Reckless

by Andrew Gross

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  That Saturday night, at the Hamill rink in Greenwich, the twelve-and-under Trident-Allen Value Fund Bruins took it to the Commack, Long Island, Ducks by the score of six to one.

  As the final buzzer sounded, Hauck stepped onto the ice and gave a handshake to the opposing coach as his players raised their sticks in the air and high-fived their opponents. Jared, whom Hauck had brought along, went onto the ice as well, going, “Good game, Kyle! Good game, Tony.”

  Some of them skated by, knocking elbows with him, saying, “Thanks for getting us ready, dude!”

  As they headed out, Hauck rallied the kids around him for a couple of minutes. “Solid game. Way to play defense, guys.” He clapped. “Okay, remember, we have practice Wednesday at eight. No absentees! Good game, everyone! And remember to collect your gear.”

  As the team filed off the ice, one or two of the parents came over to say hi and congratulate him on the game. While they did, Jared grabbed a stick and took the chance to shoot a few stray pucks into the sideboards. Ted, the rink manager, got in the Zamboni and started to smooth out the ice. It was almost ten—theirs was the last match of the night. Annie was at her café until around eleven. Hauck had said he’d drop Jared off, hang out at the bar, and have dessert. Celebrate the win.

  Within minutes, the place was virtually empty. Elated kids piled into their parents’ cars. The Zamboni finished up on the ice. Ted dimmed the lights.

  Hauck noticed a guy in a black nylon jacket he had never seen before just watching from the other end of the rink.

  “Hey, Ted, you got a minute!”

  Hauck went over and chatted with the manager, whom he knew from when he was on the force, proposing the idea of a fund-raiser for an assistant coach of one of the other teams who had lost his job and was in need of a kidney transplant. Hauck thought maybe he could get the police and firemen to spar off in an exhibition.

  “Jared,” he yelled, “you mind going into the locker room and grabbing me the team bag?” The duffel held a bunch of practice pucks and rolls of tape, some extra equipment. Hauck had tossed his own gear in there after the skate-around.

  Jared waved. “Sure, Ty.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” the manager said. “Lemme check the schedule and see what’s free.”

  “That would be great, Ted.”

  “Solid game tonight,” Ted called, parking the Zamboni.

  Hauck tossed him a thumbs-up. “Yeah, guess they listen every once in a while!”

  He made his way back across the ice. He grabbed his jacket from off the bench. He waited for Jared to come out with the bag. He’d been in there a long time.

  Something wasn’t feeling right to him. Call it twenty years on the job, his antennae buzzing. He glanced to the far end of the ice.

  The man in the Windbreaker wasn’t there.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Red O’Toole pulled the van into the crowded lot a little before nine thirty and waited outside the rink.

  Sonny Merced hunched beside him in the passenger seat. They’d been together before, on the Glassman job. They’d served together back in the Sandbox. But Sonny’s tale was just a bit different than his. He was an expert with a knife, could skin a cat with one, not to mention a man—and O’Toole had seen him. At Camp Victory, he’d been accused of rape three times. But getting female grunts to testify was another tale and each time they backed down. The third time, he got bounced home. Sonny was a liability the army didn’t need. He kicked around with a couple of private security firms, came home, got a job digging pools in Michigan, no chance of a real job. Then he fell into drugs and had to support his habit.

  O’Toole looked at what he did as a job, the only one he was qualified for. Sonny looked at it as a thrill.

  The parking lot was filled. Some kind of game was obviously going on. A half hour ago, he had gone and stuck his head in the rink and saw the match still in progress. Parents cheering. The scoreboard ticking down. Now, he looked at his watch and nudged Sonny. “Mount up. It’s showtime, man.”

  People finally started coming out of the rink. Parents starting up their cars, kids yelping, whooping it up, sticks held high. In a couple of minutes, the parking lot grew empty, except for a couple of cars.

  They didn’t see Hauck or the kid.

  O’Toole told Sonny, “Go in and see what’s going on.”

  Sonny zipped up his black nylon Windbreaker and crawled out of the van.

  A few minutes passed. O’Toole put on the radio. He didn’t entirely trust Sonny. The dude was reckless, a little crazed. It always got him into trouble. But O’Toole always knew how to calm him down.

  Suddenly his throwaway cell phone rang. “What the hell is going on? I told you to check it out, not go for a goddamn skate.”

  “Relax,” Sonny Merced said, “start the car. I’m doing it now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Jared!” Hauck shouted toward the locker room and waited for a reply.

  None came.

  The whole rink was dark now. Ted was somewhere in the back. The stranger who he’d seen standing at the opposite end of the rink was nowhere to be found. The antennae for trouble Hauck had built up over the years was buzzing like crazy.

  “Jared!” he called out again. Why wasn’t he answering?

  Something was wrong.

  He grabbed a stray stick off the glass and headed back to the locker room, his blood starting to race with trepidation. This was Annie’s son. He turned the corner, accelerating into a run, and pushed through the swinging doors into the locker room, shouting, “Jared?”

  “Ty!” His voice came back. Jared’s voice. Scared.

  He turned to the lockers and saw the man he had spotted lurking outside, his hand cupped over Jared’s mouth, the boy’s eyes wide as melons, fear in them. He was dragging Jared toward the bathroom area. The guy had a heavy stubble on his face, sideburns, and a thick mustache. He looked about fifty but he was probably twenty years younger. Wearing a black nylon jacket.

  He had a knife held under Jared’s chin.

  Hauck froze.

  “Hey, hero, get the fuck out of here!” The man glared at Hauck. With one arm he jerked Jared’s head to the side. With the other, he deftly clenched the blade underneath Jared’s jaw. “Do what I say, man, or I’ll split him in two.”

  Jared, who didn’t have it in him to hurt a flea, twisted vainly against the man’s grasp, hyperventilating.

  Tears flashed in his petrified eyes.

  “Let the boy go,” Hauck said. He squeezed the hockey stick two fisted and took a step toward them, fixing on the man’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

  “You know damn well why I’m here. Doesn’t he, kid? Ask him why I’m here. Ask him what he’s stuck his nose into.” He dug the blade point into Jared’s Adam’s apple, causing the boy’s eyes to bulge. “You and I, kid. We’re walking out of here. You first.” He motioned to Hauck. “One wrong move”—he twitched the sharp edge—“just one, Mr. Ex-Cop, and you can kiss your goofy little buddy here good-bye.”

  Jared freed his mouth momentarily. Gripped by fear, confusion, he uttered, “Why is he doing this, Ty?”

  “Jared, I’m not going to let him hurt you,” Hauck said. His blood pulsed with rage and intensity. “He’s an innocent kid,” he said to the man. “You can see he’s not all together. Let him go. Take me. It’s what you came here for anyway, isn’t it?”

  “Ty…” Jared’s face was white, his breaths rapid and hard. “Don’t let him hurt me, Ty. Okay?”

  “He won’t, Jared.” The man knew who he was. Which he realized was bad. This wasn’t some random pervert. Hauck knew he was clearly here for him. He also realized there was no gain in killing the boy. If Hauck went at him, it would only incapacitate the blade.

  “He’s going to let you go.” Hauck looked in Jared’s cowering eyes, taking a step closer. Then he switched to the attacker. “And when he does, Jared”—Hauck flexed the stick—“I want you to run out
of here, fast as you can. Don’t go outside.” It occurred to Hauck the man might not be alone. “Stay in the rink. I want you to find Ted and hide somewhere. Call 911.”

  Jared nodded fearfully. Hauck took another step. “You understand, don’t you, son?”

  He nodded again, petrified.

  Hauck winked at him. “Good.”

  The man arched back the boy’s neck, chortling, “Fuck I’m going to let him go…”

  Hauck shifted his gaze solidly to the man. The knife gleamed. An army combat blade. He no longer felt nerves, just that he was the only thing between the boy’s life and death, and he was glad it was him. He gave the man a purposeful smile.

  “You know damn well I’m not gonna let that boy out of my sight.”

  The assailant tensed his grip on the blade.

  “You came for me.” Hauck nodded to the man. “Have at it, asshole.”

  He lunged with the stick at his attacker’s head.

  Hauck knew from twenty years on the job what people in these situations do, no matter what they’ve threatened, when a SWAT team charges into a room. They defend themselves. What the survival instinct orders them to do.

  The man threw up his hands.

  Stick high, Hauck swung it with all his might across the assailant’s shoulder, the arm holding the knife. The man took a step back, reflexively put out his arm, letting Jared go.

  As the stick split in half across his arm.

  The man cried out. Jared ran, screaming, out of the assailant’s grasp. Hauck took what was left of the stick and charged him, knocking the guy backward and pinning the arm holding the knife against the concrete locker-room wall.

  He tried to squeeze the blade from the man’s grip.

  “Jared, get out! Do as I say. Get out of here!”

  But the boy just stood there, paralyzed, as Hauck wrestled for the blade against the wall. The man was strong. Like Hauck suspected, no amateur. He kept squeezing the man’s arm against the wall, trying to pry the knife free. “Jared, go!”

  He spun, tried to ram the man in his belly with the butt of the stick, but the assailant pivoted and drove his knee into Hauck’s groin, crushing the air out of him. The pain shot through him. He wrenched Hauck back, rolling him over a bench, against the edge of an open, metal locker door.

  Hauck felt dazed, breathless, his belly on fire like he’d been speared.

  The man came at him, flexing the blade in a way that said he knew exactly how to use it. Hauck scrambled to his feet, clinging to the jagged edge of the stick to defend himself.

  The man grinned cockily. “Always have to play the hero, don’t you, dude.”

  He swung, ripping through Hauck’s sweatshirt, scraping Hauck on the arm as Hauck tried to block the knife with the shaft of the stick.

  Hauck cried out in pain.

  He looked past him for a second. Jared was still standing there, paralyzed with fear. “Jared, please!”

  The attacker dove at him again. This time Hauck flung out an open metal locker door, catching him flush. Skates, pads cascading all over them. Summoning every bit of his strength, Hauck slammed the open door against the man’s hand—two, three times—trying to free the knife. Blood rushed into the guy’s face as he tried to hold on.

  Miraculously, the knife fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor.

  Both their eyes darted to it.

  With his free hand, the assailant took Hauck by the collar and drove him hard against the locker, the pain shooting up his spine. In the same motion, he lunged across the floor for the blade. Hauck dove on him, blood trickling from his mouth, his arm burning like it had been flayed by a slicing machine. They both fell across the wooden bench and onto the floor. The man spun Hauck on his back. Suddenly he picked up the splintered hockey stick and pinned it across Hauck’s throat, venom in his eyes. Hauck’s left arm was momentarily pinned behind the metal legs of the bench. Straining, the man realized his advantage and forced the stick into Hauck’s larynx.

  “Chew on this, fucker.”

  Hauck pushed back against it vainly, his arm finally freed, but it was too late.

  The assailant was too strong, too adept, and he leaned on top of Hauck with all his leverage. Hauck started to gag. He couldn’t push it back. His eyes flashed to Jared standing across the room, transfixed, squeezing a sliver of space for air, shouting to him, “Jared, please, run. Now!”

  The boy took a step toward the door.

  Hauck felt the oxygen and strength slowly seeping out of him. He strained, lungs bursting, pushing back with everything he had, twisting his torso to push the guy off. But he couldn’t! He looked into the dark, wide pupils of the man’s gloating eyes and realized, his breaths growing short and frantic, he might die here.

  “Next time, be careful where you stick your nose…” The man grinned triumphantly.

  Hauck’s lungs were exploding. He looked helplessly at Jared one more time, unable to even beg him now. With the last of his strength, he reached, desperate for anything he could find, fingers grasping at his side—pads, towels, nothing…

  A skate.

  Suddenly he felt his hand come into contact with it. His fingers fumbled at the leather boot, the laces. He slid it along the floor, clutching on to the laces.

  This could save his life.

  That’s when he heard someone scream. “Get off him! Get off!”

  Jared coming over and beating on the man. What was he doing?

  The boy’s hands around the man’s neck, trying to twist him back. “Let him go!”

  Jared’s blows were meaningless. The man flung his arm around, sending him flying into the wall of lockers.

  It gave Hauck the instant he needed.

  He squeezed on the boot and swung it upward, catching the startled attacker in the face just as he turned back, his eyes widening in surprise.

  The grunt that came out of him was fearful, garbled; his hands rushed to his face.

  Hauck spun him off. They both fell onto the floor, Hauck rolling on top of him. He heard a deep-rooted groan, more of a gurgling sound, and a crack, the weight of Hauck’s body lodging the skate blade deep in his attacker’s chest.

  A matted slick of blood appeared.

  Eyes glazing over, the man began to breathe heavily. Blood oozed from his jacket.

  Hauck rolled off him, collapsing back in exhaustion against the row of lockers.

  The man just looked at him, helpless, a pool of dark blood building up by his side.

  “Who?” Hauck’s throat was so tight and rasping he could barely speak. “Who sent you?”

  The man just looked at him, taking short, croaking breaths. Denial in his eyes. Lips quivering. Until he stopped.

  Jared ran up to Hauck. He pulled the traumatized boy against him, an arm around his shoulders, stroking his face. “It’s going to be alright, son,” he said, shielding Jared’s view from the bloody sight of the man dying.

  He repeated it, telling himself as well. “It’s going to be okay.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Greenwich police arrived a few minutes later. The first officer, a ten-year vet, found Hauck sitting, bloodied, against a wall outside the locker room, with his arm around Jared. The cop stuck his head inside and came out white-faced. “My God…”

  Maybe two minutes later, the medical team arrived. They checked out Jared—he was okay, thank God, other than a few marks on his neck where the blade had nicked him. Just in a state of shock. Hauck had called Annie. She was on her way now. One of the med techs took a look at Hauck’s arm. The knife wound hadn’t gone too deep, but the flesh was torn pretty good. He’d need stitches.

  Soon after that, the on-duty detectives arrived. Ed Sinclair and Sally Combes, doing the weekend graveyard shift. Followed a short while after by Steve Chrisafoulis, who’d been with his family coming out of the movies in White Plains. Shell-shocked, he looked at Hauck, relieved to find him okay. Hauck’s arm was being dressed and he had lacerations all over his face and neck. St
eve asked, eyes wide in disbelief, “Who won?”

  “We did,” Hauck said. “Six to one.”

  “Not funny, Ty.” The head of detectives shook his head. “What the hell is it with you? Can’t a guy just enjoy a relaxing Saturday night?”

  Hauck shrugged. “If I can’t, why should you?” The med tech applied a temporary bandage to his arm.

  “How’s the kid?” Steve looked over at Jared.

  “A little shaken. Take a look inside. You’ll understand why.”

  Steve nodded, scratching at his mustache. “You?”

  Hauck exhaled, the kind of equivocation in his eye that said he was not exactly sure. He knew he’d come within an inch of losing his life. If he hadn’t found that skate with his last breaths, if Jared hadn’t distracted his assailant, Hauck was pretty sure it would have been him they’d be in there looking over. “Lucky to be alive.”

  “You don’t exactly look it,” Steve said. He put his arm on Hauck’s shoulder and squeezed. “You know we can do this ourselves. Why don’t you go outside and get some air? I’ll have Ed and Sally take your statement in a while.”

  “No. I’m alright.” He pulled himself up.

  The tech finished up on his arm. “That ought to hold.”

  Hauck rolled down his sweatshirt. “Let’s get it done.”

  Steve went in and asked Ed and Sally if he and Hauck could have a minute in the locker room alone. It was an unusual request, but they nodded, “Sure,” given that only a few months ago, Hauck had been their boss.

  Steve stopped and gazed soberly at the inert body, his eyes growing large at the sight of the skate still lodged in his chest, the pool of blood congealing next to him. He shook his head. “Jesus, Ty…”

  “I know.”

  “These hockey dads are just gonna have to learn not to take things so damn seriously.”

  This time Hauck smiled and then told him how it had all happened. Chrisafoulis bent down over the body. He stretched on rubber gloves and turned it, gently, rummaging through the guy’s pockets. “What do you think, was he after you?”