22. Maddox
MADDOX
Icall Harlan at eleven fifty-nine on Sunday morning.
He answers on the first ring.
“Maddox.”
“Yes to Blackridge.”
He exhales through the line. I hear a pen click on his end.
“Good man. I'll—”
“I'm not done.”
“Okay.”
I'm sitting on my kitchen counter in Phoenix's apartment because my own kitchen counter is no longer mine in another day and I’ve started moving my things.
Phoenix is at a mandatory player meeting at the arena about “character and the organization,” where Callahan is walking the team through the press line for tomorrow.
The coffee maker I'm looking at is not mine.
The view out the window isn't mine. Nothing in this building is mine. That's the clarity I'm working with.
“I want a contract for Theo Laurent at Blackridge.”
The line is quiet. Harlan is a professional. Harlan doesn't say you cannot be serious. Harlan takes a breath.
“Tell me what you mean.”
My free hand grips the edge of the counter.
“I mean what I said. Theo Laurent. Twenty.
Rookie deal, entry-level, whatever the league minimum is.
I don't care. He's good, Harlan. He was good Saturday night.
He played two periods and won his first face-off clean and made a pass through his own legs to set up a goal with six seconds left.
I'm telling you, as a guy who has played with a lot of forwards for eight years, the kid is good. Orrick should want him. Get Orrick on the phone.”
Harlan takes a breath. I hear traffic in the background on his end; he's driving.
“Maddox. I am going to ask a question for my own clarity and then I am going to do what you tell me to do. The question is: are you asking because Blackridge needs a center or are you asking because you need Theo Laurent to have a reason to leave Frosthaven tonight.”
“Both.”
“Okay.”
The blinker ticks on his end. He's turning off somewhere.
“I'm not lying about the face-off. I'm not lying about the pass. Pull the tape.”
“I'll pull the tape. Give me forty-five minutes.”
I roll my shoulder. It clicks once.
“Harlan.”
“Yeah.”
My jaw sets.
“He's Wolves property.”
“No. He isn't. Callahan didn't sign him. Nobody signed him. He was playing on a tryout slot; his dad is the coach. He's a free agent. That's one of the reasons Paul's whole thing is bullshit, Maddox. It wasn't even a real contract. Forty-five minutes.”
He hangs up.
I sit on Phoenix's kitchen counter and drink Phoenix's coffee while staring at my phone, and I try to think about anything other than the boy whose first professional goal pass I just turned into a hostage negotiation.
Harlan calls back in thirty-four minutes.
“Orrick wants him.”
I close my eyes.
“Say it again.”
“Orrick pulled the tape. Orrick saw the pass.
Orrick laughed, Maddox. He said, ‘are you fucking kidding me’ and I said, ‘no I am not’ and he said, ‘what's the catch’ and I told him the catch and he said, ‘fine, but only if the kid signs before tomorrow at noon so I can announce the two of you together’.
Entry-level, eight-fifty base, bonus structure standard, two-way with a Blackridge affiliate so he can develop if he needs to, but Orrick says he'll open camp with the big club.
It's a better deal than Frosthaven was going to give him at twenty.”
Eight-fifty. My chest does the thing. Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars is life-changing money for a twenty-year-old whose father controls his bank card.
“Papers.”
“Already drawn. I have them on email. I need him to sign before noon tomorrow. I need his signature either in person in Blackridge at the physical, or a notarized scan tonight. You want to tell me how we're getting that done.”
I think about the private security on Theo's lawn. I think about Paul's taped knuckles. I think about my phone with no reply on it since eleven-fifteen this morning when suddenly I got a barrage of messages.
I think about wait for me.
“I'm going to get it done tonight.”
“How?”
I slide off the counter. My bare feet hit the kitchen tile.
“I'm going to go there.”
“Maddox.”
“I know.”
He's quiet for a second.
“Don't do anything that puts you back in a police report, Maddox. I can't fix that one.”
“I'm not going to touch anybody, Harlan. I'm going to stand on a lawn.”
A horn sounds behind him. He ignores it.
“Stand on a lawn. Copy. I'll keep the notary on call. Your flight is seven-ten tomorrow out of Frosthaven. Do not miss it.”
“I won't.”
He hangs up.
I sit on the counter and look at the papers he emails me and I read every line of a contract for a twenty-year-old I have no legal right to sign anything on behalf of, and my hands are steady, and I think, okay. Now.
Phoenix gets home at five.
He takes one look at me and nods.
“We’ll take my truck. Mine's less recognized than yours. I'll drop you and circle the block.”
“Phoenix…”
“No. Not alone. Not tonight. I'm circling and if it goes bad I'm pulling you out. Don't argue.”
I don't argue.
Theo's house is dark out front and lit in the back.
Phoenix pulls up the block and puts it in neutral and nods at the house.
“One guard. Polo. Clipboard. Same guy from last night?”
“Different guy.”
The one on the lawn is leaner, younger. Buzz cut. Earpiece. Callahan's brand, not a Laurent-family hire. I figured. Paul probably called off his once he cooled down. Callahan put one on to keep his Monday press release clean. I file it then let it stop mattering.
“I'll walk.”
“Maddox.”
I look at him.
“The kid,” Phoenix says. His jaw is going. “You get him or you don't. Either way I'm thirty seconds away.”
“Yeah.”
“Go.”
I get out.
The walk from the curb to the lawn is twelve feet.
The lawn is brown at the edges, winter-dead, a few patches of old snow still stuck along the cedar hedge. The porch light is on. Paul's Audi is in the driveway. A second car, red, hatchback, bumper sticker with a turtle on it, is in the driveway behind Paul's. Diane's. Good.
The guard clocks me at about ten feet out.
He puts his body between me and the house and his hand goes to his earpiece and his mouth goes to say the word that brings backup.
I stop at the edge of the lawn.
“I'm not coming on the property.”
“Sir…”
“I'm standing on a sidewalk. Your jurisdiction starts at that hedge. I know where the property line is. I'm not on it.”
His jaw works.
“Sir, I'm going to ask you to leave.”
“You can ask. I'm not going to. I'm not armed.
I'm not drunk. I haven't touched your fence.
I'm going to stand on this sidewalk and I'm going to say one sentence loud enough that the kid in the second-floor window on the west side can hear it, and then either he is going to come down or he isn't. If he isn't, I'll get in the truck. You don't need to call anybody.”
“Mr. Creed…”
He knows my name. Of course he knows my name. I'm Monday's press release.
“Son,” I say, and I don't mean it nasty, “stand where you are. I'm not going to make you famous.”
He stops moving.
I turn to the house.
I look up.
The second floor on the west side has one lit window.
The curtain is drawn but there's movement behind it.
A shadow at the edge of the fabric. Theo, on the bed or standing at the desk.
He's been looking out. He's heard a truck.
He's heard a voice. He's been waiting for this without knowing he was waiting, which is the worst kind of waiting.
I cup my hands around my mouth.
“THEO.”
The curtain moves.
“THEO LAURENT, COME TO THE WINDOW.”
The curtain yanks back.
He's there.
He's in a hoodie. Hair a mess. Cheeks blotched.
Eyes huge. He sees me and his whole face breaks open.
Not a smile yet. Something before a smile, the half-second when the body hasn't caught up with the fact.
He fumbles the latch. He shoves the window up.
Cold air. He leans out in a hoodie with no coat.
“MADDOX—”
“BLACKRIDGE WANTS YOU!”
“WHAT?”
“BLACKRIDGE WANTS YOU, KID! Entry-level deal. Eight-fifty. Two-way. Orrick watched the tape. Orrick laughed. You open camp with the big club. Papers on my phone. You sign tonight and fly out with me tomorrow morning, seven-ten from Frosthaven. You live with me. We figure it out the rest of the way in Blackridge.”
Theo's hand is over his mouth.
The guard is saying something into his earpiece behind me. I let him.
“THEO. I'M ASKING. COME TO BLACKRIDGE WITH ME.”
Theo's hand comes off his mouth.
“YES.”
One word. One syllable. Full voice.
“YES, MADDOX.”
The front door opens.
Paul and Diane come out onto the porch. Paul's hand is on Diane's arm, not holding her back, holding on to her. His face is wrecked. Diane sees me on the sidewalk and her face goes soft. She doesn’t know me, but she does.
She recognizes this moment. And she dips her head in what I can only guess is approval.
Paul opens his mouth.
Diane squeezes his arm.
“Paul, this isn’t about you.”
“Diane—”
“Paul. Let him decide.”
Paul's mouth closes.
I look up at the window.
“I'm on the sidewalk, kid.”
“I'M COMING DOWN.”
“Through the front door, Theo. Not the trellis. Your aunt is on the porch. Your dad is on the porch. Walk through your front door.”
He disappears from the window.
Thirty seconds. A minute. I don't breathe.
The guard hasn't moved. He's two yards off, earpiece live, chin tipped down like he's getting orders and deciding which ones to follow.
I'd put money on him not actually being told to engage.
Callahan hired him to be a photograph. A uniform on a lawn for the Sunday-paper optic.
He didn't sign up to put a player in a chokehold at six on a Sunday in front of a father on a porch.
His weight is on his back foot. He's waiting this out the same as I am.
On the porch, Paul has one hand on the railing. His knuckles are still taped. Diane has one hand on the back of his neck like she's holding a dog that might bolt. Paul isn't looking at me. Paul is looking at the open front door of his house.