“You can’t print this, Gus.”
“Darlene, I’m not going to print what Boynton was asking you.”
“He-darn it, hang on.” I heard knocking on her door. She covered the phone. I waited. She came back on. “I have to go.”
“What did he ask about?”
Now I got the dial tone.
My story about Boynton’s ultimatum to the zoning board went on the front page along with Joanie’s story about Dingus’s aborted press conference. Kerasopoulos read Joanie’s story before it went to print. He made us redo a few lines so it didn’t look like Dingus had walked out in a huff, even though he had. Joanie wasn’t pleased, but at least she didn’t blame me. Before I left, I made sure Tillie had put the underwater tunnel question in Sound Off. I also made arrangements for some editing help in Traverse City so I could make the trip to Detroit the next morning. I didn’t say why I had to take the day off, just that I had some personal business.
The phone on my desk rang as I was climbing the stairs to my apartment. I let it. I wanted a nap before the game. Upstairs I packed my gear and lay back in the recliner. My eyes fell on the boxes supporting the table. The one marked “Rats” held one big part of my life, the others marked “Trucks” held another. Neither seemed to have worked out very well. I flicked off the lamp and closed my eyes. But I couldn’t sleep.
By now, I thought, the police might have caught up with Leo. Or maybe they weren’t even pursuing him. Maybe he’d left for some other reason, something that had nothing to do with Coach. Maybe he’d gone because he could no longer bear staying in Starvation Lake now that his old friend had returned, albeit in shadow.
I got out of the chair and called Mom, whose mile-a-minute message informed me that she was out. I couldn’t tell where. I left a message that I’d try to stop by Tuesday evening. I didn’t want her to know I was going downstate. She’d worry. I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.
I had to tape Eggo’s thumb. I unzipped my hockey bag, set the glove on the table, and rooted in my bag for the shiny black tape I always used. Barely any was left on the roll. I’d been meaning to buy more. I peeled off Saturday’s tape and started winding the fresh stuff on. I ran out before I’d gotten around the thumb twice. Even though the tape didn’t really hold anything, I liked to have it go around at least three times. Tonight, two would have to do.
When I walked into dressing room 3, the Chowder Heads were having the sort of discussion that passed for philosophical in a place that reeked of old sweat and mildew. Wilf was telling of a friend who’d skated on a minor- league team where it was customary for a rookie, as part of his ritual initiation, to come to a game and find his skates filled with a veteran’s dump.
“Jesus, Wilf,” Stevie Reneau said. He was smearing toothpaste on the inside of his plastic face shield so it wouldn’t fog. Stevie had no stomach for these sorts of stories, which was one reason why Wilf took such glee in telling them. We never knew whether Wilf was making stuff up just to make Stevie sick, but this particular story was, unfortunately, plausible.
“So this rookie’s cleaning out his skates, you know, while my buddy and all the other dudes are laughing their balls off,” Wilf said. “Then the guy goes out and-what do you know? — scores a hat trick. No shit. First of his career, eh?” He grinned widely, knowing Stevie would reach the conclusion any superstitious hockey player would.
“Don’t tell me,” Stevie said.
“Oh, yeah,” Wilf said.
Stevie’s face contorted with pain. “The guy had to keep putting shit in his skates? Get the fuck out of here.”
Wilf laughed while Stevie impulsively grabbed his own skates and stuffed them back in his hockey bag. “You’ve been in a bit of a scoring slump, Steve-O,” Wilf said. “You never know what might help.”
Although Zilchy thought it bad luck to speak a word just before games, this opportunity was apparently irresistible. “What do you think, Stevie? Would the guy have to have the same guy’s shit in his skates before every game?”
“And what if the shitter got traded?” Danny Lefebvre chimed in.
Wilf’s eyes lit up. “I guess the rookie’s career would go right down the shitter!”
“Goddamn it, Wilf,” Stevie groaned.
Soupy walked in, dragging his hockey bag and a cooler.
“Soup,” Danny said.
“Spoons,” Wilf said.
Soupy dropped his bag and slid the cooler to the middle of the room. He sat down, as always, to my left. He looked tired. It wasn’t like him to be late for a championship game, even if it was just the Midnight Hour Men’s League.
“Soup, you got to hear this,” Wilf said. He started to retell his story, but Soupy stopped him in midsentence.
“Not now.”
Wilf looked offended. “Fuck’s your problem?” he said.
“The Zam’s on.”
“Leo finally show up?” Danny said.
Soupy kept his head down as he pulled gear from his bag. “Ronny’s doing the ice,” he said. Ronny was a high school kid who worked for Leo.
“So the ice’ll suck,” Wilf said. “Where the hell is Leo? It’s a championship game, for fuck’s sakes.”
Soupy gave me a sharp sideways glance, as if I knew the answer. I flipped my mask down. “So, Soup,” I said, changing the subject. “Mom’s thinking of getting a boat, now that I’m back. Maybe a nice speedboat.”
He grunted as he struggled to jam his left foot into his four-sizes-too-small skate. “Mrs. C’s got the cash for a speedboat? I doubt that. You seen Leo?”
“No,” I said. “What do they run these days?”
“A good speedboat? A lot. But, between the two of you, we could probably put you in an inflatable raft.”
“So, like, what? Ten grand?”
He was forcing his second skate on. “Twice that,” he said.
“Huh,” I said. “So do you sell boats for, like, twenty-five thousand dollars?” That was the number on the receipt Dingus had given me.
“Sure,” Soupy said. “Nicer, bigger ones. You used to work there.”
“You don’t sell ferryboats, do you?”
“Ferryboats? What the fuck are you talking about?” He directed himself to the entire room. “Was Gus already drinking? Goalies aren’t supposed to drink pregame.”
“Never mind,” I said.
“Look, Trap, if Mrs. C really wants a boat, you know I’ll work something out. Have her call me. But, Jesus, you’re getting weird. Everything’s getting weird around here. Where the hell is Leo anyway?”
Most of the room had emptied. I could hear sticks cracking pucks and pucks booming off sideboards. Soupy pulled on his Chowder Heads jersey, red and white, with a logo of a soup spoon made to look like a hockey stick.
“You were a little weird yourself last night, man,” I said.
“You mean Saturday?”
“No, last night. On my stairway. You were shitfaced.”
He popped his taped-up helmet on his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And what about today? The zoning board missed you.”
“Ain’t lucky to talk business, Trap.”
“Ain’t lucky to talk luck.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder as he always did just before we went out to play. But this time he squeezed hard and pulled me in close to him and peered in through the eyeholes in my mask.
“Where’s Leo?” he said. “The Zam shed’s cleaned out.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Bullshit. You notice every goddamn thing.”
“We’ve got to get out there. I’m a brick wall, right?”
“Yeah,” Soupy said, standing. “And I’m a rubber band, liable to snap any minute.”
