“Yeah, well, listen up.”
Poppy had told me about his plan earlier. It stemmed from his own youth skating for the old Detroit Junior Red Wings. Poppy had been a brawler then, assigned to beat up opposing players who hassled the Junior Wings’ stars, like Gordie Howe’s son Mark. Poppy had some wicked scars on his knuckles to prove it.
If you pushed him, Poppy would talk about those days, but it was clear that he had regrets, that he wished he hadn’t established himself as merely a fighter, a reputation that followed him into the low minor leagues but never propelled him even close to the NHL. Back then, their fighters came from every corner of Canada but never from the United States.
“I want you to keep your cool,” Poppy said. “When you get honked off at some guy for putting his stick up your butt, count to three, call him an asshole, walk away.”
“I can do that.”
“But just in case.” Poppy moved in close to Tex. “Just in case you feel like you can’t hold it in, here’s what I want you to do.”
Tex waited.
“Do not drop your gloves. Do you hear me? Under no circumstances will you drop your gloves. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Instead, if some guy gets you to the point that you’re just dying to blast him, I want you to do this. I want you to hit the guy once, as hard as you can.” Poppy threw a slow fake punch just short of Tex’s face. Tex did not flinch. “Just once. As hard as you can. Then head directly to the penalty box. Do not pass go.”
Tex smiled. “You sure about this, Coach?”
“It ain’t funny, son. I don’t want you to lose it at all out there. I don’t want you in the penalty box. But I’d rather you took a two-minute penalty than something that sits you down longer or gets you tossed.”
“Do you understand, Tex?” I said.
“Yeah. One punch, go to the box.”
“Especially with that Holcomb guy.”
“Pinky?” Tex said. “What a wuss. I’ll take him and-”
“No,” Poppy said. “The point is not to go head-hunting. The point is to stay calm, focus on the puck, but if you feel the dam bursting, you know what to do.”
“OK, Coach.”
“Control yourself. Be a man.”
For some reason I thought of my reporter’s propensity for smashing computers. Whistler, who was forty years older than Tex.
“I’ve got to fix this hand,” Tex said.
As he skated away, Poppy said, “You think he’ll get into it with Pinky?”
“Of course,” I said. “Just a question of how much.”
“God help us. I worry about him up there with all those crazy people. He’s a good kid. Not sure he’s cut out for that.”
“Me either. Listen, Pop, I might be a little late tonight. Got some stuff to take care of.”
He looked taken aback for a second, then said, “Got it. Hey-we’re going to have a moment of silence for Phyllis again, right after the anthem.”
“Great. Ring me between periods, will you?”
“Will do.”
“Don’t forget.”
My phone rang as I was pulling out of the rink parking lot.
“Whistler here,” the caller said. “Got lucky again.”
“With T.J.?”
“Good one. No. With this Nilus guy. My source at the archdiocese is retired, but he remembered him from way back. Said to check a couple of counties for lawsuits. I left a note on your desk. Maybe you want to run them down. Or I can.”
“Lawsuits against Nilus?”
“Concerning Nilus, supposedly, though I doubt he’s the only defendant, because as a priest he wouldn’t have two nickels. The church or the diocese would be the deep pockets.”
“What did he supposedly do?”
“Not sure. The guy was a little squirrelly. Might be nothing-you know, a property dispute or something. Maybe somebody got pissed that he made him say too many Hail Marys.” Whistler laughed at his little joke and, as he laughed, I heard a snatch of music, the opening riff of a Procol Harum song. I imagined him standing outside Enright’s.
“I’ll check it out,” I said. “I found out some interesting stuff myself.”
“Cool. What do you got?”
A snowplow rumbled past, a pair of fluttering River Rats flags attached to the cab windows.
“Not much yet,” I said, “but the clips-well, the headlines-filed downstairs, you know, the morgue, said Nilus was around when some nun disappeared years ago. Then they got the guy who killed her and he got killed in jail.”
“Whoa. Awesome shit, man. You get it in tomorrow’s paper?”
“No.” I looked at my watch. “Two minutes to deadline, and I don’t really have it nailed.”
“Always first,” Whistler said.
“And frequently right.”
“Let’s hope Channel Eight doesn’t have it.”
“I’ve got to go. Thanks for the good work.”
“You got it,” he said. “Tough story, but a good story.”
“Yeah.”
“And, Gus, next time you go down to that basement, let someone know so we can send down a search team if you don’t come out.”
Besides two moldering tomatoes and half a head of slimy lettuce, all I could find in my fridge were two cans of Blue Ribbon, a month-old package of Swiss cheese, a jar of dill pickles, and some Miracle Whip. It would be enough. I was starving.
I had planned to shop for groceries that weekend but got busy. Before going to Mom’s Sunday morning, I’d had to dump a quart of 2 percent milk that had soured before I’d even opened it. My one loaf of bread was nearly stale, but I figured it would be fine toasted, at least until it started growing mold, so I’d stuck it in the freezer.
Now I took it out and put two hard, frosted slices in the toaster on the counter next to the fridge. The kitchen, with its drab green walls and fake petunias hanging in a plastic basket over the sink, wasn’t all that big, but bigger than the one I’d had when I’d last lived alone, in an apartment over the Pilot, before spending a year back at Mom’s.
I had moved out of Mom’s six months before and rented one of the old Victorians on Main a few blocks from the Pilot. The rent was cheap because the landlord lived downstate and he liked having someone there to make sure the pipes didn’t freeze and the roof was shoveled. I could walk to work, which helped clear my mind for rewriting press releases and arm wrestling with corporate and cops and town council members.
Some mornings I would be sitting in that kitchen eating a bowl of Cheerios, hearing the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room, imagining it was growing louder by the tick, and I would feel oddly certain that somebody else should have been there, that I shouldn’t be sitting alone in a house that big, in a town that small, and I would get up and turn on a radio or, if it was warm enough outside, open a window so I could hear cars and trucks passing on Main.
Now, while the bread toasted, I spun the lid off the Miracle Whip and shoved my nose inside. It didn’t smell life threatening yet. I cut two dill pickles into thin slices and set them on a paper plate festooned with little Santa heads.
I gazed out the window over the sink. Across the way I could see the Andersons sitting down to dinner. Two towheaded boys and a teenage girl waited at the table while their mother set a casserole in the middle. Beef stew? I wondered. Scalloped potatoes? Darlene made terrific scalloped potatoes with ham.
The boys and the girl were wearing matching River Rats sweatshirts. The father, Oke, came in talking into a
