Page 25 of Puck You Both

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.