The Suspenders - Chapter 1

A hefty man, no less than 6.2, dark in complexion with an angry and intimidating look on his face wasn't quite what Donald was anticipating when he opened the door to see who was banging at it at about 7:00pm. Of course, he had suspected from the truculent nature of the knock even before he opened the door that, whomever it could be, it was definitely not going to good.

- ”You got the money yet?” asked the husky chunk of meat quite angrily.

-”No. We ain't got it yet. I thought we weren't good until Friday”.

- “Yes. Friday is good but today is better. The boss needs some money urgently to take care of some very important business”.

- “Well, like I said, we ain't got the money yet. Tell Snowden we'll have his money ready by Friday as agreed” Donald said, unafraid of the man's threatening and intimidating poise, countenance and charisma.

- ”It had better be ready by then. Complete. Not a single cent short else you and your brother will each have a finger short”.

- “And if we don't got the money yet by next tomorrow?” asked Donald in a quivering tone of voice, visibly quite afraid now.

- ”Then you'll each have a hand short”.

It's been only ten days since Donald was released from prison upon completion of three years out of his initial seven year jail sentence. He was released for good behavior and for sharing intel that could lead to the capturing of his father, but he must spend three months at home on house arrest and six months on probation in fulfilment of the conditions of his release. He had succeeded in learning the hard way, the language and the ways of the streets during his stay at the Glendale prison in the remote town of Stargate about sixty kilometers away from the city of Fourwheels and 72 kilometers away from his place of abode. It was no wonder he was no where as terrified as his younger brother who immediately took to his heels through the backdoor, with his tail between his tiny legs just before Donald had reached for the door to see who was at it.

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- “What did they want?”

- “It wasn't “they". It was a he you wimp and he was here to collect.

- “To collect what?”

- “What do you think? The money we borrowed, stupid".

- We? Hold on, hold on, hold on. No way. I didn't borrow no money. You did.

- “Say what”?

- “You heard right. I borrowed no money. It was all you” retorted Alex with chutzpah as he sat from across the other end of the kitchen table adjacent his brother who was now fuming with rage.

- “You know what?

- “What?"

- “Why don't you come a little closer. I think my ears must be having some downtime because I can't seem to catch what you just said” said Donald seething with anger.

- “I'm serious brother. I never bo...

Just before Alex could finish his sentence, leaping over the long kitchen table from where he's been standing, Donald quickly reached for the top of his brother’s shirt, squeezing it as he raised him up and dragged him away from the chair on which he sat and all the way to a wall section in the dinning hall. Pressing his brother’s back against the wall, the following words gushed out from the embers of Donald's lips:

-“Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Ain't there really no more brain cell left in this big for nothing cranium of yours? As a matter of fact, you borrowed the money because you spent almost all of it. I guess I shouldn't have listened to your broke, lazy and sorry ass when you came crying that you were dying of starvation. If you hadn't squander all the money I had managed to scrape from what was left of what mama and pop left behind after this family fell apart, we'd still have it good right now. After all the sacrifices I've made for you, this is the “thank you” I get in return?

Donald had sent Alex to a loan shark nearly two months ago to borrow the sum of two thousand dollars the last time he came crying to him in prison that he had no more money even to feed. He had squandered on his debauchery, what was left of the assets which Donald had wasted no time liquidating just around the time when their parents were to be apprehended for charges bordering on credit card fraud, money laundering and theft. His dad saw it coming and went underground at once, abandoning his wife and co-conspirator along with their three offsprings to their fate.

Their mother, Rachael, in other to avoid spending most of the remaining part of her life at the Pitchfork Maximum Security Prison for women, had conspired with her defense counsel to plead guilty by act of temporary insanity. This saw her earn for herself a pretty comfortable spot in the Bovineyard Psychiatric Medical Center where she's since been for about three years.

- “Alright, alright. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was just scared. That's all. I was scared”.
- “Yeah, right you were just scared. You're always scared. It's your default mode”.

- “So what are we gonna do now?” Alex asked after he and his brother had gazed at each other for a while. “By the way, why are they asking for the money now? I thought it ain't due until Friday”.

- “Obviously that was a reminder ahead of time. People like these don't listen to no stories when they come to collect what you owe them”.

Donald had no idea how to raise the money to pay back as at when he sent his brother to go borrowing and still doesn't. The best option left is the sale of properties from the long time family home where he and his brother currently stays. Not much in the house is of value high enough to raise two thousand dollars except for a few collectibles with which he is unwilling to part.

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Richard was a man of many talents who saw very little good in people and was quite pissed off at the world, especially the one within which he was raised. He also felt very entitled being raised as an only child by upper middle-class parents. He had never had to lift a finger his entire life to earn a cent. He has always seen no reason why he had to labour to earn a living when "there's literally money everywhere with rats and cockroaches living like kings, feeling on top of the world" he thought to himself. To Richard, material wealth, especially those of the rich, belong to everybody. It's just a matter of devising a means of having a slice of the common cake without getting entangled in the web of any of the so called laws of the land.

He had dropped out of the University of Westminster barely eight months after he gained admission into the prestigious institution of higher learning where he acquired some skills in credit card fraud, car theft and pickpocketing. He also learnt for himself a thing or two about money laundering. All these he he did in other to "live the lifestyle of his dreams and enjoy it to the fullest" as he would put it.

It was with these skills Richard was managing the laundry and dry cleaning business his father upon his sudden and untimely demise, had left him and his younger brother. The business was gradually taking a turn for the worst, plus, “what good is a skill if not put to use" Richard had thought to himself when he transformed the laundry store into a front for hiding money of questionable sources for persons who wanted to stay off the radar and the reach of the very long arms of law - From Gambling house operators, illegal drug peddlers, smugglers, fraudsters to personalities of high societal standing comprising of politicians, pastors, musicians, athletes, movie stars, celebrities, etc.

The services of his wife, Rachael, who got pregnant for him in his highschool days and to whom he later got married, as well as those of his wife's younger brother, Samuel, proved substantially useful in the perpetration of electronic card fraud in high scale by Richard.

Samuel being a top executive at one of the biggest Telecom operating firms in the country and Racheal a Bank manager of one of the major commercial banks within the state, the three of them saw to the mysterious disappearance of some private funds to the tune of one million eight hundred and fifty seven thousand, four hundred and fifty dollars within a period of about eleven months. This was not without the unrelenting support of Donald, Richard’s and Rachael's eldest son who worked in the department of pickpocketing.

Donald would often go to bars and club houses late in the night where he'd hit on gullible unsuspecting women desperate for a hookup. He will later on in the middle of the night take snapshots of both sides of their credit card or cards as the case may be. This he did using his smartphone. It wasn't much of a difficult feat for him to pull as most women often fall for his charm due to his great looks and muscular physique. Also, pretending to bump into men in expensive suit in the middle of the streets, Donald would steal at least five wallets, dump them in the nearest trash bin just after taking out the credit card or cards in them. This he did from city to city within and later on outside the state, usually between 7:30 and 9:00AM three to four times weekly. Oftentimes, they made no money from some of the bank accounts to which some cards were linked as some persons would immediately report their credit card stolen to the bank and have it blocked. This was of course those who were certain they had left the house with it only to find it missing soon after a stranger had bumped into them on the street. Those who weren't certain as to whether or not they had left the house with their wallet and those who, for some reason felt that it was lying about somewhere in their work place and would be found in no time, had their bank accounts wiped clean in no time.

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