by Nikki Turner
“Hello?” Simone’s soft voice gave no indication that this could be the same person who moments earlier had been screaming at the top of her lungs in a rage.
“This is Detective Mark Dugan, do you have a moment Ms. Banks? I need to ask you some questions?” Of course the detective sounded polite enough but after the day Simone had been having she couldn’t bring herself to respond like a normal human being.
“What do you want?” she snapped at him, her voice came out sharper than she expected but she didn’t care enough to apologize.
“I just need you to come in and take a second look at your original testimony. There is a possibility that you may have left something out yesterday. You’ve gone through a very traumatic experience and often victims subconsciously block out some things that resurface when they go over their statement.”
“Detective, I told you everything that I saw happen. There is no way I would or could ever forget any of what I saw yesterday.”
“I understand, but you would be doing us a great service if you could come down to the station. Oh, and we’re ready for you to reclaim your belongings. They have been photographed and logged in and we won’t be needing them. Because the suspects are dead there wont be a trial.”
“Fine. I’m on my way.” When Simone hung up all her thoughts went to her Chanel bag and the possibility of having order restored at least in one small area. It was a small yes in the victory column, but she’d take it. Luckily she wasn’t that far from the station so she took the back roads and made it there within ten minutes. When she entered the station she immediately started to feel nervous. Something about being around all those uniforms and guns made her feel very uneasy. Even though she had never committed a crime in her life Simone could not shake her feeling of discomfort.
You would have thought a purple spotted giraffe or some other creature had entered the room from the amount of interest Simone’s appearance had generated. Officer Johnson, a tall, good looking man in his thirties who had never met a woman he didn’t find fuckable, motioned to his partner, Darby Cole, a seasoned veteran in his forties with a wife and three kids he magically forgot about on Tuesday’s when he visited his mistress. The officers were just about to make a wager on the hottest woman they’d seen in ages without the distance of a television or movie screen between them. This was their thing, betting to see who could date attractive women, usually damsels in distress who came into the station alone. Their coworkers were busying themselves suddenly finding things to do in Simone’s general area so they could at least get a good look at her ass.
“May I help you,” a young white officer Peterson, jumped the line and rushed over to help Simone.
“Dammit,” Johnson and Cole couldn’t believe they had been beaten to the punch by one of the rookies who had as much chance of hitting that as Manson did at being granted his freedom.
Officer Peterson didn’t bother to disguise his interest in helping Simone in other ways, too.
“I’m Simone Banks, here to see Detective Dugan,” she answered glancing around for him.
“Damn, he always gets the fine honeys,” another dejected officer across the room joked with his buddy as if Simone would have been interested in either of them. Like all the other grey-eyed Banks girls Simone had grown so used to men making fools of themselves for her benefit that it almost didn’t phase her. At an early age Simone’s father realized that his daughter would have men after her, strictly based on her appearance so he’d made her work so hard on her academics, wanting her to have something other than beauty as currency.
“Right this way,” the officer led her through the station hoping to use the opportunity to work up his nerve to ask her out on a date. Black women intimidated the hell out of him with their brazen confidence, but he had always been attracted to their beauty. Even though he came from a very old fashioned Italian background where his parents expected him to date “his own kind”, all his girlfriends had always been Black. “So are you friends with Detective Dugan?” he asked hoping like hell that this was some business call and he could have his shot at her. Simone pierced him with her eyes, this sister was not in the mood to be his first foray into the dark and lovely club and that was putting it nicely.
“No, I’m a suspect in a crime,” she informed him certain he would lose interest. But if the officer was deterred he certainly didn’t show it. Actually he took that whole innocent until proven guilty thing seriously, but it would be another two years before he flipped that script and begin to see all suspects as guilty.
“What did you do? Steal a man’s heart?” Officer Peterson tried, desperate to see more of this gorgeous creature. Her look cut him down and quickly neutered all thoughts of them together just as they arrived at the doorway of the detective’s office. Spotting Simone and the young officer he had to stop himself from chuckling as the cop stared lustfully after her. Detective Dugan had to admit that her beauty put most women to shame, but for him this was strictly business he reminded himself.
“Ms. Banks,” he greeted her only to be met with the coldest stare he’d encountered in recent memory. This version was decidedly different than the one he’d experienced the first two times he saw her.
“So, can I have my purse and get out of here?” she asked as she took a seat in one of the chairs directly in front of the officer’s desk.
“Police stations make you nervous, huh?” he asked. His job had taught him to read people quickly and her aversion to the precinct was only one of the things he had assessed in that moment.
“Don’t they make everybody nervous?”
“Mostly the guilty ones,” he laughed attempting to put her at ease. In his experience if he could get a person to let their guard down by some friendly bantering it usually helped him to learn what he needed to know about a person.
“I’m here for my bag,” she told him standing there stiffly. Without meaning to he found himself staring at her. The detective couldn’t help, but wonder what happened since the last time he had seen her. She had been upset, but under the circumstances that made sense but this version of Simone, he couldn’t quite reconcile with, she acted kind of nasty which surprised him.
“Yes, and I will give it to you, but first I have a few questions I need to ask you.” As soon as she heard that Simone’s arms folded across her chest as an icy cold frost set in. The detective told Simone, “I didn’t realize a woman’s purse could cost that much money?”
“Then you haven’t shopped at Hermes before,” she quipped not giving a shit if she sounded rude. What was really rude was him dragging her in here to pick up belongings the police should have never taken. And she really missed her purse. Foolish as that might sound, Simone always cherished her purses and treated them as if they were their own entities. This particular purse was dear to her because it was the last purse she had purchased with her father.
“Excuse me for saying it, but isn’t it a bit excessive for a person with your revenue stream?”
“You mean how the hell does a lowly bank teller afford a purse that costs more then my yearly salary? Is that what you want to know?”
“Well, frankly yes. And it’s not like the rest of your wardrobe is off the racks from Kmart or nothing. You have very expensive taste.” And what he didn’t say was very tasteful it was, too. Most of the women tromping through here made damn sure you knew that they were flossing expensive shit. They strolled through the doors with their labels on full display to prove they could afford some classy shit, but unless you knew quality Simone’s high-end designer clothing slipped under the radar. That quality alone interested the detective because he wasn’t used to people like Ms. Banks.
“You think that if I can afford to shop in high-end shops then I must be doing something illegal? Is that what is? I’m a kept woman or a booster? That I lie, cheat, and steal for a living? If I were a white woman I doubt you would be so quick to quantify my belongings.” She sat back shooting poisonous looks at him.
“Did
I say that?” the detective hated that she had busted him for putting her in a pile with the rest of the people he met in his line of work. If only she knew that he didn’t think of her like that. That it was just one of the pitfalls of the job to categorize the people that you met, good, bad, pimp, hooker, thief, victim. He did not want to admit his prejudices out loud.
“You didn’t have to say it. I saw it all over you.”
“Fine. You’re probably right, but your situation does not add up. You don’t have a work history so it’s more than a little suspicious that it’s your first official day working at the bank, and that very same morning, the bank gets robbed. You wouldn’t find that the least bit suspicious yourself? Come on? You seem like a very intelligent woman, be honest with me.”
Now Simone had just gone from riches to rags but she also wasn’t going to admit that the detective had a valid point.
“Whatever! But let me tell you that if I were dumb enough to rob a bank I’d be smart enough not to waste six whole minutes threatening a teller and taking her purse to give to my ghetto fabulous wanna-be girlfriend. Do you feel me? Any girl in the hood with that person would have to flash it and then that woulda led you right to her boyfriend so the whole thing is just plain stupid if you ask me.” She rolled her eyes at him.
“Okay. So you don’t know any of the perps?”
“I can not answer that question truthfully because they were wearing masks so I did not get to see their faces. Therefore, I cannot wholeheartedly say that I did not know them. I lived in this neighborhood with my grandmother in my childhood years and then I went to live with my father. Now, I’ve been living with my grandmother for a few months so it could be that I’ve seen them around the way if I knew what they looked like. But like I said, I did not get to see their faces so again, I can not efficiently answer your question.” Simone smugly sat in her seat. She was not going to be tricked into answering certain questions in order for the prosecutor to try to turn her words around later and try to implicate her. She was too smart and educated to fall for that, “But I will say this,” Simone concluded, “it is highly unlikely that I would have known the robbers.”
“Can you at least look at their photos? Maybe they will jar your memory?” he said before he pushed a set of mug shots at her. He watched her closely to see what her reaction to them would be. The slightest reaction and he would know that she was in on the heist. Simone didn’t bother to hide her surprise from the detective. She shoved the photos back toward him. “So, do you recognize any of them?”
“Yes. I recognize all of them. They were just kids from the neighborhood. Jason Kill? He dated my sister Tallhya about five years ago. She fell hard for his swagged out bad boy behavior. He put her through it having so many baby mama’s and boy was he mad that she wouldn’t give up her birth control to become the next one. Told her that if she loved him then she would have his baby. Me and my other sister, Bunny, told her that if she ever became pregnant by that thug she better keep it moving. We were not going to be related to anybody that stupid. I think it scared her enough not to give up her pills. But she wouldn’t give him up because he was her first love. One night she was supposed to go out with him, but our grandmother said she wasn’t feeling well. She’s actually kind of psychic and something told her to keep Tallhya at home so she didn’t go and he wound up getting shot trying to stick somebody up at a convenience store. Thank God Tallhya listened to our grandmother that night because he made his side chic go with him to drive the getaway car and she was arrested and charged along with him. My sister told me he and the girl were sentenced for a few years. I thought he had a longer bid and was still locked up, but when I moved in with my grandmother, I saw him around the neighborhood. The rest of the guys, I can’t tell you much of. I’ve seen them around with Jason, but I didn’t know any of their names.” Detective Dugan kept watching Simone. He hadn’t expected her to admit that she knew the guys even after it showed up on her face that she did.
“So you’re admitting you knew the ringleader. The one who set up the robbery and got the others to go along. That’s interesting.” Detective Dugan stared
“The only thing me and those thugs have in common is the color of our skin and the neighborhood I happen to reside in at the moment. We are nothing alike and if you try to connect us you will be sorely disappointed. Our social circles couldn’t be more different.”
“So is there anything about that day that struck you as odd?”
“You mean other than winding up with a gun to my head because a group of thugs decided to rob the bank that morning? Or having these young kids kill the person standing next to me while I feared for my life? Or having a gun pressed against my head? Or watching a man get his head blown off for moving his hands? You mean aside from those events did I find anything odd about what happened yesterday? No, nothing else out of the ordinary officer. ”
“Okay, Ms. Banks. Look, I’m going to get your belongings.” He stood up and left the room, pretending not to pay close attention to her every movement. In his line of work, he didn’t come across many sisters like this one. Fine. Educated. And classy. He didn’t know her entire story, but based on what he had learned so far, things weren’t adding up. She still hadn’t explained her high-end taste or where she got the money to satisfy them and he guessed that she wouldn’t. When he returned and handed her the bag enclosed in a plastic evidence bag, numbered and logged out, she took it and stood up to leave.
“Don’t you want to check the contents, make sure all your stuff is still there?” he asked, used to people wanting to blame cops for any and every thing.
“The bag is worth more than anything in it,” she said, removing the plastic bag and leaving it on the desk.
“And if I need to get in touch with you?” he questioned, for some reason he was in no rush to see her leave.
“Oh, is this a indirect ‘don’t leave town because I plan to catch you lying’ threats?”
“Somebody has watched their fair share of cop shows on television,” he smiled enjoying the chance to end their meeting on a more civil note. “I know you’re not leaving so I’m not worried.”
“Really? Because I might sell this bag and skip town,” she joked, but what Simone failed to tell him was that as soon as the words were out of her mouth she wished that her words were a real possibility. She knew better than to try to sell her bag though. The bag had cost her father a grip and the re-sale price wouldn’t even be close to half of the original cost. The re-sale would probably only get her a weekend visit to Atlanta and that wasn’t nearly far enough. Not far enough at all from this nightmare.
-18-
“Tiffany!”
“Yes, baby,” she said calmly.
“Shit, just got crazy! Real fucking crazy,” Tariq said from the other end of the phone after he’d been waiting for Spoe for the past three hours and he hadn’t answered.
“You get the bread?”
“I did, but shit went bad.” He sounded worried, “My boy’s fucked up,” he stuttered. “I think he might even be dead.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Tiffany took a deep breathe, “Man come over to my house. You can take a shower and get you some rest. Shit, going to be okay. Spoe going to call.”
“No! You don’t understand. They hunted him down and killed him. I know they did.”
“Just calm down, baby. It will be okay. Just come over and let’s put our heads together.”
“Bet!”
Tariq thought for a second about calling Bunny and filling her in, but he wanted to keep hope alive. He prayed to God, Allah, and everybody else that his soldier was being a warrior and could endure. Besides he didn’t have the heart to break any kind of news to Bunny.
Tariq pulled up to Tiffany’s house and seeing her house, from the road, gave him solice. Maybe she was right, he did need a shower to clear his head and think.
As he made his way to the front door, he sta
rted to think how Tiffany could possibly be “the one.” He thought about the years of joking Spoe on being in love and now he himself was falling.
Before he knocked on the door, Tiffany opened the door with a smile on her face which once inside of her house, quickly turned to a frown.
“What the fuc—” He was caught off guard.
“Glad you could make it!” the olive skin Italian dude holding the shotgun waved them into the room as two other well armed men kept their pieces trained on a shocked Tariq. “So we meet again. Didn’t I tell you that it was a small world?”
Well right there in the mix wearing the brand new body hugging Harve dress and Balenciaga leather wedge booties she had suckered Reek into buying just the other day after performing some exceptional deep throat action stood Tiffany.
“What the fuck, Tiff?” Tariq made the motion to reach for her, but the man who had waved them in turned his gun on him.
“Move and I will blow your motherfucking brains out,” he promised and so Tariq backed off of Tiffany, but the look he gave her, promised that he’d kill her with his bare hands.
The treacherous woman didn’t bother to look remorseful as she held out her hand to the guy, flat palm facing up to the guy who had to be the one Tiffany called, Marky all the while throwing shade at him.
“Told you he’d come,” she bragged as the guy laid a thick ass stack of hundred dollar bills on her.
“And you were right. Good job, baby!” he commended her as he laid a juicy deep tongue kiss on her.
“I’ma go into the bedroom, but don’t take too long. This gangsta shit gets my juices flowing.” He smacked her on her butt as she walked off.
“Bitch, you set me up!” Tariq reached out to grab her before she could leave, but the click of a gun being activated stopped him. He was all fucked and it was all his fault for believing a skanky-ass stripper bitch who made a living fucking random niggas for cash would play fair with a real nigga. He looked at her in disgust.
