Paper Gods

by Goldie Taylor

  Hampton eyed the foot traffic along Moreland and Euclid Avenues, imagining himself among them. He’d gotten to the point where he could stand of his own volition for at least a few minutes at a time, though no more than that without the aid of fitted forearm crutches, which he loathed. The speed at which he would recover, if he would ever walk on his own again, depended on the work he put in, his physical therapist advised. Progress, when there was some, came slowly. Hampton couldn’t afford the twice-weekly sessions anyway.

  There was no way to prove it, but he was sure that the mayor and her goon squad were behind the car accident. While she hadn’t exactly tied him up and pumped liquor down his throat, he’d felt that steering wheel lock up in his hands. No matter how hard he jammed the loose brake pedal to the floorboard, the almost-new Nissan 370Z kept careening down Highway 138, revving through the gears and picking up speed until he ran straight through a curve and hit the bad side of a good tree. The Special Operations Corps, the mayor’s team of henchmen, was nothing more than an urban legend, according to her press secretary. The police chief publicly denied such a unit existed, and Hampton couldn’t find anything out of order in the city payroll records.

  Inman was barking when he turned the dead bolt on the front door. Staring up at the weather-beaten awning, Hampton couldn’t shake Chanel’s words.

  You don’t know what kinna people you messing with. If they got him, please believe they can get at you and me.

  He let Inman out into the backyard and rolled himself to the second bedroom. He holed up for hours on end, reassessing a story he had been forced to let go after his car split that tree.

  He wondered now what, if anything, Chanel knew about the League. It was no secret that a small band of largely white business leaders had been injecting money into Friends of Ezra Hawkins since his first reelection to city council back in the ’70s.

  They were captains of industry, mostly real estate developers and bankers, but wealthy one and all. Some were dead now, others aging and retired to one gated Florida house or another. A few young, big-moneyed faces joined the mix. Thirty-eight-year-old Cordie Russell, founder of a chicken-and-waffle franchise and failed candidate for Congress, was the only African American member of the League.

  Hampton believed Cordie was almost as shrewd as he was lucky and rich. According to a press clipping that Hampton turned up in the Athens Banner-Herald, young Cordie, who was then president of the College Republicans at the University of Georgia, hosted Virgil Loudermilk for the annual Presidents’ Day Dinner in ’98. It was the start of a relationship that would prove profitable for the budding businessman, as Loudermilk would later fund the first of many restaurants that Cordie opened up.

  Every man has a price.

  Cordie later signed up to be the Republican foil in the Fourth District race against Lorraine Macklemore in 2002. Nobody in his or her right mind believed that Cordie could win, no matter how much of a lunatic Macklemore proved to be. That was never the point, as Macklemore and her bag of loose screws didn’t make it out of the Democratic primary. Cordie turned out enough Republicans in DeKalb and Rockdale Counties to put a U.S. Senate candidate over the top.

  Hampton was startled by a scraping noise that seemed to come from the front of the house, but decided it was nothing. He’d grown used to the shifting foundation and squeaking pipes in the old bungalow. Inman was barking again. He’d left the pooch outside, though from the sound of things, the dog was back in the house. Hampton went back to work.

  He’d kept a running tally on the League, a band of political donors who made their presence known in almost every big race around the state. There was a complex trail of money and a few endorsements, which Hampton tallied on a growing spreadsheet. Stacks of campaign finance disclosure forms, court transcripts, and news clippings were strewn across the floor. Hampton examined the “mug shots” of the suspected players he’d pasted on a far wall. Loudermilk, the unofficial chairman of the League, was tacked in the middle of the photo array next to a cheese grit–grinning Cordie.

  The story, if Hampton could ever put it all together and convince his editor to publish it, was his ticket out of Atlanta.

  Ah yes! Atlanta hasn’t seen a fire this big since General William Tecumseh Sherman burned down the West End!

  Cordie and Hawkins weren’t the only beneficiaries. Hampton did the math and figured out that the League put its extraordinary wealth and political firepower to work for a slate of mostly black candidates. Back in ’93, they picked a mayor, four city council members, a county commission chair, and a whole school board to do their bidding. Thanks to an independent expenditure campaign, created under state and federal election law, none of the actual donors was ever disclosed and the largess could not be directly traced back to the League. The outfit, aptly and ironically named Reclaim Atlanta, put its considerable weight behind a city councilman from Inman Park. He was elected mayor in a landslide.

  Hampton twisted his bottom lip between his fingers. The League had no standing committees that he could discern. Their work was done in private during ad hoc meetings over plates of fried lobster, thick-cut filets, and roasted asparagus in the back dining room at Chops Lobster Bar. He felt his stomach rumbling. Hampton hadn’t had a steak—tough or tender—in ages.

  According to the few public records available, Reclaim Atlanta was being run out of a post office box on Pharr Road. Whether jointly or severally, the men of the League rarely made a public political endorsement and mostly stayed silent on city and state issues. And they were all men, twelve of them, by Hampton’s best count.

  Their boldfaced names frequently graced the front page of the Atlanta Business Weekly, the city’s pay-per-play business paper. One could spot them on the dais at various high-dollar galas, supporting one worthy cause or another. Their wives emptied the racks at Phipps Plaza and noshed on make-do sushi and sugar-free Belvedere lemon drop martinis out on the patio at Twist. Their children attended private schools like Pace Academy, Westminster, and the Lovett School, and populated summer tennis league rosters at the Cherokee Town and Country Club in the bucolic, mansion-lined section of Buckhead’s Tuxedo Park. More than a zip code, 30327 was a station in life. The way the League conducted their political business was as secretive as the gated driveways leading up to their multimillion-dollar homes.

  At least for a time, among the League’s chosen were Ezra Hawkins and his protégée, Victoria Dobbs-Overstreet. That much Hampton knew for certain. Hampton discovered that during the 2009 mayoral campaign, when Dobbs faced stiff competition from the sitting city council president, she received over a half million in on-the-record contributions from family members and employees directly tied to the League. The campaign disclosure reports were clean and there was no accounting of what came under the table and Hampton had never been able to pin down what they got in return for their generosity. But it was clear, at least to Hampton, that they were buying themselves a new mayor. He’d taken the story to Tucker, who killed it on the spot without discussion when he saw the list of suspected players.

  Hampton was nervous now, just as he had been when Tucker ordered him out of his office. Somewhere in those records lay the key to the biggest political scandal since the assassination of Huey Long in 1935 touched off a wave of public corruption that implicated hundreds of Louisiana government officials and business leaders. He struggled through the minutiae, believing the answer was buried somewhere deep in the spreadsheets. Chanel’s words danced in his head.

  You don’t know what kinna people you messing with.

  He heard the scraping again, and then a banging sound came from the living room. Hampton was confused at first, and then fear tore through him like a straw hut blazing in a low wind. Living in-town had its drawbacks. A rash of home invasions had hit Candler Park, Kirkwood, and a few adjoining neighborhoods in East Atlanta, and sometimes he felt like a sitting duck.

  Instinctively, Hampton reached for the aluminum baseball bat he kept propped against his desk,
grabbed his cell phone, and rolled himself into the dimly lit hallway.

  “Inman, Inman!”

  The hound scampered toward him. Hampton was relieved to see his snout covered in red sauce and spaghetti noodles. He’d forgotten to take out yesterday’s trash, leaving Inman with a feast that no self-respecting mutt could resist.

  “How the heck did you get in here? Let’s get you cleaned up, boy.”

  He rested the bat on his lap and wheeled toward the kitchen. Inman disappeared around the corner of the hallway. Hampton found the garbage can flipped onto its side. He managed to set it upright again. Inman was back now, yapping and spinning in circles.

  Bang!

  Hampton whipped himself around, gripping the bat with both hands. Somebody was in the house. Judging by the shuffling sounds coming from various directions, there was more than one somebody. Hampton tensed up.

  Bang!

  Through the small, square cutout over the kitchen sink, he glimpsed a shadow flickering across the living room and swallowed the bulge in his throat.

  “Hey! Hey!” he shouted, deepening his voice.

  Another shadow zipped by. Maybe white, maybe black, Hampton couldn’t say for sure. One in tan cargo shorts, the other in slouching jeans. White dime-store T-shirts, one tall enough to bump his head on the light fixture hanging from the living room ceiling. Hampton tried to remember everything about them.

  Maybe six foot four or five, long and lanky like a light pole.

  The second guy was definitely black, a head-length shorter than the other, Hampton could see now. He was wearing a ball cap, flipped to the back, though he couldn’t make out the emblem.

  A third figure, a boy who was no older than fifteen or sixteen, emerged out of nowhere and snatched the bat from his hands. Suddenly Hampton was staring up into the barrel of a pistol.

  “Hey, whoa!”

  “You know what this is,” the man-child’s voice said.

  There was an air of certitude to his words. Hampton took note of the shoulder-length dreadlocks, his bony shoulders, the width of his bowlegged stance, the small silver cross that pierced his left earlobe, and his narrow, jet-black eyes. Hampton froze as the men ransacked the house.

  “Please, I don’t have any money,” he begged. “I swear. Brother, I’m broke like you.”

  “Y’ont know what I got, and I ain’t your brother, bitch.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Shut’cho gawt-damn mouth.”

  Hampton blinked uncontrollably. Even if he had thought to swing it, the bat would’ve been no match for the bullet to his skull that would surely follow.

  Suddenly Inman leapt at the gunman.

  “No! No!”

  Pop! Pop!

  Hampton slumped forward in his wheelchair, soundless and trembling.

  “Nigga, we whatn’t supposed to kill no fuck-ass dog,” he heard one of them say.

  “Mu’fuckah almost bit me in the nuts,” the baby-faced gunman said with a shrug.

  The nine-millimeter was on Hampton again. He felt the hot tip pressed against the center of his forehead. He slowly raised his hands in the air, squeezed his eyes closed, and started praying out loud.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

  Click.

  “God help me.”

  “You ain’t shit your pants, did you?” the gunman said, tucking the pistol into his waistband.

  The man-child smirked as he turned and trotted out of the house, leaving the front door wide open. The screen door banged against the frame. Hampton watched helplessly as the trio got into a green Camaro they’d left running in the gravel driveway, backed out, and peeled off down the street. Inman lay on the threadbare carpet, his jaws open, his eyes fixed forward.

  Hampton started to dialed 911, but hung up.

  The house was busted up, but the best he could expect was a crime scene tech dusting the place for fingerprints and leaving him with a file number. He didn’t have renter’s insurance anyway, so a police report was worthless. He wasn’t even sure what, if anything, had been taken. Then an alarm bell went off in his head. He checked his laptop. The monitor was cracked, but otherwise in good order.

  Hampton sat in his open doorway and let the soft summer breeze sweep over him through the broken screen. A neighbor had been robbed and shot in his front yard weeks back, while unloading grocery bags. The entire ordeal had Hampton pining for a nice one-bedroom apartment out in the suburbs. Maybe Sandy Springs or Dunwoody, he couldn’t decide. But for the traffic, Alpharetta seemed nice.

  That night, Hampton took a shovel, lay on the ground, and dug a hole in the backyard. He struggled to hoist Inman’s lifeless body into the shallow grave and began covering him in scoops of red clay. Under the bright gray-tinged moon, he said a final prayer before he pitched the last bale of loose dirt over the body and packed it down with the back of the metal spade.

  To Hampton, lying there on his back, on the flat, dry ground, alone and staring into the starless sky, the moon was as far away as it had ever been.

  You don’t know what kinna people you messing with. If they got him, please believe they can get at you and me.

  If some low-dollar punks could get into his house, anybody could, Hampton thought as he scooted into his bedroom. He decided the wrought-iron burglar bars that his landlord offered weren’t such a bad idea after all. For once, he was glad Claire had left him.

  Nigga, we whatn’t supposed to kill no fuck-ass dog.

  THIRTEEN

  Once featured on dueling covers of The Atlantan and Southern Living, the house at 439 Blackland Road, with its nineteen rooms, indoor-outdoor pool, majestic waterfalls, and dreamlike gardens, was a sight to behold. The massive French Revival home contained what one centerfold headline called THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROOM IN ALL OF ATLANTA.

  It was there, beyond a fifteen-foot arched doorway, beneath a sun-drenched atrium, that Libby Gail Loudermilk took her tea.

  The week had been insanely busy, thus Libby Gail was pleased to finally have the space to herself. Their son Quinn and the daughter-in-law, whose name Libby Gail refused to utter aloud, were off on a new adventure a world away. The house staff was busy resetting the mansion for another round of expected guests. A favorite cousin from Arkansas, another from Virginia, a stepsister and her husband—a newly elected governor—coming down from South Carolina. There were accommodations to be made and dietary concerns to be addressed. Though the social season had come and gone, Libby Gail would throw a grand reception in their honor. She’d placed a special order for a beautiful white truffle to be flown in from Tuscany for the splendid cauliflower risotto she planned for the occasion.

  Virgil had promised to be back within the hour, and like clockwork he appeared, dressed in a natty suit. This was unusual, as her husband was generally given to a more uninspired style of dress. A pair of pressed tan slacks, a starched button-down shirt, and a pair of well-broken-in leather loafers with which he refused to part were often the best he could muster from day to day.

  Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to get worked up about a houseful of their relatives. He was no fan of his brother-in-law, the “yellow dog” who Virgil said was a Republican in name only. At his wife’s behest, he’d ordered a hefty campaign donation sent for their political action committee.

  Virgil loosened his necktie and took a seat in a tufted armchair. “Did young Master Quinn and his bride get off well?” he asked.

  “You missed them by a few minutes,” Libby Gail replied, stroking the cat in her lap. “Quinn said he would call from San Francisco, between stops. Where, dare I ask, have you been off to, wearing such finery?”

  “Here and there. How long are they supposed to be in Singapore anyway?”

  “A few months, maybe more. He’ll miss his dear mama before long.”

  “Of that, I am sure.”

  “How did your meeting with Mayor Dobbs go? You never said a word about it edgewise.”

  “Never said I had one.”

&
nbsp; “You know this is the biggest small town on earth. Gracious, Virgil, did you honestly think that I would not hear?”

  Virgil flashed a pained smile.

  “What devilment are you up to now?” Libby Gail pressed.

  “A bit of company business,” Virgil responded warily. “She had some things to get off her chest.”

  “Such as?”

  “Nothing of any note, really.”

  “That’s what you said the last go-round.”

  “How ’bout them Braves,” he said, looking for a more manageable topic. “Season’s off to a good start, don’t you think? Shelby Miller almost put in a no-hitter the other night.”

  Libby Gail took a long drag on her silver-plated vape, sat the cat down on the marble tiling, and tipped her nose up.

  “When are you gonna learn to knock?” Virgil said.

  There stood one Leland “Lucky” Mitchell in a getup that could only be described as eccentric. He was wearing a pair of red velvet loafers that Virgil hadn’t seen before. He’d heard the rumors about those shoes, though he’d written them off as back-fence talk among the women. But there they were, plain as day, proof positive that Lucky had too much money for his own good. They even had a gold metallic stitching on the top just like his sister, Wilma, said they did.

  “Harold let me in,” Lucky said.

  “Good heavens, Leland. What on earth have you got on?” Libby Gail said with measured amusement, calling him by his given name.

  Lucky was having trouble catching his breath and was making sounds that vaguely resembled words. Virgil hadn’t seen him like that since the time he hit the Mega Millions numbers one day and the multistate Powerball game the next. He drove around town in a spanking-brand-new Ford F-250, with spinners in the wheels. His dog, Biloxi, a mutt Lucky found wandering in the parking lot of a casino over in Mississippi, was always in the passenger seat, resting his head on his big paws.

  Lucky had lost the Mitchell family fortune three times over, once in an ugly divorce to his second ex-wife-turned-politician, Sarah, but he’d more than made it back at high-stakes, underground poker tables around the world—the very reason everyone came to call him Lucky in the first place. That, and the point that he was bedding a beautiful Latina thirty-two years his junior, sealed it for Virgil.