Commit To Violence

'He didn’t say. He said he buzzed them in and before he knew it, they were in and had hit him in the head with something.'

'Where is he now? I wanna talk to him.'

'He was bleeding pretty bad. The paramedics took him to the hospital.'

'All right, I’ll deal with him later. What happened then?' Rain went to the bar and picked up a bottle.

'They fired a couple of shots and everybody got out of the way. Then two of them went for the safe in the office and the other three went straight for the gambling room.'

'Where were you?'

'In the office,' Rose said quietly.

'You opened the safe for them, didn’t you?'

Rose dropped her head. 'Yes.' Then she looked at Rain. 'I’m sorry, Rain, but they had a gun to my head. I thought they were gonna kill me.'

'Don’t sweat it, Rose. You did the right thing,' Rain said and poured them both a drink. 'Who called the cops?'

'I swear ’for God, Rain, I don’t know. I was down in the gambling room when Ronnette came and told me the cops were here. I had her to hurry up and get the people out of there, and change the room over.'

One of the things her father did was, he left a lot of boxes, old tables and chairs, and bar supplies up against the walls all around the gambling room. When Rose found out the cops were in the club, knowing that it wouldn’t take them long to make their way down there, she got the men to cover the gambling equipment with the stuff around the walls, so the room looked like it was nothing but storage.

'You did good, Rose,' Rain told her.

'I need to get back out on the floor,' Rose said and got up.

'Hey, Rose,' Rain said before Rose walked out of the office.

'Yes.'

'Where was Blue while all this was goin’ on?'

'I haven’t seen him all night.'

'Okay. You can go.'

While Rain was gathering information about the robbery, detectives Kirk and Richards were on their way to JR’s to talk to her. They had read over her arrest record and were not impressed. 'I don’t know about you, Pat, but I’m not seeing this,' Kirk said.

'What do you mean?'

'Look at this. She’s got a couple of arrests for possession of less than an ounce of blow and a gun charge. This doesn’t say drug kingpin to me. I just don’t think that this little girl, and that’s what she is, she’s only twenty- three, is the one we’re looking for.'

'They grow up fast these days. But I see your point. I’m more incline to agree with Sanchez on this one. Rain Robinson is small time,' Richards concluded.

'She still may be able to give us something about this Rockwell character, but her being PR, no, Pat, I’m not buying it,' Kirk said as his cell phone rang and he was told about the robbery at JR’s. 'I may have spoken too soon.'

'What do you mean?'

'Her club, JR’s, it just got robbed.'

'Really?'

'Really. So if she is PR, robbing the club may just be a part of somebody’s plan to take her down.'

'This keeps getting better all the time,' Richards commented and drove a little faster.

Rain sat alone in her office at JR’s thinking. How did things fall apart so fast? She only had one dope spot that was still up and running. Other than the product she took from Rockwell’s, Rain was out of product and out of money. She wasn’t sure how much money they took from the gambling spot, but there was thirty grand in the safe.

She knew that Nick would take care of the gambling. He would bring in his own people and beef up security. Something she should have done a long time ago, or at the very least when Nick mentioned that he thought security was a little lax. But when she told Blue Claxton about it, he said that this was how they had run their security for years, and he saw no reason to change it just because Nick said so.

Never having had much involvement in the gambling operation when her father was alive, Rain took his word for it. Now she had paid the price for her stubborn ignorance. One thing was certain; Nick wouldn’t be refinancing her drug operation. The long and short of it was Rain was out of business.

She was mad at Nick. In her eyes, he had run out on her. One thought rolled around in her mind. What could he possibly have to do that was more important than comin’ with me to check on our spot?

And it was their spot. Sure the club was hers, but they were partners in the gambling. Rain could only think of one thing, one reason that Nick would leave her at a time like that.

That uppity-bitch Wanda.

She had gotten tired of Nick leaving her to go be with Wanda. She was glad that it was over between them. Rain was determined to make sure they stayed over. Nick was her man now and hers alone.

Rain had to put that anger behind her and handle her business. Then she thought, Maybe Nick is testin’ me. Seein’ how I handle shit like this.

Rain always believed that she could do more to help Nick run his show. Maybe this was her opportunity to step up. One thing stood in the way of that. Rain knew how Nick, and Black for that matter, felt about drugs.

Maybe me being out of business is a good thing. Now that I got Nick all to myself, I need to get with the program and put the dope game behind me.

Rain thought about what Jay Easy said to her before she killed him. 'Go ahead and do it. But even if you kill me the shit won’t stop. It will only get worse. You got more enemies than just me.'

Who were her enemies and how many were there? Why were they doing this to her? What would they hit next? Rain didn’t have to wait long for the answer to one of her questions.

The phone rang.

'This Rain.'

'Rain, this is Rodney C at the warehouse. We just got robbed.'

'Fuck!' Rain yelled. 'What happened?'

'There were five of them. They came down in the elevator, killed Bennie, Howard, Marvin and three other people.'

'Who the fuck is Bennie?'

'The elevator man. They killed him first. When the elevator doors opened, Howard and Marvin started shootin’. But they was out-gunned.'

'What about the other people?'

'Got hit by stray bullets.'

'Cops there?'

'Nah.'

'What about the bodies?'

'We takin’ care of that.'

'Where is Blue?'

'He ain’t been here all night.'

'You ain’t seen him, huh?'

'Nope. I been runnin’ things.'

'You know we got hit over here too?'

'For real?'

'So if you see that mutha fucka Blue, you call me and keep him there ’til I get there. You hear me?'

'You got it.' Rodney C said and Rain slammed the phone down. Hearing that Blue Claxton hadn’t been to either spot all night made her think that he had to be involved.

Blue knew enough about both operations to pull it off and he was always beefin’ with her about letting Nick take over. 'Got to be that nigga,' Rain said and picked up the phone. She called Nick, but he didn’t answer.