Free In a Cold Sweat by Roy Glenn

table. She thought it was too much of a distraction. It was more important to stay focused. While she sipped her drink, Jackie tried to figure the odds on Harold Ware having a straight flush. Lately, she’d been giving a lot of thought to what Travis said about planning. If then else. Put simply, if this happens, then do this, if that ain’t workin’, what else can you do . Could she really apply that same logic to poker? Could she plan a game?
    No . Playing poker was more a matter of probabilities, the chance that something is likely to happen and drawing conclusions about the likelihood of those events. The theory was something she would work on at some other time.
    Right now, she had a mission, and she had no intention of blowing it. Black told her to keep an eye on Mylo for him and that’s what she was gonna do. During her little breaks from the game, Jackie had done her best, which wasn’t very good, to plant listening devices around the house. Most didn’t work at all, and those that did had a lot of static. When Jackie told Monika about it, she laughed and promised to come with her one night and clean up her work.
    Jackie was about to return to the game when Frank Sparrow, the middleweight champion of the world, came through the door with two other men. The entire mood of the room changed at that moment.
    In the short time that she’d been playing there, Jackie had heard all sorts of stories about Sparrow. He was a big-time poker player, who liked to throw around money and usually lost big every time he came in the place. Everybody was glad to see Frank Sparrow.
    Sparrow had grown up in Black’s neighborhood and was loyal to Black for helping support his career. Jackie couldn’t wait to get him at the table and decided to wait until he sat down to reclaim her seat. In the meantime, she ordered another drink and sought out a spot to observe the champ and how Mylo, who had just come out of the office, interacted with him.
    From her vantagepoint, Jackie watched Sparrow work the room. Talkin’ loud, making predictions on the fight, fainting punches on demand to display his hand speed and spreading around a little money to the few working women in attendance.
    For his part, Mylo laid back and waited for Sparrow to make his way over towards him. Jackie looked him over carefully and could see that Mylo was a bit jittery and looked nervous as he watched Sparrow make it around the room.
    Since her surveillance set up was suspect, when Sparrow finally got to Mylo, Jackie had already moved into position to overhear the conversation. “What's up Champ?” Mylo said and embraced him.
    “I know you’re surprised to see me, Mylo, but I escaped from lockdown for a few hours.” Sparrow boasted. “They can’t hold me. No man alive can stop me when I want something,” he continued and fainted a few punches.
    “Yeah, Freeze wanted to bet me that you’d make it here before the fight. Glad I didn’t take any of that action.”
    “Is Freeze here?” Sparrow asked and pointed toward the office.
    “He’s not here, came through earlier.”
    “I wanted to holla at that nigga; see what y’all was talkin’ ’bout,” Sparrow said.
    “You ain’t gotta wait on Freeze, you can talk to me. I mean, that’s how it’s been all along, Champ; you and me. Come here, let me put somethin’ in ya ear.”
    Mylo led Sparrow into the office and Jackie cursed, because the device she had placed on the doorframe had the worst static. Still it was worth a shot, so she went into the bathroom to try and pick up the conversation, but there was way too much distortion for her to make out anything.
    “Look, here’s the deal. Bettin’ been real strong on you to win, lot of action on what round you’ll take him in,” Mylo said as soon as he closed the door. “Everybody knows you’re a slow starter. No one will think twice about you gettin’ caught with a clean shot early.”
    It was almost a sure thing that Sparrow would win, but he