Page 6 of Thin Ice

The bodyguards the team sent before never talked to me like that. They watched the doors and called me Mr. Mercer, and counted the hours until the next break. None of them ever gave me a hard time about being old.

The cathedral's dome broke over the rooftops, gray-green, as the car turned toward downtown.

"One thing," he said.

"Yeah?"

"The heating pad's dangerous."

I looked at him.

"Never leave something like that on all night. It could start a fire."

I hadn't told him about the pad. He hadn't been in my bedroom. Had he?

Chapter three

Elias

The Steamers were up by one with eleven minutes left, and instead of watching a crowd packed to the rafters, I focused on one man on the ice.

From the tunnel mouth, I had a clear sightline to the bench and most of the building. I heard Doyle's security detail through my earbuds, calling out sections at regular intervals.

"Two-ten, top of the aisle, guy who hasn't sat down."

I spotted him. "Drunk," I said. "Beer in each hand. He's fine." I'd pulled my attention away from Nolan and scanned the glass behind the visiting net and the camera wells. Ten seconds later, I focused again on the left wing on the second line.

Few could see what I saw. To the crowd, Nolan Mercer was playing a careful veteran's game, picking his spots and saving his legs for the shifts that mattered. To me, he was playing hurt. His crossovers didn't dig on the left the way they bit on the right. On stops, he was a tick late planting the bad side, and he hid it by gliding a stick-length early, so it read as anticipation.

A high stick was called, and the Steamers' penalty-killing unit climbed over the boards, Nolan among them. A defenseman shot through traffic from the point, and Nolan dropped to block it.

He went down on the good knee, turned his body into the lane, and took the puck off the shin pad and the thigh. The crowd roared. Then he got up slower than a healthy man. He finished the shift, and the players on the bench tapped his shins with their sticks as he stepped off.

"Ward." It was Doyle in my ear. "Section one-fourteen called it a night?"

"Still here. Aisle seat, gray jacket. He's filming, not watching."

"Copy."

Down on the ice, the clock ticked down. The Steamers iced it twice, won a draw, and killed the last thirty-five seconds with Nolan pinning the puck against the wall, his back to the man trying to dig it free.

The horn blared, and underneath it rose the Steamers' trademark victory sound—a long, low riverboat whistle. It was a grinding three-two win that put them up three-two in the series. A win on the road in Vegas would send them to the Cup Final.

The bench emptied over the boards. Nolan was the last one up, hanging back to let the kids spill out first.

Before he reached the scrum, he looked over at the tunnel and spotted me. I looked back just long enough for him to know that I'd seen. Then he turned away.

***

The game ended a little before eleven. It was past one before we left the arena. Media for a major post-season win ran long. Nolan Mercer was the last veteran out of every room. He never stiffed a reporter.

We took the quiet way back into his building—the loading dock and the service elevator. The second his condo door shut, he crossed the room to his leather recliner and set his body down like a bag he'd carried a long way.

"There's beer in the door of the fridge that I keep for Brick," he said. "Help yourself. I'm not having one."

"I'm working."

"You're standing in my kitchen after one a.m. You can have a beer." He grabbed a remote and aimed it at the large flatscreen on the wall. "Tomorrow's tape. I like to know their building before I'm in it."