Andrew Gross - Reckless

O’Toole looked at what he did as a job, the only one he was qualified for. Sonny looked at it as a thrill.

The parking lot was filled. Some kind of game was obviously going on. A half hour ago, he had gone and stuck his head in the rink and saw the match still in progress. Parents cheering. The scoreboard ticking down. Now, he looked at his watch and nudged Sonny. “Mount up. It’s showtime, man.”

People finally started coming out of the rink. Parents starting up their cars, kids yelping, whooping it up, sticks held high. In a couple of minutes, the parking lot grew empty, except for a couple of cars.

They didn’t see Hauck or the kid.

O’Toole told Sonny, “Go in and see what’s going on.”

Sonny zipped up his black nylon Windbreaker and crawled out of the van.

A few minutes passed. O’Toole put on the radio. He didn’t entirely trust Sonny. The dude was reckless, a little crazed. It always got him into trouble. But O’Toole always knew how to calm him down.

Suddenly his throwaway cell phone rang. “What the hell is going on? I told you to check it out, not go for a goddamn skate.”

“Relax,” Sonny Merced said, “start the car. I’m doing it now.”

Jared!” Hauck shouted toward the locker room and waited for a reply.

None came.

The whole rink was dark now. Ted was somewhere in the back. The stranger who he’d seen standing at the opposite end of the rink was nowhere to be found. The antennae for trouble Hauck had built up over the years was buzzing like crazy.

“Jared!” he called out again. Why wasn’t he answering?

Something was wrong.

He grabbed a stray stick off the glass and headed back to the locker room, his blood starting to race with trepidation. This was Annie’s son. He turned the corner, accelerating into a run, and pushed through the swinging doors into the locker room, shouting, “Jared?”

“Ty!” His voice came back. Jared’s voice. Scared.

He turned to the lockers and saw the man he had spotted lurking outside, his hand cupped over Jared’s mouth, the boy’s eyes wide as melons, fear in them. He was dragging Jared toward the bathroom area. The guy had a heavy stubble on his face, sideburns, and a thick mustache. He looked about fifty but he was probably twenty years younger. Wearing a black nylon jacket.

He had a knife held under Jared’s chin.

Hauck froze.

“Hey, hero, get the fuck out of here!” The man glared at Hauck. With one arm he jerked Jared’s head to the side. With the other, he deftly clenched the blade underneath Jared’s jaw. “Do what I say, man, or I’ll split him in two.”

Jared, who didn’t have it in him to hurt a flea, twisted vainly against the man’s grasp, hyperventilating.

Tears flashed in his petrified eyes.

“Let the boy go,” Hauck said. He squeezed the hockey stick two fisted and took a step toward them, fixing on the man’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

“You know damn well why I’m here. Doesn’t he, kid? Ask him why I’m here. Ask him what he’s stuck his nose into.” He dug the blade point into Jared’s Adam’s apple, causing the boy’s eyes to bulge. “You and I, kid. We’re walking out of here. You first.” He motioned to Hauck. “One wrong move”-he twitched the sharp edge-“just one, Mr. Ex-Cop, and you can kiss your goofy little buddy here good-bye.”

Jared freed his mouth momentarily. Gripped by fear, confusion, he uttered, “Why is he doing this, Ty?”

“Jared, I’m not going to let him hurt you,” Hauck said. His blood pulsed with rage and intensity. “He’s an innocent kid,” he said to the man. “You can see he’s not all together. Let him go. Take me. It’s what you came here for anyway, isn’t it?”

“Ty…” Jared’s face was white, his breaths rapid and hard. “Don’t let him hurt me, Ty. Okay?”

“He won’t, Jared.” The man knew who he was. Which he realized was bad. This wasn’t some random pervert. Hauck knew he was clearly here for him. He also realized there was no gain in killing the boy. If Hauck went at him, it would only incapacitate the blade.

“He’s going to let you go.” Hauck looked in Jared’s cowering eyes, taking a step closer. Then he switched to the attacker. “And when he does, Jared”-Hauck flexed the stick-“I want you to run out of here, fast as you can. Don’t go outside.” It occurred to Hauck the man might not be alone. “Stay in the rink. I want you to find Ted and hide somewhere. Call 911.”

Jared nodded fearfully. Hauck took another step. “You understand, don’t you, son?”

He nodded again, petrified.

Hauck winked at him. “Good.”

The man arched back the boy’s neck, chortling, “Fuck I’m going to let him go…”

Hauck shifted his gaze solidly to the man. The knife gleamed. An army combat blade. He no longer felt nerves, just that he was the only thing between the boy’s life and death, and he was glad it was him. He gave the man a purposeful smile.

“You know damn well I’m not gonna let that boy out of my sight.”

The assailant tensed his grip on the blade.

“You came for me.” Hauck nodded to the man. “Have at it, asshole.”

He lunged with the stick at his attacker’s head.

Hauck knew from twenty years on the job what people in these situations do, no matter what they’ve threatened, when a SWAT team charges into a room. They defend themselves. What the survival instinct orders them to do.

The man threw up his hands.

Stick high, Hauck swung it with all his might across the assailant’s shoulder, the arm holding the knife. The man took a step back, reflexively put out his arm, letting Jared go.

As the stick split in half across his arm.

The man cried out. Jared ran, screaming, out of the assailant’s grasp. Hauck took what was left of the stick and charged him, knocking the guy backward and pinning the arm holding the knife against the concrete locker-room wall.

He tried to squeeze the blade from the man’s grip.

“Jared, get out! Do as I say. Get out of here!”

But the boy just stood there, paralyzed, as Hauck wrestled for the blade against the wall. The man was strong. Like Hauck suspected, no amateur. He kept squeezing the man’s arm against the wall, trying to pry the knife free. “Jared, go!”

He spun, tried to ram the man in his belly with the butt of the stick, but the assailant pivoted and drove his knee into Hauck’s groin, crushing the air out of him. The pain shot through him. He wrenched Hauck back, rolling him over a bench, against the edge of an open, metal locker door.

Hauck felt dazed, breathless, his belly on fire like he’d been speared.

The man came at him, flexing the blade in a way that said he knew exactly how to use it. Hauck scrambled to his feet, clinging to the jagged edge of the stick to defend himself.

The man grinned cockily. “Always have to play the hero, don’t you, dude.”

He swung, ripping through Hauck’s sweatshirt, scraping Hauck on the arm as Hauck tried to block the knife with the shaft of the stick.

Hauck cried out in pain.

He looked past him for a second. Jared was still standing there, paralyzed with fear. “Jared, please!”

The attacker dove at him again. This time Hauck flung out an open metal locker door, catching him flush. Skates, pads cascading all over them. Summoning every bit of his strength, Hauck slammed the open door against the man’s hand-two, three times-trying to free the knife. Blood rushed into the guy’s face as he tried to hold on.

Miraculously, the knife fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor.

Both their eyes darted to it.

With his free hand, the assailant took Hauck by the collar and drove him hard against the locker, the pain shooting up his spine. In the same motion, he lunged across the floor for the blade. Hauck dove on him, blood trickling from his mouth, his arm burning like it had been flayed by a slicing machine. They both fell across the wooden bench and onto the floor. The man spun Hauck on his back. Suddenly he picked up the splintered hockey stick and pinned it across Hauck’s throat, venom in his eyes. Hauck’s left arm was momentarily pinned behind the metal legs of the bench. Straining, the man realized his advantage and forced the stick into Hauck’s larynx.