The pencil taps again. Two rows up. “The meaning is clear to me.”
“I know you know. He cc’d the GM. I’m telling you.”
That registers differently. I stare at the seat back in front of me. The GM doesn’t get cc’d on player conduct emails unless someone’s deciding something. “Okay,” I say.
“There’s a contract year conversation coming. Spring. You want that note in the file when it does.”
“Yeah.” I drag a hand through my hair. “I know.”
Trey gives me a look. The other look. The one reserved for things that actually matter. “She’s good,” he says. Muted enough that it doesn’t carry. “At the job. What she’s doing with you.” A pause. “I’m not telling you anything. I’m saying what I see.”
He drops back into his seat before I have to answer. The pencil has stopped tapping.
Chapter Sixteen
Toni Amato
The next one is an away game in Washington. I ride with the team on the bus because I’m supposed to monitor Maxwell Stevens. It’s mandated by Damian Price, NHL Player Conduct supervisor. I am two rows ahead of him, and I am working, and I’m absolutely not aware of exactly where he is sitting.
Fourteen minutes into the drive, a figure appears on the headrest in front of me. A swan. Made of pre-wrap. White athletic tape, folded with surprising precision into a shape that is unmistakably a swan, placed on the headrest where I will see it in my peripheral vision without him having to say a word. I keep working. Three minutes later: a hat. Also, pre-wrap. Structured. Brimmed. Placed beside the swan. I keep working. Later, perhaps one resembling a Zamboni. The craftsmanship hasdeclined somewhat on this one, but the intention is clear. I keep working.
From behind me, low enough that only I can hear: “You haven’t looked.”
“I’m working.”
“You’ve seen them, though.”
“I’ve noticed some objects in my peripheral vision.”
A pause. “The Zamboni took four minutes.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“The neck on the swan is structurally sound.”
“Congratulations.”
Silence. Then, from further back: “Mac.”
Lucas McKenna’s voice, flat and uninflected: “You owe me twenty dollars.”
“She didn’t look.”
“I said sixty seconds. It’s been twenty minutes.”
“The swan should have worked.”
“Pay me, Max.”
The sound of movement. Cash changing hands. I hear this and I write another line in my report, and I do not smile. I do not smile. My reflection in the dark window catches me anyway. I adjust my angle.
The bus breaks down somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. Not dramatically. Nothing catches fire. Nobody dies. The engine simply produces a sound that appears deeply concerning to the driver, followed by another sound that appears evenmore concerning, and fifteen minutes later we're sitting on the shoulder of the interstate while twenty-three hockey players offer increasingly unhelpful mechanical advice.
"I think it's the transmission," Knox says.
"You think every vehicle problem is the transmission," Anthony replies.
"Because it's usually the transmission."
