Chapter 5
PATRICK
"TIP YOUR BARTENDER, or else!"
The threat arrives six inches from my ear, courtesy of a parrot standing in a bowl of cocktail napkins.
I look at Hendrix. Hendrix looks at the twenty in my hand.
Behind the bar, a man named Frank keeps polishing a glass. "He takes cash."
I put the bill into the donation jar. Hendrix immediately leans down, catches the corner in his beak, and starts pulling it back out.
"That defeats the purpose."
"Or else!"
Frank rescues the twenty. Hendrix retaliates by stealing a napkin and flinging it into my drink.
Four minutes. I've been inside Frank's bar for four minutes.
The place is narrow, overheated, and packed well past whatever number the fire code allows.
Hockey photos bury the old brick. The bar top is scarred from decades of glasses and what looks like at least one event involving teeth.
Blue-and-gold Wolves banners hang beside black-and-copper Vipers ones, neither side willing to surrender an inch of wall. Every table holds a donation jar.
Beloved dive. It's the only diagnosis I have.
It has also, clearly, survived some kind of incident. Screwed into the wall across from the bar, in actual brass, hangs a plaque:
IN MEMORY OF FRANK'S CHRISTMAS TREE
DECEMBER 2022
GONE TOO SOON
I read it twice. Real brass. Somebody paid money for this.
Lindqvist, our captain, materializes at my shoulder holding two beers and follows my gaze. "I asked the bartender."
"And?"
"He said I don’t want to know."
Behind us, the launch is gathering force. Fans pack the front half of the bar, press and team staff hold the strip by the windows, and both rosters have colonized the back, where somebody pushed the tables together under a BORDER BATTLE FOR PAWS banner.
The Wolves fill the space with the loud entitlement.
The Vipers are managing a lower grade of misconduct.
Our rookies have discovered the raffle includes a private lesson with Groover and are pooling cash so they can make him teach faceoffs for an hour, while Dziedzic, our equipment manager, brought his label maker and is sorting donation jars by denomination.
When he catches Hendrix trying to extract a five, he labels him AUDIT RISK.
Hendrix eats the label.
My peripheral vision catches a familiar frame climbing one of the wobbly chairs. I close my eyes and breathe through my nose.
"Attention, citizens of Chicago!"
The noise dips. Theo's voice does that—cuts through a crowd like a skate through fresh ice. When I look again, he has one sneaker on a table and a dart in each hand, and across from him stands Becker, arms folded.
"Moreau," I say.
He points a dart at me. "Official campaign business."
"You're standing next to the campaign cake."
He glances down. One heel hovers an inch from a sheet cake bearing two badly rendered logos and a frosting dog whose eyes disagree about where to look. Or is it supposed to be a wolf?
Theo steps over it without getting down. "Safety concern addressed."
"Twenty bucks says a Viper can't hit the board blindfolded," Becker announces to the room.
"Thirty says I hit whatever part of the board you pick."
"Blindfolded."
"Did I fucking stutter?"
Money comes out all over the bar. Mama Paws, radiant in a campaign shirt and a necklace with a tiny silver paw print, makes one brief attempt to stop the wagering before Frank hands her an empty jar. She considers it, then walks the room collecting bets.
The woman learns fast.
Beside me, Lindqvist watches Theo knot a black bar towel over his eyes. "Should we intervene?"
"I'm evaluating."
"He's holding a sharp object in a crowded room."
"That's part of the evaluation."
With great ceremony, Theo squares up to the dartboard. Or to where he believes the dartboard is. He's facing the jukebox.
Half the Wolves immediately cheer him on. Our bench screams corrections over them, which only makes Theo rotate in place until the dart is aimed at the photographer, who ducks.
I set down my drink.
Before I've taken three steps, Theo whips the dart backward over his shoulder. Past Becker's ear. Dead center of the board.
How? Fucking how?
Applause detonates. Off comes the blindfold, and for half a second pure surprise lives on Theo's face. Then confidence floods back in to bury the evidence. "See? Easy."
Becker checks behind him, then under the nearest table, hunting for an accomplice. "Do it again."
"Double or nothing."
Before tragedy strikes, I grab Theo's wrist and haul him off the furniture. Still arguing with Becker, he slides down against me, one full beat of his body pressed to mine. Then looks up, grinning, curls already staging their escape from whatever product he used on them.
My hand stays around his wrist.
There are cameras six feet away.
I let go.
He doesn't so much as blink, just pivots back to Becker to negotiate a rematch involving a lime and several coasters under rules known to no one. Entirely, unapologetically himself.
I envy him enough to dislike the feeling.
Theo's out because he never decided there was a reason not to be. He doesn't announce who he takes home, but he's also never once calculated the distance between his hand and another man's wrist because a lens was nearby. He crosses a room without seeing tripwires.
I see all of them.
In a contract year, playing for a front office that says expiring asset in meetings about human beings, I'm already a story every time I let in a bad goal. Becoming a different kind of story wouldn't erase the first one. It would just stack a second headline on top.
Nothing has happened. I'm a man standing in a bar, watching my teammate cheat at darts.
Still, my hand goes into my pocket, where nobody can photograph what it wants.
"Patrick!"
The campaign photographer waves me toward the sponsor backdrop, where Wall already stands beneath the team logos. His hair has faded from fire-engine to a deep, uneven crimson, roots pushing through. Under professional lighting it looks even more ridiculous.
It also looks irritatingly good on him.
He catches me deciding that. His jaw ticks.
"Goalies together," the photographer says, arranging us in front of the banner. "Give me the bad blood."
We turn toward each other.
"Closer."
Neither of us moves.
"Guys, come on. You're both enormous. I’m losing half the banner. Closer, please."
We step in.
The photographer peers over her camera. "Great. Now really glare at him."
Wall looks down at me by three inches. I look up at him by the same three.
Familiar territory. We have done versions of this at center ice and across interview tables for years. His stare has always sharpened me. Tonight, it lands differently.
His nostrils flare.
Mine answer.
The shutter goes rapid-fire. "Perfect chemistry!"
Neither of us looks away. Looking away would be worse.
Eventually she lowers the camera. "Maybe one where you shake hands?"
"No," we say, in unison.
She blinks, then decides she has what she needs, and releases us. Wall walks off to study the raffle board. I give the sponsor wall my complete attention.
"Mr. Gresh—"
I turn. A reporter in a brown blazer approaches, microphone ready. Regional broadcast; he's interviewed me twice this season.
"Mr. Grish... Gurzess—" Confidence abandons him one consonant at a time. "Mr..." He clears his throat. "Could we get a quick comment?"
"Patrick's fine."
Relief softens his face. For twenty seconds I recite the campaign formula—shelters, community, both organizations proud to be involved—nothing he can sharpen into a headline. Then he asks whether working with my "longtime adversary Wallace" has created tension behind the scenes.
Across the room, Wall is holding a paper donation thermometer six feet up the wall while Mama Paws directs from below and Theo argues that the red line should start above the printed goal, for motivational reasons.
"We're both committed to the campaign," I say.
The reporter waits for more.
I smile.
He tries another route. "Fans online are loving the back-and-forth. Any chance this partnership turns the rivalry friendly?"
Over his shoulder, Wall glances up. Our eyes catch for half a second.
"No."
Delighted, the reporter laughs. There, a usable quote that reveals nothing. He thanks me and goes hunting for someone less disciplined.
Theo is his next mistake.
***
BY NINE, THE event finds its cruising altitude.
Frank calls raffle winners over a microphone that dies every fourth word, and Hendrix patches the gaps by screaming "Or else," lending the prize announcements the tone of organized crime.
Every time the campaign total crosses another thousand, Mama Paws rings a brass handbell; by the fifth ring, our rookie flinches whenever she reaches toward the table.
At the far end of the bar, behind an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign, a staircase climbs toward the office, narrow enough that a hockey player takes it one shoulder first.
I noticed it within thirty seconds of arriving. The office upstairs holds the sponsor packets and the live donation tally; Frank walked me through the setup before doors opened. The door itself has an old latch that won't catch unless somebody pulls it firmly shut.
I tested that too.
Intent or not, planning creates options.
The schedule lives in my head down to the minute. Theo's black jeans are making his ass difficult to ignore, and since the photo session, Wall has looked at him fourteen times.
Fifteen now.
Wall catches himself and turns back to Washington.
The plan formed yesterday morning, and I told Theo none of it. If I had, he'd have discussed nothing else for thirty-six consecutive hours. So for now, I’m the only man in on it.
At 9:27, Hunter sets a club soda on the bar for Wall. I intercept it and carry it across the room myself.
Eleven steps. Somewhere around the fourth, my pulse picks up.
Wall stands by the raffle board, one hand in his pocket, giving the prize list a level of scrutiny it has not earned. He tracks my approach without moving anything but his eyes.