Enforcer (19 page)

The sound of her wolfing down food was unpleasant. Connor couldn’t remember ever being as hungry as she seemed to be. He almost laughed when she sucked on the shake’s straw for too long and was rewarded with a cold headache. He knew the feeling well. He wiped the smile from his face before it turned into a laugh. She was a junkie, a dangerous one who was going to end up getting him in trouble. He was sure of it.

Jera balled up the paper sack with the remnants of the meal in it, sucked on the straw until a gurgling noise came from the cup, then stood up and let out a belch that would make anyone in the team’s locker room proud. He held out his hand and she gave him the trash.

“I have an extra toothbrush that hasn’t been opened yet,” he told her as he tossed the trash in the garbage can. He’d bought a couple for Dana, unsure of which kind she would prefer.

“Okay,” Jera said.

They walked into the bathroom together. He handed her an unopened toothbrush and watched her brush her teeth. Connor was amazed her teeth were still in good condition. A bit yellow, a few of them beginning to snaggle and twist, but nowhere near the wreck Larry’s mouth was. He wondered if she brushed her teeth as often as she showered.

“I have to sleep,” he told her after she’d rinsed her mouth out. “You can stay up and watch TV, just keep it down. I have practice in the morning.”

Jera didn’t say anything, only turned to go back into the living room. Connor sighed and turned out the lights in the bedroom, stripped down to his boxers, and slid into a bed that felt cold enough to be a slab at the morgue. He lay on his back for a while, thinking of Dana, thinking of Jera, thinking of the story Petre had told him about Helen and Ilinca. Thinking of Larry’s messed-up face, Dracul’s hard eyes and hateful expression, and even Coach Lamoureux’s disapproving scowl when he screwed up in a game or at practice.

He’d just started to drift off when he heard her enter the bedroom. Connor rolled onto his side, facing the edge of the bed, leaving her the majority of it to sleep on. He felt her slip under the covers. Both of them clung to their edge of the bed, a giant gap in the middle separating them.

He woke up sometime later, her naked body pressed into his back, one arm slung over his chest. He didn’t move, didn’t alert her that he had woken up. He wanted to push her off, tell her to get back on her side of the bed, but something in him refused to issue the command. As he fought within himself about it, he felt the back of his neck growing damp and realized she was crying softly.

CHAPTER 16

“So what are you going to do with her?” Dana asked.

“I don’t know,” Connor answered. “I haven’t thought that part out yet.”

“Does she have any family?” Dana pressed.

“I don’t know.”

“Any friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you even know her name?” Dana asked, getting frustrated.

“Jera,” Connor answered.

“Jera what?”

“Jera…” Connor thought for a few seconds. “I don’t know.”

“Connor, listen to me,” Dana said, leaning forward across the cafe table. “I get it that we aren’t ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ in the official sense, so I’m not trying to butt into your business like we are. But I’ve slept with you more than a few times, and we’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months.

“I really like you, and I want to keep liking you. I like what we are doing. I like that there’s no pressure, no expectations. But I’m having a bit of a problem with what has suddenly happened. I don’t have a problem with you rescuing some woman who was being abused. That’s not noble, that’s having compassion and giving a damn about someone who truly needs it. It’s also just one more thing I like about you, that you aren’t your hockey persona, a ruthless thug who beats on people for money.”

Connor felt uncomfortable. According to what he did for Ojacarcu, he was exactly his hockey persona, intimidating and even physically harming people for money.

“But the thing I’m having a problem with,” she continued, “is that you’ve rescued an abused woman who is a drug addict, and you don’t even know her last name. Not only that, but you’ve left her alone in your apartment. I’m not saying she’s a typical drug addict who is going to rip you off to buy more drugs. Maybe she appreciates what you’ve done enough to not lift any of your things.

“The other problem I’m having is how you know this woman. That kind of goes along with being hurt that you wouldn’t take me with you, or even leave me at your apartment while you went to get her, so I could maybe try to help her when you brought her back. I know, I shouldn’t be upset about that. I’m just the girl you are sleeping with and I probably don’t know the whole story. I get it that you didn’t want her to freak out. Or me to freak out.

“But this secretive shit has got to stop if you want me to stick around. You can take that as jealousy if you want. That’s stupid, but if it helps, fine. But a guy I really like, a guy I’m sleeping with exclusively, a guy that I am spending a hell of a lot of my free time with lately, has a drug addict calling him in the middle of the night to rescue her from what? A drug dealer? My point is, I don’t like being lied to, and I don’t like not knowing what is going on.”

Dana stared at Connor for a little while, waiting to see if he would say anything. Connor’s face was impassive as he tried to formulate answers that would relieve her worries without letting her know something that might put her in danger. Something that might put him in danger. He had no doubt if he confessed to being an accomplice to murder, no matter how unwilling, she would go to the police. She would probably do it to help him, worried that whoever killed the victim would eventually kill him.

Dana grew tired of waiting for him to say something. She grabbed her coat and stood up quickly, leaning down to kiss Connor on the cheek.

“I guess that’s my answer. I’m sorry, Connor, I have to go,” she said, turning to walk away.

Connor reached out and grabbed her sweater, tugging on it lightly to keep her from leaving.

“Wait,” he said. “Please.” She looked back at him, her eyes wet. “Come on, please?”

She stared at him for a moment before sitting down across from him again. The waitress buzzed by, asking if they wanted anything else, frowning at Dana’s attempt to hold back tears, swinging her head around to give Connor a nasty look.

“Look,” Connor began after the waitress moved on, “I’ll tell you. I don’t want you to walk away. I don’t want to stop whatever we are doing. I… I don’t want you to leave. But what I’m going to tell you…”

“It’s okay,” she said, reaching across the table to grab his hand. “I’m a big girl.”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” he said, wrapping his fingers around hers.

Dana smiled. “From the beginning, as cliche as it sounds.”

“I play hockey,” he began, “but when I’m not playing hockey, I work for the owner on the side.” Dana nodded, encouraging him to go on. “I do… jobs that are suited to my skills, I guess you could say. Mr. Ojacarcu, he’s a businessman, as everyone says. He has his hands in a lot of business ventures. Some of these ventures are less than legal in some ways.”

Connor wanted to tell her enough to satisfy her curiosity. Curiosity that was more than justified because of their relationship, and the growing emotions involved. He tried to keep it vague enough to not let her know anything that would cause her to run to the police, or even as selfish as he felt for it, nothing that would cause her to run away from him. He was sure she would anyway once he told her.

“You know, some guy will borrow money from him, and the guy will forget to pay, or maybe refuse to pay. Mr. Ojacarcu sends me out to let the guy know he needs to pay up right now.”

“So the owner is a loan shark?” Dana asked, not quite believing it. She’d heard the name many times over the years. Costache Ojacarcu was a bit of a colorful character who was chummy with the city council and other influential businessmen in the valley.

“Kind of,” Connor answered. Best to leave it at that, he thought. “Sometimes when these guys don’t pay, I have to… rough them up a little.”

“The owner of your hockey team pays you to beat up people who borrow money and don’t pay it back?” she asked. It sounded straight out of a movie.

“Something like that,” Connor said. “One of these guys… he owed the boss some money.” Connor left out the part about Larry being a meth dealer who moved the product for Ojacarcu. “He sent me out to collect the money. When I showed up, his girlfriend was there with him. Real nasty people, and I’m not sure why the boss would loan him money honestly.”

Connor hoped he wouldn’t have to eat the lie. He then hoped he wouldn’t end up screwing up the story that had branched away from reality with the inclusion of that lie. He wasn’t good at lying to anyone, but he’d always heard to mix truth and lie together to make it more believable.

“This girl, Jera, she was pretty beat up looking when I met her the first time. And she had a leather collar around her neck, the kind you can hook a leash to. If she hadn’t been all banged up, I would have thought the two were just into some weird fetish, or maybe it was a fashion statement. She was dirty and bruised up and her boyfriend is a skinny little guy who probably hasn’t showered in months either.

“I had to see him regularly for a while to make sure he kept paying. Every time I’d show up and Jera was there, she looked like she’d just had the shit kicked out of her. I finally told the little guy he better stop beating her up or I would take care of him. One time I got her alone for a minute and gave her my number and told her to call me if she ever needed to escape.

“I couldn’t take seeing her all messed up every time, and always with that collar on her throat. I’m pretty sure the guy used it in a way that wasn’t just some sex game. I guess she’d finally had enough and called me. When I picked her up, she was in bad shape. I didn’t want you to see it, and I didn’t want to tell you this is what I do on the side.”

“I’m not even sure I believe this,” Dana said, looking like she might get up from the booth again. “Where does the dope come in?”

“The dope?” he asked.

“Yeah. You said she was a drug addict. Where does all that fit in.”

“Oh,” he said, angry at himself for slipping and giving up that information at some point. He tried to think of how to tie it in without it tying to his boss. “She’s just a junkie. But that doesn’t mean she deserves to get beat on.”

“Bullshit, Connor,” Dana said as she stood up. “I told you not to lie to me.”

Connor reached out once more and grabbed her by the elbow as she started to walk away. Dana jerked her elbow, trying to free herself from his grip, but his hand was like a vice, strong from a lifetime of holding on to a hockey stick that others constantly tried to slash and whack out of his hands.

“Stop,” he said. “Okay. Fuck. Just sit down.”

Dana attempted to escape his grasp again. “Connor, let me go, or I will scream.”

“Dana, sit down,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell you this, but I guess I have to if it will keep things from ending like this.”

She glared at him, but he wouldn’t let go of her arm. She shuffled backwards again and sat down across from him. He let go of her elbow, watching her to see if it was a ruse and she would bolt.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Connor.”

“Okay. I won’t. But you have to keep this to yourself. Not because I’m protecting myself or even Ojacarcu. But because it will protect you.”

She gave him a dubious look.

“He’s more than a loan shark. He’s what you would call a gangster. Not like a rapper, but like an old-time gangster. A modern day Al Capone. Maybe even mafia, though he isn’t Italian or Russian, or even Jewish.”

“Ojacarcu? The owner of the Bombers?” she asked, unable to accept it, to believe it.

“Yes. He’s a businessman, but he’s more than that. This guy I had to go see, where I met Jera, he’s a meth dealer. He got behind, smoked up his profits or whatever, I don’t know. I don’t get told any of those details. I just get told to go make sure the boss gets his money. It’s real mobster shit when it comes to money and getting paid.

“I went to get the money, and Jera was there. Beat up and all that. The collar around her neck, it has something to do with her being his slave. Sexual, but not in a kinky way. She’s some kind of prostitute. And a meth addict. This guy, he pimps her out. I don’t know if it’s to make money on the side, or to help pay for the drugs they take. The drugs that come from my boss.”

“Jesus, Connor,” Dana said. “How the hell did you get involved in this?”

“I don’t know honestly,” he answered. “When I was let go by the Admirals, I was on my way home. I got a call from Costache Ojacarcu, saying he’d pay me the league maximum to come and play for his team. He assured me I’d make even more than that from being molded into a fan favorite, and that he owned other businesses that he needed
help
with.”

“So you came to play here. How do you go from that to breaking fingers? Did he just tell you one day, ‘hey, Connor, you want to make some extra cash? I got this guy you need to go beat up that owes me drug money?’”

“No, it didn’t start out like that,” Connor said, unhappy to remember any of it. “At first it was ‘go pick up this package on your day off’ and ‘go give this guy his money.’ Innocent stuff. I thought I was just running errands for a while, and the pay was double the two hundred fifty dollars a week I was getting paid to play hockey. Each time, I’d make five hundred bucks for picking up a box and bringing it to the office or delivering an envelope to someone.”