I didn’t know Francis well, but I liked it that he’d called all those people to the rink on the night we beat Griffin. I liked it that he’d hung on to Enright’s, the thing he’d owned longest, and that he still came in on Saturday nights to help sling beers. He’d been close to Coach, and I thought he knew my dad a little as well. He set four beers in front of us.
“Who won?” he said.
“The good guys,” Soupy said.
“I wish I could say the same for the Rats,” Francis said.
“Knocked out again?” I said. As the source of the Rats’ long jinx, I prayed every year that they would snap it.
“Indeed.” Francis spoke with the hint of an Irish brogue, a hand-me-down from his mother, whose maiden name was Enright. “Same old, same old. Pipefitters again. Six to one. We were never in the game.”
“At least it didn’t come down to one guy shitting the bed, huh?” It was Little Timmy Wilford, Brad’s younger brother, trying to be funny. Little Wilf was barely six when we’d lost our last game.
“Eat shit, junior,” Soupy said. “I don’t recall your sorry-ass squad ever getting out of the regional, let alone making a final.”
“Let it go, Alden,” Francis said.
“Lighten up,” Little Wilf said, raising a palm in Soupy’s face. “Just messing with you.”
“Jesus, junior, the hand!” Soupy said. He pinched his nose and made a gagging sound.
Little Wilf turned the palm to his face and inhaled deeply. “Ahhhhh,” he said. “Hockey.” Nothing smells worse than the inside of an old sweat-drenched hockey glove, except a hand that just came out of one. And nothing smells more like hockey.
“In my opinion,” Francis interrupted, rapping a finger on the bar for emphasis, “it didn’t matter how well we played this weekend, we weren’t going to win. Not with that snowmobile washing up onshore. You can’t be playing hockey with ghosts flying around in your locker room.”
“Ghosts?” Soupy said. “Come on, Francis. You think those kids give a damn? What the hell’s with everybody? All I’ve been hearing is this shit about Blackburn and his snowmobile. He croaked a million years ago. You ought to let it go.”
Teddy was making his way toward us. He stopped to peer at the photograph of Blackburn, glanced back toward Darlene, then looked again at the photo. Francis turned to me.
“Saw your girl’s article today, Augustus,” he said. “I thought, Good for Augustus, he’s not going to go crazy with this thing just so he can sell a lot of papers. But then, I’ll be damned if your little reporter didn’t come in here today, snooping around.”
“Just doing her job,” I said.
“She wanted pictures off the wall, for God’s sake.”
“She ain’t so little,” Soupy said.
“Did you talk to her, Francis?” I said.
Francis leaned close and put his hands flat on the bar. “Only to tell her that Jack Blackburn was one of the finest men ever to set foot in Starvation Lake. And that it’s out of line to be digging him up like this. It ain’t right, Augustus. Jack’s dead and buried wherever the good Lord wished. Rest in peace.”
“Amen,” Soupy said.
“Well, sorry, Francis,” I said. “The cops are investigating. You’re always bitching about the county pissing away your tax dollars. Don’t you think we ought to find out what the hell they’re doing?”
“Hogwash, Augustus. Your job is to sell as many papers as you can. And for your information, I don’t think Dingus and his bobbies should be poking around in it either. It’s an election year, I know, but this isn’t the way to go about getting attention. I think he ought to let the past stay in the past, just as I think young Mr. Wilford here ought to leave your past in the past, regardless.”
“Regardless of what?” I said.
“Just as nobody needs to be asking whatever happened to you down in Detroit that got you back here, either.”
“Right,” I said. Not even Soupy knew how I’d screwed up in Detroit.
“Think about it.” He clapped me on my hand. “I know you’re a good man.”
“Are we having an argument?” Teddy Boynton set his empty Heineken on the bar. “Give it up, Gus,” he said. “Campbell’s gonna have to pay his bar tab eventually. It must be up there with the federal deficit by now, huh?”
“Evening, Ted,” I said. I looked past him and saw Darlene was gone.
“Theodore,” Francis said, nodding.
“Francis,” Teddy said. They didn’t shake hands. Maybe the rumors of a rift were true. Boynton threw a ten on the bar. “That should cover me.”
Francis shoved it back at him. “Your money’s no good in here, Theodore.”
“Give it to Loob then.”
“No luck with Darlene, eh, Teddy boy?” Soupy said. “Why don’t you try the high school? Maybe there’s a sock hop.”
“You got that hundred you owe me?”
“No, but I got an answer for you: Go to hell.”
That stopped Teddy for a second. It wasn’t just a smart-ass remark. Teddy looked at Francis, whose own look suggested that he, too, took Soupy’s meaning.
“So that’s it?” Teddy said.
“That’s it,” Soupy said.
“There’s time to reconsider,” Teddy said. “Don’t be stupid, Soupy.”
“Excuse me,” Francis said. His eyes met Teddy’s for an instant as he slid away. Now I understood. Soupy was telling Teddy to stuff his settlement offer. That would leave everything up to the zoning board. I wondered if Francis was in on Boynton’s marina or not.
“Nothing to reconsider,” Soupy said.
Teddy yanked his keys out of a coat pocket. “You know,” he said, “you’re a loser. And you make a conscious choice to be a loser every day. But you will come around. In the meantime, I’d appreciate you not winging pucks at my head.”
“In the meantime, kiss my ass,” Soupy said. “If I wanted to hit you, I would’ve.”
“See you on the ice Monday night,” Boynton said. “Want to double down on that hundred?”
“Fucking-ay,” Soupy said.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“No, we won’t.”
Boynton looked at me. “Thanks again for the memories, Carp.”
As he headed for the door I excused myself to take a leak. Instead of going into the men’s room, though, I ducked behind the crowd and slipped out the front door. I found Teddy unlocking his sport utility.
“How was the fishing this morning, Ted?” I said.
He was peering at a bar napkin he’d pulled from inside his coat. He put it back in his pocket. “You gonna do that story or not?” he said.
“Which?”
“The one about your loser friend we’re gonna give to Channel Eight.”
I’d forgotten all about it. “We’re working on it.”
“You’ll hear from my lawyer.”
“How was the fishing?”
“Fishing?” he said. He slammed the vehicle’s door shut. His engine growled to life. He rolled his window down. “You know, Carpie,” he said. “You’re a sucker.”
I figured if I went back inside, I’d be there till close, then Soupy would want to come up to my place for more drinks. Better to escape while I could. But my truck wasn’t where I thought I’d parked. I hiked down Main to Estelle and around to the Pilot lot. There was the truck. Memory’s going, I thought.
At my stairway I looked up and noticed a dull glow in my apartment window. Had I left a light on? Four steps up, I noticed my door was open a crack. I stopped and looked around. Break-ins almost never happened in
