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.