“Man, how the fuck we supposed to know when it’s this Precious chick or not?” Knight asked. Knight had somewhat objected to this entire plan from the beginning. He thought they should have at least looked her up on social media or something to see what she looked like before they came over and sat outside of her house. “I mean, man, we don’t even know what she look like, Juan.”
“Nigga, shut the fuck up,” Juan said. “You just took one of the biggest Ls of the century. And we gon’ just sit out here, like we did last night, and see if we get any hunches. Make sure your window is rolled all the way down, so we can make sure that we hear whatever these little people walkin’ by are sayin.”
“Nigga, listen to me,” Knight said, after making sure that his window was rolled all the way down. He lowered his voice. “I’m tellin’ you. We shoulda got on Facebook or somethin’ and seen what this chick look like first before we just came out and got to lookin’ and shit. What if the cops ride by? They gon’ think that we a couple of kiddy molesters or somethin’.”
“Nigga, shut the fuck up with your scary ass,” Juan said. “Ain’t nobody gon’ think that we try’na snatch none of these little kids up or nothin’. Nigga, look over there.” Juan pointed at a woman and a boy coming out of the apartment courtyard. “You think that’s them?”
Knight looked over toward the gate, just on the other side of the small parking lot. “Nigga, out of all the mothers that we’re going to see walking their kids to school and shit this morning,” he said, “why the fuck do you think that it would be them? I mean, come on…. Why the fuck you think it’s them two?”
“‘Cause, nigga,” Juan said. “Something is telling me that it is them. Something is tellin’ me that’s that nigga’s baby mama and his son.”
“Yeah, okay,” Knight said, shaking his head. “If you say so.”
They sat there for the next several seconds as the woman and her son came closer. Soon enough, they found that it couldn’t be Tramar’s son and his mother. The boy looked to be too old, especially if people out in the streets had told them that Tramar’s son would be around three to four years old. This boy looked as if he were probably seven or eight once he and the woman got up close.
“See, nigga,” Knight said, as the woman and child walked by across the street. “I told you that it ain’t them. Nigga, you really are fuckin’ trippin’. I told you we need to get on Facebook or some shit and see if we can find this chick or something. I mean, we gon’ be sittin’ out here just hopin’ that we come across her and the boy or that they come walkin’ across us. That shit could take for fuckin’ ever.”
“Knight, shut the fuck up,” Juan said.
The two of them sat there arguing back and forth for a few more minutes. Their chit chat was disrupted by a kid yelling out the name Quan. Immediately, Juan looked to Knight. “Quan?” he said. “Ain’t that what the boy at the bar said was Tramar’s son’s name?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” Knight answered, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, maybe. I don’t really remember.”
“Nigga, you stupid and slow,” Juan said. “You know damn well that’s what that nigga said. Now, we just gotta see where that shit came from, and then we’ll be on the money.”
Juan looked around, up and down the block. It didn’t take him long to see a kid running up to a boy and what looked like his mother. Quickly, Juan pushed Knight’s shoulder and pointed across the street and behind them. The two men looked as the woman, her son, and his friend walked down the other side of the street. They sat there, quietly. Again, they heard the name Quan. Juan smiled at Knight and angled his eyes toward the woman and the kid. “What I tell you?” he asked. “They prolly headed up to the school a block and a half or some shit like that up the street.”
“And you think she gon’ come back down the block or gon’ go get on the train from there?” Knight tasked.
Juan looked at Knight, breaking away from looking down the street. “You know what?” he said. “That might have been the first smart thing that you said since I met you, nigga.”
Playfully, Knight reached over and pushed Juan in the chest. “Fuck you, nigga.”
“Seriously, though,” Juan said. “She just might do that. ‘Cause you know from the school to the L station right there ain’t nothin’ but like three blocks, and then she’d be right downtown in no time.”
“Just drive around the neighborhood for a little bit,” Knight suggested. “And we should roll our windows up so she can’t see our faces or nothin’ when we roll by her up the block.”
Juan did just that and pulled out of the parking spot. He rolled up the street, leaves blowing down from the autumn-struck trees that lined the street just on the other side of the apartment building parking lot. The wind blew some across the street as the Chicago skyline rose toward the clouds in the distance, to the north. Juan rolled by the woman and her son, along with his friend. He and Knight both looked at one another, making eye contact that let the other one know that they both thought this chick was it.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Knight asked.
“Hell yeah,” Juan said, nodding his head. “I think that’s her.”
“How you wanna do this?” Knight asked.
“I say that we just play it cool,” Juan explained. “We can ride around the block a little bit while she walks the little boy into the school and stuff. If she comes out and turns that way,” he pointed away from the neighborhood, “then we know that ass is goin’ toward the train station, and we need to stop her to have a little talk. If she come back this way, then we know that she goin’ back home, and we can make sure that we meet her at her door or some shit like that, like walk in behind her when she goin’ up the steps or elevator or whatever.”
“I got you,” Knight said, rubbing his hands together. “Man, I be glad when we done with this shit.”
“Yeah, so I can get my fuckin’ money and be done with this nigga, Ryan,” Juan said.
“Yeah, what the fuck is up with him?” Knight asked. “The nigga got this attitude all the time and shit.”
“Yeah, fuck him,” Juan said. “He lucky I need the money or I woulda never answered his phone call and shit when he told us to be answering the phone. I swear to God when I say I thought about just skippin’ town and goin’ and startin’ my life and shit over in Minneapolis or North Dakota or somewhere like that.”
“Nigga, you trippin’,” Knight said. “And you know you ain’t goin’ to no damn North Dakota, nigga. You just talkin’. You know this money we make from this kinda shit is too good to pass up, especially considering how the people that be payin’ us be the main ones that ain’t try’na do shit for themselves.”
“You got that right,” Juan said.
The two men rolled around the block, eventually watching the woman and the two children turn off of the street and go onto the school property. When Juan came back around the block, he was in luck. He’d found a spot further down the block with a good view while also being out of the way when the woman would come back out.
“Now, let’s just hope that she come back out this same side,” Juan said. “‘Cause if she don’t, a nigga is gon’ have to roll around the block in like five minutes and see what the fuck is goin’ on.”
The two of them sat there, going on to talk about Byron’s grandmother’s house. Juan still had bruises and bumps on the back of his head from Tramar’s father hitting him with the dining room chair. Knight and Juan chose to simply not speak about the humiliation of being tied up and stranded there for two days. And they knew that there was no way they could call the two chicks back to chill, since Byron had let them go. No woman in her right mind would come back after something like that happened. Both Knight and Juan were relieved that Byron had been killed. His death meant they didn’t have to answer to the punishment they each surely had coming their way from messing up with the “company.” Byron would have probably come back and tortured them if he were still alive
&
nbsp; The woman came walking back off of the school grounds. Juan smiled when she turned back down the street, toward her apartment building. He knew he needed to jump into action so they could be in the right position to catch up with her when she was going into her building. He pulled off, looking over at Knight. “We ain’t got no guns no more, do we?” he asked.
“Naw,” Knight responded. “But we do got them knives in here.” He reached into the back seat and felt around on the floor before pulling up a couple of Columbia River knives. He tossed one into Juan’s lap. “We got these.”
“That’ll work,” Juan said. “Somethin’ we can put up to that bitch throat and tell her if she say a mothufuckin’ word, we gon’ spill her damn guts right there on the sidewalk.”
The woman walked down the street, back toward her apartment, as Juan drove the van around the building and parked on the very same block where they’d been in the first place. They now were parked right across the street from the small parking lot that led into the apartment building courtyard. Once the woman had walked by and was headed toward the building entrance, Juan and Knight jumped out of the car.
“Precious?” Juan said, softly. He did this to see if the woman turned around upon hearing her name. As luck would have it, she did. Right away, both Knight and Juan could see that she had the typical hood rat attitude that so many chicks in this part of Chicago had.
The woman turned around and looked at the two men as they came up on her on the sidewalk. “Do I know you?” she snapped back, looking them up and down.
“Bitch, shut up,” Juan said, quickly rushing up onto Precious with his knife pulled. He looked around the courtyard before pulling the knife up to her neck. “Make this shit any harder than it has to be, and I swear to God, I’mma slit your throat, okay?”
With a face full of terror, Precious looked down at the knife up to her throat. Shaking and shivering, she nodded her head. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Please, don’t hurt me, okay? Please. What do you want? I’ll do anything.”
“Just walk up to your apartment like ain’t nothin’ new,” Knight said, watching Juan’s back, “and we promise you that everything will be alright.”
Precious did just as she was told. She walked up to her apartment, trying to look as causal as she possibly could. Knight and Juan followed closely behind, all the way up the elevator and to the door.
“I swear to God, bitch,” Juan whispered. “If you scream and let all these people around us and shit know what’s goin’ on, I swear I will give that ass somethin’ to scream about. Don’t think I’m scared to put this knife in you and have you leakin’ all over the floor, okay?”
“Okay,” Precious said, struggling to find the right key to her front door. Once she’d found it and let her and her company into the apartment, she rushed to the other side of the living room. Juan walked toward her as Knight pushed the front door closed. “Who are you?” Precious demanded to know. “Who the fuck are you niggas?”
“Bitch, you betta calm down,” Juan advised. “Is you Precious? Tramar’s baby mama?”
“Tramar?” Precious said, her eyes wide. “Fuck, that nigga done got me caught up in this shit. Look, I don’t know what the fuck him and that nigga Jackson is out there doin’, but I swear to God and put that on everything I love, that I ain't have nothin’ to doin’ with whatever is goin’ on. Shit, I didn’t even know until the police or detectives or whatever came walkin’ up to my door, asking me what I knew about it.”
“Bitch, be quiet with all that talking and shit,” Juan ordered. “Sit down and shut the fuck up.” He turned back toward Knight, who was standing over by the front door. “What I tell you, nigga?” he said. “I told you this was her. We gotta call Ryan and let him know.”
“Ryan?” Precious asked. “Who the fuck is Ryan?”
“Just somebody that wants to see you,” Juan said. “Well, actually, he wanna see Tramar and Jackson. You see, them niggas done killed this nigga’s brother and now they gotta pay the price.”
“A big price,” Knight said, opening his eyes wide as he grinned.
Precious shook her head. “I swear to God and you can tell Ryan or whoever,” she said, “I don’t know nothin’ about what Tramar and Jackson did. I swear, I ain’t have nothin’ to do with it. I can’t even get in touch with him. I been callin’ him and shit, and I guess his phone is off.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Juan said, holding his phone up to the side of his face. “Ryan got a way to get in touch with them.” Juan waited for Ryan to answer.
“Wassup?” Ryan said.
“Hey, Ryan, man,” Juan said. “We got her.” He nodded his head. “We got that nigga Tramar’s baby mama and shit. We up in her apartment and shit.”
“Is that so?” Ryan asked. “Damn, maybe y’all niggas is some good for something. Where she stay at?”
Juan went over the address, giving details about the street so that Ryan would know the whereabouts. Juan then looked to Knight and had him look on the outside of the door to give them the apartment number. Once Ryan had the information, he said he’d be on his way in about thirty minutes and for them to make sure they kept an eye on this Precious chick. Precious would spend the next forty five-minutes looking at these men, both with knives, holding her hostage in her own apartment. Now, more than ever, she wanted answers from Tramar. She was more than happy that all of this happened after she had walked Quan down to the school.
There was a knock at the door around 9 o’clock. Juan held his forefinger up to his lips, telling Precious to be quiet. There was a knock again. Knight looked through the peephole and saw that it was Ryan. He quickly opened the door and allowed Ryan into the apartment. Ryan stepped inside, his presence practically commanding attention in the room. He rubbed his hands together as he walked up to Precious.
“Where is the kid at?” Ryan asked, looking around the apartment. “What the fuck y’all niggas do with the kid? We need the kid more than we need this nappy-headed bitch.”
“Not my son,” Precious begged. “What the fuck do y’all want with my son?”
Ryan walked up to Precious and crouched down. He gripped her chin and looked dead into her eyes. “That nigga you got a baby by done gone and did some real stupid shit,” he said. “That nigga killed my brother, in cold blood, in his own house. You understand me? Stop all that bitchin’ and just accept what’s about to happen and shit. Where’s your cell phone?”
“In my pocket,” Precious answered. “But I told them already that Tramar ain’t answer none of my calls for like a couple days now.”
“I don’t want you to call him,” Ryan said. “I want you to call that little nigga, that son of yours. I need for you to get him back home ASAP. Then, I’mma be the one to call Tramar and Jackson and tell them just what we have over here that might interest one of them.” Ryan chuckled as he reached into Precious’ pocket and pulled out her cell phone. He pressed it into her face. “Call your son, the school, whatever,” he said. “I just want that little nigga here quick, okay?”
Chapter 8
When Detectives Sloan and Rodgers left the station downtown, Rodgers remembered to run back inside and print off a copy of the photo they’d seen on Byron’s Facebook account. With the photo in hand, Sloan and Rodgers headed over to Frank’s house. To their surprise, when they pulled into a parking spot in front of their residence, Frank and Vivica were loading suitcases into the car. Sloan pointed up toward the end of the driveway. “You see that?” he asked.
Rodgers nodded. “Yep,” he replied. “Sure do. I wonder where they’re running off to.”
“I don’t know,” Sloan said, pushing his car door open. “Maybe we ought to go see.”
Sloan and Rodgers climbed out of their car. They headed up the driveway where they clearly surprised Frank. He had just been lifting a suitcase into the trunk of his car. Before either Sloan or Rodgers could open their mouths to speak, Vivica had come out of the front door and down the porch. When she walked up and saw th
e detectives there, she knew something wasn’t right.
“Yes?” Frank asked, remembering their faces so very well. “Is there something I can help you with.”
“Yes, we just wanted to ask you a couple more questions,” Sloan said. “We’ve had some new developments in the case that we thought you might like to know. And we thought you two might be the very ones to help us fill in some gaps that we’re having problems with right now.”
Frank let out a deep sigh. Quickly, Vivica rushed over and stood at her husband’s side. “What would those be?” she asked, seeing that she needed to let Frank cool down for a little bit.
Sloan looked up and down the street. “I’m not very sure that you will want to talk about this sort of thing out in public,” he said. “We would be more than happy to step inside and talk with you two about it in there.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Frank said, shrugging his shoulders. “I saw the press conference the two of you did yesterday about Jackson and Tramar. You sure did a lot of that in public, so I don’t see why we couldn’t talk about this out here. Look up and down the street.” He pointed at either end of the block. “I am more than sure that everybody up and down the block knows my son is a fucking bank robber and murderer.”
Sloan and Rodgers looked at one another. “Okay,” Rodgers said. “Sir, we can talk about it out here if you would like to. That won’t be a problem with either one of us. With that being said, I guess it would be best for us to get straight to the point. We have reason to believe and think that the two of you are not saying everything you know about this Tramar and Jackson situation.”
“And why would you have a reason to believe such a thing?” Frank asked, very frankly. “We have already told you everything that we know.”
To shut Frank down before he told any more lies that could hurt the investigation, Rodgers held up the photo. He positioned it so that the little bit of daylight would shine on it in its entirety. “This is what we’re talking about,” Rodgers said. “This looks like you, Ma’am, and you don’t look too happy if I do say so myself.”
When It All Falls Down 4 - It Just Ain't Over Yet: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady) Page 12