All-Star Pride (5 page)

Chandler followed so close to me that I was afraid if I stopped, he'd run into me and break his nose. Nadia led us in a straight line through the eerie gray silence of the huge marketplace. She slowed and spoke briefly
over her shoulder. “Look no one in the eye; speak to no one. If they know you are from America, you stand a good chance of being killed. They think all Americans are rich. And it is easier to rob a dead body than a body that can fight or run.”

She moved ahead.

Chandler crowded even closer to me as we followed.

Minutes later, two kids stepped out from behind a tent and grabbed Nadia by the shoulders.

She said something quick and low.

Their heads turned and they looked at me. They disappeared. Ugliness, I guess, has its benefits.

She continued to lead us through the throngs of people until we reached another Mercedes, parked in front of a warehouse, its engine running. This one was gleaming white with dark windows of smoked glass. It was impossible to see inside.

Nadia tapped on the window twice.

The window slid down a half inch, operated by electric controls inside. All I could see was
the top of someone's head. Cigarette smoke drifted out and upward.

Nadia said something in Russian.

The person inside said something.

She replied.

The person inside grunted.

Nadia turned to Chandler.“Deliver it.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, if I make a mistake, I'm dead.”

She froze him with a look of hatred.

Chandler reached into his shirt, pulled out the package and slipped it into the slight opening at the top of the window. The window slid up, the transmission clicked into gear and the car drove away.

The doorway of the warehouse was straight ahead, and with the car gone, I noticed a man in the shadows, watching us. I wondered if it was my imagination, or if the man actually wore an eyepatch. To me, with his dark goatee and the eyepatch, he looked like a pirate, waiting to pounce. I was glad when Nadia turned away and began to lead us back to the hotel.

After breakfast the next morning we loaded ourselves and all our luggage and equipment onto an old bus. Coach Jorgensen and Nadia fussed around, making sure we didn't forget anything or anyone.

After all the guys were on the bus, Coach Jorgensen took a seat near the front. I was beginning to learn that he generally did his best to ignore us, except during the games.

Nadia stood in the aisle beside him. She told us our destination was Leningradsky
Vokzal, the Leningrad train station. Not that I cared too much. The train would take us north to St. Petersburg. All that mattered to me was the third game of the series, which we would play there this evening. We needed the win to keep the Russians from getting too confident.

“You are most fortunate,” she said, keeping her balance by clinging to a greasy chrome pole behind the driver. “We take the Avrora, a high-speed train. Our trip will be only six hours.”

Six hours. I hoped Chandler Harris would find someone else to sit beside the entire way. He'd made sure to plop down beside me on the bus, winking at me as he'd pushed me toward the window to make room for himself. I wanted to tell him he hadn't bought me with that stupid thousand dollars. Instead, I had just bitten my tongue and stared out at the old brick and stone buildings of Moscow.

“Again,” she said, “I cannot warn you too strongly of the importance of staying together as a team. Russia has made great strides
in welcoming tourists. However, there are many dangers.”

No kidding, I told myself. Like trips after curfew that might end up killing a person. I didn't like any of this. I just didn't know how to get myself out.

Nadia happened to look at me as she was warning us about the dangers. For a moment her eyes locked with mine. Her face tightened and turned cold.

She moved her eyes away from mine and spoke to the rest of the team. “At the station, you will wait for me. I will purchase your tickets and show you which train to board.”

She sat down beside Coach Jorgensen. The guys on the bus started talking among themselves.

“What about Matthew Henley and the camera crew?” I asked Chandler. Any subject but last night. I wanted to pretend it had never happened.

“Huh?” He was busy with some fishing line in his lap.

“Henley. The promoter guy. You know, the one who smokes cigars and drives us nuts?
And the camera crew. I don't see them.”

“Oh, them.” The cockiness was back in his voice. “Henley probably took a taxi to the train station. He always travels first-class, never with the team. And the camera crew guys always have to go the night before, to set up. In the old barns these Russians call ice rinks, it's a real nightmare trying to find power outlets and whatever else the camera crew needs for their equipment.”

As Chandler spoke, he was using a needle to thread fishing line into a ten-dollar bill.

He caught me watching.

“Ten bucks,” he said. “Worth around ten thousand rubles. When I first did this tour two years ago, ten bucks was only worth about one thousand rubles. Inflation is killing this country.” He wrinkled his forehead. “You do know what inflation is, right? Or is your head just filled with muscle?”

I could have told him it was an increase in prices while money fell in value, something I remembered from my social studies class in high school, but I had a feeling it wouldn't hurt if Chandler thought I was dumb. I
ignored his question and pointed at the money and the fishing line.

“Why?”

“You know me,” he said. He grinned his evil grin. “Mr. Practical Joker. I like to have fun. Wait till we're at the train station and you'll find out. Trust me, this one never fails.”

The train station smelled of oil and diesel fuel and cigarette smoke. Tracks ran right into the domed building of Leningradsky Vokzal, and I counted eight sets, six with waiting locomotives and attached passenger cars. One track had a train just leaving, and the other was empty. The signs around me had the funny characters of the Russian language. There was no way I could have found the train or even the time of our departure for St. Petersburg. Nadia was right. Without her, we would be in trouble.

Before going to get our tickets, Nadia directed us to some empty benches where we piled our equipment. Most of the guys sat. I stood near the end of one of the benches and began to look around.

For a huge building filled with thousands of people, the train station was surprisingly quiet. I couldn't figure it out until I had spent a couple of minutes watching the Russians as they flowed around us. Most of them kept their heads down, as if they were trying to blend in with the background. If they were walking with someone else, their conversations were low. I saw no smiles. Heard no laughter. It reminded me of a tour our high school class had taken through a penitentiary. Gray clothes and gray faces of men trying to be invisible as the guards watched them.

I sat down at the end of the bench and waited for Nadia to return.

A middle-aged man wearing a black suit and carrying a briefcase walked by. Suddenly he stopped, as if he'd been jolted with electricity. He looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching; then he bent over to pick something up. I leaned forward to see what it was.

I saw a ten-dollar bill on the marble floor. The same one he couldn't believe was his just for the taking.

The middle-aged man's fingers twitched as he plucked at the bill. Just before he reached it, it floated away and stopped a half-step beyond him. He moved forward and bent over again to pick it up. And, again, it floated away just before he could grab it.

He frowned and, still bent over, took another quick step forward, only to see the money float away from him a third time.

I heard snorting laughter from the guys around me. Then I figured it out. Chandler Harris, sitting in the middle of the bench with the guys on both sides of him, was reeling in the ten-dollar bill with the fishing line. The line itself was invisible in the low fluorescent light of the train station.

The middle-aged man must have heard the laughter too. He straightened, tugged at the bottom of his suit jacket, arched his shoulders and quickly walked away.

Chandler got up and placed the ten-dollar bill where it had been.

Now that the guys knew what to expect, they all leaned forward and watched and waited. It took less than a minute for someone
else to notice. This time it was a greasy-haired kid a couple of years younger than us. Wearing a faded nylon jacket, he tried to look tough with a cigarette perched on his bottom lip. He, too, stopped as if jolted by electricity. He didn't look around to see if anyone was watching, though; he just made a quick grab for the money.

Chandler yanked it back. The greasy-haired kid stumbled after it. Chandler kept pulling it back. The kid fell to his knees trying to get it. Most of the guys on the team busted out in laughter.

The kid stood. He glared at us and did his mathematics. Twenty of us. One of him. He spit in our direction and walked away.

“Cool, Chandler,” one of the guys said. “Do it again!”

Chandler walked out from the bench and set the ten-dollar bill back into place.

I didn't like watching it. For starters, I thought it was mean. But it also reminded me of the money Chandler had dangled in front of me. Not ten dollars, but one thousand dollars. I forced myself to keep my mouth shut.

Chandler did the trick to two other people. Another guy in a suit. And a newspaper vendor who dropped all his papers trying to pick up the ten-dollar bill.

Chandler's next victim was an old lady in a brown dress who leaned on a cane for support as she walked.

The old lady did what all the others had done when seeing the money on the floor. She stopped, unable to believe her good luck. She didn't bend over, though, not when she was so old it might have broken her back. Instead, she stabbed her cane down and pinned the money to the floor.

This time, I laughed. Served Chandler right, teasing innocent people like this.

I had underestimated Chandler, though. He showed patience. The old lady shuffled forward to pick up her prize. With great effort she squatted downward to get her money. During the brief moment when she lifted her cane to claim the bill, Chandler yanked the money away. The old lady nearly fell forward in surprise. She managed to totter upward and took a few more
shuffling steps toward the money. By then, Chandler knew what to expect, and when she stabbed her cane downward to pin the money again, he yanked the fishing line.

She stabbed, he yanked. She stabbed, he yanked. Three more times she missed the money. Each time she almost fell with her effort.

She had her head down and was concentrating hard on chasing the ten-dollar bill. Her shuffling brought her right to our bench. Her hearing must have been bad because she didn't react to the laughter of the guys around Chandler.

She took a final stab at the money, so close to Chandler she almost got him in the toe. He was forced to reel the money upward into the air and almost into his lap.

She squawked at the sight of a paper bill rising into the air. It brought her head up, and she finally realized what Chandler had been doing.

She was so close I could see the bleary redness of her eyes. The wrinkles on her face bunched together, and she screeched with anger.

Chandler laughed. She swatted him across the top of his head with her cane.

“Hey!” he shouted.

She shouted back at him in Russian and whopped him across the head again.

He ducked and tried to cover his head with his hands. She took another swing and mashed the tops of his fingers. He yelped and pulled his hands away to save his fingers, and she hit him again across the top of the head.

By then, the rest of the guys were almost rolling on the ground with laughter.

“Grab her, guys,” Chandler shouted. “Haul her away!”

She kept screeching in Russian and swatting him with her cane. People passing by ignored it. Chandler started to run. I guess even he couldn't bring himself to hit an old lady.

She tottered after him, whacking him across the back until he finally cleared the arc of her swinging cane.

I picked up the fishing line and the ten-dollar bill from where Chandler had dropped it in his hurry to escape. I ran after
the old lady, who was still doing her best to catch up to Chandler.

I managed to get in front of her and hold out the money.

“Here,” I said, “you earned it.”

She glared at me. I started to explain again, then realized she didn't understand English.

I reached down with my other hand and grabbed her bony wrist. I turned her hand so her palm was up, and I placed the money in her hand.

She smiled, showing one tooth and a lot of gums.

I began to smile back, but then I froze. She was so tiny she barely reached my waist. I could see clearly over her head. And what I saw I didn't like.

It was the man with the goatee and the eyepatch. The man I had seen the previous night at the black market. He was near the window where Nadia had gone to get our tickets. And he was standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder, leaning down and whispering in her ear.

From the opening minutes of game three in St. Petersburg, I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger on skates. Nothing was going to stop me.

I played a dozen hard shifts in the first fifteen minutes of the game. I banged Russians into the boards each and every time they so much as sniffed at the puck on my side of the ice.

I knew I was doing a good job because every time I stepped onto the ice for another
shift, the Russian crowd began to whistle at me, their way of booing. It wasn't the kind of loud whistling you do with your fingers in your mouth, but the soft whistle of putting just your lips together. With thousands of people whistling that way, it sounds almost scary.

I ignored them. I knew my job, and I was doing it. Although we hadn't yet scored, we'd kept steady pressure on the Russians, and they'd barely had a couple of shots on the net.