Starvation Lake (25 page)

“I can’t talk.”

“Darlene, please, you’ve got to help me.”

After our sweet tryst in the county courthouse all those years ago, we’d begun dating. Around town we became, officially, an item, and there was talk that we would marry and settle on the lake. Not surprisingly, followers of the River Rats laced this talk with sarcasm about my gaffe in the state final. There were jokes about me falling down at the altar and dropping wedding rings. As for me, I can’t honestly say that I fell in love with Darlene then because I think I’d always been in love with her, as far back as the day I rescued her bike from Jitters Creek. Whatever I felt, it wasn’t enough to keep me in Starvation. We always knew I was going to leave, but even after I accepted the job at the
Times
and started preparing to move, we never talked about it. The pain we’d avoided for so long finally settled upon us. My last week in town, we didn’t speak.

Only after she married did she deign to talk with me again, but even then only in short, strained snatches, like the conversation we were now having. Most of the time, it was as if we were talking on a bad connection. Emotional static obscured our voices and blocked our ears. Darlene wavered between anger about her lousy marriage and fear that somehow the sound of my voice might lure her back to me and whatever sorrow I might inflict on her a second time. I waited apologetically for her walls of resolve to crack so that I might hear the slightest echo of her old kindness. In a way, the worst of returning to Starvation Lake was facing Darlene, whose icy distance accused me of having been a fool for ever leaving.

She was right, of course, that it was unfair of me to call her like this. I felt I had no choice.

“I told him no,” she said.

“No what?”

“No, I wasn’t going to tell him anything about your coach.”

“You didn’t tell him anything?”

She hesitated. “No, not—”

“Come on, Darlene.”

“I don’t have to talk to you at all.”

“I saw you taking the stuff out of Leo’s house today.”

The phone went silent. I waited for a dial tone. I heard Darlene sigh. “Boynton called me yesterday,” she said. “I told him to go to hell again, but he said he had information.”

By then Boynton had spoken with Joanie. He knew a little about Canada.

“What information?”

“It’s pretty creepy. He was asking—hold on.” I heard her close a door. She picked up the phone again. “He wanted to know about Blackburn’s criminal history.”

“Criminal history? Like felonies?”

“Blackburn didn’t have a record, though.”

“No record of what?”

“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.”

   We came out fast. Zilchy scored on a rebound to make it 1–0 and then Stevie deflected a low shot by Soupy over Tatch, the Land Sharks’ goalie, for a 2–0 lead late in the first period. I had to make only one tough save when D’Alessio got free and swung in untouched from my left. He shot low and hard to my stick side and I barely got my right toe on it. The rebound went right to Boynton, who tried to jam it just inside the goalpost, but I dove and smothered it for a whistle.

“Fuck you, Carpie,” I heard him tell me yet again.

As we took the lead into the second period, Teddy started playing more and more like the Teddy he’d grown into. He kicked Stevie’s legs out from behind. Elbowed Danny Lefebvre in the face. Clipped me with a butt end as he skated past. All when the refs weren’t looking, of course. Mostly, though, he gunned for Soupy. He cross-checked him in the neck, whacked him in the back of the knees, yapped at him at face-offs. “You think this is a fucking game?” he shouted once. Soupy did not reply, which wasn’t like him. He was no fighter, but he rarely shied from yapping at a yapper. Boynton kept it up. Soupy kept turning away.

Midway through the third period, Loob took a pass from Boynton and fired a slapper just to my right. Loob had a cannon, but I saw this shot cleanly and flicked out Eggo to block it. I thought I had it easily, but it deflected off Eggo’s bottom edge, ricocheted downward, and bounced off the side of my right leg pad and into the net. While the Sharks celebrated, I stared at Eggo in disbelief, wondering if the lack of one wind of tape had cost me.

When I looked up, I saw blue and red police lights flashing through the glass at the other end of the rink. Everyone stopped to watch the sheriff’s deputies, five or six of them, trot into the Zamboni shed. They got Leo, I thought. One of the refs skated down there, and D’Alessio jumped off the Land Shark bench and joined him. I could see the cops stringing up yellow crime-scene tape. D’Alessio turned and directed everyone, even the referees, over to the benches. He left the ice and clomped into the Zam shed in his skates. I went over and leaned against the boards by our bench where the rest of the Chowder Heads were quietly watching. Soupy gave me a look. “What?” I said, and he turned away. The police lights kept flashing. Finally D’Alessio emerged from the Zam shed, shaking his head. He called the refs over. They had a brief conversation. D’Alessio skated off the ice and into the dressing room. I watched Soupy watching him. One of the refs came over and said, “They’re going to close the place, but we can finish.”

A little more than six minutes remained. The police lights kept flashing. The skaters lined up for a face-off to my right. As the ref held the puck out over the face-off dot, Darlene, in uniform, stepped into view outside the glass in the corner. Stevie won the face-off back to Soupy, who slid the puck immediately to me. I froze it for another face-off, which is what Soupy wanted. “Hang on,” he told the ref, and then skated over to Darlene. They had a brief exchange that I could not hear. Soupy punched the glass with his right fist and yelled, “No!” The ref’s whistle shrilled. “Today, gentlemen,” he said. Darlene hurried away, and when Soupy turned back to the game, his face was a pale mask of anger.

I felt certain then that something bad was going to happen.

From the next face-off, Stevie shoveled the puck ahead to Wilf, who banged it into the Land Sharks’ end. Zilchy chased it down in a corner and slid a quick pass back to Soupy waiting just above the face-off dot to the left of the Land Shark net. From there he could’ve had a clear shot on goal or he could’ve passed it to Danny Lefebvre at the far goalpost. Instead he lifted his stick an inch and let the puck slide beneath it. He tried to make it look like a mistake. Inexplicably, he waited a beat while Boynton rushed past and scooped up the puck. Soupy turned in pursuit.

Boynton had a breakaway. Soupy was faster, though, and could have overtaken him easily. Instead he maintained his pace two strides behind, waiting for something. What are you doing? I thought. I slid out to cut down the angle, my eyes darting between Boynton and Soupy, still trailing. Boynton veered to the middle of the ice. I stopped and squatted, prepared to push backward, catching glove high, Eggo in position, eyes now on the puck. I was guessing that Boynton was preparing to shoot rather than deke when his legs buckled and the puck squirted away.