Enforcer (16 page)

“Where is she?” Connor persisted.

“I told you, she ain’t here,” Larry answered. Connor kept staring at him until finally Larry added, “She’s probably out turning tricks. She’s a whore, remember?”

Connor studied his face. The little man eventually looked away, first at Petre, then at the floor. Larry shifted around on the couch every few seconds, most likely his need to get Connor and Petre out of his house so he could shoot up or smoke up another hit. He looked uncomfortable, but not particularly guilty about anything.

“Did you take that collar off her neck?” Connor asked.

“Yes,” was all Larry would say.

“You better not be lying,” Connor threatened.

“I just said I took the fucking collar off, didn’t I?”

“You’ll understand if I don’t give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Man, fuck you. I took the collar off. I can’t make her quit doing shit she wants to do.”

Connor took a step toward the couch, noting that Petre had reached his hand into his jacket to grab his pistol. Larry flinched, but held Connor’s gaze. Connor took another step, causing the junkie to try to press himself into the rear cushion of the couch.

“You better not be fucking with me,” Connor said as he leaned down.

“Just take the damn money. I got shit to do,” Larry said.

Connor stepped back to where Petre stood, thumbing through the stacks of bills one more time. He reached for the doorknob to exit, but turned around instead.

“How about we take a look around this shithole just so I can have some piece of mind,” Connor said to Larry.

“Jesus Christ. She ain’t here, man. You want to fuck her that bad, I’ll set you an appointment.”

Petre’s pistol was out and waving at Larry to get up and go down the hall. The junkie let out an exasperated breath but got off the couch and walked down the hallway, opening any closed doors. Connor checked each room and the hallway closet while Petre watched from the end of the hall. There was no sign of Jera anywhere, other than clothes randomly placed in just about every room. Connor wasn’t even sure the clothes were hers.

“All right, asshole. We’ll see you next week then. Mr. Ojacarcu wishes to express his gratitude, and expects you to continue doing business with him as before.” Connor patted Larry’s greasy head and walked past Petre to the front door.

“Yeah, sure,” Larry mumbled. “Tell him I said thank you for working with me.”

Larry didn’t sound thankful for anything other than not getting the shit kicked out of him. Connor wished he could tell him that if he hadn’t paid up, he’d probably have gotten a visit from Dracul instead. It wasn’t a pleasant thought though, and no matter how much the junkie might deserve to get his face battered because of his mouth, in Connor’s mind he hadn’t done anything to deserve to die. Not even keeping a collar around Jera’s neck and pimping her to anyone with a few dollars was enough to justify being murdered, but Connor wasn’t the one who made those decisions.

He opened the front door and walked back into the fresh air, Petre following him. They got in the Lincoln and sat for a minute before Petre pulled out and headed back to the freeway.

“You think she is free of collar?” Petre asked as he made a left onto Freeport.

“He better hope she is,” Connor said. “I’ll stomp his goddamn face in if not.”

“You cannot,” Petre said. “Mr. Ojacarcu has not given permission.”

“I don’t give a shit if Jesus or Santa Claus didn’t give permission.”

“Connor. Listen to me. Mr. Ojacarcu is businessman. This junkie, he makes good money for Mr. Ojacarcu. Mr. Ojacarcu does not care about this girl, only money. You must not act out of turn.”

“You mean ‘out of line’ I think,” Connor corrected him. “You’re right. But that doesn’t mean I can’t come back on my own with a ski mask on and kick his door in and beat the living shit out of him with a baseball bat.”

“Da, you can do such a thing. But you should not. I do not understand your obsession with this girl. She is interesting, but she is trouble. You can fuck any girl. Do not waste time with this one.”

“Why not? You wasted your time with a whore.”

Petre slammed on the brakes and veered into a parking spot along Freeport. Connor wondered for a moment if Petre would take his gun out and shoot him, or at the least, whip him across the face with it.

“Tâmpitule!” Petre yelled.
Asshole
. “I did not make Ilinca a
muistă
! I loved her before. This girl, this Jera that you are in love with, she is a junkie.
A
cocotă
. She is trouble. Why do you care what she does?”

“Because she’s a human being, not a slave,” Connor said, getting angry himself.

“It is not your worry. It only means trouble. Eventually it is trouble with Mr. Ojacarcu. You do not want this.”

“She doesn’t deserve to wear a collar,” Connor said. “I don’t give a shit that she’s a whore. She can suck any dick she wants, but she doesn’t deserve to be abused like an animal.”

“If she runs to the store, then it is not your trouble with Mr. Ojacarcu. If this happens, I will stand behind you. If you interfere beyond this, I cannot protect you if Mr. Ojacarcu demands punishment. I am loyal, Connor. I have learned my lesson. Prietenul meu. You are my friend. You do not want to learn this lesson. Listen to me. Please.”

“Okay,” Connor said, wanting to drop it. He didn’t want to argue with Petre.

“Be wise,” Petre said as he shifted the car into reverse and backed out onto Freeport. “Find a good woman, not this one. Do not let Mr. Ojacarcu find out your woman. He is not evil to us, but he will use it against you if you are in trouble with him. I know this. Mr. Ojacarcu and Mr. Rohozeanu are same person. Not same, but are alike. This is what they do, how they become powerful.”

“Okay, okay. Shut the fuck up and drive.”

They didn’t exchange another word until Petre dropped him off at his apartment. Petre had suggested they could go have a beer or watch a game on television, but Connor didn’t want to be around him. He felt bad that he had hurt Petre’s feelings, but he also felt anger at Petre’s inability to separate loyalty from being a heartless bastard. Connor had no doubt that if their boss ordered him to go with Dracul to kill Jera, Petre would not refuse. Petre would not even refuse if the boss ordered him to kill her without Dracul.

*****

Dana put her coat on the counter and sat down in the recliner with Connor. She could see something was wrong by his expression, but she wasn’t sure if she should ask about it. They’d been dating for a short time, and while Connor had treated her like a girlfriend, he remained distant in ways that she didn’t like. She was still unnerved at the two times she’d slept over and he had woken up screaming.

“Are you all right?” she finally asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, but his voice was sullen, unhappy.

“Are you sure?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound like a nag. She didn’t want to cross some invisible line of pushing too far into his business.

“No,” he said.

Dana didn’t know what to say. His body language and his voice were not the friendly, humorous Connor she’d come to care about. He’d wormed his way into her heart over the last few weeks, and she found herself thinking about him more than she should have, especially during school. When he left with the team to play out of town, she would turn on the radio and listen to the games, hoping to hear his name.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

She wondered if it were a problem between him and his teammates. During the games at home, he normally only got on the ice a couple of times per game, and mostly to fight. During the games on the road, she only heard the play-by-play announcer call his name a few times per game, though when he was fighting, the announcer would shout Connor’s name with excitement.

“I don’t know,” he said. He reached over and took hold of her hand while laying his head on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, putting her free hand on his face, holding his head to her.

Connor had no idea how to tell her anything without putting her in danger. He wanted to tell her everything, confess to her that he was an accomplice to murder, that he was an enforcer off the ice, hurting people at the command of the team’s owner. He needed to tell her, to make her understand that they couldn’t be together safely, that she needed to leave and forget she’d ever met him.

He couldn’t do any of those things. Dana was the only person in his life who seemed to give a damn about him as a person. Everyone else saw him as an employee or a hockey player, not a real person with real feelings and a life away from the rink. He needed her, and that knowledge made him afraid. Afraid that she was going to end up like Helen, or worse, like Ilinca.

“I want to…” he trailed off, not sure how to say anything, wondering if he was about to make a mistake. “I… I don’t know. Things are really messed up right now for me.”

“Is it me?” Dana asked. “Is there someone else?”

“God no,” Connor said, looking into her eyes while squeezing her hand tightly. “There’s no one else. Why would you think that?”

“Come on, Connor. I may not have grown up with hockey, but I’ve grown up around football and basketball. I know how women throw themselves at athletes. I’m not stupid. You’re the most popular player on the team, probably the most popular athlete in the state. You can’t tell me you haven’t had offers from strange women for no other reason.”

“I have,” he said. “I’ve slept with enough of them, that’s true. But that isn’t it. It doesn’t involve you.”

Dana looked at him, trying to gauge if he was telling the truth. She had no real reason to not believe him. She liked him, liked him more than she wanted to. She’d been involved with a popular running back in high school, and it had ended in disaster, hurting her so badly that she swore she’d never date another athlete again.

“Your team?” she asked.

“Sort of,” was all he would say. She could see the struggle on his face, but she didn’t know what he was struggling with.

“It’s okay,” she said again, kissing him. “You can tell me if you want, or not. I’m not going to pry. I just want to make sure I’m not the one making you upset, and I want to make sure I’m not competing with someone else.”

“You don’t have any competition,” he said, trying to smile.

“Good. I don’t want you to give up whatever you are used to just to be with me. I just don’t want to get hurt.”

“Does that mean we are ‘going steady?’” he asked.

“I don’t know. Does it?”

“Don’t answer my question with another question,” he said with a grin. “Besides, I asked you first.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What are we doing?”

“Enjoying each other? Living life to the fullest?”

“God, Connor,” she groaned, “that sounds like something people on dating websites say.”

“Yeah, it is pretty corny.”

“So… what are we? Are we a couple? Or are we just sleeping together for now?”

“Do we have to be anything?” he asked, and was sorry the instant he said it. He could tell from the way her face screwed up that he’d hurt her feelings. “I don’t mean it that way,” he said.

“No, it’s fine. It really is. You’re right, we don’t have to be anything. As long as we’re both having fun, right? Are you having fun?”

“Not at this exact moment,” he answered. “Overall, yes. I… I really like you, Dana. But I don’t know if I’m what you want.”

“You’re what I want at the moment. You’re what I’ve wanted for the last few weeks. Do I have to want more than that right now?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Well then,” she said, kissing him on the neck and then the ear, “I really like you too. Are we going to be all right with just that?”

“Yeah,” he said, letting go of her hand and putting his hand under her shirt. She gave a soft moan in his ear. Within a few minutes they had made their way to the bedroom.

*****

Connor woke to the ringing of his phone. For a moment he was trapped between the dream world and the real world, unsure of which was which. When he didn’t see Travis or Niklas, but felt Dana’s naked body next to him, he understood that he’d been interrupted from a nightmare. He would gladly take being woken up in the middle of the night for any reason instead of having to go through the nightmare again.

“Hello?” he asked, wiping sleep from his eyes. The number that appeared on the screen before he answered was unfamiliar.

“Is this, uh, Connor?” the man on the other end asked.

Connor wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear someone crying in the background. He looked over at Dana, thinking for a moment it was her. He listened carefully, but she was breathing deeply. She hadn’t even stirred at the sound of his phone.

“Who is this?” he asked, sure now that the crying was coming from wherever the man was calling him from.

“Uh… this is Dave at Gas-Mart. In Caldwell. You gave Jake Otto, the assistant manager, this number. He made us promise to call you if a woman ever showed up in trouble or asking for help. I think she’s here. I mean, there’s a woman here right now. I think she’s the one you wanted to know about.”