Page 79 of Thin Ice

We tied the game eight minutes into the second.

Their goalie did what I told Elias he'd do. He dropped early with Jamie closing fast. Jamie held back and slid the puck across the crease to Wes, who buried it into three feet of open net.

The riverboat whistle blew, and the entire building moved. It was a shudder in the bones of the place. Jamie yelled something into Wes's shoulder, and Brick banged the boards with both gloves. The ref stood at center ice holding the puck, waiting the noise out.

It was a tie game, and I skated to the bench at the next whistle. When I got there, I did my usual scan, looking for Elias at the pillar just past the camera well.

He wasn't there.

Doyle's men were where they always were. The camera well was full.

He walks around, I told myself. That's part of the job: checking exits and sightlines.

I checked the pillar again at the next shift change. He still wasn't there.

Petey crouched into the space behind my shoulder and spoke low, directly into my ear.

"Doyle can't raise your guy. He's missed two check-ins. The radio's live but he's not answering it. Last anybody saw him he was headed down the northeast service level. It was fifteen minutes ago. They're looking. Doyle figured you'd want to know."

The game kept going. Somebody iced the puck. The whistle blew, and the linesman skated it back the length of the ice. I sat there with my water bottle in my hand and every cell in my body screaming the same thing.

Go!

I knew the northeast service level. I'd killed many game-day afternoons exploring the guts of the building because walking around was easier on the hip than sitting still. I knew where the caterers propped their door. I also knew where the ice plant swallowed sound so completely that you could stand ten feet from someone and not hear them.

I was six seconds from the tunnel. I could be down there before Doyle's men finished checking the loading dock.

Ty stood in a hallway once while I held a bucket of ice, and I told myself somebody else would handle it. Ray Halloran dialed my number nine times while I signed jerseys. I knew what could happen when I did nothing.

The whistle blew for the face-off. Coach called my line.

I leaned back. "Petey, tell Doyle: the ice plant. It's the one place in the building where machinery eats the sound. It's where you would take somebody in the building. Go."

I went over the boards, and Petey left the box.

Twenty seconds into the shift, Boston drew a penalty on Brick, and when the whistle came, Coach kept me out for the penalty kill. I blocked a shot with my good leg, but I couldn't get the ice plant out of my mind. The ribs screamed, but we successfully killed the penalty. The horn ended the power play, and I got back to the bench with nothing left in either lung.

Petey was back, waiting behind my shoulder.

"They're in," he said. "He's alive."

That was all he said. Not he's okay. I only knew he wasn't dead.

It was enough to get me through the rest of the period.

The second intermission is eighteen minutes long. I'd never endured a longer eighteen minutes in my life.

The room was quiet. Guys changed gloves, retaped, and drank. The coaches came in and drew one adjustment on the whiteboard.

I sat in Vern's stall wearing a fresh undershirt with a heat pack pressed against the hip. I watched the clock over the door count down and hung onto the word alive.

Brick lowered himself onto the bench next to me. He had a skate on his knee and worked at a lace that didn't need attention.

"You've checked the tunnel nine times since we came in," he said. "It's about the tall guy?"

"Something happened under the stands." I kept my voice low. "Doyle's people got to him. He's alive. That's all I know."

Brick was quiet for a second. "You're still here," he said.