The Circle: Rain's Story (10 page)

On the outskirts of suburban Baltimore County, on a nice, tree-lined street,
the home for the four Porters was a nice single family home. A bedroom split level. Rain, Fallon and Autumn had their own bedrooms upstairs while Dayvid dwelled in the basement. Since none of them were of legal age to own property in the state of Maryland, they put the house purchased with two hundred cash, in their Nanny’s name. Stipulations in the contract of the home purchased outright stated when Rain and Dayvid become of age; ownership would be transferred to them.  

A professional from
the streets, Smitty educated them down to the very smallest detail, so they would always be safe and sound, and never the fool. Impressed with their minds and their hunger, Smitty thought they were ready for the big leagues. He trusted them enough to introduce the two twins to his real line of duty – robbing banks.

Like moths to a flame, Rain and David were instantly
attracted to it and craved the stories and the details. Smitty taught them everything from A to Z about the highly profitable, dangerous trade, down to the smallest detail. And then, at the tender age of fifteen, he set up their first heist. Six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars later, they never looked back.

      
                                                        *              *              *

Rain was a B student all throughout her formal education and schooling. The only thing that prevented her from getting straight A’s, was her lack of participation in class
. But every one of her teachers were amazed by her uncanny ability to ace every single test she was given, and maxing both SAT and ACT test. Rain was courted by the nation’s top colleges to attend their school on full scholarships. School officials were baffled and floored when Rain showed them little interest, didn’t even bother to answer any of them. Rain simply knew that wasn’t the life she wanted to live. She was drawn to be a criminal. She simply loved the thrill of it.

While
her mother taught her the love of books— particularly philosophy, Smitty helped her refine it, by pushing her to learn and play the game of life, the power of the mind and to always know the rules if you want to continue winning. The first book he ever advised her to read and to learn backwards if necessary was: The Art of War. An ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. Composed of 13 chapters, each devoted to one aspect of physical and mental warfare.

She spent hours, mulling over them, f
ront to back, then front to back again. Rain studied the book countless times to the point she’d memorized most of the book. Smitty regularly tested Rain’s sharpness by asking her random questions for her to think about and mull over. It got to the point over the years that it became a game, both testing each other’s wit.

“Rain,
‘heavy is the head that wears the crown.’ Do you know what that term means?”

Rain paused for a long while and
watched Smitty twirl around his ever present toothpick in his mouth, then recited.
“Tired, sick, guilty, and beset by rebellion; Why, even the "vile" of his realm, after hours of drudgery, can in their "loathsome beds" get a good night's sleep while he—a king! —cannot.”
Rain cracked a slight smirk and said, “That’s Shakespeare. King Henry IV is feeling the weight of his crown as the King.” Rain became his greatest and brightest student he told her on many occasions.

CHAPTER 15

Morning
broke with the exception of an occasional nod, Rain stayed up the whole night thinking about her past and even daunting future, when suddenly the same nagging feelings hit her again—Smitty, but she just could not put her finger on it. She shook it off, rebuking such thought and cleared her mind.

What’s next?
Rain thought. All she knew at that point was that she had to stay ten steps ahead of the game and moving, so she decided to get up and take a shower and close some loose ends and get a jump on the rest of the day.

*
              *              *

By the time she got back to the motel room, shortly after eleven that morning, she could he
ar from the outside of the room Autumn and Erin loudly arguing up a storm. Through gritted teeth, Rain pushed opened the motel room door with urgent fury and spat sternly.

“Yo, what the fuck is wrong y’all? I could hear y’all bitching all the way in the parking lot. Do you not know we on the fucking run?”

Vexed, Rain watched both of them drop their heads to the ground. Rain stomped forward and dropped the bags she brought into the room on the table and said while shaking her head in disgust. “Stick y’all arms out.”

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a small key
on a round ring and to their relief she removed the handcuffs from their wrist. Both girls were smiling from ear to ear as they massaged their wrist.

Autumn
parted her lips to ask the obvious, but Rain beat her to the draw. “Don’t ask.”

Erin humbled herself and started to apologize. “Rain, I’m sorry about that, I should have known better. The last thing I want to do is fuck up y’all shit. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Autumn felt worse and repeated the same sentiments. “You right, sis. It’s just… this whole situation got me on edge. But I’m straight now and on point.”

Rain disengaged the whole thing by simply nodding. Once Autumn and Erin breathed easier, the aroma of food wafted across their nose. Erin looked at her illustrious host with joy and asked with a dopey chuckle.

“Is that chicken I smell?” Already forgetting about the food she brought in, Rain waved her hand in the direction of the food, welcoming her to it. Erin didn’t hesitate and rushed over to the table, pulling box after box of chicken and sides from the bag and Autumn directly behind her.     

After devouring their meal
and satisfied, both girls were now in a much lighter mood and for the first time since meeting, under awkward and tragic circumstances, they actually started talking friendly and civil towards each other.

“So, what’s your story, girl? How you get caught up with the feds?”

Erin shrugged, then lurched forward and took a long sip from her cup of soda, then burped. She placed her hand over her mouth and apologized.

“Oops, sorry about that.”
She calmly circled her tongue inside her mouth for loose food and said in a nonchalant manner. “They got me on some check and credit fraud. That’s my hustle.” She revealed. “That’s been my hustle for years and this was my first time ever getting caught up.” She took another sip of her Sprite before continuing. “I’m from St. Louis, but been tore the Lou down and everything in between there, so we started hitting up other states. That’s when shit started falling apart.”

Her face turned sour and then grew silent. Autumn
’s curiosity got the best of her and asked nosily, “What happened?”

Recalling the
moment, Erin answered, “Jealousy and envious motherfuckers.”

Rain, not part of the conversation, sat by the window silently listening to her story and downfall.

“The same person who turned me on to this shit was the same bastard that wind up setting me up for my downfall because I started going out of town doing my own thing.” She shook her head as her face scrounged to understand. “For like three straight years, I gave this nigga a cut of every lick I came off with when I didn’t even have to half the time. But I’m just loyal like that.” she shook her head again. “We had no other choice but to hit out of town because those niggas started recognizing our faces as soon as we stepped one foot in any store. Security was right on us. We were that hot.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Now, we hit up out of town and its fucking sweet like shit and we come off like the fucking mob, I’m dead ass.” Her face came alive. “We come back in town wearing shit none of them bitches knew anything about. Renting Bentley’s and shit.” she chuckled. “We were like celebrities.” Her brow lowered. “The old faggot ass, bitch ass nigga come sniffing around for his cut. I’m like, is this nigga serious? Her face displayed a preposterous look. “Now, we out of town for days and weeks at a time, risking our lives and going to jail and this motherfucker didn’t lift a finger and he expected a cut?” She looked in Autumn eyes as if she was awaiting an answer. She sighed, “Long story short, when I told him no, we stopped fucking with each other and we moved on and did our own thing. Next thing I know, first time out of town after that incident, we in Maryland, at a jewelry store, and the feds got us in handcuffs.” As if nothing mattered any longer, she stated matter of flatly. “I guess they were right when they say
never outshine the teacher.”

Rain suddenly sat up erected and said
. “What did you say?”

Fear
stricken, Erin head swerved in Rain’s direction and repeated, “I just meant that you should never outshine the person who taught you the business cause if you do, they will want to see you fall.”

At that moment, Rain felt like she was hit with a ton of bricks and her mind
began to flood as she recalled from her lessons:

Law
1: Never outshine the master

Law
2: Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies

In horror, memories
of that law started flooding her mind. Who knew about the robberies? Who knew about her relationship with Laura? Who knew they were going to leave the country and flee to Mexico? Who knew about their safe house? It was Smitty!

Rain rose to her feet and with dire urgency in her voice, ordered harshly
. “Autumn, you are going out to St. Louis with Erin right now!” 

Rain realized at the moment she made a fatal mistake and because of that gross miscalculation, she put her family in
harm’s way and cost her beloved Laura her life. Rage and anger rose to its apex in her head. All she thought at that moment was Law 15: Crush your Enemy Totally.

C
HAPTER 16

Rain spoke t
o her baby sister at length… alone, and filled her in on everything. She took none of it well and was tearing up at the thought of not knowing what would happen in her future, her family, that always took care of her and there for her. She was the baby. She began to cry even harder. “But, Rain, I don’t…”

“Autumn
…” Rain snapped. “We are hot and from this point on you have to learn to take care of yourself, make your decisions on your own and live with them. The life that you’ve know is over and will never be the same again. You have to get that through your head.” Rain told her baby sister, holding nothing back. She could see the fear and pain in her eyes, and wanted nothing more but to tell her everything was going to be okay, but she couldn’t. She needed her to be stronger than she ever thought she could be, and gave her the reality and played the Devil’s Advocate.

“The truth of the matter is you may never see me, Fallon, or Dayvid ever again
!” It killed Rain to see her sister’s facial expression at that moment.

“You have to accept this fact and get it into your head now, so you don’t fall to pieces when and if it does happen, because we going to need you on the outside. Just remember that you are a Porter, and Porters have to take care of each other like we
’ve done our whole lives, and right now we need you Autumn. We need you to be the strongest one now and we need you to live for us. Do you understand that?” It took all the strength she could muster, as Rain watched her inhale a deep breath, wipe her eyes, and then shake her head. Rain gave her an assured smile and said, “Good, good.” She looked up at the clock inside the bus station and realized that she only had twenty minutes left until her sister’s bus arrived and had to continue explaining critical information.

“Now listen, I don’t care what happens and under any circu
mstance you do not go back to Baltimore. Not now or ever…even for me!” Rain emphasized, staring deeply into her eyes ensuring she got the message loud and clear. She watched Autumn nod her head.  “I’m almost sure that Smitty had something to do with y’all getting arrested, so we are totally on our own.” She confidently assured her baby sister. “You don’t have to worry about that cause me and a few people going to pay ole Smitty a visit and take him on a little vacation to DC.” She knew Autumn didn’t know too many details about the killing side that her and Dayvid did, but she knew that when they traveled to DC, it was strictly for macabre purposes only.  She continued giving her detailed instructions and to follow them to the letter.

“Autumn as soon as you
get the ID, go straight to Miami, catch a cruise ship that vacations and makes stops in Mexico, then get off. When you get to our meet up spot, relax. Go to the beach and act like a tourist, but keep to yourself and don’t talk to anybody. When your money starts getting low, call our lawyer Mr. Morganstein, and he will take care of you with money, with no questions asked, but only ten thousand dollars or less at a time though, so you don’t have to worry about banking, wire, and money transfer regulations.” She rubbed her sister’s cheek affectionately and joked. “You always were the prettiest and luckiest one in the family.” Autumn was still in gloom, but gave her a light smile anyway.

The announcement came over the P.A speaker that the bus for St. Louis had jus
t arrived and passengers could get in line. As they got up, she promised her that if things went according to plan, they will all meet up and reunite in Mexico as planned.