. Victoria could number and name all of them from rote memory. But things were different now.
For his part, her brother always wandered too far over to the other side of the proverbial tracks, hanging out with hustlers, petty thieves, and dope boys in one strip club or another. She’d warned him, time and time again. But there was little Victoria could do to keep him from that life. Though now, she couldn’t put away the suspicion that the car bomb was tied to the carnage that unfolded at Ebenezer, and that it had everything to do with her. She suddenly felt like a sparrow trapped in a gilded cage.
Her brother was now lying mutilated in a hospital bed, in a medically induced coma, unable to speak or breathe on his own. A central venous catheter, pumping barbiturates into his body, protruded from his chest. The mechanical ventilator and feeding tubes were keeping him alive.
“Mama, the prayer service is starting soon, and I think I should go,” Victoria said, trying to hide her trembling hands. “Lieutenant Pelosi will see to it that you get out to the house. Your room is ready and my officers will stay with you. Two in the house, two in the driveway. Promise me that you won’t leave here with anybody but Sal.”
“I need to stay right here with my son.”
TWENTY
Hampton hadn’t been over to Manuel’s Tavern since before the accident, and if he had his druthers, he wouldn’t be going now. It took more than three days and a barrage of emails and phone calls to reach her, and when she finally picked up, Valerie Norbreck-Haynes was plainly annoyed.
“The only people who chase me down like this are publicity hounds, telemarketers peddling fake car warranties, and reporters looking for work. If it’s a job you’re after, we don’t have any openings,” she said abruptly, before he could explain why he needed to talk.
“I’m not looking for a job,” Hampton said.
“You should be, from what I hear,” she said dryly. “What do you want, Mr. Bridges?”
“A few minutes of your time. I need to run something by you.”
“Well, spill it. I’ve got three reporters on deadline, and I’m staring at a fifteen-thousand-word rough cut of a Sunday magazine piece that my boss plucked out of the slush pile and flung onto my desk. Claims it has Pulitzer potential, but I’d rather set myself on fire than edit another mini tome about white America’s opioid crisis. Damn thing reads like a botched version of War and Peace without the French invasion, so make it quick.”
Hampton let out an audible sigh.
“Sixty seconds.”
“Not over the phone. Can we meet in person?”
Valerie relented and suggested that they meet at Manuel’s Tavern on Highland Avenue. Hampton wanted to balk. Being around alcohol, months into his sobriety, wasn’t exactly a good idea. Sleep came easier now, and the ugly hangovers were all but a distant memory. He was a more peaceful man, Tucker would say, although he certainly could live without Hampton’s wiseass sense of humor. Most of the progress, of both the mental and physical variety, was due to his ex-wife’s prodding. Seeing her made him feel alive again. And he cautiously hoped she was feeling something too.
One day at a time.
Hampton took his first shot of whiskey chased by a swig of beer when he was fourteen, the summer after his freshman year in high school. Jimmy Lee Bridges, in his infinite wisdom, said getting his boys drunk would build up their tolerance for later. He lined up a row of shot glasses, a pint of Jim Beam, and a six-pack of Stroh’s on the kitchen table and talked girls, sex, and booze. Florence vehemently objected to the proceeding, which didn’t end until both boys were splayed out on the linoleum-tiled floor, laughing like a pair of feral hyenas. Her husband claimed he was getting Hampton and his young brother, Jason, ready for the real world, such as it was.
Hampton knew his probation officer would surely frown on his excursion to the bar, even if it was technically a work-related meeting, and one bad night with a decent bottle of bourbon could land him back in jail. If there was one thing Hampton hated more than his daddy, it was spending six nights in a county lockup and the six months of court-ordered, twice-weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that soon followed. He’d fallen off the wagon just once since his arrest, to awaken on his toilet, still drunk, with his pants around his ankles, and soaked in his own vomit.
He arrived just after 5 P.M. and found Valerie perched at the front bar, sipping on a bottle of Red Brick, a craft beer that Hampton was once fond of. He felt a pang in his throat and swallowed hard. Back when they were married, Claire always kept the refrigerator stocked with Red Brick and canisters of High Road ice cream, two of his favorite local creations, and only now had he come to appreciate that. She’d cooked up a plate of broiled fish tacos and black bean salsa and delivered them personally last night.
That she’d called about Inman was not a surprise, given how much she’d loved their mutt, and he silently hoped she had some love left for him. He’d said both too much and too little, he lamented. He was still in love, he had to admit, with the one woman who made him want to be a better man.
Claire promised more visits and more food. She’d even paid to get the muffler and alternator on the minivan repaired and the grinding brake rotors replaced. Hampton wouldn’t let himself feel bad about that, despite his previous infidelities, seeing as how the divorce cost him every dime he had and the spare pot he pissed in.
It was a Saturday evening and slow by Manuel’s standards. Regulars populated the booths on weekdays after work. Hampton and Valerie traded casual banter until he asked about a string of stories she’d published about Congressman Hawkins. She suggested they take it to the back room.
“You smell better than you did the last time I saw you,” Valerie said with a playful sniff.
The Eagle’s Nest, situated in the rear, was up a short flight of stairs. Hampton navigated the risers, carefully shifting his weight on his crutches.
“Need some help?” Valerie said, placing her palm on his back as he wobbled up to the landing.
“I’m good, thanks. I know it doesn’t look it, but this is getting easier. I hear they’re going to renovate this place soon, rip it up and start again. Maybe there’ll be a handicap ramp.”
“I heard about the accident. Sounded like it was pretty bad.”
“It was, but here I am. Fresh as a daisy,” Hampton said as he struggled into the booth. “See? No worse for wear.”
“You’re a really good writer,” she said. “I’d put you right up there with some of the best local reporters around the country. Your stuff reads like a Fleetwood Mac revival.”
“Thanks, and thanks again for coming,” he said. “Like I said, I’m not looking for a job.”
“They probably would have fired you if you weren’t on modified duty. You know, with lawsuits and all.”
“I would’ve fired me too. I spend every day re-earning my job. Strange as it sounds, that sometimes means taking some risks.”
“I hear you’re difficult.”
“That’s a generous assessment. But what reporter worth their salt isn’t? Half the job is nailing the story. The other half is fighting with a snot-nosed lawyer to get it published.”
Valerie nodded in agreement.
“The news business has changed,” she said. “Walter Cronkite didn’t have to worry himself about some ‘citizen journalist’ with a half million Twitter followers going after network advertisers to get him canned. Can you imagine Peter Jennings doing battle with some college dropout slurping ramen noodles and chugging Red Bulls, who posts conspiracy theories from his grandmother’s basement between rounds of Call of Duty?”
“It’s a different ball game, for sure.”
“Most days, especially when I make appearances on cable n
ews, I don’t have the stomach to look at my social media mentions. Nefarious players aside, this is now a multilateral conversation. Our very credibility is under attack.”
“More like a firing squad.”
“Learn to endure the lawyers. Keep writing. Let it be bold, but get it right.”
There was nothing fancy about Valerie, Hampton noted. She was a straight-shooter, he knew, at once jaded, deeply invested, and protective of their profession.
“We’re the Fourth Estate,” Hampton said. “Though I wonder how long that will survive.”
“We’re guardians,” Valerie added, “and the barbarians—ugly, bloodthirsty, and armed for war—are at the gates. But we will survive.”
She’d come dressed in a dowdy light blue blouse and a frumpy dark brown skirt, looking more like a meek, bespectacled librarian than a sword-wielding general defending the final bastion of journalism. Her long, blunt-cut brunette bangs fell just above her eyebrows, which Hampton figured had never been plucked. She reminded him of his fifth-grade social studies teacher. Valerie, like Mrs. Bateman, eyed him seriously, if not with a healthy dose of suspicion and contempt, over her wire-rimmed eyeglasses.
“You’ve been around here, what, eight or ten years now, right?”
“Who’s counting?” Valerie said with a shrug. “Longer than I thought I would be.”
“It’s an interesting city, wouldn’t you say?” he said, trying to break the ice.
“About as interesting as a pile of lug nuts most days,” she said. “And then there are days like this.”
“Tell me about it. Can I ask you something off the record?”
“Depends,” she said, pursing her lips.
“You remember that big transportation bill that got killed up in Washington?”
“Of course. There hasn’t been a fight like that around here in years. One would’ve thought it would sail through like syrup on a snow ski.”
“That was quite a dustup,” Hampton said. “I thought for sure the Georgia congressional delegation would hold together on that one. The plan would’ve changed the entire face of the region. And Atlanta would have been the biggest beneficiary, no doubt. Got killed in committee.”
“We like our cars around here. Even more surprising was the way that state senator from East Atlanta teamed with the North Fulton County Tea Party to fight it,” Valerie said. “What’s his name again?”
“Horace Moreland. He claimed that not enough black-owned businesses were getting a piece of the pie. Moreland still can’t get a ticket to the Mayor’s Masked Ball, not that he wants one. All that corporate money in one place would probably make him break out in hives. I hear he’s been popped for speeding at least four times since the vote, and the city keeps tagging his house with obscure code violations.”
Valerie took a swig of beer and said, “Yeah, that’s the one. Appears he barked up the wrong tree.”
“I thought Dobbs was going to knock his teeth out of his mouth,” Hampton said, sipping his Arnold Palmer. “Ezra Hawkins came out against it too. I can’t remember a time when he and Dobbs were on opposite sides of anything. Any idea why?”
“Off the record?”
“Off the record.”
“You’ve got me on that one,” she said. “What I can tell you is that Hawkins got a big payout for initially supporting it. Went straight to his foundation. Then he flipped.”
“Come again? We’re talking about the same Saint Ezra, right? Resident do-gooder with a dozen streets, schools, and federal buildings named in his honor?”
“They bought him, rest his soul,” Valerie said. “He took their money, and then changed his mind for some reason. Said it was the minority contracting thing, but I never believed that.”
“Must have been a hefty sum to pay off somebody like Hawkins. Who bought him?”
“Not so much as one might think. And the same people who will fire you if you keep asking questions.”
Hampton’s head started twirling. Of course, Hawkins was in bed with the League, and that meant Virgil Loudermilk would’ve been calling the shots. However, the notion that Delacourte Enterprises was somehow involved in a direct payoff to a sitting member of Congress didn’t seem to line up with how they did business. It would explain why Tucker summarily killed his story pitch about the independent expenditure campaigns they ran.
“Let me get this straight. Somebody associated with Delacourte Enterprises bribed Hawkins for his vote and then got stiffed?”
“That’s my hunch, but you didn’t hear me say that.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I do not kid, Mr. Bridges. You have to know that by now. It appears the good congressman was having second and third thoughts about his vote and decided he could support the bill with a few conditions. I have the draft language of an amendment he was going to introduce before he was killed.”
“Saying what?”
“One of the big points was stripping the sole-source contract language of the legislation. That meant, if passed, every procurement contract would have to be placed out for public bid by an independent, community-controlled commission, and the mayor’s office would have no say in the process.”
“So Hawkins was sidelining Dobbs?”
“And her brother.”
“That’s right, Chip Dobbs used to run the city contract and procurement office.”
“Until you went and got him fired.”
“The question is why put them out of the game?”
“That’s the question for the ages,” Valerie said. “There’s also the question of whether she received any cash for her support.”
“Can I see the draft amendment?”
“I’ve got a hard copy,” Valerie said. “I’ll scan and email it over.”
“No, no,” said Hampton, shaking his head vigorously. “Can I come pick it up?”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through when I can send it to your personal email account.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“Okay, fine,” she relented. “You can drop by to pick it up Monday morning.”
“One more thing. Why would Delacourte Enterprises care about a transportation bill?”
“Well, there’s another good question. If I knew, I would’ve put a reporter on the story. No way our legal team clears a piece like that without hard evidence of a bribe. Answer that, and I might have a job for you after all.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. By the way, how’d you get the Hawkins Amendment?”
“You know better than that,” Valerie said. “I’m only giving it to you because there are a dozen other ways to get it and you’re, well, infirm at the moment. Call it a professional courtesy.”
It was getting on eight o’clock, and if he made good time, Hampton could make it out to the prayer vigil for Chip Dobbs. He thanked Valerie again and said he’d swing by her office to pick up the document. As he made his way over Freedom Parkway and onto the downtown connector, Hampton racked his brain. A once tightly stitched alliance was now coming undone at the seams, and decades-long allies were turning on each other—one was dead, another clinging to life, and still another was about to mount a bid for Congress. He needed to figure out what the Delacourtes wanted with that transportation bill and what, if anything, Victoria Dobbs had to do with it.
TWENTY-ONE
The mayor’s caravan floated over I-20, passing the Hamilton E. Holmes Drive exit, toward the westerly edge of the city. The evening traffic was sparse, even for a Saturday, and she felt alone in the back of the Suburban as the downtown skyline disappeared over her shoulder. She felt the walls of the vehicle tighten around her, the air suddenly dense and suffocating. Her lips quivered and she felt her body shudder as they made the exit onto I-285 and merged into a southbound lane.
“Take the Cascade Road exit, Sal,” Victoria said finally. “Hang a right and pull into the Publix parking lot.”
She called Chief Walraven from her cell.<
br />
“I need to ring you back,” he said in a low voice. “We’re wrapping up a task force meeting.”
“It’s urgent.”
Minutes later, Victoria was pacing the shopping center parking lot, never veering far from the two plainclothes FBI agents who’d exited their car and stood near the rear of the SUV. Another stood on either side of the nose. Sal stayed behind the wheel. Her cell phone buzzed.
“I think I found something,” she said, cupping her hand over her mouth. “I don’t know what any of it means.”
“I’m listening,” Walraven replied. “Go ahead.”
“I think whoever tried to kill my brother shot up Ebenezer too.”
“Caleb Vasquez is dead, Mayor Dobbs,” said Chief Walraven. “Feds ran the ballistics. It was a clean match. Everything we’ve got says he was just a guy who caught a bad break on his military discharge and couldn’t get into the VA.”
“That happens too often, but listen,” Victoria said firmly. “He didn’t do this alone. I promise you that. Somebody sent him, and I don’t think they’re finished.”
“Ma’am, did you know your brother was going to testify against Richard Lester?”
“He would’ve told me.”
“Your brother was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“He was a government informant against a major drug cartel. Your brother knew what he was into.”
“And you think Dickey blew up Chip’s car? We went to high school together, for Christ’s sake. I’ve known Dickey all of my life.”
Victoria started pacing again, walking in small circles as she talked. Richard “Dickey” Lester had been her high school sweetheart, even though her parents forbade her from dating. They met up at Greenbriar Mall back in the day, stealing kisses in the parking lot when nobody was looking. Good-looking and smart, he was always dressed to the nines, even starching his jeans, and drove a brand-new Mazda RX-7. Dickey was a star athlete, netting three state titles in track in his junior year. Everybody called him “Dickey Phoenix” because he seemed to fly around the curves and blow through the finishing line tape. The word was, some college recruiter bought the car and paid off the mortgage on his mother’s house.
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