When It All Falls Down: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady Book 1)

by Tamicka Higgins

Bryon turned around and headed up to the attic, almost stumbling a couple of times when Jackson pushed him forward, calling him everything from a bitch ass nigga to a motherfucker. The attic, which appeared to have a couple of bedrooms as well as a bathroom to the right, was clean and looked like its own apartment. Byron stepped into one of the bedrooms, pulled a purple container out of the closet, and snapped the lid off.

  “What the fuck is that, nigga?” Jackson asked, as he saw a drawing of a man playing a trumpet sitting on top of something in the container.

  Without even speaking, Byron slid the painting out of the container and tossed it to the side. There, underneath, was a gray, metal Liberty safe. Byron leaned in, taking his sweet time as he put in the combination.

  Jackson wacked Bryon as hard as he could on the top of his head with the butt of his gun. Byron winced and grabbed his head. He rolled over and looked up at Jackson. The two men had eyes that told the other one he wanted him dead.

  “Nigga, get your bitch ass up!” Jackson said, pointing the gun at Byron. “Hurry up so I can get the fuck outta here.”

  Byron quickly jumped back up. Within a minute, he opened the safe. Jackson leaned in to see what was inside, his eyes almost bulging at stacks of money – money that he couldn’t wait to get somewhere and count. He would be counting one hundred-dollar bills for days from the looks of how packed the safe was with straps of money.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ bout nigga,” Jackson said. “That’s what the fuck I’m talkin’ bout!” Jackson turned around and yelled as loud as he could, hoping that Tramar would be able to hear him from down in the kitchen. He was telling him to come up, but he never did. Jackson told Byron to pick up the container with the safe in it and get back downstairs. Byron, thinking that this guy may actually be crazy enough to kill him, did just as he was told. Naked and carrying the container, he headed back down to the first floor. Jackson followed behind him, still on high alert for anyone else in the house. Once the two had gotten back to the first floor, Byron sat the container in the kitchen before putting his back to the kitchen counter.

  “A’ight, nigga,” Byron said. “Get what I owe you and get the fuck outta here.”

  “Nigga, I’m the one who in charge of this shit,” Jackson said. “Shut the fuck up and don’t talk unless I tell you to talk.”

  The female tried to step closer to Byron for comfort, but found that Byron was not up for that the least bit. He pushed her back, telling her to get off of him. When Tramar looked down and into the safe, he couldn’t believe how much money was in there. He was so happy that his boy Jackson had hit him up, at just the right time.

  Jackson leaned over and began to pull money out of the safe. After several seconds had passed, with him pulling out close to twenty thousand dollars in straps of one hundred-dollar bills, Byron forgot what he’d been told. He stepped toward Jackson and Tramar, who then stood and quickly pointed their guns at Byron. All the while, the female screamed and whimpered in the background, as she covered her pussy and chest with her two hands.

  “Nigga, don’t walk up on us like that,” Jackson said.

  Byron stepped back. “Nigga, you takin’ more than I owe you, nigga,” he said. “You takin’ more than I fuckin’ owe you.”

  “So you do know that you owe me?” Jackson asked. “And you got the money here, I see, to give me what the fuck you owe me and yet you still, like the bitch ass nigga that you is, try’ta stiff me.”

  “Man, fuck this nigga!” Tramar said, getting tired of standing by quietly. They’d already been in the house for longer than he had really wanted. “Jackson, nigga, why don’t you just kill the nigga? I’m so sick of lookin’ at his sorry ass already. Kill this nigga and take his shit, and we can get the fuck on.” He pointed the gun at the woman. “In fact, let’s kill her ass first to show him.”

  “Killin’ her ain’t gon’ do shit,” Byron said, confidently. “Look at her.” He motioned toward her. “She ain’t nothin’ but a mouth, some titties, a pussy, and a big ass. Killin’ her ain’t gon’ do shit.”

  “Nigga, calm down,” Jackson said, grabbing his boy Tramar’s shoulder. “I just came here to get my money and shit, and then I know we ain’t gon have no problems.” He turned back and looked at Byron. “This nigga ain’t stupid. He know he can’t make no moves without somebody hearin’ what he doin’. He gon’ just cry like a little bitch when we leave. Shit, maybe we’ll leave the nigga outside. Let the neighbors see a little dick nigga running around in the woods for once.”

  Byron looked at Jackson with his coldest eyes. Just as he was about to speak, Jackson cut him off by saying, “I’mma have to charge a little interest. I’m takin’ all the money.”

  Byron’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He knew that he probably had close to $100,000 in that safe. He had more money elsewhere in the house, but he would not dare mention that sort of thing. Instead he stood there and patiently waited this situation out. However, in his mind, he already knew that Jackson and his boy were going to be walking dead men the moment they stepped over the threshold and back out into the world. It had been a couple of years since Byron had to really hunt a guy down over something. These two dudes would be the perfect candidates. Chicago may be a big city, but it wasn’t big enough to keep Byron from finding somebody who had done him dirty. He knew how to look under every crevice – in every nook and cranny.

  Tramar found a black duffle bag in the closet next to the back door. Inside were gym shoes, shorts and knee braces. He dumped them out, and then quickly kneeled down to the floor. He pulled all of the stacks out of the safe and shuffled them into the duffle bag. When he’d finished, he stood up and smiled, grabbing his gun off of the floor. “Fuck, this shit is heavy.”

  “Yeah, money is heavy,” Jackson said. He leaned in closer and looked Byron dead in the eye. He hit his head once again with the barrel of his gun, watching a stream of blood roll down the side of the humiliated man’s head. “I’mma be nice and let you stay inside and shit while we leave. I would put you outside, but it looks like you and your bitch done been through enough to me.”

  Byron breathed heavily. His nostrils flared. He wanted to say so much, but he knew he’d be in a better position by just being quiet. He nodded his head, full of anger and resentment.

  Tramar grabbed Jackson’s shoulder. “Come on, nigga,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Before they walked out of the front door, Jackson and Tramar pushed Byron and his chick into a tiny coat closet that was filled with stuff. Once they were uncomfortably wedged inside, Tramar pulled the dining room table over to the closer door and put it there, assuming doing such would give them enough time to get to the car.

  Jackson and Tramar, with the money in hand and guns tucked away, looked up and down the street. Once they saw that the neighborhood was just as deserted looking as it had been when they first pulled up, they gently closed the front door and headed out across the yard. Just as they’d stepped onto the sidewalk, a gunshot rang out – a gunshot that was very close to them.

  Without thinking, the two men ran for their lives. Gunshot after gunshot after gunshot rang into the air. Jackson and Tramar ran as fast as they could, their hearts practically pounding out of their chest. It was proving to be twice as hard for Tramar to run because he was carrying the bag of money. When the two of them had climbed into the car, they managed to keep their heads low as the gunshots continued and appeared to be getting closer.

  “Star the fuckin’ car, nigga!” Tramar yelled. “This nigga try’na kill us. Start the fuckin’ car!”

  Jackson fumbled with the keys, trying to find the right one. As soon as he did, he turned the engine over, put the car into DRIVE, and pulled off almost in one swift motion. For the next couple of seconds, gunshots sounded off as they drove away. Once they felt safe, which was further down the block, they both lifted their heads up and looked in their side mirrors. Standing in the middle of the street, at the other end of the block, was Byron. Naked, he held the
gun in the air, pointed at the car, before looking at it and realizing he’d run out of bullets. He looked around before walking back into the house.

  Chapter 4

  Tramar convinced Jackson that they should get a motel room over in Indiana. Yes, driving to Indiana from the suburbs on the north side of Chicago was indeed a stretch. And yes, it was certainly risky, considering they’d be riding through not only downtown but also the south side. However, Tramar knew that some of Byron’s words rang true. He saw the look in his eyes when they were in the kitchen;Byron really was a man of his word when it came to tracking somebody down.

  “Man, why we ain’t just kill that nigga so we ain’t got to worry about him comin’ after us?” Tramar demanded to know.

  Both men had adrenaline rushing through their veins as they drove through the city and toward the Indiana state line.

  “Nigga, I don’t know,” Jackson answered. “Don’t let that nigga scare you and shit. You really think he gon’ go through the energy of try’na find us. How the fuck he gon’ find us? The nigga ain’t even know that we was walkin’ up in the house on him and that bitch he was with. He weak. That nigga don’t ever do shit to nobody. He talk like he do, but I ain’t never heard of him actually doin’ a damn thing.”

  “I don’t know, man,” Tramar said. “I just don’t feel right about this.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll feel right when we get to the room and count this fuckin’ money,” Jackson said, smiling. “Did you see all that fuckin’ money we just got?” He looked back at the black duffle bag, which was now sitting on the floor in the backseat. “You see that shit, nigga?”

  “Yeah,” Tramar said, nodding his head. “That was a lot of fuckin’ money.”

  The two went on to talk about how much money they thought was in Byron’s safe. Jackson drove the car down the interstate, crossed into Indiana, and exited at Calumet Avenue. He knew this road to have a long string of motels that were kind of grimy, as the area was next to a huge set of dilapidated factories.

  Jackson drove down the road until he and Tramar saw a hotel that would work. They pulled into the parking lot, dropped the sixty dollars to rent the room, and hurried inside – Room 18. Inside, Tramar pushed the door closed and stood still for a moment. He almost wanted to smile, feeling like some of the guys in the Pablo Escobar movies that he and his cousins would watch back when they were kids. He felt as if he and his boy Jackson had just pulled off a heist. Never did he think he’d run up into a guy’s house, strip him naked, take his money from his safe, and then narrowly avoid taking a bullet when running out to the car. He knew that God must have really been on his side, because he needed the money so he could pull himself up.

  Tramar lifted the duffle bag up onto the bed. He turned it over and dumped the money out onto the bed. He and Jackson’s eyes almost glistened. “Shit, nigga,” Tramar said. “This is a lot of fuckin’ money.”

  “Nigga, it ain’t like its millions or nothin’,” Jackson said, clearing space for himself on the bed. “Now, that’s the kinda money I wanna see. I wanna see fuckin’ millions. But this will work. I just wanted what was mine back. Fuck that nigga. If he woulda just paid me what the fuck he owed me in the first place, all of this wouldn’t have even happen. And I don’t know why you was talkin’ bout all that killin’ shit.”

  “‘Cause, nigga,” Tramar said in a very serious tone. He sat down on the other side of the bed. “You know how niggas are. I’m tellin’ you dude, if you don’t do it, I just might.”

  Jackson, who had just begun to pick stacks up off of the bed, stopped. He dropped the stacks and looked into his boy Tramar’s eyes. “You fuckin’ serious about that shit, huh?” he asked. “You would really take a nigga life.”

  “Fuck, yeah,” Tramar said. “I mean, I ain’t doin’ the shit for sport or nothin’. I ain’t talkin’ bout goin’ huntin’. I was just sayin’ that we should do that shit so we ain’t gotta worry about him comin’ after us and shit. I ain’t try’na be havin’ to look over my shoulder and shit when I go places if I ain’t got to. Then we gotta worry about the chick. When y’all went upstairs, she was tellin’ me that she just met the nigga last night and basically came home with him to jump on his dick. I ain’t sayin’ she wasn’t lying so that maybe I’d let her ass go, but then you gotta worry about somebody deciding that they wanna go to the police”

  Jackson nodded, thinking about what his boy Tramar was saying to him. “I see what you mean now,” he said. “‘Cause if we kill his ass, it coulda just wound up bein’ a mystery and shit. Like one of them things you see on a episode of True Crimes or somethin’, where they be findin’ mothafuckas dead with no clues and shit.”

  “Yeah, somethin’ like that,” Tramar said.

  Jackson shrugged and picked the stacks back up off of the bed. “Man, I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, the nigga look pretty scared and shit until the very end. He was just flexin’ and shit. So, what you sayin’ we should do?”

  “What I think we should do is stay at a motel in some obscure, middle of nowhere place like this and wait it out a bit,” Tramar explained. “Then, when the nigga can’t really find us, and is gettin’ real shitty, we go after him and get his ass.”

  “A’ight,” Jackson said. “We can talk about that shit later.” He turned to the money. “I’m ready to count this fuckin’ money, nigga, so we can get this shit outta here. I kinda liked doin’ that shit. I know niggas who do the home invasion thing and get money from doin’ it. But I just ain’t never think that I was gon’ be doin’ it.”

  The two of them spent the better part of the early afternoon hours counting the money. The grand total came to $122,000.

  “Nigga, we can get a couple of rooms with this kinda money,” Tramar said, jokingly. Then they realized that getting multiple hotel rooms wouldn’t be a bad idea. That would give them multiple places around Chicago where they could go until they caught back up with Byron. The more Jackson thought about it, the more he liked the idea of putting a bullet in Byron’s head. There was just something about that dude that from day one, they’d never really gotten along. It was as if his demeanor was something very similar to that of a con artist. Jackson hated that he had fallen for the act. However, as he’d gotten older, he’d come up with his own act. He was getting bolder, as was Tamar. And neither of them was in a position where they could lose.

  Around 5 o’clock, Jackson went out to the front desk of the motel and got himself a room. As he returned, he got an old book bag out of the car, which had been left there by his nephew. Inside the room, he took seventy thousand and gave the remaining fifty-something thousand to Tramar. Tramar then asked to be taken back to his car so he could be mobile. Once evening rush hour had died down around 7:30pm, Jackson drove Tramar back into the city so he could get his car, which was a parked outside of his apartment.

  When Tramar got back to his motel room, he and Jackson shared a blunt before Jackson went to his room. They talked more in depth about how they could get Byron, and whether or not it was even worth it. They had decided that they’d simply see how Byron reacted to being robbed like this. If he did indeed decide to try to come after them, which Tramar believed he would, as he knew that very few people would run out into the street naked and shoot a gun out in the suburbs, they would have to handle the situation accordingly.

  Tramar pulled out his phone and called Ayana. He needed to talk to his girl. Even with all of the things he’d done in his life – some of them crazy and some of them bold – there was still this comfortable feeling that came from talking to Ayana. Nobody in the world really understood him the way she did. And the feeling was likewise for Ayana.

  “Hello?” Ayana answered.

  “What you doin’?” Tramar asked.

  “Just got done putting in for these jobs over in Indiana,” Ayana said. “I don’t really wanna work over there, but if the job pays, shit I’ll take it. I need some money.”

  “No, you don’t,” Tramar said. “Baby, I go
t you. You don’t need to be worryin’ about try’na get no money. You should see the shit me and Jackson just went and picked up.”

  “What you talkin’ bout, Tramar?” Ayana asked. She clearly sounded confused. “What you mean you and Jackson went and picked up something? Y’all ain’t rob no fuckin’ bank did you?”

  Tramar chuckled. “And if we did,” he said, smiling into the phone.

  “Boy, stop with all that,” Ayana said.

  “Whatever,” Tramar said. “You’d be right there walking, telling me to buy you this and get you that. Don’t even front like you wouldn’t be.”

  Ayana giggled, causing Tramar to smile. It was nice to have a normal moment in his day. Just hours before he was lying in this hotel room bed, he and his boy Jackson were pulling off in a town car and trying to dodge bullets.

  “But, seriously though, baby,” Tramar said. “Me and Jackson did some wild shit today.”

  “What?” Ayana asked. “What y’all do.”

  “What you doin’ right now?” Tramar asked. “Let me come and pick you up, and I can show you.”

  Ayana agreed to Tramar coming and picking her up. The two ended their phone conversation so Ayana could get ready to go. As soon as Tramar hung up from talking to Ayana, he hopped out of the bed, looked at his cut of the money, which was tucked away in a bag. He’d lifted up a dresser that had a hollow base to it and pushed the money underneath.

  When Tramar pulled into the parking lot at Ayana’s apartment building, Ayana was waiting out on the sidewalk. She moved slower than usual as she approached his Charger, prompting Tramar to roll his windows down and yell to her, “C’mon here!”

  When Ayana got into the car, she looked around. Tramar noticed and asked her, “Damn, girl, what the hell you lookin’ for?”

  “Where’s the body?” Ayana said, playfully.

  “Ha, ha,” Tramar said. “Guess you over there try’na be funny and shit. On the real though, a nigga came close to almost having a body in here today.”