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3.17.2004


 
BUTTE



Sometimes you get to be the hero.


It doesn't happen often, so it's not a good enough reason to get into this business. Anyone thinking he's signing up to be some knight or superhero is looking for disappointment. I'm here for the money. Money and prestige.

Money, prestige and wire.


But sometimes you're in the right place at the right time and the situation goes down the crapper. If you're really lucky, it wasn't even your fault that it got out of control.

Then you get it, the sweet hot rush of putting it all on the line, knowing it's you or them and whose life you're saving just doesn't matter. It's just how it feels to do it. Take the hit meant for someone else. Cheat a death that wasn't yours.

It's like coming up with a card that was never in the deck to begin with. Lay it down and win.

Not much in life is that clean.



I spent three nights with a kid caught between the Russian mob and US hockey. Some rising star whose name was kind of familiar, though I don't follow the game.

You know a client's scared when they do exactly what you tell them. Stick to the schedule, follow the rules, keep their fucking head down when you say.

"Are you sure I should go out there?" My Russian's shit, but it was better than his English. Game night, we stood in the tunnel leading out onto the ice, with the roar of the crowd and the pulse of music shaking the rubber walkway under our feet.

"We have you covered," I told him. "Go and play."

The reality was the club had paid us to make sure Nik didn't miss a game, for political reasons, for money reasons, maybe for other reasons, who knows. But it had to be quiet and cheap, or I wouldn't be there. A handful of us when it should have been a hundred, if I was going to make any promises I could keep.

But I don't make promises. He knew it, he understood it. I could see the resignation on his face, the too-tight grip of his glove on his stick as he walked out and skated away.

They'd taken a grab at him twice, threatened him a half dozen times through the media and in person. He was fairly sure it was his uncle behind it all, and I had to get him pretty drunk before he would tell me.

I watched Nik, watched the game, hoped arena security had done their job and like I do with half my clients, wondered if I'd finally sold myself in over my head.

But the game went well, Nik forgot about everything and set his buddy up for a nice goal, the crowd was drunk and hollering and happy.

The hit came in the parking lot, dark and quiet after the fans had gone. Somebody must have paid the lot Joes to leave their posts, because it was just Nik and me walking when my beta stream went flood and the cars all came.

Six of them, jumping curbs and landscaping. Circling like riders 'round the fucking wagon, trying to get a shot at me without taking Nik down. Fortunately scared enough of killing Nik that they didn't think to ram us, which left me shoving the kid under his car and dancing like a lunatic around it, trying to stay covered with no cover. Drawing their fire, until help came.

We had a chance to talk, after the paramedics and the police and the media and the quiet slip I gave him back to his buddy's apartment. Later, after a few beers, he confessed to being glad it finally happened. That he'd got the worst over and survived it.

I told him I knew what he meant.

He told me I was crazy, and he was glad I'd been there. He apologized for not helping, which I already explained would have gotten us both killed, but they always apologize for that all the same.

It's a debt most people aren't comfortable with.

Nik just apologized, and when my relief showed up, sent me home with the other half of the six-pack. Said he'd see me in the morning, thanked me quietly just as I left.

I went home and drank the beer, when I should have taken drugs for the stitches in my back and my leg and reviewed beta to see what had gone wrong.

But I drank the beer and sat back and relived saving Nik's life a few times.

Because you don't get moments like that often. Like there at the car, when I pulled him out and he was all right and couldn't talk, not Russian or English, just reached out finally and gravely shook my hand.

I know better than to be in this business for moments like that.


But they're good, all the same.


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