Hitmen Triumph (6 page)

That's how I knew my fm transmitter in the video store would pick up the conversation
between Mercedes and Counter Guy. It would be as clear to me as if I were still standing there.

“Okay,” she said. “We're alone.”

“Did you see that guy's goofy hair?” Counter Guy said. “And that lame mustache?”

“The movie,” she replied. “You've got it, right? My girlfriend goes out with Nate, who plays for the Hitmen. I'm sure this is the place she was talking about.”

“The DVD is going to cost you twenty-five dollars.”

“That's steep,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. “It won't be out on a commercial DVD for a few months. You can always wait.”

“I don't know,” she answered. “It still seems like a lot.”

“Get a few of your friends to chip in,” he said. “Watch it together. It will still be cheaper than going to a theater.”

“Well,” she said. “Now that you put it that way.”

“Cash only,” he said.

Cash. Like the cash that Nate had these days?

“Right,” Mercedes said. “It's in here somewhere.”

I heard rustling. She must have found the cash in her huge bag, because the next thing I heard was the sound of a movie case being plunked down on the counter.

“Thanks,” he said. “Don't suppose you're looking for a boyfriend?”

“Wouldn't be you if I was,” Mercedes said.

“Hey,” he said. “I make plenty of money. We could go to a lot of cool places.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Remember your comment about that guy's goofy hair and lame mustache?”

“You liked
him
?”

“I don't even know him,” she said. “But I don't like people who judge other people by appearances. You might have money, but it doesn't make up for being mean.”

“Fine,” he said. “You don't sound like much fun anyway.”

She didn't answer. A second later, I heard
the bell over the door ring. Then I saw her step onto the sidewalk outside the store. She turned away from me, so I didn't have to worry about hiding from her.

I did have to worry about something else.

My FM was still in the movie rental place. It was worth a lot of money. I couldn't leave it behind. I'd have to go back in and tell the guy I'd gone to my car to get my wallet. Then I'd have to pick out one of the Bruce Lee DVDS and pay for it. I sure didn't want him guessing what I had done or what I had learned.

Halfway back to the door, I froze at a new sound that reached me from inside the store. The sound was loud and rude, like a startled duck quacking when you step on it. Something you want to make sure you don't smell.

“Dude,” Counter Guy said to himself. “Good one!”

Then a few seconds later, he coughed and gagged and muttered, “Dude, bad one. Trying to commit suicide?”

I decided to wait a few more minutes before I went back into the store. It was a small store. I wanted to make sure the air had cleared out before I went in for a movie. I wasn't interested in any bonus features.

I went into a corner against the defenseman for the Lethbridge Hurricanes. No matter how badly he wanted to win the fight for the puck, I knew I wanted it worse.

Five minutes into overtime, we hadn't lost our second game of the season. Yet. The score was 3–3. Next goal won the game.

We were playing the Hurricanes in their building. Lethbridge is only a few hours away from Calgary; it was an away game
against them. We would play them on our home ice the next night.

I couldn't speak for the rest of the team, but I felt some desperation. We should have easily won the game already. Things seemed out of sync though. For all lines. But especially ours.

With me at left wing and Nate at center, that left “Rooster” Joe MacAllister on right wing. We called him Rooster because he had bright red hair that no amount of hair gel could tame.

Rooster was a fighter. Quick-tempered in a way that surprised no one when they saw his hair color.

All night, we'd been missing opportunities. Passes going into skates instead of stick blades. Weak shots on net. Falling into the corners. Of the three Hitmen goals, our line had contributed zero points. Of the three Lethbridge goals against us, our line had been on the ice for two.

Bad as we had been all night, I told myself, it was going to end now.

I went into the corner hard. The defenseman
had turned his body to protect the puck. He brought up an elbow that stung my jaw.

No quitting!

I wasn't worried about damage to my cochlear implant. I never worried about it. Not that things couldn't go wrong. Some parents might never have let a kid with an implant go to the level of hockey that I played. Hockey was a sport where your head could get banged around, and there was always the chance it would damage not only the implant, but me.

My parents were dead, and in my foster homes there were plenty of other things for adults to worry about, so continuing in hockey was not something I had to fight for. The cochlear implant? In one way, of course, I cared. I didn't want it damaged, and I didn't want to lose the hearing that it gave me. My helmet had extra padding, and I didn't wear the spider or processor during games, so that lessened the risk.

But if I let fear dictate how to live my life, I would be giving in to a different kind of bully. I hate bullies. I wasn't going to let my
hearing loss stop me from facing challenges. Early on I had decided to take the risk.

So when that elbow stung my jaw hard, I dug in to fight even harder for the puck. I hoped the referee would call a penalty. Not that I'd be able to hear him blow the whistle, since I wasn't wearing either my spider or my processor.

If the Hurricanes' defenseman relaxed, then the whistle had ended the play.

He didn't relax. No penalty.

He fought just as hard for the puck as I did.

Didn't matter. I wanted it more.

Two seconds later, I chipped it out from his skates and sent it farther down the boards.

Quick glance for Nate. All through our playing career, I had only needed a quick glance. Sometimes, not even that. My radar for his presence was something I wasn't ever able to explain, not even to myself. The closest I could get was that we were twins. Maybe our bond had become even stronger after we were orphaned and knew we could depend only on each other.

Still, the radar was spooky. Always had been. That's what had made us almost legendary at every level we had played together. That's why the Hitmen had gone to so much trouble to put us together.

Except tonight, like at the last game, it wasn't working. I couldn't tell where Nate was. Not without looking around too long and giving up the puck that I'd just fought so hard to get.

I put my head down and scooped the puck.

I didn't want to give up a bad pass, so I held on to it. Normally that wasn't my style. I was a passer, a set-up man. Nate did the fancy stuff.

Where was he?

I spun in a tight circle. The Hurricanes' right winger moved in on me, covering for the defenseman.

I faked my shoulders one way, moved my hips the other. Just like that, I was clear. For a second.

Then I spotted Nate. He'd drifted to the other side of the net.

I raced for the top of the face-off circle with the puck. Nate was waiting. Like always. There was a gap to feed him the puck. If I snapped the pass, he'd be in a great position to flick it into the net before the goalie turned. We'd win with an overtime goal.

Instead I felt a surge of anger. Why give him the glory game after game? How many times did he pass me the puck? Hadn't I just proven I could hold onto the puck and get through traffic?

I held on longer. The Hurricanes' center was dogging me. I spun again. All I needed to do was get clear of him and then fake a pass to Nate and instead, wrist the puck to the other side of the net.

Yeah. The deaf guy could be a hero for a change.

Except as I spun, I lost the puck.

The Hurricanes' center was like a wolf on a helpless rabbit, snagging the puck and churning up ice in a burst of speed that left me standing as if someone had tied my skates together.

His wingers joined him.

Nate was still back at the Hurricanes' net, waiting for a pass. Which left him badly out of position.

It gave the Hurricanes a three-on-two rush against our defenseman. That began a three-on-one when our right defenseman caught the edge of his skate in a crack on the ice and fell.

Five seconds later, the Hurricanes scored.

I felt my shoulders slump. Then I felt someone slap my shoulder from behind.

I turned.

It was Nate.

He was yelling. I couldn't hear him, of course. But I was able to read his lips.

“What were you thinking? I was wide open! Why didn't you pass?”

“I'm learning from you,” I said. At that moment, I didn't like him very much. Thinking about his involvement with a bunch of bikers.

He skated in closer, yelling more words that were easy to read on his lips. “What? Learning what?”

“Learning how to be a puck hog,” I said. I was mad about losing the puck. Mad about losing the game. Mad about losing my temper. “So maybe you should start to learn from me.”

He stared at me, his eyes bugging.

“Yeah,” I said. “Any time you have the puck, I make sure I'm in position to head back up the ice to make a defensive play, because you might lose the puck. Maybe you should start doing the same when I have the puck. Or maybe start passing to me when I'm open. Until then, good luck getting anything from me.”

I wouldn't have guessed it would be possible for his eyes to bug out any farther, but they did.

He grabbed my shoulder.

I shook off his hand. If he was going to fight, I was ready.

That's when Rooster stepped between us. Nate skated away. I followed.

Even though the trip between Lethbridge and Calgary is one of the shortest in the league, the bus ride back home seemed to take forever.

I found Nate in the high school cafeteria the next morning. He was pouring ketchup on a plate of scrambled eggs. Three girls were sitting at his table, all giggling at a joke he had just told. At least I hoped it was a joke.

That's how bad it was between us.

A year ago, I would have trusted him enough to let him dangle me from the top of the Calgary Tower. Now I wondered if he had seen me walking toward the table and had said something to them about his
stupid, deaf twin brother that made them laugh.

I stood beside the table. I didn't say anything.

“Where's your breakfast?” Nate asked.

“Not hungry,” I said. I didn't move. I didn't smile.

The girls took the hint. They left with their trays.

“You sure know how to bring the mood down,” Nate said. “I was having fun.”

“Really?” I said. I had a folded
Calgary Sun
in my back pocket. “I'm not.”

I tossed the
Calgary Sun
onto the table and sat down beside him. “Check out the sports section.”

He did. He knew instantly what I wanted him to read. The headline popped out from the page:
TWINS TO BE SEPARATED
?

I gave him time to read the entire article. It was about how Nate and I had not even come close to meeting all the pre-season expectations after I was traded to the Hitmen. It pointed out that not only were we failing to help the team, we were failing the team. It
suggested that it was time for one of us to be traded away from the Hitmen before we became complete embarrassments as line-mates. At the very least, it said, we should be playing on different lines.

The cafeteria was half full. Maybe I was giving off a bad vibe. Or an intense vibe. No one stopped by the table to chat.

“It's like they think we're Siamese twins,” Nate said. “Like it's major surgery to trade one of us to another team.”

I stared at him coldly. “Obviously you don't think it's a big deal.”

“I've got my life,” he said. “You've got yours.”

“I always thought,” I said, “that after Mom and Dad got killed, all we had was each other.”

He stared back just as coldly. “That was what we told each other in the dark when we were just kids. You know, back when it was okay to cry. I don't cry anymore. So don't you think it's time to grow up and do your own thing?”

“I think that if one of us needs help,
the other one should be there. Always. No matter what.”

“Fine,” he said. “If you need help, ask.”

“I don't need help,” I said.

“Well, I don't either,” he said. “So I guess there's nothing to discuss.”

He stood.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. He pulled his fist back like he was going to hit me.

I looked at his hand. He looked at his hand. He let out a breath.

“I wasn't going to hit you,” he said. “Really.”

This time, I stood.

“You don't need to hit me,” I said. “You've already done enough damage.”

I left him at the table, with a plateful of cold scrambled eggs, staring at the
Calgary Sun
.

TWINS TO BE SEPARATED?

I knew the answer. We already were.

Mercedes was leaning against my Camry when I got out of school that afternoon.

The postcard-perfect weather had continued. Not even a tiny breeze moved her hair. She looked postcard perfect too in a white hoodie, jeans and cowboy boots. She had set her big purse on the hood of my car.

“Sorry,” I said quickly when I reached her. “Wrong guy again. I'm Nolan.”

On the one hand, there was something about her that made my heart speed up when I
saw her. On the other hand, I had five fingers. I know—bad joke. Really, on the other hand, she had gone out with Nate. And because of all the strange things that were happening, I didn't trust her. So I guess my voice was a little cold when I said that to her.