"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.