Status Quo_The Last Ones Standing

by Monique Chanae

  “Got it!”

  “Got what, sis?”

  “The security guys who helped set up surveillance at the funeral parlor, I put them on payroll and had them put cameras up on every warehouse and business we own stake in. If we want Sven to keep prospering we’ve got to start protecting it... Anyway, Rell wasn’t lying when he said an unknown van pulled up. It was all black, windows spray-painted and the plates were all fucked up but they were able to pull up a partial on footage and I had a home girl over at the DMV run them for me. The van is register to Alistair Jackson who lives in Cicero.”

  “You got an address too, Harriet the Spy?” Jason asked ready to go pay Alistair a visit.

  “Sure do.” Tari smiled.

  “Then let’s go get my shit!” Jason replied in a low and gruff tone. Skip stood from the table first and announced that they would take his car and together the three of them rode out to Cicero.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Night fell over Cicero, Illinois and the suburban block Alistair lived on was quiet just as the trio had expected but they didn’t care. The blacked-out van was parked on the street in front of the house which means the intel Nefertari got from the security team was correct and the consequences needed to be divied out.

  “Explain to me why we had to stop at Walmart?” Skip asked Nefertari who had been unusually quiet the entire time. The trio had parked several houses down from Alistair’s but they could see straight to his front door from where they sat.

  “You’ll see in a minute. Right now, I need you two to step outside so I can change.” She said shooing them outside the vehicle.

  “Oh, you’re just as bossy as you want to be.” Jason complained as he and Skip both stepped from the vehicle and began to visually surveil the area.

  “Walk around, don’t just stand there.” Nefertari rolled down the window and said. Both men looked from her to one another and back to her before shaking their heads and following her instructions. Once they were out of eyesight, Nefertari opened her Walmart bag and began removing its contents. Slowly, she stripped out of her regular attire and changed into the set of nurse’s scrubs she had purchased. She had fixed her long dreadlocks to sit on top of her head in a high bun before taking out the faux leather purse she had purchased and filling it with surgical gloves, a hammer, mace, and a razor blade. Sliding one last thing into the pocket of her pants, she tossed the bag over her shoulder, rolled down the car window and whistled to get the men’s attention.

  “What the hell? What’s with the get up?” Skip asked upon noticing that she had changed her clothing.

  “I’m going to play damsel in distress. This is one of those cute little quiet neighborhoods, so we can’t go banging on the door like we’re the Feds. It would bring too much attention and we can’t afford that right now. We have to finesse our way in. Jason, I want you to go around to the back of the house, check to make sure he doesn’t own a dog or anything then ease your way over to the backdoor and just wait. Skip hide in those bushes over there by the front door and then you too will wait for my signal.” Nefertari gave the men a few minutes to get into their respective positions before she slowly crept up the street and parked directly behind the van. Forcing herself to cry, she started a waterfall as she descended the car and began walking straight up to Alistair’s front door.

  Nefertari inhaled deeply before shutting her eyes tight for a second, saying a quick prayer and then pressing the doorbell. She could hear shuffling behind the closed front door and she’d be lying if she said in that moment she wasn’t nervous. She was damn near sweating bullets but once she heard the front chain being undone she knew she had to switch to acting mode.

  “Hey, can I help you?” a man asked as he opened the door and stared out at her. He was about 5’8 and dressed in a pair construction boots, dark denim jeans and a plaid button-down. His skin was the same color of butter-scotch and his hair cut low and tapered on the sides. Nefertari wasn’t sure if this was the man she was looking for or if there were more people in the house, but she knew if she wanted answers she needed to get inside.

  “Hi, I work over at MacNeal Hospital and a girlfriend of mine was telling me there’s a shortcut to her house over this way and my car just broke down down the block. My cell phone just died, do you think I could use your phone to call her, so she can come and get me really quick. You’re pretty much the only one who still has their lights on.” The man quickly gave her a once over, devilishly licking his lips in the process. His eyes stopped on her full pouty lips and made their way over her small but supple breasts all the way down to her hips.

  “Yeah, no problem. Mi casa, es su casa.” He smiled before pushing the door open more and then allowing her entry to his home. Nefertari quickly scanned the area and made a mental note of where everything was located. When she turned back around to face him, he was staring hungrily at her body.

  “Umm, your phone?” she reminded him quickly snapping him out of his erotic thoughts.

  “Oh oh yeah, the phone, let me get that for you from the kitchen.” He said cheesing way too hard as he backed into the kitchen. Once he was out of sight, Nefertari lightly ran back towards the front door and unlocked it. Before she could race back to her original place, she heard his footsteps leaving the kitchen.

  “This is a lovely home you have, sir.” She said shuffling to get back into position.

  “Call me Al.” he said and immediately, red signals went off in her head. He handed her the phone and took a seat on the couch while she made her call. Quickly dialing a takeout number, she began her fake call.

  “Hey Stacy, I was on my way over to you when old Betsey broke down. Yeah it may be for good this time… Oh yeah, this guy was nice enough to let me come in and use his phone, my cell died too… You’ll come and get me? Cool, I’m at,” Nefertari put her hand over the receiver and asked Alistair for his address which he gave up with no problem.

  “You’re on your way? Cool, I’ll be waiting.” She disconnected the call and handed the phone back to him. Turning on her heels, she headed back towards the front door and Alistair jumped up from his seat to block her way.

  “Whoa, where are you going?”

  “I was going to go wait for Stacy outside in my car.” She replied innocently.

  “It’s dark outside and my mama raised me better than that. I’m not going to let you go back outside by yourself. You can wait for her right here; besides she already has the address.” He explained ushering her over to the couch. Nefertari blushed as if she was flattered and in one swift motion, she retrieved a taser from the pockets of her scrubs and jammed it into his neck making sure he dropped to his knees on impact.

  “Shit!” he yelled out as he writhed around in pain and Nefertari flickered the porch lights on and off twice before Skip came bursting through the door.

  “You good?” he asked Nefertari seeing her pressed up against the wall while Alistair rolled around on the floor.

  “Yeah.”

  “Go let Jay in. I got him.” Immediately Skip sprang into action yanking Alistair up off the floor and shoving him into a kitchen chair. By the time he stopped wriggling around in pain, Skip and Jason were hovering over him with pistols in his face. He could see Nefertari moving around his kitchen as if she were looking for something and he knew then that this had all been a setup.

  “What the fuck man? Who are y’all?”

  “You know, this really is a nice house you have, Al.” Nefertari taunted as she walked over to the table wearing a pair of surgical gloves on her hands while holding a fresh roll of duct tape and a kitchen knife. Nefertari handed the tape to Jason who immediately went to work binding his hands behind the chair and his feet together tightly. Once he was done, Jason went to one, surveil the house to make sure no one else was inside and two, see what he could find regarding the missing Sven shipment.

  “I have a couple of questions for you, Al. Nothing major, just some basic yes or no questions. Once you’ve answered those, I’
ll be on my merry way. Cool?” she asked pulling up another seat directly in front of him and crossing her legs one over the other.

  “Who are you really? You got niggas running up in here holding guns on me, got me tied up, who the hell are you?” Alistair asked through clenched teeth and Skip nudged him with the nose of his gun as if to say ‘shut the hell up’. Nefertari held her hand up and continued speaking.

  “You’re not really in a position to be asking questions, sir… If you say something out of line again, I may be inclined to let his gun to go off so please follow directions. I don’t really feel like cleaning brain matter off of me tonight. First question is that your van parked out front?” Alistair hesitated to answer and Nefertari knew she was going to have to show him better than she could tell him. Using the sharpened blade of the razor, she cut into his denim jeans and kept digging until blood began to ooze from his opened flesh. She continued to dig until she felt fatty tissue and then she snatched the blade from his leg abruptly. Her eyes wandered from his to his condiment shelf behind him and instantly an even better idea came to her. Grabbing the salt from the shelf she sprinkled a little into his wound and watched as he yelped out in pain.

  “Now I’m going to ask you again, Al, is that your van parked outside?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good. See, we’re making progress… Take me through your day in the van.”

  “What?” he questioned in between groaning from the stinging pain of the salt.

  “Just a regular little run down of your day. You woke up, got dressed, grabbed your boys, went to shoot some hoops, tell me what you did today.”

  “What do you wanna know,” before he could finish his sentence Nefertari was out of her seat and dragging the blade across his cheek. Blood oozed out of his face with a quickness and she stood and admired it for a second. The sight might’ve made most women queasy, but she had been a Girl Scout when she was younger and she had even taken a job as a candy striper in the hospital while she was in high school so by now, blood no longer made her squeamish. Drizzling salt over his face, Alistair tried moving his face from side to side so she didn’t get any salt in his wound but Nefertari gripped his chin in her hand and poured it into his wound.

  “Ahhhhhh!”

  “Can we stop playing games now, Al?” she asked as if she was getting annoyed with him.

  “I went to go pick my cousin up from out in Chi-Town, he told me about this lick he had an inside tip on. Said if I drove my whip, he’d break me off a little piece of something. All we had to do was go to some warehouse downtown, jack the shipment and drop it off at this storage unit. No sooner than we did the drop, we split up, I got my money and came home.” Bingo! He had just sang like a canary and to be honest, Nefertari didn’t expect him to give the information up that easily.

  “Do you know what the shipment you jacked was?” she asked.

  “No, he never said. He said his boy told him it would be easy to pull off and we haven’t hit a lick like this in a while.”

  “Where’s that storage unit at, young buck?”

  “Bedford Park.” Silence filled the room for several moments as Nefertari rose to her feet and began to walk around the room.

  “You did good today, Al. Real good.” She said almost tauntingly.

  “Y’all gone let me go now? I answered your little test.”

  “If he tries to be stupid, handle him.” Nefertari turned to Skip and said as she ignored Alistair and walked out into the living room. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, she called out to Jason.

  “Bro, you good up there?”

  “Yeah, T. I think I got that info you were looking for, sis.” Jason announced kicking two duffle bags full up with money down the steps and holding an unlocked iPhone in his hand. Turning the phone to face Nefertari he showed her the GPS directions to the storage place.

  “I bet you that’s the money he was paid to do this dumb shit.” Nefertari said to him as they both reentered the kitchen where Skip was standing over Alistair as he lay sideways on the ground bleeding from being pistol whipped.

  “What’s your cousin’s name, Al? You never did tell me that.” Nefertari asked in a calm yet chilling tone.

  “Nehemiah. Please don’t kill me. I got kids, fam.” Blood was pouring profusely from his head and he could feel himself getting weaker by the second.

  “I have a child and a family too, Al. The only difference is, you stole from mine and yours got you killed.”

  “Wait, what?” Before Alistair could protest any further, Jason picked up a throw pillow placed it over the nose of his gun and let off three shots into Alistair’s skull.

  Chapter 11

  “This was the sweetest lick I ever masterminded.” Trent’s murderer bragged as he flipped through the stacks of money lying in front of him.

  “This was some rookie shit.” His partner replied unimpressed. “1500 pieces? That’s like toting lunch money. You came to me because you said you could make shit happen but right now you’re taking baby steps. Let’s cut robbery out of the equation. Bring me the head of the nigga running Sven Power or you can ready your funeral arrangements. I’m not playing with you.”

  “I thought this was what you wanted.” The killer asked confusedly.

  “I’m not paying you to think, I’m paying you to make shit happen. What you brought to me today was some kindergarten shit. You trying to push shit across state lines, I’m going to need you to prove it to me. Kill or be killed, take your pick.” The associate said remaining as stone faced as ever.

  “I’ll do you one better, I’ll bring you the whole cartel.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  By the time the trio pulled onto the storage location’s lot, it was dark. The facility wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours, but Jason happened to know that this was one of the worst storage locations in Illinois. Their security was lax, the workers were shitty and this was where a lot of the local movers and shakers stored their stashes.

  Upon arriving to the unit number, the trio was pissed to find out that someone else had beaten them to the punch. Doing a sweep of the storage unit for any possible clues Nefertari’s spirits brightened up a bit when she saw a burner phone lying in the corner. The screen was cracked which more than likely meant it had fallen out of someone’s pocket when they were moving the stash out of the unit. Grabbing the same surgical gloves from before she picked up the phone and waved Jason and Skip over. Letting them in on her discovery and her theory, Nefertari sent a quick text to her tech guy and made plans to meet him in an hour. While Nefertari would be meeting up with him, Skip went as her protection and Jason headed back to the warehouse where the robbery had taken place.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Standing in the middle of the floor, Jason thought long and hard about what it was that he was missing. He thought about Rell and what he had told him and Jason had a gut feeling something was off. Picking up his cellular he called one of the guys he had sitting outside of Rell’s girlfriend’s house.

  “What’s up Boss?” the man answered on the second ring.

  “I don’t know, you tell me?” Jason said making his way back to his car and climbing behind the wheel.

  “Nothing much, shortie’s car is still parked outside. She hasn’t left all day.” Jason knew Serena worked at the post office and when Rell couldn’t drop her off, she drove herself. Since Rell had to be at the warehouse early that day to receive the shipment she would’ve had to take herself.

  “What do you mean she hasn’t left all day? She works at the post office, that’s a six days a week gig and it’s only Tuesday.”

  “Well her car is still sitting here and I can still see her living room and upstairs bathroom lights on.”

  “And all day you haven’t seen any other lights cut on or off?” Jason asked with his thick brow raised in suspicion.

  “Nope.” Before Jason could yell at the man on the other end of the phone, his other line began clicking signaling to hi
m that he was getting an incoming call. Glancing at the caller id, he discovered that the caller was Rell.

  “Yo.” He answered.

  “Yo, Jay, I need to talk to you. There’s something I need to say.”

  “Talk then.”

  “Not over the phone though.” Jason sat in silence before giving Rell an address of where he would meet him.

  “On my way.” Jason knew the marina he was sending Rell to like the back of his hand. Knowing it was barely twenty minutes away and Rell lived almost an hour out, Jason headed there and lied in wait.

  Almost thirty minutes later, Jason sat aboard one of the boats on the opposite end of the marina out of sight but he had a clear line of vision to where Rell would be pulling up. Coming back here was nostalgic for Jason as it was the very first place he committed his first murder and his best friend Trent helped him cover it up.

  "I just want my Ma to get better, T and being with a dude like Harry ain't gonna help her none." A fifteen-year-old Jason vented to Trent. His mother was an alcoholic and her current boyfriend Harry helped feed her habit to the point she'd forget her own name at times.

  "True but you can't tell grown folks what to do, Jason. You know that. I get that you want to help your mother but she's got to want to help herself first." Jason's anger was boiling as he listened to his best friend spit the truth. Truth is, his mother had tried to stop drinking once or twice before but Harry liked being able to control her and as usual, he would bring the bottle back around and rekindle her love for it. It was a twisted type of love affair that she just couldn’t seem to shake.

  As the two young boys sat talking on the dock, across the marina they could see a black Cadillac pull up and come to a complete stop. From the car outstepped Harry and he was chatting away on the phone.

  "Yeah yeah, I can do that for you. I've got the perfect girl for you. She's five seven, thin with natural red hair and freckles. My Irish dame Cait... Seven o'clock tonight over at the Midway. Yeah, she'll be there - just bring the cash."