Enforcer (33 page)

“You must. There will be too much hurt if you cannot. I do not want to see her or anyone else hurt. I do not want to see my friend hurt. I do not want to be the one who must hurt you.”

*****

Connor stood in Ojacarcu’s office, Petre next to him, Ojacarcu behind the massive polished desk. Dracul and Vadim were near the door, Vadim looking like he wanted to be anywhere else even though his face was a blank mask. Dracul was unreadable as well, though Connor was sure the man was thinking up new ways to torture him, maybe even to kill him.

“I am not appreciative of violence in my building,” Ojacarcu said to both men standing before him. “I am less appreciative that it is between two of my employees.” The boss leaned forward in his chair. “You will tell me what this is about so we may resolve it and get on with business.”

Connor looked at Petre who remained still, the man’s features revealing nothing. “This asshole,” Connor said, nodding his head toward Petre, “ran a girl off the other night that I wanted to fuck.”

“Why would he do that?” Ojacarcu asked.

“Because he’s an asshole,” Connor replied. When Ojacarcu frowned at him, he went on. “He tried to get with this girl a few nights earlier. She called him Lurch and made fun of him and his shitty English. So he sees me with her and starts telling her that I’m as big of a whore as she is, that I’ve fucked more girls than she could imagine, that it’s just a game for me since I play hockey and can have my pick.”

“Petre,” Ojacarcu said, his frown deepening when he turned his gaze on the man, “you did this?”

Petre only nodded, thankful Connor was able to blend enough truth into the lie, but worried that the story was too thin.

“But why would you do this?” Ojacarcu asked him.

“She was whore,” Petre said. “I see her with many men.”

“But not you?” the boss asked, tilting his head.

“Da. Not me. I am jealous, but this woman, I know her. I have seen her often. She is pretty, but she is… using. Using men. What do you say…?”

“Gold-digger,” Connor offered. “That’s what you called her, right to her face. Don’t pretend you don’t know what you said.”

“Da. Gold-digger. She does not sleep with me because I do not offer her money or car or gifts. Connor, he is young and has money, and no one to spend it on. This girl, she will fuck him because he buys her, like real whore.” Petre remembered what Connor had told him in the car. “If she is slut, she will fuck anyone. Does not want gifts, just the cock. If she is whore, she will fuck for gain. I do not run sluts away. He has helped me fuck sluts before. But whores, they are bad business. I am only trying to help.”

Petre shook his head, giving Connor a look that said he’d taken too many hits to the head during his hockey career for not being able to see things clearly. Connor glared at him, not pretending that he was still furious with the man for what he’d done. Ojacarcu gave both of them a curious look, trying to decide if more violence was about to erupt in his office.

“Here is how we will solve this problem,” the boss said after watching them for a bit. “Petre, you will apologize to him for not explaining to him what you were doing to protect him.” Ojacarcu gave Connor a hard look next. “You will apologize to Petre for striking him. I will not warn you again that you must never assault one of your brothers without permission from me. You both will apologize to me for disturbing my day with this schoolyard nonsense.”

The two men exchanged apologies before giving a sincere one to Ojacarcu together. They were dismissed, Vadim giving them a nervous smile and Dracul looking like a shark about to feast as they passed by and out into the hallway. Neither said a word until they were in the parking garage, getting into one of the Lincolns to begin their day of visiting clients.

“You are becoming a good liar,” Petre told him as he turned the radio up, an old Motley Crue song coming from the speakers. “You did well.”

“Fuck off,” Connor said, not looking at him. “I still hate you.”

CHAPTER 27

Fall

“Let’s talk about your contract,” Mr. Ojacarcu said.

“What about it?” Connor asked.

The late September evening was still warm enough that shorts and a t-shirt were acceptable, even to a sit-down with Ojacarcu on the outdoor deck of Allera, the restaurant attached to the arena complex where the Bombers played.

“You will qualify as a veteran after this upcoming season. The salary will be an increase.” His boss took a sip of an import beer.

“True,” was all Connor said.

He looked down to street level, watching cars and trucks travel the one-way grids of downtown, stopping and starting in a chaotic yet perfect performance.

“You do not wish to play in Boise anymore?” Ojacarcu asked with a raised eyebrow.

“What? No, it’s not that,” he replied, looking away from the street below back to his boss. “I’m sorry, my mind is just a bit full is all.”

“You are having troubles?” Ojacarcu asked in the tone of a concerned parent.

“Not real troubles. Girl troubles I guess you could say.”

“Those
are
the real troubles.” His boss laughed. He waved his hand as if to say
women… when aren’t they a problem?

“I still feel bad about hitting Petre,” Connor said, moving the subject away from girls.

“That is a good thing,” Ojacarcu said to him. “It means he is your friend. If you felt nothing, or worse, felt good about it, it would mean either he was your enemy, or he was Dracul.”

Connor stared at his boss, unsure of what to say. Ojacarcu’s face broke into a grin followed by a hearty laugh. Connor laughed with him, finding just enough dark humor in it to keep his laugh genuine. The man’s face became serious and he leaned across the table toward Connor. “He is a frightening man, yes?” Connor nodded. “It isn’t so good when the boss is scared of one of his own men. However, he is from the old country, has many ties to many families. He is frightening, but he is obedient. Notice I did not say
loyal
.”

Connor had no idea why Ojacarcu was telling him this. The older man had barely spoken to him in the months after assigning him to be Jera’s personal driver.

“But Petre, he is both. Obedient
and
loyal. He too is from the old country. Did you know he was a favorite of the uncle?”

Connor shook his head. He had no clue what his boss was rambling on about. He glanced behind to see if Dracul was nearby, a sudden fear that this was his checkout, a nice five-story fall to the pavement below complete with a couple of witnesses who saw Connor make the leap after they tried to stop him.

Ojacarcu leaned back, and took another sip of his beer. “Don’t worry about Petre. He was only protecting you, and he accepts that you would want to hurt him at first, until you understood why he did it, why he was looking after you. Sometimes when our hearts or our cocks are involved, we have tunnel vision, yes? We don’t see what someone on the outside sees, someone like Petre who likes you, knows how much I like you. You understand?”

“Yes,” Connor said, feeling a wave of guilt run through him.

Dana had been gone a month, and it no longer hurt. If they had at least stayed in contact, emailing or texting each other, it would hurt more each day. He would have gone after her. He hated Petre for it, but he understood, was even thankful to the big Romanian.

“This girl you are having trouble with,” Ojacarcu said pausing to lift the beer and drain the bottle. “You are in love with her?” He set the bottle on the table and waved for the bartender to bring him another.

“No, she’s just one of the downtown girls, a college student. She likes me more than I like her, that kind of thing.”

“Ah,” Ojacarcu said as he rubbed his chin. “You are not seeing her long then?”

Connor shook his head. “Nah, that’s the problem, I think. For her. She wants to be up my ass all the time, but I’m just looking for fun, nothing serious. I dated a couple of girls steady since I’ve been here, but I need to be able to do what I want, when I want.”

“You’ve never met ‘the one’ then,” his boss grinned. “You will know when you do. You will only think about
her
pussy, not every wild one that is thrown your way by horny girls who love to fuck athletes.”

Connor forced himself to grin, even felt his face turning red, though it was more from anger than embarrassment. He fantasized about being able to tell the cops that the old man had thrown himself off the balcony. However, there would be too many witnesses that would have seen him grab Ojacarcu and give him a sailor’s toss.

“Then I haven’t met her yet. I like one for a few days, maybe a week if
it
is made of gold, but then I see how many different ones there are in the world, even the small part of the world I live in here, and I think ‘
no way
.’”

“Is this girl Dana one that you thought had a pizda made of gold?” Ojacarcu asked, studying Connor’s face.

Connor shrugged. “Yeah, it was made of gold. For a couple of weeks. She wanted to get serious, right around the playoffs. She was giving it up so I gave her tickets to keep her interested. Some women, they’re just like men. They only want the conquest and they want you to pack your shit up and go home right after.”

“Those are the scariest ones!” his boss cried out, laughing. “They are the ones you want to hang around for. Now you know how the poor women feel that fall in love with you, yes?”

Connor chuckled. “Yeah, and mostly the ones that want you to leave when you want to stay are the married ones. They just want some strange man for an hour or two of guilty fun. You can’t have them even if they wanted you to stick around.”

“True, true. You can fuck the married ones, you just can’t have a relationship with them,” his boss said. “So this Dana wasn’t one to keep around?”

“Nah, she was another needy one,” he told Ojacarcu, willing himself to stay seated and not try to act out his imagination of giving the man a heave-ho off the edge of the building. “She graduated from BSU and when we split, she bailed for back east somewhere. Her parents and some job she was going to get. She was going to be a teacher anyway, the only thing you can do with a Literature degree as far as I know.”

Ojacarcu grinned. “Women,” he said, raising his bottle to toast Connor.

“Can’t live with them, can’t kill them,” Connor said, clinking his beer against his boss’.

*****

Connor studied his fingernails as Petre drove toward Caldwell. Another trip to see his old pal Larry. The little scumbag hadn’t been allowed forget how upset Connor still was with him.

He turned to Petre and said, “He knew about Dana.”

“He asked you about her?” Petre asked with surprise.

“He tried to lead me into a conversation. I purposely told him I was having girl troubles to see if he would mention it.”

“You play a dangerous game, my friend.”

“Two can play it,” Connor countered.

“One of you can end up dead from losing the game,” Petre warned him.

“I told him I was having trouble getting rid of one that wanted to be my girlfriend. Told him I was sticking with tagging someone different each night.”

“Tagging?”

“Yeah. Banging. Fucking. Sexing.”

Petre smiled. “So you are sexing many girls, but he asked about Dana?”

“He did, out of the blue, and I pretended not to even be surprised that he would know the name of one of the girls I’d been with. I just babbled on about how we were dating during the playoffs and I was giving her my tickets, but once the playoffs were over, she wanted to be steady and I said no, so she ran off back east since she had graduated.”

“You shouldn’t have mentioned anywhere,” Petre said.

“Don’t worry, it is the exact opposite way she went.”

“How do you know this?” Petre asked, alarmed that the girl was foolish and continued to contact Connor.

“Because I do. The reason I haven’t gone after her is because there are probably ten million other people there, spread out over a couple of hundred square miles. I’d never find her. Even if I did find her, what would I say? I’m still working for Ojacarcu, still driving a whore around, getting ready for another hockey season where I’ll get to play two to four minutes per game other than the five minutes in the box here and there for fighting? I’ve got nothing to offer her except danger.”

“You are very wise, my friend,” Petre said.

“Fuck you. I still hate you for what you did. But I understand it. I won’t ever forgive you for it. But you were right, and me admitting I was wrong is almost as good as forgiveness.”

“I will accept that you were wrong and I was right,” Petre said brightly.

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of Larry’s shack. Connor supposed it was still a house, but he could only think of the place as a shack now. Larry opened the door and let them in, Petre closing it behind them. The junkie didn’t say a word, and went straight to the bedroom to retrieve the money. Connor took up his position in the hallway, with Petre at the door.