Chapter Kai Richardson
KAI RICHARDSON
That Tuesday afternoon, me and a few city staffers met with Sincere Bellamy at Marlowe’s on Wabash.
Sincere walked in completely unrattled, and, surprisingly, without his entourage. This would have been easier if he’d come in here looking like a gangsta with security. Street niggas who need fifty people around them are easier to manipulate. Men who move alone are harder to control.
Officially, this was a meeting to talk about how the Cartiers could proceed in a way that pleased me and the community. Unofficially, this meeting was to ensure The Crown got a piece of this project. If not, they would cause a big problem for the Cartiers.
The Crown Syndicate had been washing their street money for years by feeding my campaigns.
In return, I greased city contracts, tipped them when raids were coming, and made sure their enemies had a harder time doing business.
Now, they wanted to make sure this project didn’t crown the Cartiers’ king of the South Side without them getting a cut.
The Crown wanted a piece or a problem, and I was the one who had to make sure they got at least one of those.
The Crown had associates that acted as protesters when we needed to make a scene at the development site and would be muscle when we needed to put fear in the Cartiers.
They were ready to create more organized anger at every meeting, more signs, more cameras catching “concerned citizens” yelling about Cartel condos, maybe even a staged scuffle at the fence line.
And if they didn’t get what they wanted, they were ready to cause violence.
“Alderman Richardson, appreciate you making time to meet with me,” Sincere greeted as he walked up to the table and shook my hand.
“You’re talking about putting real money in my ward,” I told him with a grin. “I’m always going to make time for that.”
The Planning Director, Housing Policy Director, and my policy aide greeted him as well.
Then we ordered food, made small talk, and then I started the meeting.
“People are upset about this development, and I don’t blame them.
They hear ‘luxury’ and think, ‘My landlord about to raise my rent and white folks about to walk their dogs past my mama house.’”
Chuckling, Sincere replied, “We’re not trying to push anyone out of the neighborhood. We’re providing new housing and opportunities. But we can’t make progress if every meeting turns into a protest and a circus.”
“Understandable. But I hope that it’s also understandable to you why there is outrage. Which is why, at the town hall, I called for a temporary moratorium on this project. If I can get the community some answers, I am sure the protest will stop.”
Rodriguez glanced at me, then at Sincere. Davis watched quietly. My policy director checked something in her notebook.
“So let us start there,” I went on. “Who is really behind this project? I do not mean the name on the flyer. I mean ownership. Who controls the company that is doing this build?”
Sincere didn’t fidget. “Bellamy Urban Development owns the project company on paper. That is my firm. We set up a separate LLC just for this site, like anybody would with a deal this size.”
“And the money? People want to know where it is coming from. Bank? Private investors? What are we talking about?”
“A commercial loan with Lakeside Bank,” he answered. “Traditional financing. We put in equity from my firm and partners. The bank covers the rest. The city is not on the hook if this fails.”
“So, if I tell my residents this is bank-backed and not a bunch of gangsters, I am not lying.”
“You would not be lying,” he replied with a straight face. “The bank has their own lawyers and risk management team looking at every piece of this. They do not play guesswork.”
I nodded like I bought it, but I knew he was lying. The Crown had already shown me proof that this project was getting funded with clean money on the surface and cartel money underneath.
I wasn’t dumb enough to expect him to say that out loud at a table full of city staff. If I were him, I would have told the same story. That was how this city worked: you dressed the truth up just pretty enough that it was believable to the public.
I also wasn’t dumb enough to call him out on it right there.
To question his “investors” in front of my own staff, I would have had to explain how I knew what I knew.
I was not about to say, “Well, a crew of organized criminals who bankroll my campaigns told me your money is funny.” Besides, information like that is leverage.
You do not waste it on a dramatic moment over lunch.
You keep it in your pocket for when you really need to squeeze somebody, when a vote is close, when a contract is up, when you want something they are not ready to give.
As long as I was the one who knew Sincere was lying and did not say it, I stayed useful to everybody.
“Fine. But how does this community benefit?” I went on. “What do they get right now, not just after everything is finished and the rents go up?”
Sincere leaned in a little. “Construction jobs with local hiring written into the contracts, in addition to the set number of units priced lower than the rest, so people from the neighborhood can actually apply and qualify, and the community space in the building that is reserved for local programming, not just private events. I’m willing to also include a few retail spaces where we will prioritize neighborhood businesses first before we ever consider chains. ”
Davis nodded a little at that. Rodriguez looked at me to see how I would play it.
“Written where?” I asked. “Because nobody in my ward trusts verbal promises. If we are going to calm people down, I need this spelled out somewhere I can point to.”
“In a community benefits agreement,” he said. “We can draft one. We can put in real numbers and targets. I am not saying we will give everybody everything they want, but I am not afraid to put what we are actually committing to on paper.”
Smiling, I nodded once. “Great.”
“So, what else do you need to solidify your support?”
“You loop my office in early, not after you already made decisions. You give me clear numbers I can take back to people, this many affordable units, this many jobs, this many slots for neighborhood businesses.”
He held my gaze, thinking, before replying, “We can work with that. We’re putting up a lot of time and money, so I’m not letting a few protests kill it.”
We talked more about details. Rodriguez talked about a rough timeline. My policy director suggested monthly check-ins with a small group of residents so they felt like they had a seat at the table.
By the time the meeting ended, I hoped that this would be enough to please Rico.
“Jobs for the neighborhood” meant I could slide their construction crews and trucking companies onto the recommended vendor list. “Local businesses” in those storefronts meant I could quietly point Sincere toward coffee shops, convenience stores, and security firms that were really The Crown’s people on paper.
My office being looped in early meant every big move touched my hands first, which meant it touched theirs if they wanted it to.
On the surface, what we agreed to would calm the protests.
Underneath, it gave me ways to feed The Crown.
They’d complain that I hadn’t forced Sincere to cut them in directly.
That’s what Rico wanted, but I couldn’t sit in a public restaurant, as an alderman, and start talking about “my people” needing ownership in the deal.
Sincere was too smart to agree to that, and I was too smart to leave a trail that tied me and The Crown together on a major project the media was already watching.
What I could do was quieter. When they heard I could steer subcontracts, recommend “trusted local partners,” and slow or speed permits, they’d understand I’d opened doors for them.
We stood, shook hands, and promised to follow up this week.
Sincere reached out his hand one more time. “Good talking, Alderman.”
“You too, Mr. Bellamy.”
As he walked out, I realized he wasn’t just some dude in a suit the Cartiers used to be their front businessman. He understood money, public anger, and how to use both. He knew how banks thought and how blocks moved. He didn’t scare easy, and he didn’t talk too much.
That was a problem.
Men like that were hard to box in. If I squeezed too hard for The Crown, he had the brains to go around me, to another alderman, to the media, to anyone hungry for a “local Black developer versus dirty politics” story.
And if I didn’t squeeze enough, The Crown would start wondering if I was more loyal to my office than to them.
Sitting between a man like Sincere and a crew like The Crown was how people ended up on murals and in investigations.