When It All Falls Down 3 - Somebody is Gonna Die: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady) (13 page)

              Jackson pulled the food through the window before they headed back to the motel. Once they returned and had taken the food into the room, Frank asked if he could talk to his son for a moment. Frank walked alongside Tramar as they walked along the edge of the parking lot.

              “Tramar,” Frank said, “what the hell do you think you’re going to do tonight?”

              Tramar could see the serious look in his father’s face. And it broke his heart to have to see that look at this point in his life. “You know, Daddy,” Tramar said.              

              “I heard all that talking you were doing earlier about going to kill someone and stuff,” Frank said. “You not really thinking about doing something like that for real, are you, Tramar? I mean, look. I should be calling the police, but you know I’m not. You and Jackson could go ahead and get a fresh start.”

              “But what about you and Vivica, Daddy?” Tramar asked. “You met the Byron dude.” He looked at his father’s face. “Up close and personal. I know with all you’ve seen and all the places you’ve been that you can see that that nigga just ain’t gon’ stop because we tell him to.”

              “I know,” Frank said, not doubting one word that was coming out of Tramar’s mouth. “I know. I just don’t want you to get into any more trouble than you’re already in.”

              “Can I really, though?” Tramar asked. “I mean, can I really get into any more trouble than this? Wanted for being connected to three bank robberies in two days and I’m the idiot nigga who had to shoot and kill the security guard.”

              “And why don’t you turn yourself in?” Frank asked, once more. “Son, how far do you really think you’re going to get before they catch you?”

              Tramar shrugged. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But I’m not gon’ just let them catch me and put me in prison for the rest of my life. If I already know that’s what they try’na do and stuff, then I’mma at least make them work for it. They gon’ have to do some work to catch me.”

              “Son, you’d only be making it worse for yourself,” Frank said.

              Tramar looked down the parking lot at Ayana. “Or would I be making it better?” he asked, rhetorically. “You know, I really wanted to marry that girl.”

              “Well,” Frank said. “That’s gonna be pretty hard to do if you’re on the run and in hiding and stuff. I mean, you are really going to have to fall off the grid because you know the police will be looking for you very hard. They’re going to be pulling over every black male trying to cross state lines for at least the next couple of weeks. And that goes for Indiana and Illinois. And you know them white people over in Indiana don’t play. Whatever slack Illinois throws on the table, Indiana will pick that shit right up and keep on going.”             

              “Yeah,” Tramar said, looking off in the dark distance. “I don’t know where we gonna go yet. Me and Ayana had been talkin’ about goin’ to Atlanta, but I guess that’s off the table. Wherever we go, we gon’ have to get with some people so we can stay low. I was thinkin’ bout gettin’ with some Mexicans or Nigerians and getting fake IDs. Maybe we can be from some islands or something.”

              “Yeah,” Frank said, not really knowing what to think. “If you think that’ll work for you, then by all means, son, I guess you should go for it. All I can say, and I can’t believe that I’m about to say this, but all I can say is be smart and move low. I knew a nigga, back in the day, who was on the run for like three years. I don’t know how he did that shit. Yeah, it was after segregation and all of that, but people were still somewhat sectioned off from one another. Anyway, that nigga was on the run for three years. But, you know once them white people caught up with him, it was a wrap. Ain’t seen or heard from him or about him since, now that I think about it.”

              “Well, I’mma be smart about this, Daddy,” Tramar said. “We just gotta go do this. That Byron dude has to be taken off the street. If I leave town now and don’t come back for a long time, all he gon’ do is use his free time to find you and Vivica and make y’all’s lives a living hell all over again.”

              “Yeah, that was hell,” Frank said, leading Tramar back down the parking lot. “And I’m glad it’s over.”

              When Tramar got back down to the motel room, Ayana and Jackson came out of the room. They’d been inside, talking to Vivica and Quan. Tramar quickly said goodbye to Quan, telling him that he would be spending the night with Grandpa and Miss Vivica. Quan agreed, sleepiness showing in his eyes. Tramar shook his hand before sending him back into the room. As Frank pushed the door closed, he looked into Tramar’s eyes in a way his father had never looked at him. It would be a look that he would remember for the rest of his life.

              “Okay, let’s go get this nigga,” Tramar said.

              Tramar, Jackson, and Ayana all hopped into Jackson’s car. With Jackson behind the wheel, he looked at the time. “We still got a good hour before we would even need to be headin’ that way,” he said.

              “That’s coo,” Tramar said. “We can use that time to ride around the spot and see what we workin’ with. He said the name of the place like he already know. I can’t say that I do, and that’s all the more reason that we should ride through and see what options we got for hiding around in the area and shit until it gets later and we get that nigga right when he think that we not comin’.”

              Jackson agreed as he pulled out of the parking spot and headed toward the road. Tramar, who sat in the back this time, looked at his woman. He tilted her face up, holding her cheek, so that she was now looking into his eyes. “You sure you okay with this?” Tramar asked. “I mean, Ayana, if you not really okay with this, then all you got to do is say so, and you ain’t got to do nothin’ if you don’t want to.”

              “No, I do,” Ayana insisted. “I do. I gotta do something, ‘cause this shit is affecting me now too. And you was right. He not gon’ know who I am. Shit, he don’t even know that I may have been a part of any of this or that I even exist. That can work in our favor.”

              Liking what he just heard and not being able to help himself, Tramar leaned in and passionately kissed Ayana. Before either of them knew it, they were rubbing their hands on one another and pushing back and forth. “I’m so sorry,” Tramar said. “I swear to God I am, baby.”

              “It’s okay,” Ayana said, really meaning it. “Let’s just make sure we get this over with tonight so we can all move on with our lives.”

              “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.