Paper Gods

by Goldie Taylor

  Virgil near ’bout swallowed his shirt.

  “We have your phone records,” Clearwater added. “The good people at your cell service provider were gracious enough to hand them over.”

  Virgil was blinking now like a flashlight with low batteries.

  “Show me an indictment and we’ll talk,” Stewart said.

  “I’m not quite done,” Clearwater said. “Tell me about Resurgens Properties.”

  “We’re done here,” Stewart said.

  “It’s alright, Stew,” Virgil said. “It’s my nephew’s company. We gave him some seed money, drawn from his trust fund, to get started. Other than that, my brother and I don’t have any hand in it.”

  “If only I believed that.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Mr. Loudermilk, tell me about Richard Lester.”

  “The drug dealer?” Virgil said with a laugh. “Never met the man. Read about the mayor’s boyfriend in the papers. Sounds like one bad dude.”

  “I know you don’t think much of us Yankees,” Clearwater said, standing up. “But this one doesn’t go fishing in barren waters.”

  Virgil stood up and said, “Take a look around, son. Mi casa es su casa.”

  Clearwater unlocked his cell phone and tapped out a text message. Within minutes, a team of blue-jacketed GBI agents swarmed the office.

  Virgil was forced to open his safe. He sat in his own lobby while the search was conducted. He buried his face in his hands as one agent walked by holding a plastic bag with an external hard drive inside.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  “Ayo, nigga, what’s good?” he shouted. “Get’cho mu’fucking hands off me!”

  The nondescript, two-story house in a quiet neighborhood off Cascade and Fairburn Roads was oddly staid for someone of his purported wealth and reputation. There were no fancy cars in the drive, and inside the rooms were sparsely furnished. A half-eaten plate of collard greens mashed up with corn bread sat cooling on the coffee table. ESPN played silently on a small television.

  “Stand up, turn around, and place your hands behind your back.”

  “Not until I call my lawyer. I am not leaving here until I talk to my lawyer.”

  “I’ll spare you a quarter later,” the officer said.

  There were eight of them. All wearing ski masks, four carrying AR-15 assault weapons.

  He was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt, a pair of oversized basketball shorts, blue Adidas flip-flops, and an ankle bracelet. Music blared from the surround-sound system.

  Pull up to the scene with my ceiling missing!

  Middle finger up to my competition!

  “Shut it off,” one officer ordered another.

  The sole woman in the squad drew her weapon, pointed it at the man in the easy chair, and said, “Now do I have your attention, Mr. Lester?”

  “Shoot me, then, bitch.”

  “I have no problem blowing your damn head off,” she said calmly. “Face it, Mr. Lester, I bet your mama won’t even cry when you’re gone. Nobody will march for you. There won’t be a parade. Go ahead. Twitch.”

  “Who are you? Ain’t no damn federal agent up in here with masks on.”

  “This chambered round is the only law you need to recognize,” she said with a shrug.

  “You don’t know who you fucking with,” Dickey said.

  “Stand up and turn around. This is the last time I am going to ask you.”

  Dickey cursed, rose from his seat, laced his fingers behind his head, and turned around.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  She ignored his question. His legs were shackled, and they shuffled him out of the house. There was a black van with blacked-out windows parked at the curb. Suddenly Dickey understood his predicament and began to fight, throwing his shoulders and bucking his body.

  “Fuck that! I ain’t getting in no mu’fucking van! Y’all can kiss my black ass.”

  Two men lifted him off the ground and tossed him into the rear. He yelped as he hit the floor. “Y’all ain’t gone buckle me in?”

  “She wants to see you,” the woman said. “Enjoy the ride.”

  “Who sent you to get me? Ain’t no bitch got that kind of power.”

  “Victoria Dobbs.”

  * * *

  “Pussy, heroin, and guns,” Pelosi said.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you talking about,” Dickey said.

  “Come on, now, Dickey. Don’t play me small.”

  “I ain’t never ran no bitches.”

  “I didn’t say you were into prostitution. You just like pussy too much, and that’s what got you caught up. You couldn’t think of a better cover than running strip clubs?”

  “Man, fuck you.”

  Victoria watched from the other side of the two-way mirror. Bringing him here to the SOC Unit squad room had its risks, but she had no choice. She hadn’t seen Dickey since she left him in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. He was good-looking, still, despite the rap sheet and the federal case against him. He licked his full lips and arched his heavy brows.

  That morning, she’d finally given in and had the painting removed from the house. A SOC officer was tasked with destroying it.

  “I have to end this,” she’d told Marsh. “Highsmith made the transfers this morning. All ten million.”

  “Where is it going?”

  “Arjana Global Ministries is a church-run nonprofit in Soweto, South Africa. The bishop agreed to use it to build a school for girls. Loudermilk won’t miss it where he’s going. I have to deal with Dickey now, and I have to do that face-to-face.”

  “Do you think he’ll talk to you?”

  “We’re going to find out,” she said.

  Do the next right thing.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “The feds will come looking for him, and he’s wearing a court-issued monitor.”

  She steadied herself and clicked open the door leading to the interrogation room.

  Dickey was sitting calmly at the far end of the table. Pelosi was in the corner, arms folded across his chest.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Pelosi said, walking out.

  Victoria took a seat on the opposite end of the table and waited. She tried to ignore his hard leg muscles and his beautifully chiseled face. He’d run track in high school, the hundred-meter dash and hurdles. In her mind’s eye, she could still see him, chest out, snapping the finish-line tape.

  Dickey picked up the nickname “Phoenix” in high school for his speed. He shattered regional athletic records at one meet after another. College scholarship offers poured in, but Dickey got hurt in the state championship race during their senior year. His hamstring separated as he cleared the last hurdle in the two hundred meter. The tendon tore from the bone. He collapsed onto the clay track. Victoria remembered the agony on his face as the medics carted him away. He was still known as “Dickey Phoenix” on the street.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said. “You know why we’re here.”

  “I’m waiting on you,” Dickey said. “You sent for me. We’re on your dime.”

  “I don’t want to ask you why,” she said pensively. “If you ever cared anything about me, why do this?”

  “I’ve always been about my business, Big Time. How you think I was flying you around the world?”

  “You said you’d never let it touch me.”

  “And you said you’d never leave me,” he said. “You think it ain’t hurt me to see you get on that plane?”

  “I did what I had to do,” she said. “You had to live your life and I had to live mine.”

  “He don’t love you like I do.”

  “Love?” she shot back. “Is that what you call this? Ezra and Chip are dead. Y’all killed a cop.”

  He looked her in the face and didn’t flinch.

  “After everything Ezra did for you—the parole letters, the suspended sentences—you had him killed. Five people died in that church. That ain’t business,” she said, sneering. �
��That little boy bled out in my arms! An innocent woman is fighting for her life right now, and that’s on you too! I know you tried to kill that reporter last year.”

  Dickey twisted his neck and let it crack. “What yourself.”

  “If that’s love, I don’t want it,” she said, stroking away tears. “You killed my brother, and I won’t ever forgive that!”

  Dickey shrugged. “The feds got to Chip. Punk-ass snitch. I had him living right. Put him in nice cars, got him courtside seats at the arena. I even sent that nephew of yours to the best damn day school in Buckhead.”

  “At what price? Maybe Chip was tired of paying. I got sick of watching him run behind you like a wet-nosed dog,” Victoria said, looking up. “What’s up with Loudermilk?”

  “Chip introduced us some ways back,” Dickey said. “I was looking for some new business opportunities, and his nephew was getting into the construction game.”

  “The Delacourtes don’t need your money.”

  “Nah, they don’t,” Dickey said. “But Virgil needed me to make that paper work. I had some land he wanted to get his hands on.”

  “What property?”

  “The west end of the old rail yard off Seventeenth Street.”

  “Atlantic Station?”

  “All the way over to Joe Lowery Boulevard. He wanted what I had in the Bluff too,” Dickey said.

  “The new football stadium.”

  “I still own the title to the land where the overflow parking lots will be built. I took a piece of his nephew’s construction business in exchange.”

  The math came together quickly in Victoria’s head. That proposed commuter rail would have run south out of Marietta and down to the Gulch, just outside the new stadium. Whoever owned the right-of-way stood to make millions. According to public records, most of it was held by the Renaissance Group.

  “So you’re Renaissance?”

  “Me and my investors, yes,” he admitted. “Virgil expected you and Ezra to go along with everything. That transportation bill was my payday. I would sell to Resurgens and get out with my money before they broke ground.”

  “How did you evade federal seizure?”

  “My name ain’t on nothing,” he said. “You know me better than that.”

  “I never cut a deal with Virgil. No matter what Chip told you, I never agreed to sell any construction contracts.”

  “That’s all well and good. You took the money, though,” Dickey said. “Bribery is a federal crime.”

  “I never touched it. I didn’t know where it came from.”

  “Ain’t no jury gone believe that lie,” Dickey said. “You’ve been rocking with Virgil for years. Watching y’all squabble was better than that time Tyson bit off Holyfield’s ear.”

  “I donated every dime to a charity.”

  “You always did have a soft heart. You on term limits, though. I would’ve bought me a new mayor. But you think he’s going to let you get away with that? Come on, now, Big Time, that’s ten million dollars.”

  “He wants more than money. He wants to destroy me.”

  “You honestly don’t know, do you?” he said, leaning back and smiling. “You’re going to be Atlanta’s first black billionaire.”

  “Billionaire?”

  “Your mama never told you? That’s just like Miss Rosetta,” he said. “Always worried about what the good people of Atlanta think about her.”

  “What does my mother have to do with this?”

  “Ask Miss Rosetta,” he said. “She made sure you got taken care of. Real talk, though.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She went over to Whit Delacourte’s house and had it out with him and Virgil.”

  “My mother loves me.”

  “Don’t ever question that,” he said. “Don’t you ever question that.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Victoria said finally. “The feds will come looking for you, and, well, they didn’t approve this meeting.”

  “You had me snatched out of my house. Virgil always said you had some real goons on your payroll.”

  “Turns out I needed them, thanks to you.”

  “If I wanted you got, you would’ve been got.”

  “Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”

  “You woke up this morning, right?”

  “Tell me what the paper gods are,” she said. “What do they mean?”

  “It’s a phoenix. This Asian dude I bunked with in the state pen taught me how to fold them up.”

  “Dickey Phoenix, I figured that much out myself,” she said. “I understand the GBI got search warrants on Loudermilk. The deal is over. The GBI raided his houses and offices.”

  Dickey shrugged again. “That’s what I hear. And you sent them, right?”

  “Help me end this.”

  “Ain’t but one way to do that, Big Time.”

  She looked away and shook it off.

  “Tell me, can you kill a man? Can you live with that?”

  “‘When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous,’” she said, staring him in the eyes, “‘but terror to evildoers.’

  “Proverbs 21:15.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Hampton sat in the dimly lit hospital room and watched her sleep. Claire was off the respirator, and that was good. She woke infrequently, but still could not eat solid foods. He’d fed her ice chips and clear broth, fondly remembering how she had cared for him when he was recovering from the accident. They would have a new life, he promised himself, and he was thankful for that. It was cloudy and raining out, the droplets of water ran down the windowpane, and Hampton thought that was good too.

  “The greatest danger is not to set a target too high and miss it, but to set it too low and reach it,” a woman’s soft voice said.

  “Michelangelo,” Hampton replied.

  “Ha, more like Mrs. Florence Bridges!” the woman exclaimed.

  Hampton was startled. “Chanel?”

  “In the flesh, sweetness.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “At my mama’s house,” she said. “I figured whatn’t nobody gone come looking for me there.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” Hampton said.

  “Except Sal Pelosi,” she said. “Followed my mama right on home from the grocery store.”

  “How did he know you were there?”

  “Ain’t too much Sal don’t know,” Chanel said.

  “Right again. I swear that man is a magician.”

  “More like a thief in the night,” Chanel responded.

  “I had the pleasure of seeing his work up close,” Hampton said. “He plays rough.”

  “And then some. You ain’t seen what that man is capable of. Be glad for that,” Chanel said, stepping into room. “How is she? I got up here as soon as I could. Security is tight. They ain’t even wanna let me in.”

  “She’s good,” Hampton said. “It was rough there for a while, but she’s good. It’ll take some time, but she’ll be fine.”

  Claire was sleeping peacefully, lulled by a cocktail of sedatives. There was no major organ damage, the doctors said, but the telltale crystals in her stomach confirmed that she’d ingested poison. The investigators had come and gone, and after a brief conversation with Pelosi, Hampton was free to go. A pair of uniformed officers were left stationed outside the hospital room. Visitors required specific clearance.

  “She’s beautiful,” Chanel said. “I know what you see in her.”

  “It’s what you can’t see that’s so special. She deserves better than me.”

  “I used to tell Ezra that,” Chanel said. “He loved me when nobody else could or would. Sometimes he loved me better than I loved myself.”

  The heart monitor beeped in steady rhythm. Hampton clutched Claire’s hand and felt her gripping his. She smiled, opened her eyes slightly, and murmured, “I deserve you.”

  “Claire, I want you to meet my friend Chanel,” Hampton said. “Chanel, this is Claire.”

  “
I’m glad you’re okay,” Claire said. “We were worried about you. Where did you go?”

  “I wanted to ride that Ferris wheel,” Chanel said. “So, I stayed in Chicago for a while.”

  “I thought you might do that,” Hampton said. “You’ve always been a hopeless romantic.”

  “I ain’t, really. But I went down to Navy Pier after I talked to you. Then I walked to the Amtrak station and got a ticket to come back home. I was tired of running, and to tell you the truth, I missed my mama.”

  “I called her,” Hampton said. “She told me that she hadn’t heard from you in years.”

  “My mama don’t tell no lies,” Chanel said. “She told you she hadn’t talked to Malik. I was sitting right there at her kitchen table, eating a plate of banana pudding.”

  “He’s writing a book about this, you know,” Claire said.

  “Just make me look pretty,” Chanel said.

  “That’ll be easy,” Hampton said.

  * * *

  That same Monday morning, the day before the election, all of Georgia’s fourteen U.S. congressmen issued a joint media alert stating their unified support for House Bill 423—an omnibus transportation bill that included the Hawkins Amendment. Simultaneously, both sitting U.S. senators from Georgia released a statement affirming their support and pledged to introduce the legislation on the first day of the new Congress at the start of the fall session. The entire delegation, Democrat and Republican, signed on.

  Victoria was sitting in her campaign office when Roy Huggins came running in with the news.

  “How in the heck did you pull this off?” Huggins said, thumping the press releases.

  “There are a lot of things that divide us,” Victoria said. “But every one of us wants what’s right for this state.”

  “All fourteen House members and both senators?” Huggins said. “There’s no way it won’t pass.”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Victoria said. “Getting them all on a conference call was rough. I was forced to call on Governor Martinez.”

  “She despises the air you breathe. She picked up your call?”