Paper Gods Read online

  “Look here, I got bills to pay. So unless you paying.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave Atlanta?”

  “And go where and be what?”

  “Miss Burris, I couldn’t find any record of your detention.”

  “I have to go. It was a nice going-home service. They laid him out pretty. I watched it on TV. Wish I could’ve been there.”

  “Can we talk again?”

  “I really wish you ain’t come up on my job like this, Mr. Bridges. I hope he didn’t suffer none, for real, but like I told you, I don’t have nothing else to say. You don’t know what kinna people you messing with. If they got him, please believe they can get at you and me.”

  “What people, Miss Burris?”

  She rose up suddenly and straightened her skirt. She abruptly spun around like a beauty queen, doubled back, leaned in, and said, “You need to keep your good eye on Miss Vicki.”

  “Vicki?”

  “Mayor Dobbs. We called her ‘Vicki’ in grade school.”

  TEN

  Anybody who knows anything about Virgil Loudermilk knows that round about noon on any given Monday, he can be found in a back corner booth at the Buckhead Diner. Located a stone’s throw from a row of luxury car dealerships, the upscale restaurant is a place to be seen. The well-appointed room is usually filled with a who’s who of local celebrities, politicos, and housewives out on a midday shopping break.

  Virgil orders his usual culinary fare and then unfurls the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Times-Register. He thumbs through the pages and scans the headlines until he locates the crossword puzzle. He gets through most of it with a ballpoint pen, without a single mistake, before the small plate of honey-drizzled, truffle deviled eggs with crisp fried chicken skins gets to him.

  By the time the entrée hits the table, he has moved on to Sudoku, which he likens to throwing his brain on a treadmill. He saves the New York Times games section for dessert, having discovered the wonderment of KenKen, the reigning king of all Japanese math puzzles.

  A specimen of southern heritage, he enjoys feasting on delicious foods of nearly every known variety, so long as it comes from something with two eyes, four legs, and a tail. He likes his plates piled wide and deep. Why, Virgil would eat a whole passel of field-dressed possums if it were seasoned right, soaked in buttermilk, dusted with flour, and flash-fried. He likes to hear the heart beating in his food.

  Alas, he settled for a more pedestrian delicacy today. Virgil was polishing off a mile-high, hand-shaved pastrami sandwich stuffed with red cabbage slaw on marbled rye when he spotted his favorite plainclothes police lieutenant chatting up Aleixo, the host and grandson of the owner-chef, Pasha Kastansa.

  Virgil watched as the men traded a few serious words, though he couldn’t make out what was being said. Aleixo smiled and clapped his hands, signaling the hostess to clear and reset a four top with crisp white linens. The presence of Lieutenant Salvatore Pelosi meant one thing: Mayor Dobbs was somewhere in their midst.

  As sure as day turns to night, Her Highness strutted in, tailed closely by a female assistant that he did not recognize. Victoria was dressed in a flawless Oscar de la Renta sleeveless, fold-neck sheath, neatly cinched at the waist. He dabbed the Thousand Island dressing from his lips, sat upright in the booth, and watched her gorgeous peep-toe heels click across the black-and-white marble-inlayed parquet floors. The mayor was so damn good-looking, she could make a blind man see rainbows on a cloudy day, Virgil thought to his own amusement.

  He might otherwise have been delighted, but this was anything but a social call. The mayor was not prone to surprise visits. Though given his silence in the days after the funeral, Virgil knew it was only a matter of time before she graced him with her presence. Virgil imagined he would have to suffer through some small talk until Victoria got around to the point of the ambush.

  Mayor Dobbs could be downright ugly when she wanted to be, a fact that was not lost on him in that moment. There was a delicate way to handle these matters, and surely she wouldn’t put up a stink out in the middle of the restaurant. Or would she? He’d been at the Commerce Club when the entire hullabaloo with Hampton Bridges went down, so he braced himself.

  Aleixo personally escorted Pelosi and the nameless minion to a table on the other side of the room. Without a word, the mayor slid into the booth across from Virgil.

  “Well, if it ain’t the Great Torie Dobbs! Isn’t this a nice surprise? I must be living right!” he said in a deep Georgia mountain drawl. He flagged down a server. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee. Some dessert?”

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” she said flatly. “I have a full calendar, so I won’t take much of your time.”

  He sighed and said, “Well, then, let’s get to it. You’ve got something on your mind, so let old Virgil have it, darling.”

  She smiled gingerly, ignored his condescending tone, and said, “I’m running—”

  “Running what?” he said, cutting her off midsentence. He leaned back and let out a chuckle. “Publix Georgia Marathon ain’t for another few months.”

  “I am running in the special election for the Fifteenth Congressional District. I will announce my candidacy next week.”

  “You’re not going to ask me what we decided?”

  “I didn’t come to ask you anything. Consider this a courtesy call.”

  “Is that right?” Virgil leaned back farther and propped his arms over the top ledge of the booth. “Is that how this thing works now?”

  “Did you expect me to sit this one out? You seem surprised.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I was. I was sure you’d turn up at some point, but the funeral was just yesterday week. You put on a beautiful spread. We sent a donation and flowers.”

  “I sent my thanks to Whit. It certainly was generous of him. But Congressman Hawkins would want me to run.”

  “I’m truly sorry for your loss, and I’m sure enough glad y’all got ahold of that shooter. Goddamn shame Hawkins had to die like that. But you and I both know it has never been about what Ezra Hawkins, rest his soul, would or would not want.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying you’re not our choice this go-round. Listen, gal, I’m sorry you wasted your time and that dress sure is a wonder to behold, but we decided to go another way. Let me buy you that cup of coffee, and let’s you and I work this thing out.”

  “Again, I am not here to ask for your support and I don’t need your money.”

  “You won’t win without it,” Virgil said. “You can bet your precious skivvy drawers on that.”

  “Who are you running? Did you go and buy yourself another preacher? I hear Reverend Goodwin is testing the waters, and heaven knows he’s for sale. Hell, if you rummage deep enough in the clearance bin, you can get Boney Jeffries for pennies on the dollar.”

  “We took a vote, and the plain truth is you had a lot of support from our board, but I call the shots. You’re playing with my deck of cards, sweetness. All I can tell you is that we’re going another way.”

  “There is no other way, and you know it, Virgil. I’ve got every card I need.”

  “You should recheck that deck of yours, precious.”

  “In case your memory fails, the Jackson Machine has won every citywide election since 1974—a political operation, I don’t mind telling you, that I still run. I can put five hundred feet on the street before sundown tonight, if need be, and my campaign war chest, thanks in no small part to you, is more than enough to work the next eight weeks before the special election.”

  “Dr. Goodwin has fifteen thousand tithing Christian soldiers in his congregation, and I like the fire in his belly. Reminds me of my mother’s preacher, only he was white, of course.”

  “Screw you, your dead mama, and Goodwin too,” Victoria said, sneering.

  “Watch yourself, darling. You always did have more mouth than grace,” Virgil shot back. “Is that any way to talk to the man who bought you the ke
ys to City Hall?”

  “Go to hell, Virgil, and take Reverend Cash Flow with you.”

  “You should run on now, pick up what’s left of your dignity, and act like we never had this conversation.”

  The mayor dug in. “All of this because I wouldn’t let you run roughshod over the FCC? I thought you were a bigger man than that. Seems petty for a man of your stature. It would be a shame if somebody knocked you off of that gilded perch.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing small-time about the shenanigans you pulled. You cost me millions. You and I both know this is much bigger than that. My name ain’t Hampton Bridges. What are you going to do, jimmy-rig my car and run me off the road too?”

  “Say it louder. Give me the chance to sue your fat, greasy, possum-eating ass. Nothing would please me more than to nail your carcass to the courthouse steps.”

  “Listen here, Honey Bun. You’ve more than proved that you can’t be trusted. Besides, you’ve run out of things I want. Your president is a lame duck with a Congress full of Republicans.”

  “You’ll need to come better than that. If Congressman Hawkins were here, he would have your—”

  Virgil cut her off again. He leaned into her face and said, “Yes, yes. Let’s talk about the Honorable Ezra J. Hawkins. I’ve got great respect for the man. He did a lot for our fine city. But let’s not forget what he really was, doll baby.”

  “Ezra was a saint.”

  “That may be, but it sure would be a shame if the world knew he was a flaming homosexual.”

  An angry wave flashed across Victoria’s face as she nervously looked both ways, scanning the room for eavesdroppers.

  “Oh, you didn’t know he liked to chase hard-legs? Or maybe you did. He had a whole harem of them at his beck and call back in the day. Why don’t you ask Pelosi over there how he used to drive the streets, hunting for Hawkins in every underground gay club north of I-20, when he should’ve been in Washington for a vote. Sneaking in and out of the back room at Swinging Richards out on Northside Drive. Hawkins was a queen, darling.”

  Virgil watched her jaws lock up, her eyes lit like torches.

  “You cannot prove of word of that,” Victoria said, clenching her teeth. “And even if it’s true, Hawkins was a staunch supporter of gay rights. He was ahead of me and everybody else on that issue. Because of him, I came to see it as the human rights issue that it is. Times are changing, and it might serve you to change along with them.”

  “They really haven’t changed all that much, as far as I can see. We’re still in Georgia, still deep in the heart of Dixie. What will good people say?”

  “Good people will say that he was a great man and that those well-regulated clubs quietly keep the convention and tourism dollars flowing. Hell, I personally extended the liquor license for the Gilded Kitty last Monday. But like I said, you cannot prove it.”

  “I damned sure can,” he said. “And that isn’t all of it, Sugarplum. There’s more where that came from. Now, be a good girl and let’s work something out. Think on it and let me know what you want. Despite your foul mouth and junkyard manners, I’m feeling charitable. Maybe I can get you a partnership at one of these highfalutin law firms around here. You’ve certainly got the pedigree for it, though you could use a bit more charm.”

  “I plan to run a clean race.”

  “‘Clean’ is a relative term. The facts are what they are, and as far as I see, there are no clean hands here,” Virgil said. “Listen, I have it on good authority that a chief counsel spot might open up at Georgia Electric, if you play your cards right. It’s a decent living, not that you need the work, seeing as how you married good money.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “Who can say? There are so many secrets in the garden. I wouldn’t even venture to guess where this thing might go. But it’ll start with your sweet-bootied godfather. Or should I call him ‘Easy’? He liked to get it on in public bathrooms, you know.”

  “Kiss my ass, Virgil.”

  “Well, I guess that settles it,” Virgil said.

  It was just like Victoria to take a high horse on a low road, and he didn’t mind leading that filly out of the barn. Virgil reached into his billfold, slipped a hundred-dollar bill under his glass, pushed himself back from the table, and said, “See you after ’while.”

  ELEVEN

  “Now, that was a crying shame,” Virgil said to himself as he retrieved his black-on-black Mercedes S 600 waiting in the valet lane and eased out of the parking lot.

  He didn’t necessarily like hitting Victoria below the belt like that, but she had to know what she was getting into.

  Virgil drove the short distance to his office at One Buckhead Plaza. He hadn’t planned to spill all of the sweet tea about the dearly departed Ezra Hawkins, but the mayor needed to know that he meant business, lest she get any grand ideas about who was truly running things.

  Grinning like a mule with a belly full of briars, he took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, which opened up to his private suite. Virgil unbolted the door to his office and stepped inside. The smell of lavender and chamomile hit him in the face like a cast-iron skillet. Last week, his secretary, Delores, put plug-in deodorizers in various light sockets to cover up the smell of his cheap cigarillos. He had a thing for peach-flavored Swisher Sweets, which Whit Delacourte tried to tell him didn’t qualify as genuine cigars and weren’t fit for smoking by a man of any means.

  “If you’re going to do it, do it right,” Whit told him last Christmas Eve.

  He’d shown up over at the house, toting an expensive box of Cuban cigars with a red bow stuck on top.

  “Those are hand-rolled, fresh off the boat,” Whit said with a schoolboy’s glee. “Merry Christmas!”

  “Aren’t those illegal?” Virgil asked.

  “Since when has some international embargo kept you or me from doing anything?”

  Virgil conceded the point, took one look at the row of cigars adorned in gold foil wrappers, and decided even the packaging was too fancy for his tastes.

  “Are these for smoking or decorating the Christmas tree?” Virgil said playfully.

  Virgil and Whit were first cousins and had been best friends every day of their lives. After his father took off for Franklin, Tennessee, with another woman back in ’58, Big Whit stepped in and raised young Virgil like he was his own. From that day on, the boys told everybody that they were brothers.

  They were named after their fathers, but took after their mothers in every way, right down to the slue feet and the bullheaded nature that kept them hemmed up in trouble. Whit would give up both eyeteeth if he thought that would buy him some peace. True to his mother, the ever-prudent Emma Louise, he craved discipline and order.

  Virgil, on the other hand, was born with a hankering for chaos. If things were humming along too smoothly, Virgil would shove the peach cart right over a cliff, further proof that he was indeed Ginny-Beth’s boy. Whit had grown out of that sort of mischief, mostly, Virgil would say. Virgil blamed that on the birth of Whit’s firstborn and only son Coleman in ’82. His own appetite for adventure never gave up the ghost.

  Virgil was thinking about how proud Big Whit would be of his boys as he sat down behind his carved oak desk and clicked on the Emeralite desk lamp. Whit was lording over the family’s ever-growing media conglomerate, W. W. Delacourte Enterprises, while Virgil managed its legal affairs and saw after governmental relations. Whit’s younger sister, Wilma, was the executive publisher of the newspaper division and chaired the family foundation. Together, with holdings that now topped $28 billion in stated personal assets, they were by far the wealthiest family in the state.

  Virgil whipped a cigarillo out of his breast pocket and lit it. He leaned back in his chair, blowing smoke rings, thinking about all the devilment he and Whit had gotten themselves into over the years. He let out a chuckle here and there, until he remembered he had some pressing business to attend to.

  Virgil knew the mayor was capable of almost a
nything. Cussing him like a mangy yard dog was the least of it. He’d personally spent three years working out the details of a deal to rework Federal Communications Commission regulations with the current White House, a move that would have all but stripped away provisions that increased minority ownership of media properties, only to have his efforts thwarted by a special congressional subcommittee that was handpicked by the one and only Victoria Dobbs.

  That kind of power was unusual, even for a big-city mayor. Her access to the president, not to mention her frequent appearances on national cable news shows, was something he hadn’t accounted for. He’d fed that monster and now he was paying for it. Then there was that omnibus transportation bill. Between Dobbs and Hawkins, Virgil wasn’t sure which one of them he trusted less.

  No permanent friends, no permanent enemies. Ain’t nothing permanent but interests.

  He picked up the phone and dialed over to Lucky Mitchell’s house.

  Without so much as a “how’s it going,” Virgil said, “Meet me over to my office.”

  “Can it wait? Gabriella and I were just about to leave out for Alabama. I’d like to get over to the casino before sundown.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t make it. Dobbs says she’s running for Congress and kicking off the whole shebang next week.”

  TWELVE

  Both the moon and the sun hung in the sky as Hampton drove east over Ponce de Leon Avenue, past City Hall East and Green’s liquor store, and hooked a right onto Moreland Avenue. He worked the portable hand controls with relative ease now, and getting in and out of the wheelchair transfer took him less time these days. He never got used to crawling on his elbows to get to the bathroom lest he suffer the humiliation of pissing himself again.

  Little Five Points, just east of Candler Park, was already alive with wannabe hipsters cramming into various taverns and eateries. He’d toyed with stopping into Sacred Heart, an all-night tattoo parlor, but couldn’t think of anything he wanted with such permanence.