9 Hell on Wheels (2 page)

“Damn straight,” Greg growled. “This is my wife.”

Again Peter’s eyes scanned me like I was canned goods at a checkout. “You always had good taste in women, Stevens. I’ll give you that.”

Next to me Greg was breathing in and out in long, steady breaths. It was what he did when he was trying to control his temper. A lot of people count to ten; my hubby takes long, deep breaths like the kind you do for the doctor when he’s checking your lungs for bronchitis.

“You still playing in the basketball league?” Peter asked Greg. “Or have you retired by now? Maybe doing a little coaching on the side just to keep your hand in the game? Most washed-up players do that.”

“Don’t you have a game to get ready for, Tanaka?” Greg asked between breaths.

“That I do,” Peter admitted. “Though I doubt we’ll need to warm up much to wipe the floor with the Lunatics.” He rolled his chair back and turned it in the direction of the gym entrance.

Greg positioned his chair to watch him leave. I was behind him, keeping my eye on the knots forming in Greg’s neck and shoulders, clearly visible through the fabric of his shirt. I know Greg is a bit jealous and very protective of me, but the way his body was tensed and ready for a fight told me his animosity toward Peter Tanaka was more than that.

Peter headed back into the gym, but not without a parting shot. Giving me a killer smile, he said, “You ever get tired of this old man, Odelia, you can find me on Facebook. Like I said, I like cougars.”

I was so glad I was standing behind Greg because at that moment he surged forward, ready to give Peter Tanaka a beating. My husband, while he tried and mostly succeeded at keeping his temper in check, could and would throw a few punches if provoked. I grabbed the back of his chair and hung on, throwing one arm over his shoulder and across his chest. It stopped him in his tracks. I bent down, my mouth close to Greg’s ear. “He’s not worth it, honey.”

Greg’s deep breathing started up again, but at least he didn’t try to shake me off and go after the guy—not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed slapping the insufferable SOB myself.

Two

“Was that Grace on
the phone, sweetheart?” Greg asked as soon as his blood pressure had returned to normal.

“Yes. Steele has been trying to call both of us, and he called the house when we didn’t answer.”

Greg pulled his phone out of the breast pocket of his shirt and looked at the list of recent calls. “Yeah, I saw that Mike called. You know what it’s about?”

I shook my head. “Only that he told Mom it’s urgent we call him back, though I can’t imagine what it is. He knows we’re out of town this weekend. That’s probably the problem—we’re having a nice weekend and he can’t stand it.”

Greg laughed for the first time since coming out of the gym. “I doubt it’s that. He’s probably at the office working and can’t find something he needs. Why don’t you give him a quick call just so he doesn’t have a stroke?”

“You know darn well there are no quick calls where Steele’s concerned.” I positioned my mouth into a pout. “If I call him, there’s a good chance he’ll try to convince me to return tonight and come into work early tomorrow.”

“But we’re staying here tonight,” Greg reminded me, as if I needed it. “And spending tomorrow relaxing at the beach.”

I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “You’ve got my vote for that.”

Greg looked at his phone again, then madly started sending a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Steele. I’m telling him we’re tied up tonight with friends and will get back to him tomorrow morning. He’ll take it better coming from me.”

“I told Mom if he calls again to tell him we’d call later tonight, after we got back to the hotel.”

“No can do,” Greg said. “After the game we’re having dinner with everyone.” My husband looked up from his phone and grinned. “After we get back to the hotel, I have plans of my own.”

“Are you sure we have to go out to dinner?” I winked at him. “I hear the hotel has great room service.”

“Don’t tempt me. But I promised Rocky, whether they win or lose, we’d dine with the Lunatics tonight. He also said he has something he needs to discuss with me after the game.”

I sighed with disappointment.

“Don’t be so glum,” Greg told me. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Now it was his turn to wink, and he did it with panache.

“Hold that pose,” I told him. Pulling out my phone, I snapped another photo of my handsome hubby. Inspecting the photo and not happy with it, I said, “Move over there, to the left of the entrance. I think the light’s better.” He rolled his wheelchair into the spot I directed, and I took a couple more. Looking at these, I gave them a thumbs up.

Together we headed back into the gym. It was only a few minutes before the start of the final game, and we didn’t want to miss a minute of the action.

“By the way, honey,” I said to Greg as we moved through the main aisle to find Miranda. “Who is that Peter Tanaka character? Seems like you dislike him for more than making a pass at me. I don’t recall seeing him before.”

“He’s bad news,” Greg snapped, tensing up again. “He used to play for the Lunatics a while back. I heard he’d been playing in Canada for the past few years. Too bad he didn’t stay there.”

I took a seat at the end of a row off the middle aisle, close to where we’d been sitting for the last game. Greg lined his chair up next to me. On the floor, players were rolling along in their wheelchairs, circling and turning, warming up for the game. Rocky had his game face on, clearly concentrating on what he needed to do for the next twenty to thirty minutes. On the other end of the court, Peter Tanaka, now sitting in his rugby wheelchair, was warming up with his team, but unlike Rocky and his teammates, he was joking around. Miranda showed up. I stood, letting her pass to take the seat next to me on the inside. She looked like she’d been crying.

“You okay?” I asked, touching her arm. She nodded in response but pulled away from me.

Right before the whistle blew to start the game, I made a mental note to talk to her later. She was obviously distressed about something. I also wanted to know more about Peter Tanaka. There was a juicy story there, I just knew it. I’d ask Greg after his plans for us at the hotel or maybe even at breakfast tomorrow.

Early on in the game, the play got rough. It was for first place in the tournament, and the players were giving their all. Mona Seidman, one of the few female players in the league, was giving as good as she got right along with the men. She’d been injured in a snowboarding accident, and she’d even been an Olympian in the sport. She played for the Lunatics and was a favorite with the crowd. Mona was making her way down the court with the ball when Peter Tanaka rammed her from the side with such force that it tipped her chair over. The action stopped while the pit crew for the Lunatics ran onto the court and righted her. From the sidelines, Cory Seidman, her husband, paced and shouted, clearly concerned for his wife. Peter rolled by him and blew Cory a kiss. For a minute I thought Cory was going to launch himself at the player, and he probably would have if the people standing next to him hadn’t held him back.

Seems like my husband wasn’t the only anti-fan of Tanaka’s.

If the first quarter was rough, the second quarter was rougher. During the period of play, Tanaka went after Kevin Spelling with such repeated viciousness that Spelling dumped the ball a couple of times and started brawling with Tanaka, causing him to be penalized.

Halftime did nothing to dampen the emotions of the players. By the time the fourth and final quarter started, the game was brutal and the score tied. The ball was moved up and down the court with speed and agility and plenty of metal crashing into metal. In the thick of it were Rocky and Peter. Next to me, Miranda gripped my arm for support.

“I hate this game,” she said under her breath to no one.

Throughout the game, Peter Tanaka went after everyone with vicious abandon, causing several players’ chairs to flip. The referees warned him several times and he acquired a couple of penalties, which he accepted like trophies. The coach of the Vipers had taken him out in the third quarter to cool him down. By the fourth he was out of control and seemed to be having the time of his life taunting the other players while they struggled to play a fair game in the face of his recklessness. In all the years I’d been watching the sport with Greg, I’d never seen such a malicious player. He skirted on the edge of the rules, managing just barely to stay within them, receiving fewer penalties than he probably deserved and forcing otherwise honorable players to play like thugs in response. Mixed with the crowd’s cheers were an equal number of boos. No wonder Greg disliked Peter Tanaka. Greg embraced fair play and good sportsmanship like I embrace Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Thin Mints.

Rocky, who was the captain of the Lunatics, encouraged his players to neutralize Peter Tanaka as much as possible, but by the beginning of the fourth quarter he was personally waging war on the nasty player. Peter, with glee in his eyes, took up the challenge. The two teams took turns taking the point lead, and it looked like the win would go down to the wire.

Then something happened to change the game.

Quad rugby players are classified according to their functionality, with a ranking system from 0.5 to 3.5 points. The higher the ranking, the more movement a player has in his or her limbs; the lower the ranking, the lower the mobility. At any one time a team cannot have players on the court totaling in excess of 8 ranking points. Both Peter and Rocky were ranked at 3.5 with good, though still limited, use of their hands and arms. Even without Rocky’s decision to stop Peter’s reign of terror on the court, they would have been matched up against each other.

Peter had the ball and Rocky had him penned in, using his chair and his extended arms to block Peter from advancing or passing the ball. For good measure, every now and then Rocky would take a swipe at the ball, trying to dislodge it from Peter’s grasp and steal it away. Just when it seemed hopeless for Peter to move the ball in any manner without losing it, he bent forward toward Rocky and said something. It was low, only between them, and said with a wide smirk—sports trash talk, most likely.

Rocky scowled and said something back. Peter said something again and glanced toward the stands. Next to me, I felt Miranda stiffen. Rocky didn’t waver in his coverage of the ball. He stayed firm, keeping his eyes on the ball and Peter, but his face was flushed. Once again Peter said something to Rocky, and this time Rocky did glance back at the stands to look at his wife. In that split second Peter was able to sneak the ball past Rocky and pass it to another Viper, who took it down the court for the score. This all happened in just seconds in front of a roaring crowd, even though it felt like slow-moving minutes with the two men on the court alone.

With the point loss, the Lunatics called a time-out to regroup. The point had put the Vipers ahead by one, but there was still four minutes left to play in the game—plenty of time to make up the score and then some. But during the time-out Rocky didn’t go to his team’s bench to rest and get something to drink. Instead, he rolled over to the bleachers.

We were on the second level, with only one line of spectators seated between us and Rocky. Miranda was still on her feet when Rocky faced her. “Is it true, Miranda?” Rocky asked the question with a stone-cold face and without clarification, confident she’d know what he was asking.

Instead of answering, Miranda pushed past me, stepping on my feet as she passed. Getting to the end of the row, she stepped down to the floor. Greg scooted his chair out of the way and held out a hand to assist her to the ground. I thought she was going to comfort her husband, but when her feet hit the floor, she pushed her way through the crowd in the opposite direction.

“Is it true?” Rocky howled in her direction. But he received no answer, only her retreating back.

Coach Warren jogged over to Rocky and tried to get him to join the team, but Rocky shook him off. Greg moved forward to talk to his friend, but Rocky waved him off without a word. He finally turned his rugby chair around and stared at the far side, at the bench of the Vipers. He watched Peter Tanaka drink from a water bottle and joke with his teammates, oblivious to the conflict he’d started.

Greg returned to my side, his face cloudy with concern. “Why don’t you go find Miranda? Whatever is going on, I’m sure she could use a friend right now.”

I nodded in full agreement. Greg was helping me down from the bleachers when the whistle blew to restart the game. A few seconds later, pandemonium broke out on the court. The ball had been passed to Peter, who was near the sidelines in front of the bleachers to our left. Rocky had followed the ball, but instead of playing defense, he threw a punch at Peter as soon as he’d gotten close enough. The people on the bleachers got to their feet and started yelling. Those on the ground, both standing and in wheelchairs, surged forward almost onto the court. I stepped back up on the bleachers to get a better view.

On the court, Rocky had Peter Tanaka’s Viper shirt grasped in his curled hand. He had pulled Peter close and was punching him in the face with his elbow and forearm, using whatever he had to pummel the obnoxious player, who was fighting back. Then suddenly Peter stopped fighting, and his arms dropped limply at his side.

Both coaches were trying to intervene, but Rocky’s rage was over the edge as he continued to punch Peter, who was no longer trying to defend himself. In trying to pull the players and their chairs apart, Peter’s wheelchair tipped over. Rocky seized the moment. Unfastening his own safety belt, he heaved his body out of his chair and onto the floor next to Peter, where he continued the battering. Around us cell phones were whipped out as people recorded the fracas. The official photographer for the event was busy taking her own photos. I kept my phone tucked away. This wasn’t exciting; this was scary and not the norm.

While quad rugby is a rugged, rough sport and players are allowed to use their chairs as battering rams, one of the cardinal rules is no physical contact. Usually a player receives a penalty for this lapse, but in this case I was sure the consequences to Rocky and even his team would be more serious.

Rocky Henderson was usually a cool-headed player and a good team leader. What could Peter have said to make him go ballistic and physical? That question wasn’t just on my lips; I’m sure it was in the minds of almost everyone who’d seen the exchange. And what about Miranda? What did it have to do with her? The first thing that popped into my mind was that she’d been cheating on Rocky, and Peter had been the bearer of the news or at least of a rumor. Maybe he was even the other guy.

The noise in the gymnasium had reached a deafening level. Even the two teams playing on the other court for third and fourth place and their spectators had left their game to see what all the commotion was about.

Joining the coaches of the Vipers and the Lunatics in breaking up the brawl were the referees. With great effort, they managed to get Rocky off of Peter. Once they got him back in his rugby chair, they moved him away from Peter and to the Lunatic bench. The front of his jersey was spattered with blood. On the sidelines, his teammates gathered around him. Some seemed supportive. Others appeared angry over Rocky putting the team and the final game in jeopardy. They could only wait to see what the referees would do to the team as a result of the fight.

Peter Tanaka remained on the floor. His coach and the referees gathered around him. Two security guards rushed in. The on-site medical care came running with a first-aid kit to assess his injuries, but the cardboard wedge stayed on the sidelines. There was no attempt to get him back up and rolling. Instead, like removing a shell from a snail, they slipped him out of the reinforced wheelchair. From where I was sitting, it looked like Peter had vomited after he fell. An acrid odor floated on the air toward the bleachers.

I slipped off the bleachers onto the floor just behind Greg, who had rolled forward for a front-row seat. I leaned down. “I’m going to go find Miranda now.”

“Good idea,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the drama on the court. I placed a hand on his shoulder, and for a moment he covered my hand with his and squeezed, finally looking back at me with tender eyes. We had a lot of little gestures like that between us. They meant no matter the madness around us, we were our own solid team.