When It All Falls Down 3 - Somebody is Gonna Die: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady)

by Tamicka Higgins

  “Get a room back there!” Jackson yelled, playfully.

  “Nigga, shut up,” Tramar said, leaning up.

  For the next several minutes, as they drove from the outskirts into the city, the car ride was relatively quiet. They all were too busy looking around. Any car that was riding too close to Jackson’s tail was suspected to be a police car. If their eyes caught the flashing red and blue lights of a police car down the street, they would immediately look to see if more police cars were coming.

  Once Jackson had exited the interstate and was slowly coming up on the neighborhood where they knew the intersection of Fifty-first and Ashland to be located, he turned the music down.

  “Okay,” Tramar said. “We need to ride by where he said for us to meet him. Then, we need to find somewhere that we can hide and figure how we gon’ do this.”

  “And I’mma be workin’ on what I’mma wear,” Ayana said. She quickly picked her bag of clothes up off of the backseat floor. She looked through them, trying to find either the tightest or most revealing shirt that she could wear. While her breasts may not have been massive like a strippers, she still had a nice-sized chest that would certainly get the attention of any man. Once she’d ducked over behind Jackson and changed shirts, she looked through her purse for the perfect lipstick. She wanted to make sure that she set her lips off just the right way.

  “Okay,” Tramar said, noticing how much work Ayana was putting into her appearance. “You got a nigga over here worried with how you over there gettin’ ready like you really try’na get this nigga or something.”

  “Boy, stop,” Ayana said. “I’m just try’na make sure that he like what he see. If he like what he see, then it will be easier to fool him. I was thinkin’, though…”

  “Thinkin’ what?” Tramar asked.

  “I was thinkin’ what if I can get him to take me back to his house?” Ayana asked. “Based on what y’all was sayin’ about his house and neighborhood, it actually sound pretty nice. And you know niggas with nice things love to show them off and shit to bitches, as y’all say.”

  Tramar smirked, shaking his head. “Yeah, I see how that could work, but then I see how it couldn’t,” he said.

  “Hold up, nigga,” Jackson said. “That might actually work better than being out here on some street and having a shootout.”

  Tramar looked at his best friend, wondering if he really meant what he was saying. “Nigga, what the fuck you mean?” he asked.

  “Think about it, nigga,” Jackson said. “We gon’ be lettin’ the nigga think that we just not gon’ show up and that he gon’ have to track us down and shit, right?”

  “Right,” Tramar asked, wondering where this was going.

  “Okay,” Jackson said. “So, if we got Ayana walkin’ down the street comin’ home from the club or some shit – some shit that would make sense – and he swoop her up and she throw it at him, he just might take her out to the crib. He gon’ be mad and tired as fuck and prolly wanna smash, bruh. To the point where he ain’t thinkin’ right.”

  “I don’t know,” Tramar said, not liking the idea.

  “I can take care of myself,” Ayana said, grabbing Tramar’s arm. “I can take care of myself. And, you know, before I met you I had a couple of niggas I met who would just holler at me when I was walkin’ down the street.”

  “Oh really?” Tramar asked, with a face that asked if she was serious.

  “I ain’t no ugly chick,” Ayana said. “But you the man I love, so you really ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. Just think about it, Tramar. If you have me do it this way, then he can ride me out to his place and y’all can just head out there in a minute. I got my phone on me. Not much battery, but enough to tell you if he took me somewhere else. And you know I know my way around this city good enough to where wherever he take me, if it ain't his house, I’mma be able to tell you where I am and stuff.”

  “Okay,” Tramar said. “Let’s just look around and shit a little bit longer. Let me see how I feel about that.”

  Jackson drove the car around the neighborhood for about twenty minutes. After they saw the different nooks and crannies, as well as the corner and block where they were supposed to be meeting Byron at two o’clock, they pulled into a parking lot of a closed restaurant on the nearest busy street.

  “Nigga, I like her idea,” Jackson came out and said after parking his car. “It could work the best with the least risk. You see how dark that shit is over there. If Byron know that we comin’, he could very well have niggas in unmarked cars and shit out lookin’ for us.”

  “Nigga ain’t no fuckin’ James Bond or no shit like that,” Tramar said.

  “Yeah, but he kidnapped your family first thing in the morning and made it look so smooth,” Jackson reminded him.

  Tramar saw that he had a good point. He looked at the clock and saw that it was approaching two o’clock. He knew that at any moment, Byron would pull onto the block. The three of them sat there for the next thirty minutes. The suspense had gotten to the point where it nearly snapped between the three of them. At 2:30, they decided to head over to the block and drop Ayana off at the other end. Tramar looked at his woman, not totally sure if he should be doing something like this.

  “It’s gon be okay,” Ayana said. “Y’all just make sure y’all ready to move when he move and head out to his house. If he take me somewhere else, I will text y’all. But I’mma really throw it at him so he can’t resist.”

  “A’ight,” Tramar said, trying to feel confident about this. Jackson pulled up to the corner a block and a half or so down from the intersection at Fifty-first and Ashland. Ayana climbed out of the car, Tramar’s eyes following her until Jackson pulled off. The last thing he saw was Ayana walking down a dark street. The fact that she was doing such a thing made him want to put a bullet into Byron’s head even more.

  ***

  Byron was feeling antsy by the time the clock passed 2:30 a.m. He sent a couple of text messages, but had no answers so far. He gripped his car door, as the window was rolled all the way down. “Fuck, where the fuck is those niggas at?” he said out loud.

  Byron looked out at his surroundings, knowing that he had a gun under his seat with more than enough bullets to take care of Tramar and Jackson. He prided himself in knowing that they were probably trying to set him up. However, they really didn’t know what they were trying to deal with because Byron could hang with the best of them. Just because they’d crept up inside of his house one time did not mean that they’d be able to pull one over on him again. The difference this time would be the fact that he was expecting them to try something.

  Byron made a mental note that once it got to a certain time, he would go back to the house. If Tramar and Jackson did not show up, they’d simply be hunted down. Chicago would never be large enough, especially after the mockery they’d made out of him by running up in his house when he was naked.

  Byron squinted in his rearview mirror when he saw a nice shape walking down the street. “Well, what do we have here?” he asked himself, licking his lips as the female got closer.

  From where he sat, he could see that she had an hourglass shape, and he wanted to see how that ass was looking. Big hips and a big ass meant that he’d have to holler at her and see where her head was at. He chilled for a few minutes, allowing the female to get closer. Once Bryon saw her big, glistening lips, shining under the barely lit streetlights, he knew he’d have to say something. He didn’t really count on getting lucky, especially if she had a nasty attitude about her that would turn him off.

  The female came walking by the car, on the other side of the street. She looked into Byron’s Bugatti – a look which totally gave him the okay to say something, anything.

  “You all right?” Byron asked. “You shouldn’t be walkin’ out here by yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” the female said. “I’m just headed home. My boyfriend made me mad.”

  “Made you mad, huh?” Bryson said, to himself softly. Such
information was very useful when trying to get into a woman’s head. He then spoke up louder, so the chick could hear him. “How much longer you got to walk?” he asked her. “It ain’t safe for you to be walkin’ out here this time of night no way, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” Ayana said, stopping and looking down the street as if she were trying to guess the rest of her distance. “I don’t know, maybe six more blocks. I ain’t never walked this way before. I was gettin’ kinda scared and wanting to call my boyfriend, but fuck that nigga.”

  Byron shook his head. This chick was literally singing music to his ears. Any time a chick was very upset with her boyfriend, Byron could use it to slide her panties right off of her legs and get what they were covering.

  “Look, I won’t be able to sleep unless I know that you made it home okay,” Byron said. “I’m about to head out myself. I was just stoppin’, waitin’ on a call and shit. If you want, I can take you home right quick.”

  Ayana pretended to hesitate, as she was never the kind of chick to get into a vehicle with a man she didn’t know. After pausing for a few moments, she hurried across the street. “Okay,” she said.

  Byron slammed the palms of his hands together before unlocking his car and moving some stuff around in his front seat. Once Ayana had climbed into the seat, he had to practically bite his lip from saying, God damn that ass is fat as fuck.

  Ayana could feel Byron’s eyes on her body. She felt like a piece of meat; she knew her entire purpose right now was to throw a dog a bone and hope that he would chase it. Very casually, she looked into the rearview mirror. She hated how dark Jackson’s car was, especially since it was parked up the street and the street was just as dark. When she turned and put her focus on Byron, she smiled and licked her lips.

  “Thank you for helpin’ me,” she said. “I really was getting’ scared. I can’t believe this nigga got me doin’ this shit.”

  “What he do that get you so angry?” Byron asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind me askin’ and shit.”

  “Naw, it’s coo,” Ayana said, shaking her head. “Naw, that nigga gon’ be up in the bed with some other bitch when I get over there. Apparently, because I couldn’t get there until I got done with my mama and her issues, he just went ahead and invited his own company and shit and was like forget about me and shit.”

  “That’s fowl,” Byron said, wanting to reach over and grab Ayana’s thighs.

  “Yeah, it is,” Ayana said, proud of herself that she was keeping the act up. “Now, I gotta walk all the way back down to my mama’s house. Fuck, I don’t wanna go home and be bothered with her. I swear to God I don’t. She get on my last fuckin’ nerve.”

  Bryon shook his head as he started his car. “Well, I got a little free time if you wanna chill,” he said, very suggestively. “I know how you feel and shit, and I don’t live in a neighborhood that is anything like this one.”

  “You don’t?” Ayana asked. “Well, that’s nice. I hate this neighborhood. I always wished I coulda had nicer stuff, but oh well. That probably ain’t gon’ happen. Fuck, my fuckin’ boyfriend.”

  “You smoke?” Bryon asked. “Drink a little wine.”

  Ayana nodded. “Hmm, hmm,” she hummed. “I do both.”

  “That’s wassup,” Bryon said. “By the way, I’m Byron. What’s your name, sexy?”

  “Christian,” Ayana lied, using her deceased cousin’s name.

  “Coo,” Byron said. “Well, if you down to chill and shit, I can ride you out to my house. It’s kinda big, but I can keep you company, and you ain’t got to go home to your mama and shit like you said. It look like she really gets on your nerves bad.”

  “Yeah, she do,” Ayana said. “And coo.” She pulled out her phone to look at the time, so she could look as genuine as possible. She then looked back over at Byron. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ else no way. I’ll go.”

  Byron smiled and looked up and down the block. “I know how some of these niggas be out here actin’ and shit, especially nowadays,” he said. “I been waitin’ on these niggas for like forty minutes or an hour or some shit. I knew they bitch asses wasn’t comin’.”

  “Well, you sure I ain’t gettin’ in your way, am I?” Ayana asked. “I mean, we can link up some otha time if you got business that you need to be handling. Damn, that’s some nice jewelry that you got on. And this truck is nice as fuck, too. I like this shit. I wish my nigga had some shit like this.”

  “Be coo, little Christian,” Byron said, smoothly. “Just be cool. I can see that you need to relax.”

  Looking at his surroundings, and sure that Tramar and Jackson had simply decided to not come, Bryon pulled off. He turned at the corner and made his way over to the nearby main, busy street. Every chance he got, he would look over at Ayana’s body. There was nothing he could think about more than getting her pants and shirt off and seeing what she looked like naked as the day she was born.

  Chapter 8

  Jackson and Tramar trailed close enough behind Byron to keep up with him. Even with catching a couple of red lights on the way to the highway, luck must have been on their side because neither of the red lights were long enough to lose Byron’s tail lights. When they got into his neighborhood and the surrounding area, Tramar tapped Jackson on his shoulder. “Turn right here,” he instructed, pointing at an upcoming intersection.

  Not understanding why, Jackson turned onto the dark road and drove a mile or so up to a gas station.

  “Okay, I just wanted to back off of him for a minute,” Tramar said. “I mean, we ain’t want the nigga to notice that a car was following him all the way up from Chicago to out here in the fuckin’ woods and shit.”

  “I feel you,” Jackson said. “You think Ayana all right and shit with him or what?”

  Tramar shrugged. “Trying not to think about that shit,” he said. “You know I ain’t really want my girl doin’ this shit, but it seem to be workin’. And, at the end of it all, they still won’t really be able to charge her because they won’t be able to prove that she had anything to do with the robberies themselves. But, I mean, she said that she would text you if anything went wrong. When you ready, we can get back out on the road. That nigga Byron should be damn near in his driveway and shit by now.”

  Jackson nodded, pulling out of the gas station. He went back to the intersection and turned left. As the road wound around with thick trees on both sides hugging cars that passed by, Tramar could feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins. Even with having his father and stepmother back, he felt that the very idea of letting Byron live would be saying that all of this was okay. Tramar looked over at Jackson. As much as he hated to think such a thought, he couldn’t help but think that Jackson was the one who should have been taking the major blows in this situation. When Tramar looked back out of his window, he realized that Jackson had indeed done everything that he’d said he was going to do. He had been a real friend and had stuck by his best friend when a lot of dudes probably would have taken the first chance to disappear and make a run for it.

  When they turned into Byron’s subdivision, the houses at night were even more magnificent. Driveways were full of cars as white people, and some middle class blacks, had gatherings in the front rooms of their homes. Open curtains allowed anyone passing by to see.

  Jackson pulled behind a cluster of cars that was a few houses up from Byron’s house. The block having so much company tonight certainly helped them stay in disguise. Tramar also couldn’t help but feel nervous about it, though. He disliked the idea of doing so much with so many people around. Tonight had to be the night, though.

  “So, what you thinkin’, nigga?” Jackson asked. “How was you thinkin’ we run up in there and shit this time? I doubt the shit we did last time is gon’ work. And plus, it’s dark and shit. We need a smooth way in there. Maybe you could text Ayana and tell her to do something that we could use to get up in there.”

  Jackson handed his phone to Tramar who then sent a text message to Ayana, wi
th nothing but a question mark. For the next several minutes, they sat up the street and looked towards Byron’s house as they contemplated how they would get inside. So far, if Ayana didn’t respond in a timely manner, the only way would be by kicking down the front door. And something like that could definitely cause a stir.

  ***

  While Ayana had never, for one second, lost sight of her true goal by riding along with this Byron guy, she had to admit to herself that his house was top quality. In all her life, she couldn’t be sure that she’d ever seen a house that was so well laid out. It was very clear to her that this Byron guy was making some real money and wasn’t afraid to spend it where he needed to. Between the carpet, the furniture, and the different textured paint on the walls, Ayana couldn’t figure out which quality point of the house she found the most attractive.

  Byron had Ayana downstairs in the basement. While it was nice, it certainly wasn’t as open as the upstairs was. She looked around at the various doors, making note of the French doors directly ahead of her. She knew that these were the French doors that Tramar had been referring to when he and Jackson ran up into this house. At any moment, Ayana was hoping that the two of them would come busting in a door and that all of this would be over. From the looks of it, this Byron guy was very straightforward while being smooth at the same time.

  Bryon sat down next to Ayana with a blunt in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He set the bottle of wine up onto the table, popped the cork out, and then filled each glass that he’d laid out when they’d first gotten downstairs. He smiled as she did so, looking at Christian’s body and wondering what she did to get so thick. Her lips were calling his name, telling him they wanted to taste his dick.

  Ayana smiled as she picked up the glass. “Thank you,” she said. “You really do got a nice house,” she complimented.

  “Thank you,” Byron said, looking around. “I try, I guess. I always want better, that’s all. What does your boyfriend’s house look like?”