Chapter 16 Zoo
ZOO
The cops ain’t do shit. Knew that already.
Known it since day one when they showed up at the crime scene with their little notepads and their bored-ass faces, looking at my son’s body like it was just another dead nigga in Southeast. Asked a few questions.
Took some pictures. Told Brandi they’d “be in touch” and then bounced like they had somewhere better to be.
A few weeks later and ain’t nobody been in touch about a goddamn thing.
So I did what I always do when the system fails. I handled that shit myself.
Started at the school. I waited outside the gates at dismissal, watching the kids pour out in their little cliques.
The athletes. The nerds. The corner boys in training who thought they was hard because they stole candy from the bodega.
I remembered being that age. Remembered thinking I knew everything when I ain’t know shit.
Found a group of boys I recognized from Nigel’s pics on his phone. His crew. The ones he ran with when he wasn’t at home eating up everything in Brandi’s fridge.
“Yo.” I stepped to them, and they all tensed up. Could see them calculating—cop? Opp? Somebody’s pissed-off daddy? “Relax. I’m Nigel’s father.”
Recognition flickered across their faces. The tallest one—light-skinned kid with a fade—nodded slowly.
“Oh word? We’re real sorry about Nigh-Nigh, sir. He was our boy.”
“I know he was.” I kept my voice calm. Friendly even. “That’s why I’m here. Trying to figure out what happened to him. The cops ain’t telling me shit.”
They exchanged looks. That silent communication kids do when they’re deciding how much to say to an adult.
“We told the police everything we know,” the tall one said. “We wasn’t there when it happened.”
“I know you wasn’t. But maybe you know something you don’t even realize is important.” I pulled out a twenty and held it up. “Help me out and this is yours.”
Money talks. Always has.
The shortest one—dark-skinned, braids, couldn’t have been more than twelve—spoke up first. “Nigh left school with Yusef that day. They walked home together.”
My whole body went still. “Yusef? The lil piano-playing nigga?”
“Yeah. They was always together. Yusef was like his shadow.”
“And they walked home together? The day Nigel died?”
“That’s what I said.” The kid shrugged. “I saw them leave out the gate together. Yusef looked mad nervous about something, but he always look nervous so I ain’t think nothing of it.”
“Did anybody else see them?”
“Probably. It wasn’t no secret. Everybody knew they was boys.”
I handed over the twenty. Then pulled out another one. “This is for keeping your mouth shut about me asking questions. We clear?”
They nodded, pocketing the money, already backing away from me like they could sense the violence simmering under my skin.
Yusef. That scared little bitch who couldn’t look me in my eyes at the funeral. The one who froze up at the casket like he was staring at his own sins. The one Prentice Banks kept his hand on like he was holding him back from confessing.
The last person to see my son alive.
And the cops ain’t even verify that shit.
I drove straight to Brandi’s apartment, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles ached. The rage was building in my chest, hot and heavy, but I kept it contained. For now. Couldn’t afford to lose control until I had all the pieces in place.
Brandi opened the door looking like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Which she probably hadn’t. Her bonnet was crooked, her eyes were swollen, and she was wearing the same raggedy house dress I’d seen her in three days ago. Grief was eating her alive from the inside out.
Good. That meant she’d be ready to hear what I had to say.
“We need to talk.” I pushed past her into the apartment without waiting for an invitation.
She closed the door and followed me to the living room, arms crossed over her chest. “You find something?”
“Yeah.” I turned to face her. “I found out that your boy Yusef was the last person to see Nigel alive. They walked home from school together the day he died.”
Brandi’s face went through about five different emotions in two seconds. Confusion. Disbelief. Then something darker settling in her eyes.
“What?”
“I told you something was off about that boy. Now I know why.”
“But Yusef is—he’s just a kid. He and Nigel was best friends.”
“Was they though?” I stopped pacing and looked at her. “You ever see any bruises on Yusef? Any signs that maybe Nigel wasn’t being so friendly to him? Remember those boys at the funeral said that he was bullying him.”
Brandi’s mouth opened. Then closed. I could see her thinking. Remembering.
“Come to think of it, right before Nigel was killed they had grown apart. Yusef was spending less and less time here. I thought it was because he was focusing on piano and hanging out with that new nigga Zahara got with.”
“Nah, that lil bitch got tired of being bullied. And that new nigga, sewed the seeds that led to him killing our son. Probably got in that lil bitch’s ear, talkin shit about how he handled his bully. That shit put a fire under Yusef.”
Brandi sank onto the couch like her legs couldn’t hold her no more. “Oh my God.”
“When’s the last time you seen them? Zahara and the boy?”
“The funeral. They bounced right after, remember?” She shook her head. “I ain’t seen them since. They haven’t been back to the apartment. I haven’t seen them around since right before the funeral.”
I started pacing again. “I need to get in that apartment. Really search it. If the boy did this, there might be evidence. The gun. Bullet casings. Something.”
“Kick that fuckin’ door in.” Brandi was on her feet now, that dead look in her eyes replaced by something alive. Something hungry. “Let’s go.”
Together we marched down the hall toward Zahara’s apartment, my boots heavy on the thin carpet, that rage I’d been holding back finally rising to the surface. Brandi was right behind me, breathing hard, fists clenched at her sides like she was ready to fight whoever was on the other side.
We stopped at the door and took one step back, lifted my boot, and drove it straight into that cheap-ass wood right next to the lock.
The frame splintered. The door flew open, crashing against the wall inside.
And I stepped through like death itself coming to collect.
The apartment still had furniture. Dishes in the sink. Pictures on the walls. But something was off. The energy was wrong. Like the life had been sucked out of the place even though the stuff remained.
“They ain’t been here in a minute,” Brandi said, running her finger across the kitchen counter and checking the dust. “But they didn’t move out. Just… left.”
I moved through the space carefully, checking every room, every closet, every cabinet. The fridge still had some food in it. The bathroom had toothbrushes in the holder, towels on the rack. But the bedroom closets told a different story.
Clothes missing. Gaps on the hangers. Dresser drawers half empty.
“They grabbed what they needed and bounced,” I said, standing in what must have been Yusef’s room. His bed was still made. Posters still on the walls—some piano player I ain’t recognize and a few video game characters. But his closet was damn near bare. “Left everything else behind.”
“Like they was running from something,” Brandi said quietly.
Or hiding something.
I kept searching. The bathroom. The hallway closet. Under the sinks. Behind the toilet tank. All the places people hid shit when they had something to hide.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I was about to give up when I checked the bedroom closet of Zahara one more time. Got down on my hands and knees and ran my hand along the floor, feeling in the dark corners where the light didn’t reach.
My fingers touched something small and cold.
I picked it up and held it to the light coming through the window.
A bullet. Nine millimeter from the looks of it. Same caliber that killed my son.
“Brandi.” My voice was steady even though my heart was pounding. “Come here.”
She appeared in the doorway. “What?”
I held up the bullet. “They took the gun. But they missed this.”
She stared at it. Then at me. “Is that—”
“Same caliber that killed Nigel. Found it right here in the closet.” I stood up, rolling the bullet between my fingers. “This ain’t enough for the cops. But it’s enough for me.”
“What are we gonna do?”
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Saw the grief and the rage and the desperate need for somebody to pay for what happened to her son.
“I’m gonna kill them,” I said. “Both of them. The boy and his mother. I’m gonna make them suffer the way Nigel suffered. Make them bleed the way he bled.”
I expected hesitation. Expected her to pump the brakes, remind me that Yusef was just a kid, that maybe we should let the police handle it, that murder wasn’t the answer.
But Brandi just nodded.
“Good,” she said. “When?”
Here’s the problem.
I’d been watching them for the past week. Since the funeral. Following up on that feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right about how fast they bounced. And what I saw confirmed everything.
They wasn’t staying in Southeast no more. But the boy was still going to the same school—probably figured switching schools would raise too many questions—and every morning, the same black Bentayga pulled up to drop him off.
Prentice Banks behind the wheel.
And every afternoon, same thing. The Bentayga appeared at dismissal. Yusef got in. They drove off to wherever they was hiding.
That nigga had them locked down tight.
I couldn’t touch him. Not directly. Not without backup, and even then it would be risky as fuck. The Banks family had money, connections, resources. They probably had cops on payroll. Politicians in their pocket. Going at Prentice head-on would be suicide.
But the boy…
The boy was right there. Every morning. Every afternoon. Unprotected for those few seconds between the school gates and the car.
I could grab him. Take him somewhere quiet. Make him tell me exactly what happened to my son. And then I could make him feel every ounce of pain Nigel felt in those last moments.
An eye for an eye. A son for a son.
But even that was risky. Prentice was always right there, watching. And the school had security now—metal detectors, cameras, the whole nine. Snatching a kid in broad daylight would bring heat I couldn’t afford.
I needed a different target. An easier one.
“What about Zahara?” Brandi asked, like she was reading my mind. We was back at her apartment now, sitting at the kitchen table, planning murder like it was a grocery list.
“What about her?”
“She’s the one who raised him. She’s the one who was supposed to be watching him. If that boy killed Nigel, it’s because SHE wasn’t doing her job as a mother.” Brandi’s voice was hard. Cold. “And she’s a lot easier to get to than a twelve-year-old surrounded by Prentice Banks.”
She had a point. “You know where she be at?”
“She works at Grits. That diner over on—”
“I know the spot.” Everybody knew Grits. Little hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint that had been there forever. “She still working there?”
“Far as I know.”
“I’ll stake it out. Keep my eye on her.”
Brandi’s eyes were bright. Feverish almost. “What are you gonna do to her?”
“Whatever it takes to get the truth. And then…” I picked up the bullet from the table, turned it over in my fingers. “I’ma make sure she knows exactly why she’s dying. I’ma tell her it’s because she raised a killer. Because she let that boy murder my son and then helped him hide it.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ma put this bullet right between her eyes.” I set it down on the table with a soft click. “Poetic justice.”
Brandi smiled. First real smile I’d seen on her face since Nigel died.
“Good,” she said. “That bitch deserves everything she got coming.”
I smiled back. We was in this together now. A mother and a father, united by grief and rage and the burning need to make somebody pay.
Zahara didn’t know it yet, but her days was numbered.
And when I was done with her, I was coming for that boy too. No matter how long it took. No matter what I had to do. No matter who I had to go through.
My son was dead.
Somebody had to answer for that.