What You Won't Do For Love

ART: "Couple" By Laurie Cooper

Sepia turned on the IPOD in my car...Amy Winehouse's "Love is a losing game" was playing..She looked at me and smiled-
"Dag Kevin, you really like that song don't you?
It was playing at your house."

I said nothing..I followed Cock Robbins in his car as he headed towards City Avenue and the expressway. He was driving towards Roosevelt Blvd. He didn't drive like someone who was a stranger to this town..He drove like he knew his way around Philadelphia. Sepia sensed that I wanted answers and she gave them to me. She told me that Cockraine Robbins had been a top draft pick out of Lincoln University..that he was actually from Philadelphia. He worked out with the Eagles, but they passed on him..So did the Jets. Finnally the Giants picked him up and signed him to a one year contract. That's how she met him.

She told me that he was in a club in New York City, buying drinks for all of these women and they caught each others eyes...He called her over, asked her to dance and then after a couple of dances, bought her a few drinks and asked if he could see her again. She gave him her number and promptly forgot about him. A few weeks later..he gave her a call and came by in a brand new
Jaguar . He took her to a very nice restaraunt and then to a very exclusive club..From there they went to a private party of mostly athletes and rappers and strippers..Everybody was doing
lines of coke and drinking rum and pairing off...He took her in a small room and pulled his zipper
down, revealing what she said was "the largest weapon of mass destruction she had ever seen."
He eased her on the bed and eased her panties off just as quick and made love to her for close to an hour and a half...the fear of them possibly being caught and the sheer audaciousness of him made him intoxicating to her...She said that she had multiple orgasms that first night.

He drove her to East Orange and stayed the night at her place...He stayed the whole weekend and the next week and the week after that...It seemed like he had nowhere in particular to be.
She didn't care...she was in love.. They made love at night...she went to work, came home, they made love again...They watched a movie on cable, they made love, they ordered food, they made
more love...It was one big orgy for about a month...Then one day...He just left.

She said that she called his cell...it had been disconected, she called the friends he had that she knew and they said that they didn't know where he was...Then she traveled to New York City
and went to all of his old haunts..and still no sign of him...so she went to the New York Giants training facility in New Jersey and she was told that he had been cut from the team.

She'd resigned herself to the fact that she'd never see him again. The sex had been great, off the
chain...she had to tell someone about it..so she started a blog and began talking about "Semi-pro"
as she refferred to him. I loved her blog..it was so honest and raw...I always tried to be the first
commenter..and she always sent me back a nice sweet reply...Eventually we began e-mailing each other and I invited her to Philadelphia...How could I know that not only would I meet "Semi-pro", but that I would be embroiled in a full scale murder mystery involving him.
"So Sepia...what happened? How did you get involved with
him again?" I asked.

Sepia told me that a few months later, She and a girlfriend went to a Semi professional football
game in Newark and there he was...Playing for this local team. She went to wait for him near the
locker room after the game and there he was...but not alone...He was with Opal.. The girl who had been murdered here in Philly. He called her a few days later and apologized profusely and came to see her..Stayed a whole weekend..and then just like before, he vanished...Next time she saw him..He was once again with Opal. she didn't speak to him for six months and sure enough, right before Christmas...he came back into her life...He took her to New York, showered her with
presents and brought her back to East Orange. While he was showering , she happened to look in his cell phone at last number called.....It was someone named Gail (the woman who was murdered in East Orange) She called Gail and asked Gail if she was seeing Cock...Gail said that she was and that she had slept with him a few nights before.... She hung up..When Cock came out
of the shower, she threw his phone at him and told him to never come to her apartment again.

"Wow...that's some story." I said...

"That aint the half of it...a few nights
later, I get a call.....it's his WIFE.....
, she tells me to leave her man alone or
else...all this time he was screwing me
and Opal and Gail and he had a wife.." said Sepia.

"So, help me to understand something here
If he's been dogging you out all this time...
why are we trying to help him?? Why do you
care what happens to him? He sounds like a no
good dog to me." I said...

"I know, but deep down inside, he's a good man ,
I love him...I just can't see him harmed.." she said.

"When did the killing start?" I asked not caring to know why or how she could love a man that could treat her like this. Sepia told me that Cock eventually got cut from his semi pro team and that his wife , a real estate agent named Veronica Robbins had put him out. (At least she had some good sense, I reasoned.) That's when the threatening calls came. Opal got one, Gail got one and Sepia got one. At first she thought it was a joke, but then the caller left a comment on her blog threatening her life. She contacted Gail and Opal and found out that they had gotten them too. Within a week..Gail was dead...shot to death!!! She had come to Philly and now Opal was dead..strangled....and Cock's room mate ,Brett Jano was dead too. She knew that either she or Cock was next. I would never get involved with another blogger ,I swore. I stopped the car...Cock had found the destination.. The car was sitting in front of the house. It was the car the bystander has described to me on the street at Opal's murder scene.
There was a man in the car.

"That's Leon's car..he must be sleep" said Cock

I got out of my car and walked over to the car ...there was a man in the car alright..but he wasn't going to tell us anything ever again...he had a nice little hole in his temple....and blood was running down the side of his face...Leon was very, very dead.

(To be continued.......)