Page 20 of Hard Hitter
“Good game against Detroit,” Pete, the bartender, said when he delivered O’Doul’s Diet Coke with a wedge of lime. O’Doul didn’t drink during the day, and this guy remembered. It was a perk of being a regular, not of being semi-famous.
“Thanks, man,” he said, taking a sip. He set his Katt Phone on the table. The guys had talked about heading into Manhattan tonight to celebrate Castro’s birthday at some new Asian fusion restaurant. In a couple hours the texts would start rolling in with the plans and the challenges. Who’d be drinking the most. Who’d be paying for it. And they’d goad the married guys who didn’t want to leave their families into yet another night with the team.
He’d probably go along with the plan, whatever it shaped up to be. What else was he going to do?
His phone was oddly silent, though. O’Doul ate his burger and watched some college basketball on replay. He drank another soda and finished his fries. The afternoon slipped peacefully into evening. When his phone finally began to light up with texts, he was watching the last two minutes of a surprisingly close Kentucky game.
“Good game, right?” Pete asked, wiping down the wooden surface.
“Yeah. Their record is something else.” He picked up his phone and scrolled to the top of the text stream. But these weren’t texts from his teammates at all. In fact, he didn’t recognize the sender’s name. Somebody named Vince. And the dude was seriously pissed off.
YOU FUCKING CUNT, was his opening gambit.GET DOWN HERE AND OPEN THE GD DOOR.
Yikes.
He pressed the home button on his phone, then laid his thumb on the verification spot. But it didn’t unlock.
DENIEDthe screen insisted.
Weird.
The screen lit up again with another diatribe, so he tried again to unlock his phone. He tried several more times, but the damn thing wouldn’t unlock. Meanwhile, the texts came thick and fast.SLUT, I WILL FUCK YOU UP. DON’T PULL THIS SHIT. NOT SMART, BITCH.
Christ. And each time a new text came in, the phone made an irritating, audible ding. He’d changed the phone’s settings so that it would never do that.
Oh.
Oh, fuck. This wasn’thisphone. He was holding someone else’s Katt Phone. Everyone on the team and on staff had the same model.
He stared at the thing in his hand, and then a chill climbed right up his spine.Ari. These texts were for her. “Pete!” he barked. “I need a phone.”
“You do?” The bartender raised an eyebrow, probably because O’Doul washoldinga phone.
He dropped it on the bar as another irate text came through. “I switched mine with someone by accident. And she’s in trouble. Quickly, please.” He stood up fast, as if that would somehow get him to Ari faster. He didn’t have a clue where she lived, or whether she was at home at all.
Pete handed him a phone, unlocked.
O’Doul tapped in his own phone number and then jammed that sucker up to his ear. It rang once. Twice... too many times. Then went to voice mail. He heard his own stupid voice say, “Leave a message.”
Fuck.
Maybe she wasn’t home. She might be in the middle of a massage, without a clue she’d switched phones. That was the best case scenario. He could try to reach her at the practice rink. But he didn’t have the Bruisers’ numbers memorized because Nate had passed out the Katt Phones before they’d even moved to Brooklyn. He tapped the browser and then began tapping the team name into the tiny window with his fat fingers. Fuck. “Pete, does that computer have Google? I need to know the clubhouse office digits.”
The bartender didn’t ask questions. He just brought up a browser and began typing on the bar terminal. “Try this,” he said and began rattling off a 718 number.
It went to a goddamn voice mail.Press one for ticket sales. Press two for the stadium.“Fuck!”
“I’ve found the admin page,” Pete said, still bent over his computer. “Who do you need?”
“Uh... Becca. Rebecca Rowley.”
Pete gave him another phone number to try. And all the while it rang in his ear, more threatening texts kept rolling through. Fuck. His next move would be to just run for the rink and hope she was still there.
“Hugh Major’s office, this is Rebecca.”
“Becca, it’s O’Doul,” he said quickly. “We have an emergency. We need to find Ari—she and I switched phones. Is she still in the building?”
“Nope!” Becca dashed his hopes. “Saw her leave about forty minutes ago.”
