Someone handed Bernie a stick. She walked out onto the perimeter of the rink and showed off her form. After a certain amount of confabbing and gesturing, someone escorted Bernie to center ice to play the game of “Shoot the Puck”: a board is placed in front of the goal with three slots in the bottom and contestants—usually drawn randomly from the crowd—get three chances to put the puck through a slot.
A woman from media relations was there with a mike, talking to each of the contestants before they addressed the puck. When it was Bernie’s turn, the woman said, “I see you are wearing Boom-Boom Warshawski’s number, even though your dad is with the Canadiens.”
“Boom-Boom was my godfather,” Bernie announced into the microphone. “I wear his number tonight and dedicate my shooting to his memory. Some ignorant people try to deface his reputation, but me, I am proud to show my support of him in public.”
The remark was so pointed, I figured it explained the tenseness she’d been exhibiting in the stands—she must have been planning to toss this barb my way.
The crowd went wild over Bernie when they caught on to her connection to Blackhawks royalty. The cheering and catcalls grew almost to old Stadium decibels. Bernie waved a quick, shy hand, but looked at her feet, not the audience, while the other three contestants took their turns.
When it was Bernie’s time to shoot, she treated the matter with total seriousness, adjusting her stick as if it were a golf club. The puck sailed through the center slot as if someone were pulling it on a string. Bernie permitted herself a small tight smile, bowed briefly to the cheering audience and scurried off the ice, where Pierre was waiting to hug her. The Blackhawks brass slapped her on the shoulders. I could imagine the threadbare comments: too bad the NHL doesn’t let women try out, we’d put you on one of our affiliate teams right away.
I left the stands to join a line for the women’s toilets. By the time I got back to my seat, the second period had started. Pierre and Bernie apparently had accepted an invitation to sit with the Blackhawks officers: their seats were empty, but I saw Pierre in the row of seats right behind the players’ bench. I picked up the binoculars that he’d left on his seat. No Bernie. Bathroom break, maybe. I sat uneasily for half a minute, then texted her.
About halfway into the second period, when she hadn’t responded to that or to my second text, I headed to the ground floor. The entrance to the floor-level seats was blocked by security staff who demanded a ticket that gave me the right to enter. I opened my mouth to argue, decided that was futile and gave a small scream instead.
“A rat! A rat just ran right over my feet—oh, horrible—look—look, it’s over there!”
I pointed dramatically. The three guards couldn’t help following my arm, which gave me a second to duck around the barrier and run into the stands. I pushed and shoved my way past annoyed fans and squawking security staff to the row of seats behind the Blackhawks bench.
“Pierre! Pierre!” I had to shout his name a half dozen times before someone heard me over the fan noise. The guards had caught up with me and were trying to wrestle me away when he turned and saw me struggling in their arms.
He tried to come to me, couldn’t get by the glass barrier separating the team from the crowd, and shook one of the manager’s arms. By this time, the guards had managed to drag me past the excited spectators to one of the aisles. What a wonderful night of violence, even better than a fight on the rink, guard versus berserk fan right in front of them.
Before the guards could turn me over to the Chicago police, Pierre arrived—he’d had to go through the tunnel into the dressing room and then up and around behind me. Someone from the Hawks was with him, explaining to the guards that I was a friend of Pierre’s.
“Vic, what is it? Bernadine, she is ill?”
“Where is Bernadine?” I demanded.
“But—with you. She is saying my old friends are trop ennuyants, she is wanting to watch the game—”
“No,” I said flatly. “She’s gone.”
“But—where? Maybe she is in the toilets?”
“She hasn’t been around since the second period started. It’s been a good twenty minutes, maybe more.”
“No,” he whispered. He grabbed his binoculars from me to inspect the section where we’d been sitting, but the three seats remained empty.
I looked around despairingly: twenty-one thousand fans, another thousand or more guards, press, you can’t search a building like this. Not much in the way of security cameras, either.
“Get the head of security,” I said to the guards who’d just been holding me. “Let’s see what we can do. She was on camera for ‘Shoot the Puck,’ and everyone paid attention because she’s Pierre’s daughter. If she left the building, or someone took— Anyway, you can alert everyone in security to look for her, or report whether they saw her, right?”
The man from the Blackhawks management who’d come up with Pierre nodded at the guards. “Get that going now, guys. Pierre, if she’s here, we’ll find her.”