Vin’s office was far different from the rest of the decrepit hotel. The walls were painted a satin black color; the floor was coated with spotless gray carpet. There were a few black leather couches and chairs in the room, along with a black bar in a far corner, but the centerpiece to the room was Vin’s desk. The desk was made of a fine, extremely dark wood and the desktop was black marble. There was a small humidor on the desk, along with an elegant whiskey decanter, a black marble lamp, and a surprisingly well camouflaged black pistol in the center of the desktop.
As Rain observed all the amazing sights the office had to offer, Vin observed her. He sat in the tall leather chair behind the desk and contentedly watched her eyes dart around the room, soaking up every image they could. She seemed far more than intrigued by everything, she seemed fascinated, and this fascinated him.
After a few moments, Rain’s eyes stopped, aiming somewhere on the wall. Vin turned and immediately saw exactly what she had. The only white things in the whole room, two framed degrees from various colleges from around the nation, prestigious ones at that.
“Admiring my lesser achievements I see,” he smiled at her, her eyes quickly shifted towards him.
“Yeah,” she nodded nervously, “it’s just a little surprising is all.”
“What’s so surprising?”
“I never would expect someone with such great education to be here doing what you’re doing,” Rain explained, trying her best to avoid offending the polite, tasteful criminal before her.
“Look at them again,” Vin suggested, “what do you see?”
Rain did as she was told. She didn’t see anything she hadn’t seen before. It didn’t help that she didn’t know what exactly she was looking for.
“What am I supposed to see?” she inquired.
“What fields are the degrees in?” Vin elaborated his question.
“A Bachelors in criminal psychology and a Masters in business,” Rain seemed even more astounded at Vin’s education now that she knew the fields he’d majored in.
“Make a little more sense now?” Vin grinned.
“Kind of,” Rain shrugged. “But that stuff opens up so many doors, why be a drug dealer?”
“Blame Benjamin for that one,” Vin replied. “He introduced me to this life. I didn’t want any of this at first. But my bills piled up, it didn’t help that I was pursuing two educations at a time either. Ben and I had been good friends for a long time before then, and he picked drug slinging over college, and he told me it was a great way to earn money to pay off my loans. So I let him supply me with an ounce of some bottom of the line marijuana to test the waters, albeit reluctantly. Would you care to guess how that went?”
“How?” Rain was enthralled with Vin’s story.
“I ended up selling that, not to mention everything else Ben had in two weeks,” Vin admitted with a grain of pride. “This got the attention of some wholesalers, and it all kind of grew from there. By the time I got all my education done with, my loans were paid for and I was making five figures a month. And, throughout the past years I’ve expanded, brought in new people, new products. Then I designed my own, and those little green pills sell like nothing else.”
“Emeralds?” Rain figured.
“The very same,” Vin nodded. “So, to shorten the answer to your original question, why am I a drug dealer? There’s far more money and power in it. Not to mention it’s a better use of my combined education than anything else. I can understand the minds of the people I work with and sell to, not to mention understand the best way to convince them to buy what I’m peddling. But, with that education came another portion of business not many others think of or can really manage: secrecy over security.”
“What’s that mean?” Rain wondered, puzzled.
“It means I realize it’s easier to not be known to major competitors or the law than it is to fight them. I have worked extremely hard to cover the tracks of all my products as well as my employees. Staying under the radar is the most important thing to me, because being above it is a massive expenditure. Do you know why I’m telling you this?”
“No,” Rain’s nervousness began to show up again.
“You appear to be a direct interference to that secrecy.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Rain slid her chair back and held up a hand to stop any thoughts Vin might be having, “I’m not gonna say anything about what’s happening here. I don’t want to hurt anything you’re doing, I just want to get on my way and get far away from my family. That’s all. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“You know,” Vin sighed as he reached forward and picked up the pistol off the desk, “for some reason I can’t quite pin point, I trust you,” he put the weapon into a holster on his waist. “But trust doesn’t automatically create proof that it isn’t ill founded.”
“What are you saying?” Rain asked, still petrified.
“I’m saying that I’m not going to kill you, or harm you in any way. But, I would still enjoy it if you stuck around for a little while at least to ensure I’m not wrong to think you’re not a threat. It won’t be long, just another twenty-four hours, roughly. You think you can do that?”
“If it’s only a day, I guess,” Rain shrugged frightfully. “But I really want to get going as soon as I can. I’m still too close to home to stay in one place for too long.”
“I promise my evaluation will not compromise your ease of travel,” Vin assured her warmly.
“Well, what am I supposed to do until that’s done?” Rain asked.
“You intrigue me, you know that?” Vin responded with a question of his own.
“Why’s that?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose I just see things in people,” Vin shrugged.
“What do you see in me?”
“Controlled fervor. I see an adventurous wanderlust in you, but its shared with an immense knowledge of your greater good. It’s exactly what I saw when I looked in the mirror when I was your age,” Vin paused, pulled out a pen and a scrap piece of paper, scratched something on it and handed the paper to Rain, who took it apprehensively. She opened it to find he’d written an address on it. “If you are as intelligent as I think and hope you are, you’ll be at that address tonight at eight o’clock and you won’t be late.”
“What is it?” Rain looked up at him, confused.
“You’ll see,” Vin waved her off.
Not wanting to cross any more possible lines with the man, Rain swiftly got up and left Vin’s office without a word. She strode quickly down the stairs and into the lobby, where Ben and the others still sat.
“What did Vin want?” Ben asked as he and the others got up from their seats.
“Did he decide to kick you outta here?” Joe wondered.
“We just talked,” Rain replied. “He said he wanted to keep me here to make sure he’s not wrong to trust me to not say anything about what I’ve seen around here. Then he gave me this,” she brandished the paper.
Dando took it from her and opened it up. He was stunned at what he read.
“Damn,” he chuckled, showing the paper to Ben and Joe.
“No fuckin’ way,” Joe shook his head with a sneer.
“This is either really good or really bad for you,” Dando looked back at her.
“What? Why?” Rain asked, fear rising up once more. She looked at Ben for an answer. “What is this address to?”
“This is Vin’s house,” Ben replied, still visibly shocked.
“Is it important to go there or something?” she inquired.
“I’ve never even been there,” Ben answered.
“Neither have I,” Dando nodded. “Nobody has.”
“What does it mean?” Rain scanned the three faces for some positive answer.
“No clue,” Dando handed the paper back to her. “Like I said, it’s either really good or really bad for you.”
“It’d be helpful to know what you mean by that,” Rain groaned, growing impatient and more anxious.
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“He could be trying to recruit you, he could be trying to kill you,” Dando shrugged. “Those are the two sides that I could see.”
“Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” Ben shook his head, obviously unsure of the situation.
“Good luck,” Joe scoffed.
“Jesus,” Rain planted her palms on her forehead in frustration. All she wanted to was to get out of this situation, to get out of town and keep running. She didn’t want to be in any gang, and she definitely didn’t want to die.
7