Willie & The Poor Boyz

The first thing I began doing was a house to house search for information...I spent two days talking to all of the neighbors about Lance Terrier... None of them had seen him in over a week...The mailman who delivered the mail in that area hadn't seen him in a week and neither had the trash men....

H e was always late putting his trash out and they remembered him always running out on Monday morning with his trash when they came....Only this past Monday, there was no trash and no sign of him.  I went to the stores in the area and checked their cameras for some sign of him.... The only store that had film footage of him ,had him coming in and buying a Coke and a Tastycake...This was one night after I last saw him and was seemingly the last footage available of him.

I checked his credit cards and his debit card....Nothing...No activity after last Thursday night.  He always paid all of his bills on line and on time.... There was no payments on any of his accounts.

One neighbor...a drunk named ''Shoefly" said to me...

''Man...I wonder if Willie and The Poorboys got him?"

"Who? " I asked.

"It's a stick up and home invasion crew around here...They been sticken up all of these 7elevens and Wawas and forcin they way into people's homes tyin em up and robbin em...They might of got him." he said.

I talked to several of the neighbors about this crew...Apparently it was five guys who were very well organized...who struck fast and then vanished just as fast.... They weren't my problem though...Finding my reporter, Lance Terrier was my immediate concern. No one remembered seeing Lance or anyone around his house at all.

I had been inside his house....Except for his computer, nothing was missing or in disaray... His car had been sitting out front with the keys in the ignition and the door open just begging to be stolen....No stick up /home invasion crew in their right mind would have passed that up...

Lance was fastidious if nothing else and when he was working on a story , he always called me and checked in...He was never missing this long...and this wasn't a big story...A teacher of the year who might have been sleeping around with some well to do men was not the type of story that was going to win him a Pulitizer...So where was
he?

II-

Clerow and I were driving around about a week later when we decided to stop in the Aqua Bar...There was still no action on Lance Terrier's credit or debit cards...his bills still hadn't been paid, no activity on his bank accounts...His car was still sitting there and his house was empty.  I had talked to even more people and not one person could remember seeing him, now going on two weeks....but people did want to talk about Willie and the Poor Boys... This ghost crew had hit three 7 elevens and a Wawa and had invaded two homes strong since I had begun my search for Lance Terrier.

Clerow and I walked in....

''Wow this is a fancy joint...I never been in here before...You Kev?"asked Clerow.

''Yeah..a couple of times with Kool Kat...Usually after leaving Josies." I said.

"These prices are making me want to keep with Josies and plus...I get live music or a DJ to boot." laughed Clerow.

I agreed...but I wasn't here to drink tonight....I looked at the crowd and I noticed some familiar faces...
Chess, Chris Thompson, Donald Smooth, Owen Todd and Kool Kat....They were sitting at the bar...They saw us and motioned us over..

"What's goin on Kev?" said Chris...

"Hey Guys...I didn't know you guys came here." I said.

"We don't...Kool Kat told us about this place." said Chess.

''Chris and Chess got the big bucks...and this is a cool joint, but I'll stick with Josies." said Donald Smooth.

Clerow smiled..

"So what brings you around big homie?? You workin on a case?" asked Kool Kat.

"As a matter of fact I am....Nothin major...just tryin to find somebody that's all...but I got a question for you guys....Any of you hear of a stick up crew called Willie & The Poor Boys?" I asked.

Everybody's head turned... Chris Thompson, Chess, Donald Smooth, Owen Todd and Kool Kat...Clerow and I were stunned!

"You run afoul of them?" asked Chris Thompson...

"No not really...it's just that a guy...a guy who works for me has vanished into thin air....I've been asking around about him...Some people think this crew might have snatched him....Only his house was untouched...His car was out front with the key in the ignition..just sittin there." I said.

"Then it aint them....They'd of stripped that house bare and they damn sure would of stolen the car." said Donald Smooth.

"But I got people lookin for that crew" said Chris Thompson.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah, they took down several stores in our shopping center and they rushed a couple of our tenents in a few of our rental homes..." said Chess.

"Wow...These guys are serious business..." I said.

"I'd appreciate any information you could give me on their whereabouts...." said Chris.

"Sure...will do." I said.

"I made the crew...Their leader is a young punk named Willie "Diamond Head" Smith....He did a bid upstate for armed robbery...His second in command is a cat named Russel Young....another armed robber....the rest of the crew is Mike Baker , Arthur Jones and Stevie Reynolds...Young punks, cold blooded and vicious." said Owen Todd.

I smiled at him....

''Damn...good work" I said.

"You ask around , rattle a few cages and people talk...They got a lot of guns and none of them hang in one place too long...They stay with a couple of project chicks..." said Owen.

"And there lays the problem....Once they vanish into the projects...you can't find them...." said Kool Kat.

"They gotta fence to somebody....All the merch they steal..Got any ideas?" I asked.

Chris Thompson smiled and slapped his legs....He pointed at me...

"Look at that..we aint even think about that....Kev you some kind of special bruh..I'm glad you're one of us." he laughed...

Chess smiled and gave me a light brotherly hug....Donald Smooth smiled....

Meanwhile...I still had no leads on what had happened to my friend, Lance Terrier.... I didn't believe that this crew had anything to do with his disapearence..

III-

Sometimes a case comes to you.... I ran into the neighborhood guy named Shoefly...He was sober now and had a clearer head.  I still didn't think that this stick up crew had anything to do with Lance's disapearence...but I was still curious about them...

"Shoe....Who is the local fence around here?" I asked.

''Huh?"he said.

"Come on...If I steal something....Who is the guy I can fence my merch to around here?" I asked.

Shoefly looked around...then he motioned for me to come closer...

"Abe Renaldo man.... He owns the hardware store...He and his nephew.....A lot of the young bucks , the box men, the stick up crews...they all take their merch to him...and he sells it out of a warehouse real cheap..
The warehouse is about a mile from here...He sells all kinds of stuff, TV's IPADs, Ipods, Stereos, Furniture.... Where you think he gets it?  He even sells weed too." said Shoefly...

Shoefly got in my car and we drove past his store.. His hardware store was a legitimate business and it did brisk business....He owned a pawn shop a few blocks away...His Nephew , Johnnie ran the pawn shop...Nothing looked shady...but looks can be deceiving...

While we sat in the car I saw a strange person walking out of the pawn shop!... It was Stephanie Ellis...The teacher of the year....What was she doing in this neighborhood??? Why was she associating with these guys?

She kissed Johnnie Renaldo , long and hard...He wanted to kiss her longer, but she broke his embrace...He passed her an envelope....She counted the money and smiled...Then he passed her a package of weed..She smiled, kissed him again and was about to get in her car and pull off....Johnnie softly touched her arm....

"Come on baby...come back to my spot...I'll knock off early." he said. "We can smoke this good dope." he continued..

''Nah Johnnie...I'm tired.. Thanks for the lunch money though." she said.

"I'm gonna want a return on that uh lunch money soon." he said.

"But of course...maybe tomorrow night." she replied and blew him a fake kiss.

Hmmm...Was the big story Lance had on her having to do with this criminal enterprise??? Wow...Now all of a sudden ,I had a new interest in what was going on... Just what was her connection to these guys?

IV-

I called the troops up...I had Clerow go inside both joints , The Hardware store and the Pawn Shop and basically case the place...Tell me how many employees...Six, how many floors...Two and how many offices... One on the top floor where the boss worked..It took him a couple of days , but he got me what I wanted.

Sean Jackson snapped photos of  all of them...After all of them left... Lockpick Johnson and Peeping Tom got inside and did their thing wiring the place for video and sound and tapping all of the phones.. They cloned all of the cell phones involved too at both the Pawn Shop and the Hardware Store...

We watched and listened for two nights.... It didn't take us long before we hit paydirt... Russel Young,Mike Baker , Arthur Jones and Stevie Reynolds regularly stopped by both places with boxes and bags full of stolen merchandise...

We got their car license plate numbers and found out where they laid their heads... We recorded several  incriminating conversations from  their cell phones and of course ,Sean Jackson got photos of all of them...
Missing of course was the ring leader...Willie "Diamond Head " Smith. He was too smart to be seen at the fence or in the warehouse....

We found him.....At of all places, The Mermaid Club, drinking most nights.....Willie also was someplace else...someplace he shouldn't be....

Stephanie Ellis!!! Yes...The Teacher of the year...  I already knew where she lived... While Clerow,Sean, Lockpick Johnson, Peeping Tom and Owen Todd were busy bugging the warehouse...and sitting on it.. I took a day off to go visit Stephanie Ellis and to my surprise...I see Willie  Smith coming out of her apartment
on the other side of town...Yawning....and Stephanie at the door in just a short nightie waving to him..

"Bye Baby." she said as he left...

"Damn girl...you put it on me last night." he said.

"There's more where that came from playboy...I got moves you've never seen." she bragged.

Hmmmm...I thought! This girl was playing a dangerous game...Sleeping with the Stick up crew leader and the nephew of the Fence!

V-

This investigation started as a missing person case and had bloomed into something far larger than that...So I paid my friend ,Robert Foxworth a visit...

He and his two attorney's Chance Howard and Cole had a contact in public records that could pull me a world of information much faster than I could run it down....

Before I visited them though...I stopped by police headquarters...I got sheets and mug shots on William Smith, . Russel Young, Mike Baker , Arthur Jones and Stevie Reynolds... They were all just 21 years old...Surprisingly...all of them were high school graduates...

I got information from Robert ,Chance Howard and Cole's contact on Stephanie Ellis... She was 34 years old, Graduated from the same high school she was now teaching at....Got a bachelor's degree from Fisk University and a Masters from Temple...Had been teaching High school for close to ten years now...

"Hey Kevin" said Robert Foxworth...

"Yeah?" I said...

"You're going to find this interesting." he said.

"What?" I asked...

"Stephanie Ellis taught all five of these boys...She was their high school teacher....!!" said Chance...

"What??" I said

So here it was...She was their high school teacher and now she was having a rather illicit relationship with one of her former students....the leader of a stick up crew...and the nephew of the fence.

''Guess what else.?" said Cole..

''What?"I asked..What else was I going to find out?

''She was once engaged to marry some guy named John Renaldo....He's a reputed drug dealer ...runs his uncle's pawn shop....Also a former student. For some reason they never married...It could be that he did a three year bid as a guest of the state, right before they was supposed to get married." said Cole..

Oh my God...Johnnie Renaldo, One of the suspects I was watching....This gave a new meaning to the saying -''Hot for teacher."



(Definitely to Be Continued...)