After he had finished smoking his third cigarette outside the apartment building entrance, Derrick spotted Ivan walking up the sidewalk in his direction.

“So, you can’t call to tell me what’s going on down here no more, li’l brother?”

“What’s there to say? I’m doing good,” Ivan told him.

“I can see that. But you haven’t asked how I’ve been doing.”

Ivan eyed him and said, “It looks like you’re doing good to me. You’re still getting that consulting money, right?”

Derrick nodded. “Yeah, that’s still coming through. But family is more than just that, man. I figured you might want to see your nephews soon.”

Ivan stopped and stood out front with him at the entrance to his apartment building.

“Are they getting everything they need?” he asked his brother of his three nephews. Ivan hadn’t seen much of Derrick’s kids. It wasn’t as if they had ever lived with him. Derrick was too much on the go to keep his kids longer than a day or two.

“As much as I can offer them when I have it,” he answered.

Ivan said, “Wait a minute, they’re not getting the child support payments we set up through my lawyers?”

“Yeah, they’re getting that,” Derrick told him. “But I’m talking about pocket change and something extra for my sons for when I’m out in the city with them.”

Ivan couldn’t believe the repetition of the same two culprits attempting to dig into his pockets, Chris and D.

He did the quick math on his brother and said, “You know I increased your check amount since the last time you were having money problems, right?” Ivan had figured he would be proactive instead of reactive. So he raised the four-thousand-a-month fee to six thousand just for Derrick being his brother. Nevertheless, it didn’t seem to matter.

Derrick stared at him and smiled. He said, “I thought the bank was making a mistake with that automatic deposit shit and gave me more money than I was supposed to have.”

Ivan said, “So you took the money right out and spent it before they could correct the mistake, right? That’s typical,” he snapped. “Now, hypothetically speaking, what if they came after you for that?”

Derrick started to chuckle. He said, “I wouldn’t have had the shit. They can’t get back money that I don’t have. But you didn’t tell me you were gonna do that. How come you didn’t tell me that?”

Ivan answered, “I wanted to see what you were gonna do with it first. And you went right ahead and proved my point. The more money a broke motherfucker has, the faster he’ll find a way to spend it.”