In a Cold Sweat (3 page)

“Ain’t nothin’,” Freeze said
and spoke with the players at the table before following Mylo into one of the bedrooms in the small house that he used for an office.

The time had finally come for Freeze. He now had complete control of the organization. Freeze had been running things for years, and naturally, he still got advice from Black.
 
But now he was free to operate without any interference from anybody, including Wanda, the lawyer for the organization. Wanda was smart, careful, and just a bit ruthless. In addition to being their lawyer, Wanda managed the legitimate parts of their business and made a small fortune for her partners.

Now Freeze ran the show and he had come to the house to check on things as he did every night.

“What kind of night we havin’, Mylo?”

“Been a good night.
Philbert
Cunningham done dropped damn near two hundred grand. We are definitely ahead tonight and it’s early,” Mylo reported.

“Good,” Freeze said and looked at Mylo. “I may need you to ride with me tomorrow night.”

“What up?”

“Collect some paper from Danny.”

Mylo snapped his finger a few times. “Danny, Danny, Danny. I’m still tryin’ to put names with faces. Big boy with the bad eye, runs book outta a sub shop on the avenue, right?”

 
“That’s him. That nigga’s skimmin’.”

“You bullshittin’?” Mylo said and took a seat behind his desk. Freeze sat down in front of him. He sat looking at Freeze for a second. If Freeze thought Danny was skimmin’; that meant he was going to die. And if he wanted Mylo to go with him, that meant he wanted him to kill him.

Mylo had been a DEA agent for six years, working deep cover for five of those. During that time he had never killed anyone. He had always assumed that this day would come and he’d always wondered if he could do it. Could he stand in front of a man, put two in his head and watch him die? Mylo wasn’t sure he could, but he also knew what it would mean if he refused. Freeze would think he was a cop, which after all, he was, and kill him on the spot. That wasn’t gonna happen.

“Just swing by and get me. I never liked that nigga anyway,” Mylo said, and he didn’t. “I’ll get somebody to run the game,” he offered.

“Don’t you worry about
that.
I got that. You just
be
ready when I get here,” Freeze said and stood up.

“What time?”

Freeze looked at Mylo like he was crazy for asking. “Just
be
ready when I get here, nigga, and stop askin’ so many fuckin’ questions,” Freeze said and started to walk out of the office when he felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket.

While Mylo left the office, Freeze glanced at the display and saw it was his so-called woman, Tanya. She was lonely and hadn’t seen Freeze in three days.

“What’s up, baby?” Freeze answered.

“Just wondering when I’m gonna see you again,” Tanya answered, getting right to her point. “I haven’t seen you in days,” she told him.

“I know that.
I been
busy.”

“I understand that you have things to do, but you gotta sleep someplace, sometime, and it damn sure hasn’t been here.”

Freeze decided not to comment, and was glad that she didn’t demand to know where he had been sleeping for the past few nights and with who. If she had, he would have told her and she wouldn’t have wanted to hear that truth.

Before he told Tanya,
Look, I’ll see you when I see you and stop askin’ me all them fuckin’ questions,
he thought about Paulleen,
the
last woman he had neglected. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“I’ll see you when you get here,” Tanya said softly and ended the call. Tanya, like Paulleen before her, had grown tired of being left alone all the time. Assuming that Freeze was lying again, she briefly contemplated calling her new playmate, but then quickly discouraged herself after realizing that her playmate was working tonight. So Tanya just decided to wait and see if Freeze would actually show up.

When Freeze came out of the office, Mylo walked over to him. He handed Freeze a shot glass. “What’s this?”

“Remy.”

Freeze drained the glass and handed it back to Mylo. “That was smooth. What was that, Remy Extra?”

“Louis XIII,” Mylo said proudly. A few days ago, he ran up on a case of Remy Martin Louis XIII. Mylo knew Black drank Remy and thought it would be a good idea if he had some on hand if Black ever came there.

“How’s bettin’ goin’ for the fight?” Freeze asked, referring to the upcoming IBC middleweight championship fight.

“Heavy on the champ, just like you thought,” Mylo told him. The champ, Frank Sparrow, was from the Bronx, and with his one punch knock out power, was heavily favored to win. He was also a big time poker player, a regular at the game, and had been since he started winning the big money fights.

“Sparrow been here, lately?” Freeze asked.

“Nah, ain’t seen him since he started training.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, they got him on lockdown. Got him up in the mountains or some shit.”

“Mark my words, Frank Sparrow gonna find a way to bust outta that shit,” Freeze said as his phone began vibrating again. “That nigga’s weak for poker and pussy,” he said and then pressed talk. “What’s up, Jackie?”

“Travis has been shot,” Jackie screamed as she drove away from the warehouse.

Freeze turned away from Mylo. “I’ll get with you later, Mylo,” he said and started walking toward the door with his cell still in hand.

“Everything alright?” Mylo asked and followed Freeze to the door.

“Nothing for you to be concerned with.” Freeze left the house and headed for his Navigator. “Okay, calm down, Jackie. Are you all right?” Freeze asked, wondering what they were doing for Travis to get shot.

“I’m okay,” Jackie said excitedly as she drove down Southern Boulevard and merged onto Bruckner Boulevard. She looked in her rear view mirror at Travis. His eyes were closed and he was holding his right side with both hands.

“Where’s he hit?”

“In the stomach and the leg,” she said quickly. “He’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Where are you?”

“On the—um, on Bruckner Boulevard headed west,” Jackie stuttered. Her heart was pounding and tears were steaming down her cheeks.

“Get on the Major Deegan and head uptown. But you gotta do something first.”

“Okay—okay.” She squeezed and twisted the steering wheel until her knuckles were pale; Jackie sped up.

“Jackie, listen to me now. I need you to calm down.”

Jackie tried to slow her breathing. She had driven them out of worst situations, but it was never like this. Parker was dead and Travis was dying in the backseat. Jackie looked back at Travis. “How you doin’ back there? You all right, Tee?”

Travis moved and grimaced from the pain. “It burns, Jackie!”

“Jackie!” Freeze, who was still on the phone, shouted.

“What!” Jackie exclaimed.

“Stay with me, now. I need you to calm down. I need you to be cool and save his life.”

“Okay, Freeze. I’m cool, I’m cool,” Jackie said and tried to pull it together. “Just tell me what to do,” she said nervously.
 

“I need you to do what you can to stop the bleeding,” Freeze told her.

“What?” Jackie said. “I don’t know how!”

“You can do this, Jackie. You don’t want him to bleed to death before you get where you’re going. You hear me, Jackie?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. What should I do?”

“Find a secluded spot, get something to put over his wound and make him put pressure on it. Then use his belt or something to wrap around his leg above the wound. I’ll call you back and tell you where to go. Got me?”

“I can do this, I can do this,” Jackie repeated as Freeze ended the call. She understood what she had to do to save her best friend’s life.
 

Freeze got in his Navigator and dialed a number.

Tammy Crane began to stir in her bed when she thought she heard the phone ringing. This was her night off from Montefiore Medical Center and she had just drifted off to sleep.

Tammy worked as an Emergency Medical Technician, assigned to an ambulance. She and her partner, Rico, let it be known to a certain clientele that for the right price they could use their medical services, no questions asked.
  

She opened her eyes and slowly realized that it was her cell ringing. Tammy rolled to the edge of the bed and reached into her purse. She looked at the display, saw the word Freeze on the screen and snatched it open. “Hello,” she said in a whisper.

“Did I wake you, baby?” Freeze asked.

“Yeah, but it’s cool.
You coming
over?” Tammy asked and sat up in bed.

“I was hopin’ I was gonna catch you out in the street tonight.”

“Why, what's up?” Tammy said and wrapped the sheet around her body.

“I need your help, baby, that’s what's up,” Freeze told her definitely.

Tammy could sense something was going on by Freeze’s tone and that it wasn’t her personal skills that he was in need of, but her professional ones.
 
“I got my stuff, so just come get me.” In an attempt to lighten the mood she added, “I’ll throw on some tight jeans, a T-shirt and some pumps and I’ll be waiting for you.”

“You know how I love to see that fat-ass in tight jeans and pumps. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Meanwhile, Jackie thought about a secluded spot so she could try to stop the bleeding. Earlier in the day, she had dropped off a cold car in front of an abandoned building on 140
^th
and Jackson
Avenue,
she figured that somewhere around there would be the best place to go. When she found a spot with a dim street light, she turned off her headlights and parked the Hummer. Jackie turned on the interior light and hoped it wouldn’t attract much attention as she climbed in the back seat.

“Travis, I gotta try to stop the bleeding,” she said and Travis opened his eyes.

“What did Freeze say?” Travis wanted to know, as Jackie began pulling up his shirt.

“Stop the bleeding and he’ll call me back and tell me where to go. Come on Travis, help me pull this up.”

The two pulled up his shirt. “Ahh! That shit hurts!” he grimaced in pain.

When Jackie saw the bullet wound in his stomach and saw the blood coming from it, her body stiffened. She looked away and closed her eyes, but opened them quickly. “I can do this,” she said out loud.
You have to do this
, she said to herself, and took off her leather jacket. After tossing it in the front seat, she began taking off her silk blouse. Jackie pulled at the material and tore it. She took the biggest piece and folded it a few times before placing it on the wound. “Hold that, Travis. Put pressure on it.”

Jackie took the remaining pieces of her blouse and tied them together. “Lean up, Travis, so I can wrap this around you,” Jackie instructed, doing what she had seen on television and in the movies hundreds of times.

Travis leaned forward and Jackie started to wrap her blouse around him. That was when she noticed that there was an even bigger wound on his back.