Paper Gods

by Goldie Taylor

  Then there was the matter of Babyboy404. Hampton was sure the boy on the skateboard outside the downtown Hyatt Regency hotel was the same teenager he’d seen getting arrested out at Lenox Mall. He signed on to Twitter. He pulled up the profile for a @Babyboy404 and got nothing. He tried an alternate spelling: @Babyboi404.

  The photo avatar smiling back at him was the same face of the person who shot Inman. The day of the break-in, his house was dim, but there was no mistaking it. This was Babyboi404. He printed the photo and pasted it on the wall.

  Damn, kid.

  Staring at the image, he shouted, “Who are you, and what were you doing in my house! Why did you shoot my fucking dog?!”

  Claire awoke with a start. “What’s wrong? Are you okay in there?”

  “Everything,” he called back. “Every fucking thing!”

  Hampton was shaking now, fearful and angry, as he felt Claire’s arms around him. Wearing a tattered Northwestern University T-shirt, she tried to calm him. He pointed at the photo.

  “He’s just a boy,” she said, eyeing the brown-faced kid. “How old is he?”

  “Old enough to break in this house and kill Inman. I swear I saw him outside the Hyatt the night that car blew up. He was riding a damn skateboard.”

  He checked the smartphone again.

  “Malik never called?”

  “Her name isn’t Malik,” Hampton said, recounting the story. “It’s Chanel, and now she’s missing.”

  Claire listened as Hampton rambled on, pointing and shouting like a man on fire. Hampton was spitting out a volley of words that made little sense.

  “When did you last hear from her?”

  “She called from Chicago a few nights ago,” Hampton said. “I begged her to get on the first train out to Flint the next morning. My mother said she never got there. My father waited outside the station for hours.”

  Claire went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea to settle her stomach as Hampton continued punching the keys and surfing social media profiles. He was looking for something, anything, that would make it all make sense. Just as he was about to give up, Hampton found a story on the Atlanta Times-Register site.

  Babyboi404 had a name: DeVonte Charles. He was fourteen and had been arrested on car theft and arson charges. The story, filed by his colleague Kathy Franco, said the boy was also charged with shoplifting at Lenox Mall several weeks back. His case was moved from juvenile court into the adult system. He was being held without bail in federal detention, a curious thing, thought Hampton, given that arson was a state charge.

  Why are the feds involved?

  A few more clicks, and he found a press release on the U.S. district attorney’s website. DeVonte Richard Charles was facing an indictment on interstate drug trafficking and tied to the Sex Money Murder clique operating out of southwest Atlanta. The same drug ring run by Richard “Dickey” Lester, the mayor’s high school boyfriend.

  “Shit!”

  “Baby, what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Claire set her teacup down and wrapped her body around his. He could feel himself quaking in her arms.

  “I have to find her,” Hampton said.

  Hampton grabbed his cell phone. He tried Chanel again, and still, there was no answer. He was grasping at straws now, which seemed to light up and burn to dust in his hands.

  Using an online directory, he located a phone number for a Dorothy Burris in the 1700 block of Avon Avenue.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Burris,” he said delicately. “But I’m looking for Chanel.”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Hampton Bridges, and I’m a friend.”

  “You mean Malik,” she said. “I haven’t heard from my son in years,” the old woman said. “If you see him, tell him that I love him.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hampton responded. “If you hear from her, will you ask Chanel to call me?”

  The line went dead.

  FORTY-TWO

  Victoria uncrossed her legs, stood up, and stretched her hands above her head. The day’s campaign events were scuttled and the mayoral calendar was cleared. It was Tuesday night, the week before the election, and the day’s local newscast noted her absence from the campaign trail. She let the pundits roar.

  The ad hoc meeting in her living room had started at 7 P.M. and gone on for at least three hours. The queries were gentle but vigorous. The floor was open and the full SOC unit was present. An officer was directed to record audio. When something needed to be asked or said off the record, the lieutenant dutifully turned it off but kept notes at Pelosi’s instruction.

  Pelosi studied her face and locked gazes with her. She glanced away.

  “Take your time,” he said. “You have to tell us everything you know. And anything you think you know. We need to fill in the gaps.”

  Victoria sat on a barstool, away from the others, and ran her fingers through her hair. She was afraid now, she admitted to herself. Her mother’s voice echoed in her head.

  Do the next right thing.

  “You can turn it on now,” Victoria said. “I’m ready.”

  The story began slowly, around twenty years ago, after she graduated from Harvard. The plan was to come back to Atlanta, practice law, and run for office at some point. Things unfolded quickly, after a statehouse incumbent decided to step down. State Representative Evelyn Lottier changed her mind and put her name on the ballot, though not before Victoria announced her candidacy. Both refused to drop out, and Lottier regarded it as an act of betrayal. The result was a political pummeling, the likes of which Atlanta hadn’t seen since then–City Councilman Bill Campbell trounced Fulton County Commission Chairman Michael Lomax and six other candidates in a bruising 1993 race for mayor.

  Right after Victoria was sworn in under the Gold Dome, her father, Ezra Hawkins, and Virgil Loudermilk went about laying the groundwork for the road ahead. Soon, Victoria was taking lunch with many of the city’s luminaries and making frequent overnight trips to Washington and New York. It was in Manhattan at the CORE: club, a members-only establishment on East Fifty-fifth Street off Park Avenue, where she first met Virgil Loudermilk in the months leading up to a rematch against Lottier. He was hosting a fundraiser for a cringeworthy U.S. Senate candidate from Ohio and invited her to join them. After the event, a small group traveled in two town cars to Peter Luger Steak House in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn for a late-night meal of two-inch steaks and red wine.

  “He wrote me a check that night and said if I was ready to play ball, there was plenty more where that came from,” Victoria said. “Only, I never put it in my campaign account. When it didn’t clear his bank, he asked me out for coffee to explain why. I wanted the campaign funded by the people I was going to serve. He nodded and told me how brilliant he thought I was, even for a twenty-seven-year-old.

  “I didn’t want the people in the statehouse district to see that kind of money coming from the Northside. Besides, my opponent would’ve used it against me. Lottier was already waving my family name around, like I needed a crown knocked off my head, and I wasn’t about to give her any more fuel.”

  “What about Chip?” Pelosi asked.

  “I put my brother in charge of the finance committee. Donations rolled in from around the house district. I told Chip to make sure there weren’t any out-of-district checks and to vet every contributor. To my knowledge, nobody from Loudermilk’s loose group ever made a direct contribution to any of my campaigns. But he created an independent expenditure campaign to support his pick of candidates, including me. They call themselves the League, and they funnel everything through the same outfit. Reclaim Atlanta. Loudermilk hired Chip to help engineer media buys and recruit street teams. Between that and what he was getting from Dickey’s strip clubs, Chip was pulling down serious cash. I told him he was in over his head, but he refused to quit. I had no choice but to fire him when that first story broke last year.”

  “He got himself kille
d,” Pelosi said. “You were smart not to take Loudermilk’s money.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Victoria said. “I said my campaign never took his money.

  “After my father died, him and Whit Delacourte pledged to endow a scholarship in his name at Morehouse,” she said, glancing at Marsh. “I still had a bunch of student loans from undergrad and law school. One day, I got a consolidated statement in the mail with a zero balance. I was confused at first, so I called the bank. A lump-sum payment had been made to the account, and the payer was the Delacourte Trust. I told my mother I needed to pay it back, but she kept telling me not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Loudermilk said he didn’t want me to have to worry about debt while I was running for office.”

  “I thought I paid that off,” Marsh said.

  “I put your money into the girls’ college fund.”

  Marsh sighed. “What else is there?”

  “It went on like that for a long time, even after I got elected to the state senate,” she continued. “He didn’t ask for much. Sometimes I’d take a courtesy meeting with someone because he asked, but for a long time, that was about the size of it. Every once in a while, after I won the first mayor’s race, he’d ask me to withhold my endorsement from a candidate he didn’t like or to appoint somebody to a community board. I supported him when I thought he was right and went the other way when he was wrong. I personally shut down his bid to control the FCC, but I backed the transportation bill last year because it was the right thing to do for the region.”

  “Ezra didn’t agree,” Pelosi said.

  “We didn’t agree on everything,” Victoria said. “And he respected that.”

  Marsh was confused. “If you never did anything for him, why was Loudermilk sending money your way?”

  “He was keeping a promise he made to my father,” Victoria said. “He didn’t get anything more than an open ear. I heard him out and made my own decisions. When I decided to run for Congress, out of respect, I went to tell him face-to-face. I already knew he had Goodwin on a string when I walked in. He needed somebody he could use to revive that bill, and Goodwin was the perfect patsy.”

  “But you were supporting the bill. Why not use you?”

  “Because Ezra intended to introduce an amendment that would cut Loudermilk and his minions off at the knees. If the contracts didn’t come through the city, my administration would have no control over the procurement process. That meant Resurgens Properties, owned by Coleman Delacourte, would lose out. Chip didn’t like it, but I was going to back the amendment. He spent every breath he had trying to convince me to back down. I’m sure Loudermilk was paying him for that.

  “The potential contracts included highway expansion, commuter rail from here to Chattanooga and down to Columbus, and at least two billion in commercial and residential developments along the path. Only I never agreed to send a dime their way. Cole’s little upstart firm didn’t qualify for half the projects they’d already won, and I wasn’t about to sole-source billions more to them. Chip was taking their money and making promises in my name that he couldn’t keep. When I fired him, he went ballistic. He joined their board of directors after he left the city payroll. That amendment would have put an end to it, once and for all.”

  “And you think that’s why Ezra was murdered?”

  “I know it is,” Victoria said. “The shooter was Caleb Vasquez. He was Rafaela Delacourte’s brother. I knew who it was the minute I saw that house on the TV. He didn’t deserve a trial after what he did in our church. Ezra hadn’t been dead ten days, and Loudermilk was already threatening to put a bunch of baseless rumors about him on the street.”

  “Sergeant, turn off the tape,” Pelosi said, raising his palm.

  Pelosi cleared his throat and ordered the SOC team members out of the room. Marsh remained seated.

  “Dr. Overstreet, sir, this is your home and I respect that. But Congressman Hawkins was my friend, and I need to discuss something in private with your wife.”

  “No problem,” Marsh said, getting up.

  “No, honey, you should stay,” Victoria said. “Sal, we’re in this thing together. I want my husband to know everything.”

  “Those rumors were true,” Pelosi said.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Congressman Hawkins was gay. I don’t know if that’s the word for it, but that’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “No, he wasn’t. I don’t care what you call it, and I wouldn’t give a damn if he was. He would’ve told me.”

  “No, ma’am, he wouldn’t have. I used to drive him over to a private club at least twice a week when he was in the city,” Pelosi said, “and it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Complicated?”

  “You remember the prostitute he was caught with thirty or so years ago?”

  “Yes, what about her?”

  “This is hard to say,” Pelosi said, turning his back on Victoria and Marsh. “The prostitute was a young man named Malik Townsend, and—”

  “Malik from high school?”

  “Yes, and their relationship didn’t end there. They all but lived together,” Pelosi explained. “The housekeeper you saw at his house a few years ago? That was Malik.”

  “That wasn’t a man,” Victoria said, confused. “Whatever Ezra’s sexual proclivities were, this isn’t anybody’s business, and I don’t think it’s relevant.”

  “Let me finish before you say that,” Pelosi said. “He spent a ton of money on a series of sex-change operations and even put the money up for a name change. He put up nearly every nickel he had for those surgeries. Even took out a second mortgage on his house. He was flat broke and he needed money.

  “Loudermilk showed up with a suitcase. In exchange, Ezra said he’d support that transportation bill, then he changed his mind and drafted that amendment. Only, I don’t believe money ever made its way back. Malik goes by Chanel Burris now. I believe she knows where the money is. She was with him the night before he died.”

  Pelosi paused, turned around, and said, “He would’ve married Chanel, if he could have. I am sure of that. He knew he couldn’t do it, but he wanted to give Chanel a life.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear this from me,” Pelosi went on. “I tried talking to Chanel after the funeral. She wouldn’t take my calls. I went out to her job at Lenox Mall. The manager said she quit without notice. Never even picked up her last paycheck. Her apartment looks like she just walked away.”

  “Any idea where Malik is now?”

  “If she’s smart, she’s hiding,” Pelosi said. “By the way, Shaun Haverty was the same officer who arrested her years ago. I’ve always believed Loudermilk was behind the bust at the motel and he was hanging it over Ezra’s head.”

  Pelosi sat across from Victoria, wide-legged with his hands clasped between them, and waited.

  “I know where the money is,” she said finally. “Chanel doesn’t have it.”

  “Fuck,” Marsh said reflexively. “How much are we talking about?”

  “Ten million.”

  FORTY-THREE

  The Delacourte house on Garmond Drive sits on a hill, high above the winding streets and lesser mansions in Buckhead, and there was no finer residence within the city limits. Surrounded by brick columns and wrought-iron fencing, it was nearly twice as large as both neighboring homes and covered the span of four adjoining lots. Whit ordered the custom home built in 1996, and it took two years to construct.

  A buzzer sounded and a twelve-foot gate swung open. Virgil eased up the long driveway, through the soaring pines, and parked his car, nose against the garage. He noticed a white Lexus pulling in behind him. He didn’t recognize the man behind the wheel. Rosetta Dobbs was in the passenger seat.

  “Good morning, Rosetta. How’re you getting along today?” he said, extending a bent elbow.

  “Virgil,” she said dryly, and ignored his waiting arm. “Fair to middling. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  “Like a ba
d penny, I guess,” Virgil said.

  “On that, we can agree,” she said, stepping out of the vehicle.

  “I’d say we’re off to a good start.”

  “We haven’t spoken in twenty years, and it would be twenty more if I had my way about it.”

  “I’ll try not to be offended.”

  “I should hope that you are,” Rosetta said.

  The left-side garage door clicked open and Whit appeared. He was standing between the tail end of a pearl-white Bentley coupe and a matching Range Rover, both of which belonged to him. His wife’s Mercedes wasn’t in its usual spot.

  “It’s been a long time, Rosie,” Whit said, advancing toward her.

  Virgil watched Rosetta’s disposition soften. They embraced like old friends. In that moment, whatever had come between Whit and Rosetta over the years was gone.

  “You’re still as pretty as the day we met,” Whit said, cupping her chin and pecking her on the cheek. “Time has been mighty good to you, Rosie.”

  “I’m sorry to come out here like this,” she said. “I mean no disrespect.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Whit replied. “I was in love with you then, and forgive me for saying, I always will be. Time hasn’t changed that.”

  She drew back her sunglasses. Virgil could see the dew in her hazel-green eyes. She’d aged some, but, then again, they all had. Some better than others.

  “I see you’re eating well,” she said with a slight grin. “You’re not still smoking, are you?”

  “Doctor made me give it up.”

  “Good on him.”

  Virgil knew then why his brother always had a soft spot for her, and even now the connection between them was unmistakable.

  “It’ll take more than a pack of Marlboros to slow me down.”

  “Or a swift kick in the behind,” Rosetta said with a muted laugh.