Page 45

“What’s the other way?”

“It’s being arranged.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I’ve got this morning.” I put my bag on the chair. “On Tuesday, play the game you’d have played anyway. Nothing happens. Nobody comes to the building. Nobody goes near your brother. On Wednesday, you’re one goal deeper into the season with a clean file and a bad hip. That’s all.”

He puts the knife down.

“Say it plainly,” he says. “You’re going to pay it.”

“No.”

“Marek.”

“No.” It comes out with nothing behind it. He looks at me across his own counter for four or five seconds. I hold his gaze because I’ve held worse. The alternative is telling him what she said about his hands.

That’s the second lie.

The first was in December, standing in this kitchen, when I told him nobody would go near his brother despite knowing that wasn’t mine to promise.

“Eat that,” I say, and go.

Tuesday, ten past three.

I put it in front of her on paper because paper is the only evidence she’s ever taken seriously. A one-page schedule, four lines, the source of each, the date it cleared. I don’t editorialize. I don’t add a cover note. I hand it across the desk like a man delivering a bill of lading.

She reads it with the glasses on.

“A hundred and ninety thousand, five hundred,” she says.

“Cleared Thursday. All of it against the balance, before the game. In exchange for the goal not being asked for.”

“You sold your car.”

“I sold my car.”

“Marek.” She takes the glasses off and puts them down on top of the page, which she’s never done with anything of mine. “Sit.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Sit down. You look terrible.”

I sit.

“I’m going to refuse this,” she says. “I’ll tell you why. You’ve been useful to me for nine years. You’ve earned an explanation. I don’t think you’re hearing yourself.”

“I’m hearing myself.”

“You’re not. Listen.” She puts one finger on the page. “This isn’t a hundred and ninety thousand dollars. Nobody is offering me money. What’s on this desk proves the goaltender can be bought out of a favor. Once that’s true, it stays true. For the next five years, there will always be another Thursday when somebody puts a number on my desk.” She pushes the page an inch toward me. “An asset that can be redeemed isn’t an asset. It’s a debt with better manners.”

“He’ll play out his contract. That’s five more years at seven point two, and every dollar of it is yours. You’ll get all of it eventually. You’re choosing to take it in a way that ends his career.”

“I’m choosing to take it in a way that doesn’t require me to be lucky for five years.” She sits back. “You taught me that, incidentally. In your third year.”

“Take the hundred and ninety anyway,” I say. “Off the balance. It’s not conditional. I’m not asking for anything for it.”

“No.”