Chapter 13
“Baby! See who’s ringing the doorbell, I’m in the shower . . . !” Smitty hollered from out of his state-of-the-art bathroom that connected to his master bedroom. Everything in the bathroom, from the floor to the countertops, were all marble, and all the fixings and faucets were all made with twenty-four-carat pure gold. Smitty had an extravagant home!—five bedrooms, two-car garage, with a built-in indoor swimming pool in the backyard. His home was located in Orland Park in the far southwest suburbs. The commute from where he stayed to the west side of Chicago was at least a couple of hours. Nobody in the nation knew about this Capone Suite—only his immediate family. A selected few knew about Smitty ten other key cribs throughout the city. Marcus was one of those few.
“I wonder who the hell coming to my house this late in the afternoon . . . ,” Smitty asked himself out loud while still in the shower. “Prob’le some kids going’ door-to-door tryn’a sell some shit . . . ,” Smitty continued to think out loud. “Sweetie! Who was at the door?” Smitty yelled; he thought nothing when he didn’t get a response back from his lady.
Three minutes after not getting a response, Smitty woman was being escorted to the master’s bathroom by five armed, unidentified older white men.
“We have a warrant in the name of ‘Alphonso Smith’ a.k.a. Smitty!” one officer chanted aggressively while they all showed badges and pointed their guns toward Smitty.
“What the fuck is this! Y’all gotta be terribly making a mistake!” Smitty frantically said with a strange look on his face as he got out the shower, reaching for a dry towel.
The unidentified officers were dressed in suits and ties; some were wearing blue jeans and collar shirts with jackets that had U.S. Marshals written on the back. It was clear that these were officers with the FBI and the U.S. Marshals.
“You’re being indicted on conspiracy charges of being linked to the Portelli family drug cartel operations out of Columbia and also charges on being the ringleader of the notorious Chicago street gang called the Insane Vice Lords!” the head officer spoke proudly as if he knew they had concrete charges.
The FBI officers recited to Smitty and his lady their rights while they allowed him to put on some clothes.
“Why y’all handcuffing her! She ain’t got nuttin’ to do wit’ this shit!” Smitty claimed as they proceeded to handcuff him.
“Believe me, the snapshots we have, she’s right along in them with you. I’m sure she knows what’s going on!”
“I need to get my lawyer on the phone, right now!” Smitty demanded as the officers proceeded to escort them out the house.
“You’ll be able to take care of that once we make it downtown,” one of the FBI officers said, while walking side by side with Smitty and his girl, directing them to an unmarked Dodge Intrepid.
“I don’t think your high-profile lawyer would even be able to get your ass out of this jam, Mr. Smith! We’ve been building this case on you and your foreign connect friends for the past ten years. You guys finally slipped up and gave us a lead. Everything else we had was too weak to put you all away for the time you’re looking at now. Watch your head getting in the car!” the lead FBI detective said all of this while smiling the entire time.
Marcus and Chris ended up riding down Independence Boulevard, then eventually making a turn unto the cross street Madison Avenue. Madison is a popular street on the west side of the city that runs from downtown Chicago through to the ‘hood where all the Arabic-owned shopping centers are located, and it ends in the west suburbs. The United Center, where the Bulls play ball, is also located on Madison Street.
Marcus made a quick stop at Tops and Bottoms, a popular clothing store that most young hustlers go to, to get their fresh gear. Marcus was dropping by to pick up a wardrobe he had prepared. Of course when Chris saw that he was going in with Marcus instead of waiting in the car, he knew it was on!
“Habeeb, wassup, man?” Marcus greeted the Arab owner as they entered the store.
“Marcus, my homey! What it is?” Habeeb said in a heavy Arabic accent, trying to talk with street slang.
“Yeah, whatever, I know you betta’ have my order in and don’t be tryn’a charge me them high-ass prices, either!” Marcus said with a slight humor as he walked to the back of the store where all the expensive gear was.
“Don’t worry, buddy, don’t I always take good care of you, brotha’,” Habeeb claimed.
While Marcus was checking his order as Habeeb was bringing it to the counter, he noticed Chris admiring some of the expensive clothing that he normally wouldn’t be able to get from their mother.
“Aey, Habeeb, have one of yo’ workers to help my lil brotha’ out wit’ whatever’ he want,” Marcus said to where only Habeeb could hear him.
“No problem, Jo. Did I say that right?” Habeeb joked with Marcus as they both shared a laugh. He then instructed one of his workers, in their language, to take care of Chris.
Chris reacted like a small kid at a candy store, grabbing damn near everything that was in his eyesight. His total alone came out to be five hundred dollars. After everything was said and done, Marcus ended up dropping forty-five hundred on clothes within thirty minutes. This was a light shopping day for Marcus that wasn’t planned. He was spontaneous like that at times; he just did whatever he felt.
Marcus wasn’t headed anywhere in particular, so they continued driving down Madison Avenue, where traffic stayed flowing, day in and day out!
“So, what’s goin’ on wit’ school?” Marcus asked Chris while setting the radio on mute, catching Chris by surprise as he was in the middle of rapping along to one of his favorite songs. Chris never thought Marcus was too concerned about his school grades.
“Awe, everything straight. You know we undefeated this season. I be killin’nem fools on the court, they have to call for a double-team jus’ to try to stop me! The play-offs starts in’a couple weeks, I know you gon’ be there, right?” Chris said all of this, hoping to throw Marcus off from asking about his grades.
“Yeah, all that sounds good, but I was really asking about them grades.”
“Well . . . ,” Chris hesitated, “I ain’t gon’ lie to you, the first semester I was getting all Ds, but I’m picking them up now. By the end of the year I should be a’ight.”
“Look, Chris, man, Momma worked too hard for you to be fuckin’ up in school . . . Shit, its bad enuff I was a disappointment to her.
“I guess what I’m tryn’a say is, give a better’ effort in making’ Momma happy. I know I haven’t been a good example for you but at the time, I did what I felt I had to do. I’mma change eventually but right now, I’m in too deep . . . I have to make the best out of the situation I’m in now. You have a choice, lil bro, and it starts right now!” Marcus spoke with emphasis as if he was giving a mini-lecture. Everything he said was heartfelt, and Chris gave him his undivided attention. This was their first real-life conversation since Marcus started getting a lot of money.
While Marcus was busy talking, he ended up taking Madison all the way down to Central Boulevard. As Marcus turned on to Central, he noticed someone who looked like an old buddy of his in the car driving next to him.
“Damn, Chris! Don’t that look like my buddy Shawn driving in that BMW next to us?” Marcus asked while looking and pointing toward the passenger-side window.
“Shawn?” Chris responded confusedly.
“Yeah, Shawn from off Division, around Granma house.” Marcus instantly raised his passenger-side window down while blowing his horn, trying to get his buddy’s attention.
After doing a double take, the person driving next to them noticed who it was blowing the horn trying to get his attention.
“Ohhhh shit! Wass up, boa’!” Shawn yelled out the window with excitement.
“Whudd up, my nigga . . . !” Marcus hollered back, matching Shawn’s energy. “Pull over at the next street!”
“A’ight!”
Marcus
switched lanes to get behind Shawn when he noticed the BMW Shawn was driving was a 1995 740iL model. Marcus figured Shawn had to be getting some type of money to be riding in a BMW. It wasn’t on the level as the 500 Benz Marcus was in, but it wasn’t too far off. They both pulled over at the next main street, which was Washington Boulevard.
“Gaaaddamn! Life must be treating’ you good, homey!” Shawn said as they greeted each other with a handshake followed by a formal hug.
“Shhhiiit, I should be saying’ the same about you. What this is, next year’s shit?” Marcus replied, referring to Shawn’s BMW. They both were in respectable luxury cars. Marcus knew his Benz was much gaudier and expensive.
“Man, where yo’ ass been hiding’ at? Every time I ride through Division I stop and ask yo’ people have they seen you. Everybody claim they don’t be seeing’ you like that,” Shawn claimed
“Yeah, man, I’m still ova’ there in the Holy City.”
“I see you doing’ yo’ muthafuckin’ thang too . . . !” Shawn expressed with excitement as he rubbed the side of his face. “Gaaaddamn, how can I be down, my nigga!” Shawn joked as they both shared a brief laugh.
“From the looks of it, you’re already down!” Marcus said while checking out the BMW from front to back.
“Yeah, I do a’ight for myself . . . ,” Shawn said while keeping his eyes on the ongoing traffic. “Aey, where you on your way to?”
“I got Chris in the car wit’ me, ‘bout to ride through Division and stop to holla at my people.”
“Chris, wassup, boa . . . !” Shawn said, throwing up the deuce. “Dat lil nigga still look like he bad as hell!”
“Hell yeah!” Marcus eagerly agreed.
“Aey, I’mma follow y’all ova’ that way. We need to catch up on some things.”
“A’ight,” Marcus said as they gave each other five before getting back inside their cars.
As they maneuvered through the traffic, Marcus was telling Chris how tight he and Shawn were back in the day. Shawn was a magnet for the girls and loved to play basketball. He stood about six foot three, medium built; light brown skinned, and had deep-set eyes. The surrounding of his eyes was a darker shade, in looks of someone that don’t get hardly enough sleep. Shawn’s mother was full-blooded Cherokee Indian, and his father was black. So Shawn had a good grade of short wavy hair.
As they pulled up on the 1100 block of Monitor, a side block off of the main street, Division, Chris immediately went inside their grandmother’s house after seeing that the block was empty and none of his old friends were out. Marcus and Shawn stood in front of the house and resumed their conversation. It was a mild seventy-degree spring afternoon with the sun fading in and out the clouds. They both were geared up in spring like gear: Marcus dressed in some Girbaud jeans with a blue and white Air Max Nike T-shirt that matched his ‘95 blue and white air max’s with the air bubble around the entire tennis shoe; Shawn on the other hand had on a white and black new-era White Sox baseball cap with the authentic white sox baseball jersey to match and some all-white leather ‘95 Air Max. By the way they were dressed, it was obvious that they weren’t out to impress but they were still fresher than the average dude.
Every time Marcus drove through Division and stood out in front of his grandmother’s house, he attracted a crowd. This particular day was no exception. Some of the people out there had love for Marcus, and some of them hated him, but the ones that hated laughed and joked to keep from showing it. A lot of people felt like Marcus had turned his back on the ‘hood once his mother moved him to the other side of town, in the Holy City. Marcus had found new friends around where he moved, so he rarely went back around Division to hang out. Marcus showed his face more once he started getting a lot of money hustling. A lot of guys thought he was riding through just to shine on them. Shawn didn’t have many known haters in the Division area, and mainly because he was affiliated with the Four Corner Hustlas, another mob that ruled majority of the Division area and other scattered parts of the city. Shawn’s uncle Ray had rank amongst the Foes and had his own separate land that he controlled. Shawn left from around Division at an early age and had been doing business with his uncle ever since.
Majority of the land on Division was controlled by a set of identical twins by the name of Dre and Drew, short for Andre and Andrew. They were in their early twenties, and they both were short and as black as charcoal. They always kept an arrogant type of expression upon their faces that let everyone who crossed their path know they were ‘hood rich. The only way to tell the two apart was from the way they walked; Dre had gotten shot up really bad a while back during a gang war, and with one of the bullets still stuck in his leg, he was forced to walk with a terrible limp. The twins had high rank with the Foes, and they were getting major money on their blocks. One of the main reasons for their success was that they were the only few people in the city still selling their product in capsules. Every capsule that was sold, they made sure the customers got three times more than what they paid for. This assured them all the clientele in the area.
After thirty minutes of standing, at least twenty guys and ‘hood girls, had accumulated as a crowd around Marcus and Shawn. Everybody was smoking weed, and some had cups in their hands prior to walking up. Everybody was joking and having a good time reminiscing on past times, until Grandma Emma came outdoors to join the party.
“Marcus, I know damn well you ain’t been out here all this time without coming in here to talk to me . . . !” Grandma Emma yelled out humorously from the front door, standing in her famous long black nightgown. “And all y’all know better than to be all bunched up in front of my house like that. Y’all know I don’t play that shit!” She directed her statement to the normal faces that she saw on a daily basis.
“We sorry, Mrs. Williams . . . ,” a few from the scattering crowd blurted out while trying to hide their cups and the blunts.
“I told‘em, Granma. They didn’t wanna listen to me,” Marcus said jokingly as he walked up, attempting to hug and kiss his grandmother.
“Don’t gimme that . . . !” she teased as she reluctantly turned her cheek, trying to avoid his kiss. “Yo’ ass out here right along wit’em . . . !” she stated with humor. “And who big, nice cars parked in front of my house?”
“I . . . I don’t know. One of theirs I guess . . . ,” Marcus hesitated to say. “I parked my car down the street.” Marcus wanted to avoid any questions his grandmother had about him being able to afford a hundred-thousand-dollar car at the age of twenty-one. “Granma, you remember Shawn, don’t you?” he quickly asked, trying to redirect her attention away from the cars.
“I thought he looked familiar. How you doing, sweetheart?”
“I’m all right, Granny,” Shawn replied respectfully, trying to hide his highness. “How you been feeling?”
“Awe, I’m hanging in there, shuga. A few aches and pains here and there, but I’m handling it . . . All right, let me get back in here and finish talking to this other knucklehead grandson of mine. I just came out here to mess wit’ y’all for a minute,” she stated while making her way back inside the house.
“A’ight, Granma, I’ll be in there in’a minute,” Marcus assured her while directing his attention back to conversing with Shawn.
Marcus and his grandmother had a special, open type of relationship with each other. He felt like he could go to his granny and talk just about anything because he knew she would keep it real with him at all cost.
Shawn began to talk to Marcus about a plan he had in mind to open up shop on a block around Division. Shawn claimed he had his own crew of hungry young Foe’s that he was going to bring over that way to grind for him. He mentioned that he wouldn’t mind having an enforcer like Marcus to go into business with him. Shawn explained to Marcus how he earned good money working under his uncle Ray, but now he felt it was time for him to branch off and become his own boss around new scenery that he was pretty familiar with. Shawn also mentioned how
he didn’t want to do business with the twins.
Marcus listened to what was being said and responded by telling Shawn that he was an elite now with the IVLs, so he had access to work on any block in the Holy City. Marcus felt like Division wasn’t capable of making the type of money that he was used to making on his land, especially with the twins having shit on lock. Marcus let it be known that they would either have to out do the competition or get them, out the way! Shawn knew Marcus meant business, so if Marcus was going to be included in his plans, it would be a chance of a huge problem in the future with Marcus and the Foe’s. Even though Shawn was part of the Four Corner Hustlaz mob, if it was to go down, there was no question that he would ride with Marcus against the twins.
In the midst of their conversation, Marcus was interrupted by a phone call.
“Yeah, who ’dis?” Marcus answered his phone, slightly agitated after not recognizing the number.
“Yeah, where ya at, man?” the voice on the other end asked aggressively.
“I’m around. Who the hell is this?” Marcus asked irritably.
“This Steve, I need to get wit’chu, it’s an emergency!”
“I’m headin’ from off Division, gimme ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Meet me in front of the school on Sixteenth and Millard. We’ll be out there waiting’ on you.”
By the pressure that consumed Marcus’s face and his frantic gestures, Shawn sensed that there was something wrong. Marcus was mind-boggled after the phone call. He didn’t know if Steve had gotten word about his new Benz or found out Chris had been rotating with him or if something had really went down. Either way it went, Marcus was nervously eager to see what was going on.
“Everything a’ight?” Shawn asked with a look of concern covering his face.
“I don’t know, my people say it’s an emergency . . . ,” Marcus said while racing toward his grandmother’s door. “Aey let me get'cho’ number so I could get up wit’chu.”
After exchanging numbers with Shawn, Marcus went into the house to get Chris, and they chirped out.
Marcus took the quickest route to the 290 east Expressway, which was straight down Central. Marcus being silent and the way he was speeding and weaving crazily through traffic all the way to the Independence Exit gave Chris a funny feeling that something had went down.
After dropping Chris off, Marcus parked the Benz on Avers and jumped into his low-key Maxima to go meet up with Steve. As soon as Marcus turned down Millard Street, he saw Steve standing beside Spoonie, Big C, and three other high officials that were under Big C.
“Damn, this can’t be good,” Marcus said to himself as he parked the car and proceeded toward the crowd. Marcus walked up and greeted each one individually with the nation’s handshake.
“Marcus! The talk of the Westside, Wassup, boa?” Big C greeted with suspicion in his ways.
“The talk of the Westside?” Marcus muttered out with a puzzled face.
“You know you can’t ride around in’a new 500 hunit Benz without the city runnin’ back telling’ me . . . ,” Big C said with a certain happy sort of anxiousness. “So, wheres at?”
“I parked it on Avers,” Marcus answered as he glanced at the others’ facial expressions that were standing in their circle. Spoonie was the only face that showed signs of jealousy.
“Well, I’m always happy for one of my own when they’re doing’ well for themselves, especially if they’re going’ by it the right way,” Big C said. “But unfortunately, we didn’t call you ova’ here for that.”
“What’s goin on?”
“The feds grabbed Smitty and five of his foreign-connect friends at their homes earlier this afternoon on conspiracy charges . . . ,” Big C continued to explain. “From what I hear, the feds had been building a case for the past five to ten years. They also indicted him on conspiracy of being the head operator of a street mob. I’m sure they’re not finish handing out indictments, so I’m advising everybody to lie low until I talk to Smitty and see what the fuck is going on.”
During their conversation, Big C mentioned that he was leaving town for a couple of months until things got calm.
Everyone went their separate ways except Steve and Marcus. Damn, this some fucked-up shit, Marcus thought to himself as he and Steve walked toward his Maxima. Marcus knew Smitty was going to be out the picture for the time being, and Big C was leaving town, so he wondered who he would start getting his work from. Marcus had no intentions to stop hustling, but he knew he had to get as far out the area to do so.
“So, what you think this shit is all about?” Marcus asked Steve, thinking as if it’s been some type of inside information told to get Smitty jammed up.
“Ain’t no tellin’. You jus’ stay out the limelight until we find out what the fuck is going’ on . . . ,” Steve explained. “Your name been ringing lately around the ‘hood from how well you been doing’ and that Benz you jus’ got really did it. I know sometimes we like to treat ourselves to nice things but I advise you to make that car disappear before you draw unnecessary heat to you and everybody else. I’mma lay low and spend more time with Chris and Sylvia, at least until Big C come back.”
Marcus continued to drive in silence. He listened to what Steve was saying, but at the same time, Marcus was orchestrating a plan inside of his head for him and his crew to continue making money.