The Versace League (16 page)

Yamin poured into the line of visitors and began removing all of his personal belongings. After Emmanuel and Manny safely secured the most important women in his life, he'd met with a few valuable league members. They all agreed that the whole scheme of events seemed solely personal rather than something involving The League. He figured it was best to start putting the pieces of the puzzle together with the only piece he had. Patrice.

    He removed his belt and then pulled his wallet and car keys from his pocket. He'd been in and out of the prison doors plenty of times to visit his uncle and was thankful he had never been the one on the other side. He imagined it was hard being the outside world was always in control. They got to say when and if ever they would visit. It was up to the free world if they wanted to take the time out to write a letter and keep some type of contact with the imprisoned. That was a lot of control for someone to have over a person's life and Yamin prayed that he was never put into that position.

            Yamin placed all of his belongings in a tray and walked through the metal detector. He held his hands high as the correctional officer ran his hands swiftly across his body, searching for anything that the metal detector might have missed. Once he was thoroughly searched, he winked his eye at the correctional officer and followed behind the visitors that were there for the same reasons that he was.

After walking the length of the hall, they were all directed to enter into a huge room that resembled a high school cafeteria. Yamin took to the back of the room where he spotted a table off in the corner that he wanted to sit at. Before he could make it, he bumped into another correctional officer and was almost knocked off of his feet. He looked up at the officer masking the disgust he felt and kept towards his destination. He took a seat with his back against the wall and patiently waited for the inmates to be escorted into the room. A few moments later, the visiting area was filled with all different types of women dressed in the same colors. There was a range of women from young to old, from black to white, from tall to short.

            “What are you doing here?” Patrice asked as she approached Yamin’s table. He hadn’t been looking when she walked up due to the fact that he was thoroughly amazed with all the women that were locked down. He hadn’t been around so many women criminals in his life and he was impressed to the point that he actually wanted to do some recruiting for The Versace League.

            “Sit your ass down. I got some questions for you,” Yamin said. This was one criminal that he was not impressed with though. He was absolutely disgusted with her presence and had he not needed to get some information out of her, he probably would have strangled her with his bare hands the minute he saw her.

            Patrice sucked her teeth and took a seat across the table from Yamin. She looked around the room a few seconds before planting her full attention on his face. She tried her hardest to stare at him with a hard face, but the longer she looked at him, the softer her insides became. She had a few months to think about her actions and what she had done and she felt horrible. Cortez had been nothing but a king to her and she allowed misplaced feelings to get in the way of her finally having a good man on her arm.

            “What’s up Trice? What happened? What made you kill my brother and then turn around and kill my niece?” Yamin asked. He sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. He shook his head as he stared Patrice over. She looked more like the mugshot he caught a glimpse of on Cortez’s computer screen. She looked like a black chick from the hood and not the Puerto Rican princess she’d been portraying herself as.

            “First let me just say that I am a con artist. I have been one all my life. When I met Cortez, I was only there to con him out of whatever I could for however long I could and then move on before I got busted. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I fucked around and fell in love with your brother and he actually loved me back. Even after he found out I had been stealing from him, he was still gonna stick with me. Can you believe that shit?

            I came from a fucked up place Ya. My mama was a dope dealer that got pregnant by her Puerto Rican supplier, they both were killed on the streets and they left me with my grandmother. My grandmother did her best to take care of me, but when she got sick with cancer, I lost my way. She was the only thing I had left to live for, but she died when I was seventeen and after that I no longer cared about anything.

            I started committing every damn crime known to man. I had done so much dirt back in Philly that I had no choice but to get the fuck out of dodge and change my name. That’s when I became Patrice Santiago-which is not a stretch because it was my father’s last name. My mother’s name was Givens….anyway, when I came here I needed to get as much cheddar as possible to be able to pay for my car and to be able to pay for my crib. My stash was low and I was about to get back on the grind, but I ran into Cort,” Patrice laughed nervously.

            She held her head down as she thought about the first time she’d ran into Cortez. She thought about how handsome he was, how charming he was, and how respectable he was to her. She remember thinking how she hated to do him dirty because he was one of the very few men that she’d encountered that actually treated her with respect.

            “Cort was great,” she continued. “We started dating, I told him a few lies, he fell for them and that’s when it all began. He started giving me a monthly allowance after just a few months and it was enough for me to take care of the things I had to take care of. I did my best with him, I really did. He slipped up and left his bank info lying around one day and I just couldn’t help myself. I started taking small amounts and started piling it into my account.

            I always felt like he knew what I was doing, but he never said anything. I only got bigger and bolder with what I took when he said something about it. I lied and told him that it was for my grandma and he just handed me a hundred thousand dollars and told me that I didn’t have to steal from him and that all I had to do was ask. It was then that I knew that Cort loved me and I allowed myself to love him too Ya-I stopped stealing from him. I stopped looking at him as a target and looked at him as my man. I really did that Ya. I was happy for all of about 4 weeks and then I found out-” Patrice shook her head and tears began to fall from her eyes. She thought about the pain she felt in the weeks leading up to Cortez’s death. She had never been so hurt in her life.

            “Found out what?” Yamin asked as he sat forward. He pulled his seat closer to the table in an effort to be sure that he was going to hear everything that was being said to him.

            “I found out that he started back messing around with that bitch Donica. I found out that he had really never stopped messing around with her and that it was even possible that he had never stopped sleeping with her,” Patrice cried. “I was so hurt when I found out. He would lie to me every day and tell me that he loved me, that he wanted to marry me, and that he wanted me to have his child, but he would sneak behind my back and sleep with that fat ass hoe. So I started my shit back up. I was gonna drain his ass. Take everything he had especially when I found out that he was part of that League shit y’all got going on.”

            “He told you about that?” Yamin asked with his brow raised surprised that she knew.

            “No, he didn’t tell me. I found out from this Haitian dude Roscoe,” Patrice said.

             
Roscoe? It bet not be the same muthafucka from Ashley’s funeral.
Yamin thought.

             
“One evening, me and Jessica had been doing a little shopping I ran into him. Jessica was inside the dressing room trying on a few fits that she had found so she didn’t see him. He told me all about The Versace League, how he wanted to bring The League down, and how The League had taken something precious from him,” Patrice continued. “He said if I helped him it would be pay back towards Cort for betraying me and that he would help me out and give me enough money to disappear if that’s what I wanted after it was all said and done. I don’t know how he knew about Cortez betraying me and I didn’t ask. It just sounded good to me since I was truly fucked up over it. He said the only thing I needed to do was look after Ashley. Somebody was gonna bring her to me and that all I had to do was keep an eye on her.

            I promise you, I never knew that they were going to kill Cort. Just like it was a shock and surprise to everyone else, it was to me as well. He never told me that he was going to do that to Cort, although in the beginning I didn’t care one way or the other. I was so hurt that I really didn’t care, but after I got the news I broke the fuck down. I cried for so long. I cried hard Ya. I was so fucked up behind that shit.”

            “Why did you kill Ashley, Trice? She was innocent.”

            “I didn’t mean to. After Aasir told me that you had found out everything about me, I was about to run, but first I wanted to drop Ashley back with her mama. I went to untie Ashley from the bed where I had been holding her and she bit me and took off running. I chased after her and she ended up tripping on the steps and falling. By time she had made it to the bottom step, I knew that she was dead. Her eyes were rolled behind her head and she just didn’t look right.

            I picked her up and just screamed her name over and over again, but she never answered me. I promise I would have never hurt that little girl. I took care of her when I had her, I combed her hair every day, I fed her, and I kept her entertained. I didn’t want anything to happen to her and I wasn’t gonna let them do anything to her if they had tried. Her death was an accident. That’s why I confessed to that shit because I truly felt bad. I might be a con artist, but I’m not a fucking monster.”

            “And Aasir, how much of this did he help you with?” Yamin asked and sighed thinking about his brother’s betrayal.

            “Aasir didn’t help me with anything. I seduced him when I found out Cortez was fucking Donica. We slept together on and off over a few months, but he didn’t help me with shit. Hell actually two weeks before Cort was killed, I kicked his ass to the curb because he would never let me come over his house. He was afraid that I was gonna hit his ass up like I had been doing Cort and he was right. I was gonna drain the fuck out of his ass too. We only started back sleeping together a couple of days after Cort was killed. Aasir had come through to check on me and I got him to fuck me that same night.

            When Aasir found out that I had been lying about who I was and that I might have something to do with Cort’s death-he tried to fucking kill me. Aasir just jumped out of bed and snapped. He was like
“bitch who the fuck is Patrice Givens? You grimy bitch, did you kill my fuckin’ brother?”
  He wrapped his arms around my throat and tried to strangle me. I was able to get loose and call the cops and if they hadn’t showed up when they did, I probably would be dead and it might not have been a bad thing. Just think if Aasir had killed me that night-Ashley would still be here.

            After they made him leave, I told that Roscoe nigga that I was caught and that y’all figured out who the fuck I was. Roscoe told me to calm down and that he would handle it but I wasn’t about to wait for that to happen. I packed up all my shit I was gonna take with me, placed it in the car, and went for Ashley.

            Unfortunately it didn’t go as I had planned. After I moved her body to that building, I went back to my place and wrote Aasir that note and then I took off,” Patrice shrugged nonchalantly like it had been that simple. It seemed the only thing she truly felt bad about was being played by Cortez, although she had claimed that she was sorry for it all, there was lack of evidence to prove that. There were no tears when she spoke of Ashley, no trace of remorse was visible; she wasn’t sorry.

            “So, Aasir told you that Katrina coming to see me that night?” Yamin asked for clarification.

            “Nah, after the police put Aasir out. I had his phone and I saw your messages kept coming through. And I was able to check his voice mail. His phone wasn’t locked so everything you was telling Aasir, I was actually the one seeing it all. I just knew I had to get the fuck out of dodge.”

             
“So you had Roscoe to kill Katrina?”

             
“No, I never told him about Katrina. I only told him that y’all figured me out and that I was about to make a move. That bitch is dead?” Patrice asked in surprise.

             
“You know she is dead Patrice, don’t play me now.”

             
“I don’t know shit about that bitch. Hell I seen her around a few times, but I didn’t know she was a damn FBI agent until she showed with her partner questioning me about my alibi. I didn’t have time to tell Roscoe about Katrina, like I said I told him y’all knew about me and that I was about to bounce. It had been at least an hour and a half that passed from the time you tried contacting Aasir from the time he confronted me.

All I know is that we were sleeping, and he woke me up with his hand around my throat asking me who I really was. Only thing I read in your messages was that Katrina was on her way with that info and that was enough for me. Don’t be trying to put no FBI agent murder on me. I got enough damn time.”

            Yamin thought about what Patrice was saying and wondered how much of it was true. Katrina was on her way to him with info on Patrice and was killed before she could get it to him, Patrice had to be lying. Why else would she be killed when she was on the brink of exposing Patrice’s ass.
More lies.
He thought.