Since that night the two of us began spending time together, you know; just two friends that like to hang out together. But we were feelin’ each other. We finally got together while Black was in jail, accused of his wife’s murder. Not exactly the best of circumstances for us to get together, but it is what it is.

Being the private person that she is, Wanda insisted that we keep our relationship on the low. She didn’t want anybody to know about it; especially Mike Black, but I ended up telling him about it anyway. I thought that it was better coming from me.

I held her hips in place and pushed myself deeper inside her, but my mind wasn’t on Wanda, sex, or anything close to it.

There was a song by The O’Jays back in the day that went something like: Your body’s here with me, but your mind is on the other side of town.

Well that’s exactly what and how I was feeling, and it wasn’t ’cause of some other woman on the other side of town that I was messin’ around with.

My mind was on 35^th Street in Manhattan. In my mind’s eye, one of my closest friends is dying in my arms and there is nothing I can do to help him.

This nightmare began the night Frank Sparrow defended his middleweight crown at The Garden. When I got there with Wanda, Black said he wanted to talk to me. Both Wanda and I cringed, thinking that he had found out about our covert relationship and was about good on his threat to kill whoever it was that Wanda was involved with. But what he wanted was something that I never expected to hear from him. “I need you to watch Freeze.”

“Freeze? Why?”

“His boy Mylo arranged for Frank to take a dive.”

“What?”

“Told Frank I wanted him to do it.”

“You think Freeze knew about it?”