"Mind if I join you?" Freeze said as Travis turned slowly and looked at him.

"This is your world, Freeze. I’m just trying to live in it."

"I hadn’t seen you around much lately, Travis. What’s been up?"

"Nothing, man. Just trying to make a living, same as always," Travis replied. He had a feeling that it was Freeze who killed Ronnie, or at the very least, had him killed, but he had no desire to die trying to get revenge.

"I’m just sayin’, you don’t come up here anymore like you used to, and you have Jackie bring me my taste from your jobs."

"Yeah, well, Jackie’s up here all the time doin’ her thing anyway. Why not let her do it?"

"Yeah, okay, whatever." Freeze looked around the room. "Jackie here?"

"Of course she is. She’s downstairs doin’ her thing. Why?"

"You strapped?"

"No."

"I may need you and her to back me up," Freeze told Travis, even though he knew he could handle the situation without him. It was more important to know where his head was. "And I need to know if I can count on you."

"You know you can," Travis said. "Like you said, whatever went down was business, not personal, and got nothing to do with you and me," Travis said to let Freeze know that he knew what was going on, but he was still loyal to him.

"Here," Freeze said and discreetly passed a Travis a gun.

"I’ll go get Jackie," Travis said.

Freeze followed Travis downstairs to the gambling area where, as expected, they found Jackie, doin’ her thing. Only nowadays, Jackie wasn’t losing at poker anymore.

Early one morning, around four a.m., Mike Black came into the gambling area while Jackie was literally losing her shirt. She waved and smiled when she saw him standing directly across from her, and Mike nodded his head in response. Jackie thought Mike Black was sexy from the first time she met him. Although she’d never admit it to anyone, Jackie had the kind of crush that a young girl has on her teacher. It had gotten to the point where Jackie thought about making herself available for him.