by Roy Glenn
He grabbed Cruz by the collar and dragged him to the open area of the basement. Then Black took the chain and tied Cruz to one of the support beams.
Black stood in front of Cruz and pointed his weapon and shot him once on the side of his stomach. Then he put the gun away and turned to leave.
"Where you goin’?" Cruz asked.
"I’m goin’ to check on Victor. I left him upstairs to deal with your bitch Jorge. But I’ll be back." Black took a few steps then he stopped and turned around. "Oh yeah. Watch out for the rats." Black started walking back toward Cruz slowly. "There’s a lot of them down here. They’re gonna smell that blood, and they’re gonna come to feed. When they do, then we’ll see just how tough a mutha fucka you really are," Black said and walked away.
"Black! Come back here, Black! Don’t leave me down here. Black!" Cruz screamed.
Black could still hear him screaming until he closed the basement door and started up the steps. When he got to the third floor, Black could hear gunfire and he started to run up the steps. The gunfire had stopped by the time Black got to the sixth floor. He ran down the hall to the apartment. The door was open. Black set himself and went in. There were three dead bodies on the floor. Neither one of them was Victor. Black kicked over one of the bodies and saw that it was Jorge.
As he moved farther into the room, Black saw that there were drugs and money on the table. Black heard a noise and pointed his weapon in that direction.
"It’s me, Black," Victor said quickly as he came out of one of the bedrooms with a suitcase in his hand.
Black looked around the room. "Not bad, kid. Not bad at all," he said as Victor moved to the table with the drugs and money. "Take the money, leave the rest."
"You want me to leave the dope?"
"What I just say?"
Victor looked at Black for a minute. "You’re the boss."
When he had packed up all the money, Victor followed Black out of the apartment. They took the elevator down to the first floor. But instead of leaving the building, Victor was surprised when Black started walking down the hall toward the stairwell.
"Where we goin’?" he asked and followed Black to the basement door.
"Cruz is down here waitin’ for me to come back."
Victor looked at Black curiously but followed anyway. As they opened the basement door, Victor could hear what sounded like somebody moaning in pain. The further into the basement they moved the louder the sound got. When they got to the open area of the basement, Black stopped and Victor said, "Oh shit."
Once they smelled blood, the rats moved in as Black had predicted and began to feed on the wounds on Cruz’s legs and stomach.
Black fired one shot in Cruz’s direction and the rats scattered. Black walked up and stood over Cruz.
"Who told you we were comin’ for you?"
"It was Bo," Cruz said.
"Bo," Victor said.
"Bo said that you told him that even if I didn’t have shit to do with killin’ Kenny, I was a dead man."
"Who had Kenny killed?" Black asked.
"That was Bo too."
"Why?"
"He tried to get Kenny to turn on you. Bo wanted him with us when we took on Stark. When he wouldn’t flip, Bo had to kill him," Cruz said.
"Thank you," Black said and shot Cruz twice in the head.
Victor looked back at Cruz as they walked away. By the time they got to the steps, the rats had returned to their meal. Black and Victor returned to the car and put the suitcase with the money in the truck.
Once they were in the car, Black turned to Victor. "Let me see your phone." Black dialed a number.
"Hello."
"Monika, its Black."
"What’s up?"
"Meet me at Cuisine in twenty minutes. I got some-thing I need you to take care of tonight."
"See you there," Monika said and hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The first person Rain saw when she got to JR’s was Rose. She was the manager of the club. The police were still there and Rain didn’t want to talk to them until she got with Rose first. She grabbed Rose by the arm and practically dragged her to the office.
"What happened?" Rain asked as soon as the door was closed.
"Like I told you when I called, five masked men came through the back door with guns."
"Where was security? Who was on the door?"
"Keith was on the door like he usually is."
"And he just let five masked mutha fuckas with guns in?"
"He said when he looked at the monitor there was an employee at the door."
"Who?"
"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.
When Rain called Nick, he and Bobby were in the car on their way to JR’s to deal with her.
"That her?" Bobby asked as Nick looked at his phone, but didn’t answer.
"Yeah," Nick said quietly.
"She’ll call back."
"No she won’t."
"If she does, find out where she is and get her to meet you some place," Bobby recommended. "Some place secluded. We don’t need no crowd."
"This ain’t my first time, Bobby," Nick said.
Bobby looked over at him. "You want me to do it?"
"No. This is my problem, I need to handle it myself," Nick said, but it was obvious to Bobby that he didn’t want to be the one to do it.
"You know this is what we gotta do, right?" Bobby asked. "If we don’t, she’ll end up takin’ all of us down with her."
"I know."
When Nick didn’t answer her call, Rain was furious. She threw her cell phone across the room. She went to the bar and poured herself a shot of Patron. Rain drank it down, and got a different gun from the safe. Then she went to pick up her phone and left the office.
She made her way through the crowded club. If she didn’t know that there had been a robbery, she couldn’t tell it by the crowd. Rain wandered around the club until she found Rose. "Rose! You see Blue you, call me."
"Okay."
"Make sure he don’t leave."
"Where you goin’?"
"To the warehouse. They got robbed too," Rain said and walked away.
When she got outside and headed for her car, she saw Blue getting out of his car. Her anger welled up inside her as she walked toward him. Rain wanted to pull her pistol and blast him as soon as she got close enough, but there were too many people around.
Instead of getting him someplace where they could talk quietly and there were less witnesses, Rain confronted him as soon as she was close enough to do so.
"Where you been all fuckin’ night, nigga?"
"I had some shit to do," Blue said.
"You know I got hit tonight? Of course you do, ’cause your ass was in on it."
"What is you sayin’?"
"I know it was you, Blue."
"You’re crazy. Fuckin’ wit’ that nigga done made you stupid."
"I’m smart enough to finally see your bitch-ass for what you really are: a lyin’-ass backstabbin’ bitch!"
While Rain and Blue were arguing they didn’t notice that Kirk and Richards had arrived at JR’s and were checking out Rain’s car.
"Gray Taurus," Richards pointed out as they passed.
"We come to the right place," Kirk said as they got closer to the club.
At that moment, Bobby and Nick arrived at JR’s and got out of the car. "There she is," Nick said, "arguin’ with Blue."
"Get her away from that nigga and let’s get this over with. Ain’t that Kirk and Richards," Bobby noticed.
"Shit! That’s all we fuckin’ need," Nick said.
"He don’t need to see us," Bobby said, and he and Nick stood by the car.
The argument raged on.
"You are stupid. Too stupid to know who your real friends are!" Blue shouted.
"Real friends like Jay Easy," Rain said and Blue went silent. "Yeah, that’s right, Jay Easy. That nigga told me everything right before I put a bullet in his brain. All I wanna know is why?"
"Because the shit you been doin’ just ain’t right!" Blue yelled and got in Rain’s face.
"What is you talking about?"
"You givin’ up everything Jeff Ritchie and your daddy built to Nick. And turnin’ your back on Jay Easy for that nigga was wrong."
"So you backed Jay Easy’s play?"
Blue laughed at Rain. "You are a fool, Rain. A fuckin’ fool who don’t know shit ’bout what’s really happening."
"What you talkin’ about?"
"One of Nick’s people was behind Jay Easy."
"Who?"
"Bo Freeman was backin’ Jay Easy."
"You know what, fuck this." Rain started to pull out her gun, but Blue was faster with his and shot Rain in the chest.
"Police-freeze!" Richards yelled with his gun drawn.
"Drop the gun!" Kirk yelled.
Blue turned and pointed his gun in the direction of the two detectives and fired. Kirk returned fire and hit Blue with several shots.
Nick saw Rain lying on the ground
and started to go to her, but Bobby held him back. "Let her die."
Nick jerked away from Bobby and turned away.
"Come on, lets get outta here before Kirk sees us," Bobby said, and he and Nick got in the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was quiet at Clay’s garage. The only people there were Bo and Hank. The phone rang and Bo answered it. While Hank looked on, Bo listened and nodded his head. Then a smile came across his face. Bo hung up the phone and pulled a bottle of Glenlivet 12 Year Single Malt Scotch Whisky out of the desk drawer and two paper cups.
"What’s the occasion?" Hank asked as Bo poured the liquor.
"We celebratin’."
"What we celebratin’?"
"That was Bull Harris on the phone. He just heard that the cops found Stark and Moon dead at Fat Larry’s. I’m bettin’ that it was Nick who killed them."
"It’s begun," Hank said and turned up his drink.
"Damn right, it’s begun. It’s better than that. He said that Blue Claxton shot Rain outside of JR’s."
"Where’s Blue now?"
"Dead."
"Dead?"
"Stupid mutha fucka shot that bitch in front of the cops, and they smoked his ass."
Hank laughed and refilled his drink. "That’s fucked up."
"For who? Shit is fucked up for that nigga, maybe. But the shit’s workin’ out perfect for us. Shit, we was gonna have to kill that nigga and that dumb-ass cry baby Jay Easy anyway."
"That nigga was pathetic. Cryin ’ like a fuckin’ girl over that bitch," Hank laughed. "‘Rain left me for that nigga. She hurt me, hurt me bad’," Hank said, imitating Jay Easy.
"I wanted to put a bullet in that nigga’s brain right then," Bo said laughing.
"If you had, we wouldn’ta made all that money sellin’ all that caine he stole from Rain to Cruz," Hank said.
"You know, Hank, shit is workin’ out better than I planned." Bo walked to the door of his office and looked out into the garage.
"With Stark, Moon and Rain dead, sooner or later Black is gonna find out that Stark was supplyin’ Rain."
Bo spun around quickly. "What you mean sooner or later? I’ma tell him myself in the mornin’ at Kenny’s funeral," Bo laughed. "See, I had the shit figured right from the jump. When I found out that Stark was supplyin’ Rain, I knew for a fact that once Nick found out about it, he would kill Stark; if for no other reason than to keep that shit from Black. That nigga would lose his mind if he found that shit out."
