Commit To Violence

Rain stood up. 'Nice doin’ business with you.' Bitch nigga, she said to herself and went on with Moon that night.

For a while things went smoothly. Money was flowing and she was able to keep any knowledge of her involvement in the game from Nick.

That ended the week before when somebody robbed two of her spots. She had lost five of her people. Murdered; execution style. They were killed on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs. Then the killers shot them twice in the head. Rain knew that she would have to deal with that, but not that night.

That night she had smoked a blunt, had a couple of shots of Patron and was waiting on Nick to come knock her back out. She wasn’t in the mood for any shit from Blue.

'Why don’t you worry about runnin’ these spots and makin’ this money and let me do what I do. Unless you tired of makin’ this money,' Rain said.

'You don’t get it, do you, Rain?' Blue said and dropped his head. 'You never did.' Blue finished his drink and stood up. 'It ain’t always about the money.'

'You sound like a fuckin’ fool. What’s it about, if it ain’t about the money?'

'It’s about honor and loyalty to the people you got history with. Not that mutha fucka Black. We don’t need them niggas. We did just fine without them all these years.'

'Don’t make me regret keepin’ you around, Blue,' Rain said and put her hand on her gun again.

'Keep me around?' He started walking toward the door. 'Maybe when you get a little older you’ll realize that you can’t just use people and throw them away when you’re done with them.'

'Whatever, nigga,' Rain said. She was startled by a loud banging on her office door. She looked at the big screen and saw Mixson, one of her dealers, leaning against the door.

Rain pressed the button and Mixson fell in the office. Rain jumped up and Blue rushed to him. Blue pulled him in the office while Rain closed the door. Blue helped Mixson into a chair. Rain looked down and saw the trail of blood; then she noticed the cuts on his face and knew that she’d gotten hit again.

'What happened?' she asked.

'There were four of them; caught us by surprise.'

'How’d you get away?' Rain wanted to know, since nobody had survived the other two robberies.

'I just started bustin’ shots and when the shit got too thick, I jumped out the window.'

'So you don’t know what happened, do you?' Rain asked and picked up the phone. When she got no answer she dialed another number and got the same result. She turned back to Mixson. 'I guess they’re all dead.'

Blue looked at Rain. 'So is he.'

CHAPTER FOUR

Bobby Ray held up Rawls’ head and hit him again. He was tied to a chair and for the last hour, Bobby had been hitting him in his face, his chest, and his arms. No matter how much or how hard Bobby hit Rawls, he hadn’t said a word.

Mike Black sat quietly and watched Bobby work. Every once and awhile he would get up and ask Rawls the question. 'Where is Ebony Washington, and where are the papers she was carrying?' When Rawls didn’t answer, Black would walk away and Bobby would go back to work.

Black sat down and took a deep breath. He thought about the reason he even knew or cared who Ebony Washington was. It was just after eleven o’clock when Black got a call from Martin Marshall. Martin was a United States Congressman who Black was in business with.

'Black, it’s Martin. I need your help.'

'What is it now, Martin?' Black asked.

'One of my people was kidnapped earlier tonight, while she was carrying some very important papers.'

'What does this have to do with me, Martin?'

There was silence on the phone before Martin finally said, 'The truth is I got careless, Black.'

'Get to the point, Martin.'

'You remember our meeting with Chang and the Cubans?'

'What about it?' Black said and thought back to that meeting and how it led to him getting shot. He remembered Martin coming to him with a plan to invest in sugar-based ethanol in Cuba.

They met a few days later in the Bahamas with Silvestre de la Toribio representing the Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry, Soberon Nicodemo Placido representing the Cuban Sugar Industry, and Maximino Cristobal. He was representing a group with oil interests in Venezuela.

At that meeting the debate raged on about whether to invest in sugar-based ethanol or in oil production between Cristobal and Placido, until Chang had heard enough. 'Would you gentlemen excuse us for a moment or two?'

Once Cristobal, Placido, and Toribio left the room, Chang turned to Martin. 'What do you think my friend?'

'For my money, ethanol production is the only way to go. I didn’t come here to talk about oil.'

'I must say that I agree. What do you say, Jiang?'

'Ethanol is the future, and we must look to the future.'

'What about you, Mr. Black?' Martin asked and all eyes turned to him.

'Like the man said, when the oil is gone, it’s gone. You can always grow more sugar cane.'

'Then we are in agreement,' Chang said and stood up. He went to the door and asked the others to come in. Once they had reclaimed their seats, Chang told them of their decision. 'At this time, gentlemen, we feel that it is in our long-term interest to make our investment in ethanol production.'

Placido and Toribio shook hands and seemed to be very happy with the decision. But Cristobal, on the other hand, was not. He rose to his feet. 'I think you gentlemen are making a big mistake.' The next time Black saw Cristobal was the day he got shot.

'You remember that I was taking notes,' Martin said. 'Well, when I got back, Ebony, my assistant, the one they kidnapped, she got my notes and created a memo of that meeting and filed the memo in a folder called Cuban meeting.'

'Damn, Martin, how could you let some shit like that happen?'

'I’m sorry, but now you see why you have to help me get those papers back. Your name is all over that memo. You know what will happen if it becomes public that a United States Congressmen and a gangster were meeting with officials of the Cuban government in violation of American-Foreign policy? You said it yourself, it’s illegal. Treason-type of illegal.'

'You know who got her?' Black asked.

'I don’t know who they are, but I have an idea where they might be. When they called about the ransom, they stayed on the line too long, and I was able to trace the call.' Martin gave Black the address where the call was made.

'Okay, Martin, I’ll get your memo back,' Black said.

'And the woman too,' Martin insisted.

'What’s more important; the memo that’ll send us to prison for treason, or the woman?'

'Both. Ebony is very important to me. I love her, Black.'

'Wait a minute, Martin. These guys kidnapped your mistress? Do they even know what she was carrying and what it means to you?'

'It’s possible, but I doubt it,' Martin said. 'That means you need to get to them before they read it.'

When they arrived at the address Martin gave them, Black and Bobby went to the door and Rawls was coming out. He was carrying a woman’s coat and one shoe. Both matched the description that Martin had given Black of what Ebony was wearing when they had dinner earlier that evening. They forced Rawls inside at gunpoint, tied him to a chair and searched the house. Ebony wasn’t there. That was over an hour ago, and they were no closer to finding her.