Enforcer (2 page)

“You fought well tonight during the game,” Petre said, getting a laugh out of Connor.

“Do you know this Benton guy?” Connor asked him, changing the subject, not wanting to talk about fighting anymore than necessary.

“Da,” Petre said. “A real fat guy.”

“You mean, ‘a really fat guy’ or ‘a real fatass,’” Connor corrected him once again.

“A really fat fatass,” Petre said, being a comedian as usual.

“So what’s his gig?” Connor asked.

“Gig?”

“Yeah, you know, what’s his deal? What is he into that we have to go have a
talk
with him?”

“Ah, yes. Gig. I like that. Fatass Benton is into cars. He likes cars. He likes getting Mr. Ojacarcu expensive luxury cars to send back home to his family.” Petre winked, the joke never getting old to him. Everything that Ojacarcu shipped back to Romania was a
gift for the family
.

“Okay,” Connor said. “So why are we going to see him?”

“Mr. Ojacarcu has paid him for two cars. This fat man has not delivered for three weeks. Mr. Ojacarcu is upset. He promised his goddaughter a special birthday gift.”

“Got it,” Connor said, leaning back in his seat as the Lincoln rolled across the connector and onto the main freeway.

“Why do you not have a car?” Petre asked him after a few minutes.

“I don’t know, I guess I don’t need one,” Connor answered.

“How can you pick up pretty girls that want to sex you without a car?” Petre asked, as if Connor was too dumb to understand the reasoning behind having a car.

“I don’t need a car for that,” Connor laughed. “Ladies are the one problem I don’t have.”

“True, true,” Petre said, and gave him a sly glance. “When you will take Petre to get these ladies?”

“When will I take you to get ladies?” Connor asked. “Don’t you have access to ‘the girls?’”

“Da, but they fuck for money. Not me of course, Petre doesn’t pay. They fuck men for money. I want a ladies who fucks for pleasure.”

“Next time we play at home, meet me outside the locker room after a game. I’ll find you a
ladies that fucks for pleasure
,” he mocked Petre’s accent, getting another laugh from the Romanian.

*****

“Listen,” Connor said to the obese man sobbing at his feet, “I’m not here because I don’t like you. Really, I’m not. I’m here because… well, you know why, Mr. Benton.”

“I’m sorry!” the man sobbed as he bled on Connor’s shoes.

Connor was tempted to kick the man in the mouth since his shoes were already ruined. Instead, he knelt down, and put his hand on Mr. Benton’s shoulder.

“Look, Donald,” he said to the fat man, “Mr. Ojacarcu is a fair man, you agree?” Benton nodded. “And you are a fair man as well, right?” Another nod. “And as a fair businessman, Mr. Ojacarcu fronted you the money to procure him two vehicles for his goddaughter’s birthday. That was almost a month ago, Donald. The reason I’m here is because Mr. Ojacarcu’s goddaughter is about to have her birthday, yet she doesn’t have either vehicle that has already been paid for. But I shouldn’t have to explain all of this, should I?”

Connor shrugged as he glanced up at Petre, who stood as still as a statue. Petre flashed him a quick grin before turning his face back to impassive stone.

“I’m sorry!” Benton wailed again between sobs. “I tried to get the Lexus. I did. I tried. But my guy, he got caught. He’s sitting in Ada County right now. He’s got priors, so he’s going to probably end up in prison.”

Connor was fascinated by the way the light glinted off Benton’s bloody teeth, how it sprayed a fine mist with each hard consonant the man spoke through a split lip. He’d eaten enough punches over his career as a hockey player to know what the man must be feeling in terms of pain. Connor tried imagine the fat man’s fear. The fear of a fight while padded up and on the ice was completely different than the helpless terror that Donald Benton was experiencing.

“I’m sorry, Donald. I really am. So is my friend here.” Benton looked up to see the big man in the suit smiling at him. “But the problem is, I don’t give a shit what your fucking excuse is. Mr. Ojacarcu paid you. You haven’t given him what he paid for. If you have the money, I’ll kindly take it back to Mr. Ojacarcu and you can probably get off with just a busted-up face. Do you have the money, Donald?”

“Nuh—nuh—no,” the fat man began to cry again, knowing what was coming.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Donald,” Connor said, almost sounding truly sorry.

Connor liked to fight while on the ice. Fighting in hockey almost always had purpose, had meaning, had respect and honor behind it. It had an unwritten but well-understood code that was to be followed. Street fighting had no honor, no code, only blood and pain. The blood and pain didn’t bother Connor so much as lack of honor. There was no honor in having one man hold another helpless so Connor could exact revenge, send a message, or strike terror into whoever Ojacarcu sent him to
talk
to.

“No! Please! I’ll get the money. I swear. I can have it in the morning. As soon as the bank opens. My wife. My wife, she has enough to cover it. Please!”

“I’m afraid it is too late for that, Donald,” Connor said, nodding to Petre.

Petre swooped down and grabbed Benton, lifting him to his feet as if the man weighed nothing.

“Do me a favor, Donald,” Connor said as he planted his feet firmly to swing with his left hand. “Try to not cough or spit blood on me. And whatever you do, don’t puke on me. Can you do that?”

The only thing Donald Benton could do was cry and beg for mercy. The only thing he could do after Connor’s first punch sank into his fleshy stomach was gag and retch.

CHAPTER 2

The dream was always the same. Connor received the puck on the tape of his blade, a perfect saucer pass over two defenders’ sticks as he streaked down the left wing. His legs were pistons in a redlining engine, long hair trailing behind him from under his helmet. He crossed over the blue line, head-faked once, then a second time, not wanting to lose speed as he crossed in from the left side, getting a step inside the last defender.

He cut back at the last moment when the goalie attempted a poke check. Connor saw it coming before the netminder’s stick made it a quarter of the way around, lifting the puck off the ice for a split second to hop over it before shooting the puck into the net. As he watched the puck go in, he felt a sharp pain as the goalie’s stick connected with the side of his ankle right before he felt his feet slide out from under him.

The rest was a blur, though it always replayed in his dreams as a slow motion blur. He saw the arena lights, then the ice, then the yellow dasher along the bottom of the boards a half second before slamming into them at full speed. Connor’s first thought was fear that he’d crashed into the boards awkwardly and might have injured himself. His second thought was satisfaction that not only did he score the tying goal, he hadn’t felt the intense agony of a snapping bone or dislocated shoulder.

His third thought was cut short by a searing pain as the defenseman that he’d burned crashed into him at full speed. The defenseman’s skates gleamed under the arena lights, reflecting Connor’s face through the beads of water coating the razor-sharp blade. He watched in slow motion as the skate caught him at the side of the knee, an inch above the protective plastic of his kneepad. It seemed like it took forever for the skate to ride up the side of his leg, getting caught inside of his pants. He watched as the skin of his leg slid back, butterflied like a gourmet tenderloin. The blood. Oh Jesus, so much blood. So much blood.

*****

He woke with a scream in his throat, sweating, clutching at the extra pillow. In his dreams, the event always played out in slow motion. In reality, it had happened less than two seconds after the puck entered the back of the net. He’d been ecstatic that the red light had come on, that the goal horn began to rumble throughout the arena. Then the skate cut his leg open from knee to right below the groin on his inner thigh. The blood had rushed out of him so fast that he’d passed out.

Connor reached down to rub the scar that was a reminder of the tying goal. A reminder that he would never fulfill his destiny as a great hockey player. After the dream, his leg would sometimes throb for a while, as if it were remembering the pain and the blood along with him. He lay back in bed, glancing over at the clock on his nightstand. It was almost three in the morning. He was rarely able to sleep again after the dream.

Two hundred and nineteen stitches had closed up the gash in his leg and repaired his femoral artery. The thought of it made him shiver, and again his leg flared with the ghostly pain of memory. He’d been told repeatedly that if he hadn’t been in Helsinki, with a new trauma hospital barely a block from the arena where the World Junior Championship tournament was taking place, he would have died.

*****

“How’s it going, Dunzer?” Coach Lamoureux asked him from across the desk.

“Great, Coach,” Connor replied.

At twenty-six, he was considered
an old man. Most of his teammates were fresh out of junior hockey, some barely eighteen years old, most under twenty-two. Dunzer was the nickname he’d had since he was a kid, attached to him by his teammates back then. It had stuck, like all nicknames did that teammates gave to others, whether complimentary or not. And “Dunzer” was better than the nicknames the fans had given him. Convict. Cannon. Dozer.

“You missed a hell of a comeback last night,” Coach Lamoureux told him with a frown. “We could have really used you.”

“Really?” Connor asked. When he’d left the arena with Petre, the Bombers were still down 6-0.

“Nah, it was a blowout. Don’t you check the scores online?” his coach asked with mock disgust.

“Usually. Last night was a long night.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Coach Lamoureux said, leaving it at that.

He never asked what Connor did when the boss called down and gave him the order to tell Connor to get dressed. He had a good idea that it was something he shouldn’t ask about. Ojacarcu paid him better than any other coach in the UPHL ever dreamed of being paid, and Boise was a nice, quiet, mild-weathered city with good schools. He did his job of coaching a respected hockey club in a bottom-rung professional league, and let Mr. Ojacarcu do… whatever it was the man did.

“Well, you didn’t miss much at least,” Coach Lamoureux said to Connor, steering the subject back to hockey.

“I saw Gansy bleeding,” Connor said.

“Yeah, that asshole Mechalnyer gave Gansy’s mouth the butt-end of a stick. We got four minutes out of that, and they got a fucking short-handed goal on us. Seven fucking nothing,” Coach exhaled, still pissed off at his team’s performance.

“I’m sorry, Coach,” Connor said, his head lowered.

“Nah, don’t sweat it. Like I said,” Lamoureux replied with a smile. “You would have just ended up with more stitches in your hand. We were terrible. I’m sure you were doing something more interesting, or at least more worthwhile than getting your ass handed to you on the ice like we were.”

“You know it,” Connor grinned.

“Get your gear packed. We got a bus to catch. Reno is a shithole, but at least we can easily take two of the three games, maybe all three if you guys decide to show up for all of them.”

“Got it, Coach.” Connor said.

*****

“Hi, Connor,” Randi said to him as he exited the arena through the side door.

Connor wondered how long she’d been waiting for him. Randi was the last person he wanted to talk to, but he needed a ride to his apartment to pack a travel bag. He squinted at the girl in the winter sun, her tight blue yoga pants and blue hoodie showing off her goods.

“Heya, Randi,” he said.

The two stood silent in the cold December air, breath steaming from their nostrils.

“I thought you could use some company until you have to leave,” she said, breaking the silence.

“Sure, but I need a ride to my apartment.”

She smiled. “I’m parked in the garage.”

They went back through the front doors and into the multi-story parking garage attached to the Idaho Public Sports Arena. Ojacarcu had somehow convinced the city to build the three thousand seat arena and parking garage by pledging to bring sports and entertainment venues to the city. Connor wondered how his boss had accomplished that task with a five thousand seat arena sitting less than four blocks away, while Randi hooked her arm through his and wondered if Connor had time to get her out of her clothes before the team bus left for Nevada.

“I think I’m going to go to Washington,” she said as they walked along Front Street.

“Oh yeah?” he asked.

“I’ll be starting college in January at UW,” she pouted.

“You’ll do great.”

“That’s not what I want you to say,” she said, unhappy that he didn’t seem to care she was going away.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

“I want you to at least be sad that we won’t see each other except while I’m on break.”