The Banks Sisters 3 Page 7

  Kimberly said, “You’re not too bad at squirreling away money yourself.”

  “Yeah, but Mildred would rather live like a peasant so that damn grown-ass daughter of hers can live like a queen.”

  Kimberly said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Ms. Gladys?”

  Mildred said, “Sure. You’re like family. You can ask me anything.”

  “Why are you smiling? All of a sudden you started smiling when I told you how much money it was.”

  “I’m just thinking about my sister,” she said. “Our momma used to tell us to never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. I guess Mildred was listening. Everybody thought that she did all of her banking over at Consolidated Trust and the Credit Union, and all the time she was hiding a fortune right under everybody’s noses.” Mildred was smarter than we gave her credit for, she thought. “That ol’ false prophet done spent every dollar that was in the Consolidated Trust account.”

  “Well, thank God he didn’t know about this account. Maybe it can help the girls get back on their feet.”

  “For sure.” Gladys was pleased. “At least something is the way Mildred would have wanted it to be.” She was delighted to discover that Pastor Street wouldn’t be buying more G-strings and dildos on her sister’s dime, but she also had her own business to take care of.

  Kimberly handled all of Gladys’s regular monthly transactions: she deposited her social security check and her late husband’s pension, then wired funds to pay each of her bills. Gladys was never late with paying a bill. It was something she took pride in.

  When it was all done, Gladys shook Kimberly’s hand and said, “I’ll see you next month.” Then she adjusted her mink hat, cocking it to the perfect angle.

  Before she left the bank, Kimberly asked Gladys to do her one favor.

  “Sure,” Gladys said. “What is it?”

  “I want you to quietly find a way to let the girls know about. . .” Kimberly looked around to make sure no one was listening before continuing. “The new developments.”

  “Don’t worry. I surely will. I will get in touch with them and ask them to call you directly.”

  “And I can take it from there,” Kimberly assured her then turned to go help another customer, her heels click-clacking against the hardwood floor as she strutted away.

  * * *

  Gladys wasn’t barely past the door of the house before she called her son down in Florida to let him know what was going on.

  Chapter 10

  Not A Good Idea

  Weston

  Rydah loved her parents more than anything in the world, but living under their roof for the past three weeks had been tougher than a microwaved two-dollar steak. She wasn’t sure how much more of it she should or could take.

  For starters, Rydah was expected to follow the same house rules she had to abide by when she was growing up. According to the church’s schedule, dinner was served at 8 p.m. sharp, every single night, unless there was a conflict in her father’s calendar. Everyone sat at the table at the same time and held hands as Daddy said the grace. This was non-negotiable. They ate and discussed current affairs and how everybody’s day was. There were no phones allowed at the table or television going in the background, only quality time with the family.

  Wolfe wasn’t even allowed inside of her bedroom. Her parents seemed oblivious to the fact that she was a 28-year-old grown woman with a place of her own. Under their roof, she’d follow their rules and knew better than to even try to request any amendments to their rules.

  Rydah felt like she’d forfeited her independence and her privacy at the front door, along with her sex life. When Wolfe ate dinner with them, Rydah could tell that he was tight and uncomfortable, but he’d rolled with the punches. One night after they’d eaten, she told Wolfe that she was horny.

  Wolfe replied, “I may be a sinner to the core, but ain’t no way I’m fit to get caught with my pants down in Bishop Banks’ house.”

  On top of it all, Rydah was still mildly traumatized. Since the carjacking, she’d yet to drive, and she met with a therapist twice a week. Amanda and Wolfe took turns driving her to the sessions. On Wolfe’s days, afterward he would take her out for lunch, sometimes a movie or shopping, just anything he could do to try to make her feel better.

  In the evenings, he would come by around 7 p.m. and usually stayed until 11 or 12, chilling with her in the family room, playing backgammon or chess. Tonight they were watching Family Feud when the phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “O-M-G! You finally answered.” The high-pitched voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Buffy. “I’ve been so worried about you,” she said, trying her hardest to sound sympathetic. The only thing that transmitted through the phone line was disingenuousness.

  “Is that right?”

  Nosy-ass Buffy inquired about her whereabouts. “Are you at your parents’ house?”

  Why the fuck this bitch wants to know where I am? Rydah was about to tell a lie, but didn’t. “Yep!”

  “Can I come over?”

  For a second, Rydah regretted admitting that she was at her parents’ house, because she didn’t want her bringing any B.S. over there. Then she thought again. She could send the dudes if she wanted to. However, Maestro, a gun collector, had an arsenal of assault rifles and though a churchman, he believed in “Stand Your Ground.” Not to mention Wolfe, who’d been itching to murder the culprits. However, she knew that wasn’t going down. Buffy had to know better.

  Rydah cut her wandering thoughts and came back to the phone call at hand.

  “Rydah, you there? I’m going to go ahead and head over that way.”

  Again, Rydah was honest.

  “That probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said.

  Buffy asked, “Why not? I want to come and check on my girl.”

  This bitch can’t take a hint.

  Rydah looked out the corner of her eye to see if Wolfe was paying her any mind. He was still watching Steve Harvey. “Honestly?” she said. “I just don’t think that that would be a really good idea.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea. I wanna come see you. We can have some girl talk. Maybe even drag you out to go to the club tonight.”

  Like, what the fuck?

  “In case you didn’t get the memo, Buffy, I just got carjacked three weeks ago. You and me going to a club together is a super long shot.”

  Turning away from the TV, Wolfe gave Rydah a who the fuck is that? look. She acted like she didn’t see him.

  “Well,” Buffy said, “I don’t wanna sound insensitive, but do you think you could get me on the guest list?”

  Rydah chuckled a little longer than she meant to, because she was honestly at a loss for words.

  Buffy was relentless. “No need for you to let your VIP connect fade away,” she said, laughing.

  Rydah looked at the phone as if it were a serpent, ready to strike. She was speechless, just holding the phone in disbelief.

  “So unless you have a damn good reason,” Buffy said, “no matter what you say, I’m coming over.”

  There was a list of things that Rydah wanted to say to Buffy, starting with, Bitch, you must got bull nuts hanging between your legs. And you need to stay as far away from me as you can before Wolfe plants you in someone’s flower garden.

  But instead, she said as easily and kindly as she could, “Because my mother thinks you set me up. So it goes without saying that you’re not welcome at her house right now.”

  Buffy was momentarily as quiet as a cat burglar. Finally, she said, “Yeah! You right. Your mother gets real gangsta when it comes to her baby girl. Mad protective.” Then Buffy asked the million-dollar question: “So do you think I had something to do with it?”

  “I don’t want to,” Rydah said honestly.

  Wolfe attempted to wrestle the phone away from her, but Rydah stood up, moving out of his grasp. They playfully struggled for it again. She mouthed the word Stop.

 
Wolfe was about to put her on his shoulders when the house phone rang. The call was from Virginia.

  Rydah said to Buffy, “Hey, girl, I just got a call from my grandma in Virginia. I’ll hit you back later.” It was a perfect excuse to get off the phone.

  Buffy got the last word in. “You know that I would never do anything to hurt you, right?”

  Rydah acted as if she didn’t hear her.

  Click!

  Then she answered the house phone, and the call from her Grandma Gladys would change her life forever.

  Chapter 11

  Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest

  Chesterfield, VA

  AKA: Arrest-erfield, VA

  Shit! What the fuck am I really doing? Tallhya asked herself. I know this shit ain’t right, but what else am I supposed to do? She pulled up beside the bank in a car she’d stolen from the valet at a Jehovah’s Witness convention. Bitch, you ain’t got shit . . . therefore, you ain’t got shit to lose.

  The Last Union Federal Bank....

  Tallhya looked at the time of the dashboard clock: 1:38 p.m. This time five days ago, she was in the nut house being fed anxiety pills, tranquilizers, and green Jell-O. When she found out that the hospital couldn’t hold her against her will, she checked herself out immediately. Next, she called her sister Simone to get her share of the bank robbery money, only to find out that her cut was severely diminished.

  Simone, who had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer, needed money desperately for the doctor and treatments. Simone hated stealing from her sister—especially after using the Baker Act to have her committed into the Westbrook Mental Hospital—but she had no choice. It was literally a life or death decision. She chose to live. Simone used the remainder of the money to do renovations on her late grandmother’s house, which Simone and her cop husband were now living in. She would have to make amends with Tallhya later.

  Tallhya didn’t mind Simone using the money to get treatments and doing the necessary repairs on her childhood home, but she was pissed that Simone hadn’t used any common sense and put away any of the hard-earned, ill-gotten money for her. Did Simone think she was never going to get out? However, she tried not to flip out too much, because after all, her sister was doing chemo and fighting for her life. At the end of the day, it was only money, she reasoned. It comes and goes. Simone would be her sister forever.

  Besides, Tallhya blamed herself for allowing her sorry-ass, cheating, soon-to-be-ex-husband, Walter, to drive her crazy enough to have to be put in the nut house in the first place. If she hadn’t flown over the cuckoo nest, she could’ve held on to her own cash. Lesson well fucking learned.

  In the meantime, she had nothing, and in two days, she wouldn’t even have anywhere to live. Going back to the house she grew up in to live with Simone and her new husband, Chase, wasn’t an option she wanted to entertain. There were too many memories in that old house. Me-Ma was dead. Ginger was dead. Bunny was dead. She would go crazy for real, talking to the ghosts of all of her family members.

  Tallhya had met a nice lady who was volunteering at the hospital. Her name was Dorsee Jackson. Tallhya and Dorsee hit it off immediately. She was the one that told Tallhya that the hospital couldn’t keep her if she didn’t want to be there. Dorsee also told her that, in her opinion, she didn’t need all those drugs that they were feeding her. Tallhya stopped taking the pills and a week later checked out. Dorsee offered to give her a place to stay until she could get on her feet. She just failed to mention that room and board would cost $100 a week. Although it was not a lot of money, when there was no money, something as small as $100 seemed to be big. Tallhya had not one iron dime. Besides rent, she needed a phone, transportation, and new clothes. She’d lost a cool twenty pounds in the hospital—the one good thing she got out of being there—and could no longer fit any of her old things.

  Tallhya wanted to kick herself for letting Walter swindle her out of her lottery winnings. The moment the money was gone, so was he, and that was the moment she went crazy. It was too much to handle at the time; seeing her husband hugged up with some bitch—a skinny bitch, at that, after he told her that he liked his women with some meat on them. Just another one of his countless lies, Tallhya mused. Life sucked, and she had no one to turn to, except doing what she knew how to do.

  She pulled the ski mask down over a blond wig and then blew into the plastic gloves she’d swiped from the hospital before snapping one onto each shaky hand. As ready as she would ever be, Tallhya pulled the stolen Toyota in front of the small branch of the Last Union Federal Savings Bank, blocking the doorway. She sucked in on deep breath and hopped out the car.

  As soon as she stepped her feet through the double doors of the Last Union Federal Bank, it was on and popping. Feeling invincible, she waltzed into the bank with a BB gun that looked real enough to get the job done—or get her killed. In her fragile and desperate state of mind, Tallhya was cool with either outcome. If she were dead, she would no longer have to worry about money. Heaven didn’t charge for things like rent and wings, she hoped.

  Inside the bank, there were only three customers. Two of them patiently waited in line while the only teller helped a lady in front. There was another bank employee, dressed in a neat little business suit, sitting in a glass cubicle. Tallhya surmised that she was the bank manager.

  “Okay, bitches, get on the fucking floor!” Tallhya waved the BB gun around. “Don’t make me say that shit again!” she shouted. “Next time I’m going to pop somebody in the ass to show you that this ain’t no fucking joke.” Her adrenaline pumped blood through her body like crazy. But no one thought that she was joking. Her eyes, big and wild, weren’t the eyes of a person trying to get a laugh. They were the eyes of a person that had nothing to lose.

  Once the customers, the teller, and the manager were on the floor, Tallhya leaned over the counter and grabbed a handful of cash out the first drawer. But that wasn’t enough. “Get up!” she said to the customer that the teller had been waiting on when she walked in. Tallhya gave her a bag. “Empty both drawers and put the money in here. And don’t get stupid over someone else’s money. You understand?”

  The customer shook her head. She was in the bank simply trying to cash a check; she didn’t want to die for anybody’s money. Not even her own. “I’ll do whatever you say. Just please, please don’t hurt me.”

  “Bitch,” she said to the teller, “step away from the damn counter. You ain’t setting off no silent alarm today.” She saw the teller out of the side of her eye with a stupid look on her face, like she had been busted. That didn’t stop Tallhya. She was on a roll.

  “You?” She motioned to the lady that had been sitting in the glass cubicle. “Go to the vault and fill this bag up.” The bank manager caught the bag that Tallhya had tossed to her. Tallhya walked with her to the vault to keep her honest. Petrified, the bank manager did exactly what Tallhya instructed her to do.

  Once both bags were filled, Tallhya took the money and headed for the exit.

  Everything went over smoothly. In less than four minutes, she was back in the car. Tallhya tossed the bags on the floor and peeled off.

  “Thank You, God!” She didn’t find it odd at all to be thanking God for a successful bank robbery.

  Driving, trying not to get noticed, she turned up the spiritual music and began to sing a Kirk Franklin song. Until that moment, she hadn’t even known that she knew the words, but she sang it like her life depended on it.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” she said, praising God.

  Then, the dye-pack went off. The noise startled her.

  “Oh, shit! God damn! What the fuck?” She couldn’t help herself, screaming over the gospel music.

  In a blink of an eye, the car was inundated with a pink dye. It was everywhere. Smoke took over the interior of the car, even inside Tallhya’s mouth and nose, making it difficult for her to see or breathe.

  Endless coughing turned into choking, and her eyes were burning. It was unbearable. Tallhya couldn�
�t see where she was going, because the dye had smeared on the windshield like blood. The smoke and the dye did their job overtime.

  BOOM!

  There was a hard bump, and it felt like the entire bottom of the car fell out. Unbeknownst to her, she had driven the car up on the sidewalk and ran head-on into a blue US Post Office mailbox. After she realized that she was okay, she thanked God it wasn’t a person she’d hit and that she wasn’t dead.

  Struggling with all her might, she forced the door open and ran for cover. She was sure the car was going to blow up. She ran into the nearby woods and kept running. She thanked God for Daylight Savings Time and that it was getting dark early.

  She disappeared into the sunset and the deep forest, took off her coat and wig. Once she was deep into the trees, she peeled off the gloves and got out of dodge. The blond wig kept the dye out of her real hair, but she still desperately needed a shower.

  An hour later, Tallhya checked into a seedy hotel on Jefferson Davis Highway that supplied rooms to crackheads, dope fiends, and prostitutes turning quick tricks. Tallhya took so many showers that the hot water ran out.

  Having to leave the bags of money from the bank in the car and only having the cash that she leaned over the counter and took herself, Tallhya had only $210 to her name. She used the money to purchase another week at Dorsee’s and get a few groceries.

  And the circle was complete. She was back where she started when the day began: broke as joke.

  She thought about all that she’d been through, and an overwhelming flood of emotions hit her. She tried to keep the tears from rolling down her face, but the effort was useless.

  “God . . . why me?” Tallhya stared upward, toward the cracked ceiling. “I wanna do right,” she said to whoever was listening. She dropped to her knees, onto a cheap, worn-out red carpet and said, “Help me, Lord! Help me, Jesus! Jehovah! Father, in the name of Jesus, help me.” A steady stream of tears stained her face. “Lord, help me!”