The FBI launched a nationwide search. The hotline was flooded with Rain Porter sightings as photos of Rain were flashed over the front page of the Baltimore Chronicles and national magazines as public enemy number one. T.V networks and cable news ran documentary specials on the Porter’s family doomed and shadowed life.
When she got to his secretary’s desk, she was relieved to know that he was in his office and hadn’t left, busy talking to one of his clients. Rain sat for a painful twenty minutes, then was given the okay that she could see him now.
As soon as she got inside the office, she was greeted by Mr. Morganstein in a jovial mood. “Miss Porter, sit down, sit down.” he repeated. “You’re right on time. I have some…” He cleared his throat “… well, some good news.”
Rain was caught off guard and feeling edgy, because she had nothing but bad news over the past week and couldn’t imagine what could possibly change within five short days?
“It appears that your sister, Fallon, have managed to escape from federal custody yesterday sometime in the afternoon.” Rain was totally stunned by the revelation, entirely unexpected. Shaking her head as she squinted her eyes, she needed further explanation.
“Wha…what… are you saying?” Rain stuttered.
Still smiling, Mr. Morganstein repeated. “According to a very reliable source of mine, your sister escaped yesterday, with the help of a correctional officer. It’s my understanding that she walked right out of solitary confinement and apparently, right out the door. Nobody knows yet, they are still doing a high alert investigation.”
Slowly, yet deliberately, her jaw dropped as reality set it.
“Oh, good God!” Rain gripped the chair and asked in astonishment of joy. “Are you serious Mr. Morganstein?”
He proudly answered, “Believe it”
Rain sprang from her chair with the unbridled enthusiasm of a child opening presents on Christmas, and ran around his huge oak desk and hugged him tightly. When Rain gained control again, beyond elated, her mind automatically began to reassess her entire situation. Mr. Morganstein was talking but she could not hear him, too busy processing and calculating her next move. Rain knew Fallon. She knew that she was well-equipped and smart enough to handle her own without worry. Only thing that irked her is her weakness for a dick, by the name of a lame nigga named Linx – her on and off again boyfriend. Her sister’s only softness, and prayed that she don’t go near him and make it to the meet up spot, as planned in Mexico.
A huge burden lifted from her shoulders, now she could concentrate solely on her final two concerns; her brother Dayvid and her now worst enemy—Smitty. Both would be dealt with soon.
Her funds had already dwindled down to less than half, at about $1.4 million dollars, in a secret account that Mr. Morganstein had set up himself for her. Rain signed the papers giving him power of attorney to handle and distribute her funds as needed and per her instructions, even in the case of her demise. In all the years she did business with Mr. Morganstein, he never questioned her. He only followed instructions and delivered each and every time, and was paid handsomely off the books, tax free money, for his services.
After squaring up on the paperwork, and as an afterthought, she asked him was there any new information on the murder of her lover, Laura.
“Oh, yes. So glad you reminded me.” He shuffled through some folders and paperwork on his desk until he found what he looking for and said. “Ah, here it is.” He hiked his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “I have the report of the evidence at the crime scene, but it’s not much. Whoever did it knew what they were doing and left the place spotless. A cigarette butt collected from the ashtray. A bloody acrylic tip,” flipping through the papers, skimming the notes, he added, “and the autopsy said she has a splinter in one of her defensive wounds.” A soft hunch of his shoulders, he said, “says here it came from a toothpick.”
“Toothpick?”
Morganstein nodded and confirmed. “Yes, the victim apparently put up a tremendous fight, according to the reports, and possibly could have ripped the suspect’s clothing during the struggle, because the same fibers, silk, was found on several of the toothpicks. Just a theory on the report.”
Rain’s mind went amuck with confirmed rage. Adrenaline was firing on all cylinders. At that moment, her wrath scared her because she knew that her old mentor and friend would regret the day he was born for crossing the Porters.
CHAPTER 18
It was Rain’s one true talent – the art of the hunt – a cold and calculated one. Her whole life, every victory had come down to singleness of purpose, her ability to focus on the mission at hand, to leave out everything but her mind. That night, she was focused more than she ever remembered, and the object of her burning desire was on one thing and one thing only—Smitty, who she had kidnapped, bound and delivered to her in a desolate section of DC.
When Rain was led inside, she felt the adrenaline surge through her pulse at the sight of him.
Smitty just wanted to die, as he hung upside down from a dark, dank warehouse ceiling. With the help of some out of town goons, from south west DC, they were Rain and Dayvid’s longtime associates when they needed a clean, contract killing, had Smitty delivered to her on a silver platter. He looked like death: naked, bloodied and bleeding all over, with his hands cuffed securely behind his back, he was in and out of consciousness from the excruciating pain and the blood that was rushing to his head.
When Rain walked in the warehouse, a little past one am in the morning, she dapped it up with the man who awaited her, and watched two steely-eyed, hardened and no-nonsense looking men walk off to play their position, allowing the two to converse.
“Sup, Rain. What it do Slim?” said the youngest of the three, in his mid-30’s, that she’s known for years only as Face. Whenever she had a job, usually a murder that was absolute and critical, with zero mistakes, she called on him. He proved to be the best most deadly each time.
Rain noticed the bloodied lead pipe in his equally bloody saturated fist.
“Ain’t shit.” Rain said in her normal gruff monotone voice, never taking her eyes off of Smitty.
The other two men, much older in their late 40’s or early 50’s, sat idly by on two rusted folding chairs simply acknowledging her with a nod. Rain walked closer towards her one-time friend Smitty, she was expressionless. Devoid of any emotions or feelings, she stared at Smitty as he hung upside down.
Smitty’s chest heaved in and out. He was gagged with a wool sock, not for silence, but to grit on to absorb the pain. Rain immediately smelled the sour, pungent odor of his urine and bowels, staring at him with disgust.
Through the cascade of blood that caked his now widen and alert eyes, he started breathing extra rapid when he saw Rain he spit out the sock and started pleading.
“Rain….Rain, what’s going on, man.”
Rain remained silent and feeling less—circling his broken, bloodied body, observing her associates handy work. She was more than pleased. She then whispered in the Face’s ear and he threw the other two men a head chuck. Both huge, bearded men stood up and worked in unison as the untied the rope, releasing Smitty from his precarious position.
The leader of the group, Face, had a constant sadistic permanent smirk riddled across his face, as if he was either receiving pleasure from it, psychotic, or both. He again ordered a message to one of his men in silence with a simple head shake, and one of the men retrieved two chairs, and sat Smitty in one and positioned the other nearby in front of him. That was Rain’s cue, and she walked slowly over to him, and spoke in a soft, measured tone. She walked in methodical circles around Smitty as he shivered in fear.
“I remember this one time, about three or four years ago. We had a bitch ass, talking shit ass nigga, who thought he could fuck over a Porter.”
Smitty started to make pleas. “Rain, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, you got it all wrong. If you give me a chance to just talk to you, I’m sure we can
work this fuck shit out, you will……”
Before he could get the rest of his words out, Face threw a powerful, sickening blow to Smitty’s head and spewed. “Nigga, shut the fuck up and don’t open your mouth again until you told to.”
Smitty let out an almost pig-like squeal, as he fought from passing out from extreme trauma. Rain continued without missing a beat.
“We fronted this nigga eleven kilos of coke when we robbed some New York bitches in East Baltimore of a shipment. You probably remember, because you gave us the tip.” Rain allowed him a second to think about it. “This old school ass nigga just thought he could just chump us, and just take our shit, expecting nothing was going to happen to him. That nigga even had the nerve putting our name out in the streets that he wasn’t gonna pay us and fuck the Porter’s this and fuck the Porters that. Imagine that.”
She chuckled and then shrugged.
“Dayvid was pissed. I mean really pissed and just wanted to blow his brains out.” Rain shook her head. “I told him nah, bro. That’s too easy. For a motherfucker to steal our shit and to put our names out on the street like we punks, just killing a nigga wasn’t good enough.”
Rain paused in front of Smitty, bent down until she was inches from his face and with the meanest, harshest tone and scowled. “No, for a nigga like that I had to take his soul!”
Smitty panicked as he began to cry silently. She felt nothing inside for him any longer and would not relent. “When we caught this bastard.” Rain turned towards Face, “with the help of my long time, always reliable nigga right here, and my brother Dayvid. We brought him to a place similar to this.”
Rain’s eyes scanned across the abandoned warehouse. She squared her cold, sullen eyes directly into his, “and within one hour, this nigga was begging us to take his life, because the pain he was enduring was too much than he could ever imagine.” She shook her head to assure him.
Rain pulled the empty folding chair closer to him and took a seat and explained. “First thing we did was take a pair of pliers and began taking out his teeth one by one and put them on a table right in front of him.” Rain frowned and her shoulders shivered. “Just thinking about that snapping and grinding sound makes me sick just to think about.” Rain sat back in her seat and got comfortable and said almost politely, “yeah, he cried, begged us for forgiveness, even told us where we could find the rest of the keys and money he had stashed.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “See Smitty, maybe under other circumstances we would have took him up on his offer, get our shit back, and then kill him. We understood the codes of the streets, catch a nigga slipping…” Rain shrugged her shoulders, jerked her hands open, both palms upwards and admitted, “It’s just business, but what that nigga did different….he made it personal when he mentioned the Porters name. Just like him Smitty…. you done fucked up and made it personal.” Smitty dropped his head and started shaking his head rapidly and cried…“Rain please….let me….” He stopped short of talking further and cringed for cover when Face lurched towards him.
“Oh, you ain’t heard nothing yet.” Rain said with pleasure. “After we ripped out all his teeth, he kept trying to pass out because the pain was so excruciating, but we kept giving him smelling salt to bring him back to consciousness. We wasn’t about to let him get off that easy.” Rain stated proudly.
“After we cut out his tongue and laid it next to his teeth. We started ripping out his finger nails, one by one.” Rain’s face turned into a prune as she described it to him. “To this day, I never heard a person scream like that.” She shook her head as she recalled the moment. “Anyway, after we cut off his fingers and all his toes, he could barely scream or cry anymore, but we weren’t finished with him.”
Rain started admiring her finger nails while speaking in an almost casual tone. “After that, we started shaking him by his shoulders.” She stopped playing with her nails and looked him in his eyes. “I would have never known this if I didn’t see it for myself, but did you know that is the most painful and most horrible way to torture a person?” She scooted her chair even closer to him, within inches, and explained while grabbing both his shoulders. “Did you know you can shake a man to his death because you are actually rattling his brain and if you do it long enough, his whole body will feel like it’s on fire because the brain is loosening itself from the skull since it is the most sensitive organ in the human body. Let me show you.”
Rain scooted backwards while signaling with her head for Face to come do the honors. Face took a firm grip of Smitty’s shoulders and starting shaking him violently, bucking Smitty’s head back and forth as if he was a rag doll. Less than a minute later, Rain gave him the order that it was enough. Rain stooped down to study Smitty’s eyes that seemed to have disappeared, showing only the whites of his now, bloodshot eyes until finally they returned. Sure that he was responsive again, she got back down to business.
“I’m going to say this once Smitty. It’s no way out of this shit and you’re going to die today. That shit ain’t negotiable.”
Rain watched Smitty breakdown and convulse violently and started pleading with his terror filled eyes.
“C’mon, Smitty. Even you know me better than that.” She pondered for a second and recited….. “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results.” she smirked and said.
“You know me and I know you and you should know how this shit works. Your time is up, so stop that bitch shit. But, I will give you an opportunity of a quick death to spare you from needless torturing like him, if you tell me every…and I mean everything.” Rain stressed. “Without hesitating, stuttering or pausing. So, if you lie to me once, just once….I’m going to start pulling out your small intestines first, the same way you did my girl. Do you understand me?”
Deafening silence loomed, until Smitty took in a deep breath and finally accepted his fate and shook his head. Satisfied, Rain asked the obvious as his face strained with wrinkles.
“Why, Smitty?”
Smitty could barely focus his eyes, but strained hard enough to make out her silhouette and answered defiantly.
“Nobody gets out of the game once you in the thick of it Rain. You knew that. If you in for a penny, you in for a pound, and ain’t no in between. You married to this shit and the only way out for motherfuckers like us is death!” Rain didn’t say a word. “You really thought after all the shit I taught you and your brother, you could just walk away from this shit or live the rest of y’all lives in paradise? After all the shit, all the murders and robberies you and your family did, all the shit you know about me… you thought I was gonna just let y’all walk away that easy?”
Smitty stared at her as if she was insane. “Ya mother made you, but I owned y’all ever since and it was no way I was gonna sit back and wait for one of y’all to give me up after all I worked for. An old man in prison ain’t no pretty sight.” Rain studied his face and asked.
“So, you put the feds on us?” Smitty erupted and answered emphatically.
“You goddamn right I put the feds on you. It was y’all or me. Feds don’t just stop looking for a motherfucker after all the shit we did.”
He said outright. “I put them on to you since the first time you told me about that fuck shit, to get out of the business. The thing I fucked up on was letting you slip by, and called my connect with the agent, and let them know they could catch all of you together, with the evidence and all in one shot. But I didn’t anticipate you making a stop and go suck on a bitch pussy, and miss out on the bust.” Rain didn’t flinch and asked her final question.
“Why did you kill my girl?” Smitty looked at her wondering if she was serious and answered.
“Cause she was your bitch.” He stated cruelly, as blood and spit splattered out his mouth. “I didn’t know what you told her about me while you were licking her pussy?” Smitty focused his gaze directly at Rain and reminded her. “You know damn well that pussy brought every nigga to their knees
and became their downfall. I had to know if she gave you my name, that’s why I tortured the pretty bitch first. She was just collateral damage and simply wasn’t worth keeping her alive to take that chance.”
Rain was boiling inside and had heard all she needed to know. When she stood to her feet, she knocked the chair over in the process. While pulling out the automatic weapon she had in her waist, then cocked it back, putting a bullet in the chamber. Rain stared down upon him, gun hanging at her side and said, “Ready?” Smitty closed his eyes, took a breath and said cryptically…..
“I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so. To punish me with this, and this with me, that I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well. The death I gave him. So again good night. I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” Smitty stared at Rain with a blank gaze. Rain could tell he made amends with himself and his God and said
“Hamlet by Shakespeare,” she said and then raised the gun and recited her own last words. “Et tu, Brute?" Smitty gave her a trembling smile.
“And you too, Brutus?"
“Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.” Rain nodded, then lifted her arm, and placed a single shot to the front of his head, killing him instantly.
Rain stood in silence for nearly a half hour admiring his brain matter and blood leak from his head. It was as if she was giving Smitty a gruesome funeral service. Reflecting all those years together, how he taught her and her family so much, how they became millionaires together, how close and loyal they were, and how it had come down to this. She stood, cramming to understand. Not one of the men saying a word, allowing her to make her peace.
Finally, in spite of it all, she wiped a small tear from her eyes and used her hand to close both his hollow and deathly eyes and walked away.
The Circle: Rain's Story Page 8