Hitmen Triumph

by Sigmund Brouwer

  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.

  chapter sixteen

  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 sai
d. “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.

  chapter seventeen

  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.

  Her small smile became a straight line as she pressed her lips together briefly. Then she put the smile back on her face.

  “I deserve that,” she said. “But I’m here because I wanted to talk to you. Not Nate.”

  “Sure,” I said. Something was bothering me about this. How had she known this Camry was mine? “Let’s talk.”

  “Don’t be like that,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you really don’t want to talk.”

  “It’s been a long day,” I said. It had been. I kept seeing that headline in my mind. TWINS TO BE SEPARATED? Except, of course, in my mind the headline didn’t end with a question mark.

  “I’ve had a long day too,” she said. “I didn’t know if I should come to you with this or not. But in the end, you were the only person Ithought I could trust. And even if it hurts you, I thought you were the kind of guy who would rather know than not know.”

  “I’m listening,” I said. Only because doctors had once put an implant into my skull.

  She looked around the parking lot. “Maybe we should go for a drive.”

  “Um, I’m pretty busy.” This wasn’t true. But if we went for a drive, we’d be alone together. I didn’t want the part of me that thought she was cute to overwhelm the part of me that didn’t trust her. “Can you just tell me about it here?”

  “We shouldn’t be seen together,” she said. “Trust me.”

  That was my problem. I couldn’t. I didn’t say that though.

  “Which one is your car?” I asked. She must have driven here.

  She pointed at a black Volkswagen Beetle. It was at least a few years old. It had a cracked windshield and some dings in the front left fender.

  “Let’s go,” I said, moving toward it.

  “What’s wrong with your car?” she asked.

  I was surprised. What girl would want to drive around in an old wreck like mine? “Are you serious? Look at it.”

  “It’s clean,” she said. “It runs. Isn’t that all that matters?”

  “To me,” I said. “But other people...”

  “I’m not other people.”

  So I unlocked the passenger side door for her. I walked around to unlock my door, but she had already leaned across and unlocked it from the inside.

  When I started the car, my music began playing. I turned it down.

  “Dire Straits,” she said. “I love that band.” She knew about Dire Straits? A British group from the seventies and eighties. Decades ago.

  “It’s rock but without a hundred different things happening in the music, so you can hear the melody,” she continued as I backed out and began to drive away from the school. “And I love Mark Knopfler’s voice. His lyrics are so cool.”

  “True,” I said. “They’ve got one songcalled ‘Private Investigations.’ It’s like listening to a story.”

  “How about ‘Telegraph Road’?” she asked. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  I realized what was happening. If it kept going, it would be too hard to keep distrusting her. Much as I wanted to like her, I also didn’t want to like her.

  “You said you had something that you thought I should know even if it hurt me,” I said.

  It was a quick subject change. I was trying to send a clear message.

  “Right,” she said, sounding a little hurt. She’d gotten the message.

  I was out on the streets now, not sure where I should drive.

  “Well then,” she said a few seconds later, “it’s about your brother.”

  As if I didn’t know.

  “Funny you should have mentioned that song by Dire Straits,” she continued. “‘Private Investigations.’”

  I stopped for a red light and glanced over at her. She looked sad.

  “You see,” she said quietly. “I’m doing a private investigation of my own. And I think your brother is into something criminal.”

  chapter eighteen

  The high school I attended was in the southeast part of the city. Fish Creek Park was nearby, so I drove there and parked. We found a bench to sit on. She set her purse on the table.

  “I’ll start from the beginning,” she said. “My father owns a couple of movie theaters.”

  “But you drive a beat-up Volkswagen.” She smiled. “Now who is judging who by what they drive?”

  “No,” I said, “what I meant was that he could probably afford to buy you something better.”

  “Sure he could. But then it wouldn’t be mine, would it?”

  She was right, and I liked her for it. So I told myself not to like her. It didn’t work.

  A few seagulls squawked nearby. They were fighting over half a burger someone had left behind on the grass. Seagulls. Why were they called seagulls when this was the prairies? Or if they really were seagulls, what were they doing here when the nearest sea was so far away?

  These weren’t questions I would ask out loud. I had other questions for her.

  “Does your father own the theater in Kensington?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. She stared past me and thought for a few seconds. “This is hard to explain. I was in a video store yesterday...”

  I coughed.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Just clearing my throat,” I said.

  She nodded. “This guy sold me an illegal copy of a DVD. He said it would be cheaper than seeing it in a theater, if I shared the cost with my friends...”

  “Theater prices are pretty high,” I said. “Not that I’m agreeing with the guy.”

  “My dad’s business is really suffering. A lot of that is because of piracy.”

  “Piracy,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Merecedes said. “I’m making a documentary about it.”

  “Documentary?”

  “I want to g
o to Mount Royal College when I get out of high school,” she said. “They’ve got a journalism program. The documentary will help me get into the program. And maybe it will help my father too.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense. And I can understand you wanting to help your dad.”

  “Piracy is getting bigger and bigger,” she said. “Especially in Canada. And now biker gangs are discovering they can make a lot of money from it.”

  Bikers!

  I was beginning to get that horrible feeling in my stomach. She wasn’t part of what Nate was doing. She was trying to fight it. And if Nate was part of it, and if it involved bikers...

  “Early in the summer, my dad heard a rumor that one of our projectionists was copying movies onto a flash drive. I decided to watch and see what happened.”

  Mercedes hesitated.

  I decided to help her. “And it led you to Nate.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “You know?”

  “Only a little,” I said.

  “He picked up the flash drive. I didn’t know who he was. I just remembered his face. Then I saw his photo in the paper once. So then I knew his name. But it wouldn’t do much good to just stop someone like Nate. I wanted to find out who he was working for and how he was getting the illegal copies out of the theaters.”

  I told her about seeing the guy go the washroom the same time as Nate. Then I had a question.

  “You were at the Hitmen golf tournament to meet him, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Video camera in your purse?” I asked.

  “You know?”

  “Don’t get mad at me,” I said, “but remember a guy with goofy hair and a lame mustache in the video store? That was me.”

  “You!”

  I told her everything. About listening to her conversation with the guy behind the counter. About how his tattoos matched the bikers’ tattoos. I told her about the bikers who put me on the train track. The only thing I didn’t tell her was the part where the guy in the video store made the rude noise.

  As she listened, her face became more and more serious.