When It All Falls Down 4 - It Just Ain't Over Yet: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady)

by Tamicka Higgins

  Vivica stepped onto the well-lit back porch. It looked out at their medium-sized backyard, the walkway winding between gardens from the back door to the back of the property then the alley. Dressed in her silk pajamas, Vivica stepped up to the back of Frank and rubbed his shoulders. Frank looked up and waved his head. “What are you talking about, Vivica?” he asked. “Am I still thinking about what?”

  “What we talked about last night, Frank,” Vivica responded. She then slowly walked around and crossed in front of Frank, sitting down in the chair next to him. “Let’s not act like you’re having one of your amnesia episodes.”

  “I just don’t feel okay with being here,” Frank said. “I keep thinking about what happened to us, and how do we really know if it’s over. I mean, really, Vivica? How do we know that they’re not just going to come back and take us again?”

  “We don’t know,” Vivica said. “But what is it that you think we should do, Frank? You know that both of our siblings are younger than us and still have children at home. We can’t just go stay with them. And you know that if we go outta town, it’s gonna look suspicious.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Frank said. “I saw the way them detectives were looking at us when they came to our door. They really do think that we have something to do with Tramar and what he’s doing.”

  “Well, Frank,” Vivica said. “We kind of do if you really think about it. We told the detectives that we know nothing about what’s going on, and you know that we do.”

  “I’m not going to just turn my son in,” Frank said. “And I’m especially not going to do it if he was only doing what he was doing so that he could get his own family out of trouble. Jackson is the one who really started all this shit, but Tramar was stupid for going along with him. I know I raised Tramar to be better than that. I know that I did, Vivica.”

  “I know you did, Frank,” Vivica said. She really didn’t know what to say. The simple fact of that matter was that his son was wanted for bank robbery and murder. “Where do you think they went to?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank responded, shrugging his shoulders. “All I know is that them white people are not going to stop until they catch them. I hope they’ve got the kind of connections where they can up and disappear or change their names like the foreigners that come here are doing sometimes. If they can’t get that kind of stuff done, then I don’t know what they’re really going to do.”

  “It is kind of like a movie, isn’t it?” Vivica asked.

  Frank looked over at his wife as he stood up. “I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into your head, woman,” he said, shaking his head.

  Frank walked back into the kitchen and turned on his television. He was being too serious to see that Vivica’s words out on the back porch had been full of sarcasm. As Frank sifted through the channels, he stopped on the ABC7 Chicago station. The afternoon news was on, and he always wanted to watch.

  Frank’s eyes bulged when he watched the Middle Eastern news reporter, a woman, begin to talk about the bank robberies that occurred in the last few days downtown and in Indiana. “Vivica!” Frank shouted. “Get in here real quick! Vivica!”

  Vivica came in to the kitchen and stood behind Frank. The two watched the screen. A press conference was being held outside of one of the police stations. Along the bottom of the screen, the words CHICAGO P.D. DETECTIVES SLOAN AND RODGERS ON THE RECENT BANK ROBBERIES rolled across. Vivica and Frank listened intently as the black detective, who they gathered to be Rodgers, approached the podium and began speaking.

  “Good Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. The crowd calmed down with their questions. “As of now, the two individuals we suspect of robbing the White Savings & Trust Bank in Downtown Chicago and two smaller banks in Chesterton, Indiana have still not been apprehended. For this reason, we are asking the public for assistance in finding these two young men and this young woman.”

  At that moment, photos of Tramar, Jackson, and Ayana popped up onto the screen. From what Frank could gather, they were also being projected on a screen outside of the police station. Vivica put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. It all seemed so surreal. It really did seem like a movie.

  “These individuals are believed to be driving a black two thousand sixteen Bugatti,” Detective Rodgers said, looking down at his notes. “ A car that belonged to a Byron Lesley, who police have recently found deceased in his house. We are unsure at this time if these three individuals have anything to do with this murder. However, one of their cars was found nearby. We do believe they are driving the victim’s car. Also, remember that they are to be considered armed and dangerous. They deliberately pulled off a bank robbery in the middle of downtown Chicago during evening rush hour on Friday. They then robbed two banks in a small Indiana town. Their actions led to mass chaos in the town of Chesterton, Indiana, which may have helped them to elude the local authorities. At the Federal Savings bank in Chesterton, Stephen Jones, the security guard on duty, was shot and killed by one of the suspects.”

  “I don’t fuckin’ believe this shit,” Frank said. He stood up and walked out of the kitchen, not being able to stomach seeing his son’s face on the news any longer. Vivica stayed. She knew that they’d need to know everything that was going on with Tramar, even if it was for their own safety.

  “As for the young lady,” Detective Rodgers continued, “we do not believe that she took any part in the actual robbery. At least, we cannot connect her to doing so. However, the authorities have found that this young lady was renting a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Hotel out by O’Hare International. On the night detectives showed up to question her about her connection to Tramar, seen on the right in the photos, she was not in her room and the room looked as if they’d left quickly. Since then, authorities have not been able to find her. Furthermore, they have tracked her phone and found it in the back of a tractor trailer in Northern Nebraska. The driver was coming from Chicago, so we do not know if they tossed the phone into his truck in Chicago or somewhere along the highway. Currently, the Chicago Police Department is working diligently with the police departments not only in Indiana, but also in other surrounding states, such as Wisconsin and Iowa. We are unsure if these suspects are still in Chicago or have fled the city. We are sending a message that this kind of crime will not be tolerated. All police departments are working around the clock to apprehend these suspects before they rob or commit another murder. Thank you for your time. Anyone with information that may lead us to apprehending these dangerous suspects, please call your local police department. Any bit of information would help. Thank you.”

  Vivica watched as the crowd in front of the station erupted with questions. The detective ignored them all and headed back inside alongside his partner. When the news moved on to another topic, Vivica jumped up and went to find Frank. She found him in the dining room looking at pictures on the wall. She knew what this meant. Anytime she found him pacing the floor in the dining room, he was reminiscing about Tramar’s younger years, and the years he’d not only lost his wife, but had also watched his son lose his mother.

  “She wouldn’t have wanted this,” Frank said, noticing that Vivica had come into the dining room. “His mother wouldn’t have wanted this.”

  As much as Vivica wanted to relate, she simply couldn’t. She’d never had any children, so she didn’t know what that parent-child bond felt like. In fact, her relations with her own mother were strained.

  “I know,” Vivica said, walking up to Frank. “I know.” She knew she needed to bring up the truth. “Maybe we should go and stay somewhere else until this all dies down a little more.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “You know the neighbors are already talking.”

  ***

  Ryan had just gotten back to his condo from hanging out with a female friend of his. Actually, he and this female were friends with benefits, especially when her husband was out of town. Her husband, who was several years older than her, just didn’t have what it too
k to please his woman, so Ryan casually stepped into his place. Since finding out that his brother had been murdered, he certainly needed something to get his mind off of it.

  Ryan’s phone buzzed as he was in the shower. It was Juan. He shook his head, hoping to God that those two dudes did not go out into the streets and fuck up any more than they already had. “Hello?” Ryan answered.

  “Yeah, wassup, man,” Juan said. “You gon’ be interested to know that the nigga Tramar got a son, and he live closer than you think, or so these niggas out here say.”

  “What niggas and how you know?” Ryan asked. “I ain’t got time to be goin’ on no bullshit run. How the fuck you know?”

  “Me and Knight was hangin’ out at this bar over on Pershing Road,” Juan said. “You know, that bar that was on the news for the stabbing and shit. Well, we was in there choppin’ it up, and I talked about how I was seein’ this chick who had a ex dude named Tramar. From then on man, you know how niggas talk. They knew who Tramar is. Then they was tellin’ me that the nigga got a little boy, like three or four or five years old, over in some apartments somewhere.”

  “What’s the mama name?” Ryan asked, getting tired of the extra details. “What the fuck is the mama name, and do y’all think she really live over wherever and shit?”

  “Her name is Precious,” Juan answered. “When I was talkin’ to them niggas at the bar, man, I really got this vibe that this Precious chick gets around.”

  Ryan chuckled. “Them be the easiest chicks to find,” he said. “All you gotta do is wait for them to come around.”

  “Exactly,” Juan said. “That’s the same shit me and Knight was thinkin’ earlier and shit. If she get around and shit, we gon’ come across her. We just out here talkin’ to our friends and people we know and see what kind of talk is in the streets. Niggas definitely know that them niggas Tramar and Jackson robbin’ banks and shit and killin’ security guards and shit. They brought that shit up to me, not the other way around, man.”

  “Good deal,” Ryan said. “So, what the fuck y’all niggas about to do now?”

  “We headed over to them apartments, and we just gon’ sit and see what we see,” Juan said. “Of course, I don’t know which apartment she live in or no shit like that, but maybe we’ll see a woman with a son walkin’ down the street and see if she know where we can find a Tramar or some shit like that.”

  Ryan nodded his head. “All right,” he said. “Let me know so I can be ready. I know them niggas gon’ be poppin’ back up any time soon. And when they do, I want them to be headed my way and shit. Any means necessary, understand?”

  “Gotcha,” Juan said, hanging up the phone.

  Ryan ended the call and felt a little optimistic. While he was not totally confident in Juan and Knight, they were sociable enough guys to get out there and get information together. The very fact that they could go out into the streets and collect what basically made up the life stories of other people was one of the driving reasons behind Ryan getting up and out of the hood.

  Ryan dried off after his shower and slid into some jeans and a T-shirt. Just as he was walking out of his bedroom and into the living room, there was a knock at the door. Out of reflex, he went for the drawer in the kitchen where he kept one of his guns. Something about the knock was stiff and professional, and he didn’t want to go doing anything that would scare the white people in the building. He walked over to the door and looked out, seeing two men dressed in professional clothing – one white and one black – standing outside of his door. He pulled the door opened.

  “Ryan Lesley?” the black man asked. He then flashed a badge.

  Ryan nodded. “Yes, that would be me,” he said.

  “Do you mind if we come in for a moment?” the black detective asked.

  Ryan stepped out of the way and allowed the detectives to step into his living room. He made sure to stand in such a way that they wouldn’t get any ideas about trying to go any further. Ryan was not going to allow them to look around without a search warrant. He knew better than to do something stupid like that.

  “May I ask what this is about?” Ryan asked, as the two detectives came in and closed the door.

  “Actually, we came to talk to you about your brother,” Detective Rodgers said. “We are sorry to hear about your loss, but we believe that he may be connected to one of our cases. We wanted to know if you could maybe help us out a little with that, man?”

  “I can tell you what I know,” Ryan said. “Um, do you all want something to drink or something?”

  “No, that’s fine,” Rodgers said. “Thank you, though. Myself and my partner here, Detective Sloan, are working on a case involving a couple of young guys who robbed a bank downtown and two banks out in Indiana.”

  “I think I heard about that,” Ryan said. “I mean, I think I saw something about that on the news, but I still don’t understand what it has to do with me. I don’t know them, or I would have alerted the authorities.”

  “See, that’s the thing, man,” Rodgers said. “We have reason to believe that your brother may have known them.”

  Ryan looked at the detective with an inquisitive look. “Do explain,” he said, trying to sound professional.

  “Well, we found a Jackson Miller’s car on a rundown property down the road from your brother’s subdivision,” Rodgers said. “And the interesting thing about that is that the owner of the property said that she’d been on the property just a couple of days before the car was found, before the murder nearby, and there was no car on the property, leading us to believe that this Jackson guy, along with his partner, Tramar, may have been involved in the death of your brother. As I said, I know you just lost your brother and this is hard to take. We are deeply sorry if we are coming across as insensitive; however, we are trying to catch these guys as soon as we can. So, that is why we’ve come to you, man. Would you happen to know anything about these guys, Tramar and Jackson? How would your brother Byron have known them?”

  Ryan shook his head. “You see, me and my brother lived different lives,” he said. “I mean, just look at where we both live. I’m a city person while, as you can see with where he lives, well lived, he liked suburbs. I knew a few of his friends, but I don’t know if he still hung out with them. We just didn’t talk like that.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you brother make his money?” Detective Rodgers asked. “We are simply trying to connect dots and figure out how they would have known one another because we really think these guys are good for your brother’s death.”

  Ryan chose his words carefully. He already didn’t like how deeply the police were probing into his and his brother’s life. However, he was not surprised. He looked the detectives straight in the eye and told them that Byron had his hand in numerous businesses as a minority owner. The detectives nodded their heads and looked at one another, their faces clearly full of skepticism.

  “I see,” Sloan said, now stepping forward. “Well, let me ask you this. Why would anyone want to kill your brother, Ryan? Can you think of any reason that anyone would want to kill your brother?”

  Ryan shook his head. “That’s what made all of this so shocking to me,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know who would want to kill my brother. He was the kind of guy that everybody liked.”

  “Yeah, is that so?” Sloan asked. “Well, that is certainly good to know. However, it still doesn’t answer why exactly Tramar and Jackson would, possibly, want to kill your brother?”

  “As I’ve said, I can’t answer that,” Ryan said. “I’d never even heard of them until they were on the news for robbin’ them banks. They’re new people to me, and, quite frankly, if you wouldn’t have come to the door today talking about them, I would have never known that they were even associates of my brother.”

  “Well, do you happen to know any other associates of your brother that we could talk to?” Sloan asked. “I mean, you are his brother. Surely you must know at least a couple of your brother’s frie
nds or at least where we could find them. Look, man, we really want to get these people off the street.”

  “I want them off of the streets as quickly as possible too,” Ryan said, thinking how he meant it literally and for himself. “But I can’t tell you something I don’t know. Me and my brother just were not that close to begin with. We didn’t run with the same kind of people and all that. So, you are really saying some new things to me that I simply didn’t know.”

  Sloan and Rodgers both looked at one another. They each thought of how amazing it was that not only were these two cases connected, but they also seemed to have huge blind spots in information. Sloan looked back at Ryan, sensing that he was lying. “Okay, thank you so much for your help,” he said. “We have the authorities looking for your brother’s car, since you said it wasn’t there when you got there. We think that this Tramar and Jackson may be in the car, but we can’t be sure. We just have a lot of coincidences with both cases that we can’t look past.”

  “I completely understand,” Ryan said, ready for the detectives to leave his apartment. “If I hear anything, I will be sure to let you know. I wanna know who killed my brother too. I thought about asking some of my other cousins what they know, but they took the news pretty hard. I’ll just wait to talk to them. I also have to get going with planning this funeral.”

  “We understand,” Rodger said, realizing that the brother wasn’t going to give up any more information.

  Sloan, however, was not content. If anything, he wanted to push this Ryan guy up against a wall and make him talk. He stopped and turned around, remembering that he had one more question that need to be answered. “By the way, man,” he said, trying to sound as friendly as possible. “There’s just one more thing I wanna ask you that I feel like you might be able to help me with.”

  “And what would that be, Detective?” Ryan asked, eager for them to leave, especially the white guy.

  Sloan looked into Ryan’s eyes. “When you did get into contact with your brother, I assume you would text him or call some sort of cell phone, right?” he asked.