Tales of River City

by Frank Zafiro

  “Richard?”

  “Yeah. He told me one night after a practice. He was sitting in the stands, staring off into space while I was making my lock-up rounds. I could just tell something was wrong and when I asked him about it, he trusted me enough to confide in me.”

  “About what?”

  Matt clenched and unclenched his jaw. “His problem.”

  I sighed. “I gathered that. What problem?”

  “It’s about a woman.”

  That didn’t surprise me. Back when I was a police officer, the maxim had been that there were two things that would cause a cop more trouble than anything else. A wine glass and a woman’s ass. I thought cops were something special when I was one of them. Now I realized that they were just people, too, and that particular maxim applied to most of the men of the world.

  “Would you talk to him, Stef?” Matt asked me. “Maybe there’s something you can do to help him.”

  I looked out onto the ice and watched Phillipe Richard take a pass from the corner and launch it toward the net. It went wide and clacked hard into the glass behind.

  “I don’t know what I could do,” I said.

  “Please? I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll talk with him,” I said. “That’s all I’m promising.”

  Matt smiled, and I knew why. That’s what I told him when he said he wanted my help with his teenage daughter.

  You’d think I’d learn.

  A long shrill blast from the assistant coach’s whistle signaled the end of practice and the players left the ice. Matt told me it would be about thirty minutes before Richard would be changed and suggested I wait in the sandwich shop directly across from the arena.

  I walked slowly across the street, my knee stiff and forcing a painful limp. There was an empty table near the window and I took it. I wanted to see Richard approach.

  Thirty minutes later, he sauntered across the street to the café. His thick, black hair was gelled back casually and he wore an expensive tan shirt to go with his pleated slacks. I knew that there were team dress codes, but I was pretty sure that was only on game days. The few players that had wandered out of the arena ahead of him were in jeans.

  Richard entered the diner and looked around. I raised my hand and caught his attention. He gave a disarming smile and took the seat across me.

  “Phillipe Richard,” he said, offering his hand.

  “Stefan Kopriva,” I answered and took it. He squeezed and the iron strength in his hand was apparent. It was like shaking hands with a table vise.

  “Kopriva?” He cocked his head. “That is a Czech name, no?”

  I nodded, surprised. “My grandmother’s side. How’d you know? Most people guess Russian, if they guess at all.”

  Richard grinned and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Russian, I imagine. Especially here. I read in the newspaper that over ten thousand Russians live in this city now. Is that true?”

  “It might be more. I don’t know. But how’d you know my name was Czech?”

  Richard waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, you play long enough hockey, pretty soon you learn the difference. I can tell you if a name is Norwegian, Finnish or Swedish. Much harder than the difference between Russian and Czech.”

  “How long have you played?”

  “Since I was three.”

  The waitress approached our table and we both ordered coffee.

  “I meant professionally,” I said.

  “Oh, of course.” Richard thought for a moment. “Eight years getting paid. But I played Junior in Val d’Or for four years before that. That is not technically professional, but it is the very highest level of hockey for players under twenty.”

  “Where’d you play before River City?”

  Richard grinned. “In Quebec, in a Senior League. My team was called the Chevaliers. Do you know what that word means in English?”

  I shook my head.

  “It means Knight. Like Sir Lancelot? Did you know he was French?”

  I shook my head. “I thought King Arthur was British.”

  “Ouí. But Sir Launcelot was French. Perhaps that is why he ended up with the woman, no? Anyway, last season, in Quebec, we won the championship.”

  “I thought you were traded here from Trail.”

  “Trail?” Richard snorted. “They signed me away from Quebec during the off-season. Players make twice as much in this league, so I signed the contract. I came there right after the season ended. I did a lot of community service as part of the team, worked hard at training camp, but they traded me to River City, anyway.”

  “Quite a trip.”

  “It all pays the same to me,” Richard said.

  Our coffee arrived and I sipped the hot brew. Richard flashed a smile at the waitress, but didn’t touch his.

  “Matt said you might need some help with something,” I said.

  Richard turned back to me. His face tightened momentarily, especially around the lips. “I am not sure how it is here in U.S. Are you a private investigator?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  His eyes narrowed a little. “No license?”

  “I don’t need one in Washington State, as long as I don’t advertise or portray myself as a private investigator. It doesn’t matter, though, because the only one I’ve ever really helped was Matt.”

  “Oh, yes, he told me.” Richard reached down and brought his cup to his lips. “That thing with his daughter.”

  I nodded.

  Richard watched me for a moment, then sipped his coffee again and put the cup back on the table. “It does not matter. When I said I was not sure how it is here in U.S., I meant something more.”

  “What?”

  “I do not know how it is with…problems with women.”

  I stared at him, noting the square jaw and the slight bend in the bridge of his nose. Although he was clean-shaven, coarse facial hair already darkened his cheeks and chin. He looked like the high-speed, low-drag personality I would expect from a professional athlete. Or a cop, for that matter. But he didn’t look like a wife-beater.

  “Domestic violence laws are pretty stiff,” I said. “There’s a mandatory arrest provision and—”

  He shook his head and waved his hand at me. “No, nothing like that. I would never beat a woman. I love women. That is the problem.”

  “How so?”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There is a woman. She follow me from Trail. She is saying that she is pregnant and that the child, it is mine.”

  “Is it?”

  Richard clenched his jaw and sat back. Then he shrugged. “I do not know for sure.”

  “So you slept with her.”

  “Yes, yes, many times. But this woman, she also had a husband. I think that she was already pregnant, you see? That it is the husband’s baby.”

  “Get a blood test.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course I will. But that will be after the baby is born. Many months from now.”

  “So?”

  Richard sighed. “Monsieur Kopriva, this is an important time for me. This contract to play here is not very much money. But the way I play the game in Quebec, it catches the eye of some NHL scouts, you know? And so I come to this league, a higher league, to show that I am not just a big fish in a small pond. I will show the scouts that I can play in the NHL. And if they believe me, I will get an NHL-sized contract.”

  “How much?”

  “At least five hundred thousand. Maybe a million dollars even.”

  I whistled and drank some more coffee. My meager medical pension wouldn’t add up to that in fifteen years.

  “You see,” Richard said, “I am not a young man anymore. This is perhaps my last chance, so I must be focused on what I must do, and nothing more. Not some woman and perhaps a baby.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “But what do you want from me?”

  I walked across the newly opened Monroe Street Bridge and paused to look down. The Looking Glass River rumbl
ed below. It was cold, but only because my body was remembering summer. By January, I’d think back on this day as balmy.

  In my jacket pocket, I had two hundred in cash that Richard had given me, a pair of tickets to the season opener tomorrow and the last known location of Anne Marie Stoll, the woman that was claiming that she was pregnant with Richard’s child. The address was a cheap motel on the north side of town and I wanted to drive up. Since I’d been foolish enough to walk to the arena from my apartment in Browne’s Addition, that meant I had to walk back.

  Two hundred dollars plus my expenses wasn’t a lot of money, but for what Richard was asking, it was a fortune. All he wanted was for me to broker a pay-off deal with Anne Marie. His reasoning was that if all she was doing was extorting him for some cash, she’d jump at the offer.

  Even more important, Richard told me, was my read on her. He put great stock in my being a cop years ago and he wanted to know if she was lying or not. Then, he said, he wouldn’t have to worry about a blood test in the future. He could deal with the problem and focus on playing hockey.

  “No,” said the desk clerk, looking offended. “I’m sure. I keep good records.”

  “Did she leave a forwarding address?”

  He gave me a look that said I was clearly the biggest moron he’d met today. “How many people do you think leave a forwarding address?”

  I ignored his comment. “How about a previous address?”

  He eyes were suspicious. “Why?”

  “I’m trying to find her.”

  “No kidding.” The clerk brushed his thick, greasy hair from his forehead. “Why?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “So’s the information you’re asking for.”

  We stood at an impasse for a few moments, then I sighed. “All right, look. I work for a bank. Her relative left her a lot of money, but she doesn’t know it yet.”

  “So you’re trying to find her to give her this good news?”

  “Right.”

  “What’re you, Ed McMahon?”

  “It’s not a bad job.” I played out the ruse. “I get to make people happy.”

  “Baloney.”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s baloney.” He pointed at my 1982 Toyota Celica. “No way does a prize guy drive that piece of junk. You’d at least have a mini-van.”

  “It’s in the shop.”

  “Uh-uh. I get junk email like this all the time. Some rich guy from another country needs to deposit money in my account to avoid taxes or an evil dictator. It’s a con job.” He looked back at me. “And so are you.”

  I pulled a twenty dollar bill from my pocket. “You’re right. But this is real.”

  It ended up not being worth twenty dollars. I got an address in Trail for Anne Marie Stoll that Richard probably could have supplied. There was no vehicle information listed on the registration card. So much for his keeping good records.

  The only other thing that was worth the price of admission was that she’d left over a week ago.

  Opening night at the arena was a spectacle. The players skated out onto the ice through a wall of fog as the rink announcer boomed out, “Here…are your…River…City…FLYERS!” Rock music played in the background and the crowd clapped along.

  Once all the skaters were on the ice and lined up along the blue line, the rink announcer introduced each of them, one at a time.

  “In goal,” boomed the disembodied voice of the announcer, “from York, Saskatchewan, number one, Derek Yeager!” There was a huge cheer. Word had circulated about the new goalie, even though he was just out of Junior, and expectations were high.

  When Richard’s turn came, the cheers for him were polite but unspectacular. If what Matt said about him were true, that would change soon.

  The opposing team was from Trail, British Columbia, and that seemed to suit Richard just fine. He didn’t start the game, but about three minutes in, he climbed over the boards for his first shift. He was a powerful skater, driving forward with his thick legs. There was nothing graceful in his stride, just unbridled power.

  A Trail forward skated up the left wing and cut to the center at the Flyers blue line, dragging the puck around a River City defenseman. He tried to dipsy-doodle around another defender and glanced down at the puck as he stick-handled.

  Richard skated along the blue line and as the forward glanced down, he drove his shoulder into the other player’s chest, sending him flying backward. The River City defenseman gathered in the puck and zipped it up the wing.

  One of the bigger Trail players, a red-headed giant named McHugh, immediately went after Richard for the check and neither one of them needed any more coaxing. Gloves and sticks hit the ice and they clenched, each struggling for find purchase on the other’s jersey. Richard threw two booming rights. One glanced off McHugh’s shoulder and the second knocked his helmet off.

  A great cheer went up from the crowd. McHugh fought back gamely, lashing out with rights of his own, but Richard slipped them. He threw another heavy punch with his right hand, then grabbed a fistful of jersey near the collar and threw a left hook just as McHugh was drawing back to punch. The blow landed along his jaw and McHugh slumped to his knees. The crowd roared and the linesmen intervened, separating the two players.

  Richard skated to the penalty box, nodding his head to the fans who cheered in appreciation. After a moment or two, his opponent rose on shaky legs and skated to the other penalty box. The two chattered at each other across the scorekeeper’s box. The crowd loved it.

  The checking picked up after that and the game was intense. Three minutes later, Wayne Langer, a skater I recognized from last season, wristed one past the Trail goaltender and the crowd went nuts. The River City goal song blasted out of the sound system and eight thousand voices cried, “Whoa-oh-oh-oh” in unison.

  I smiled and sipped my drink.

  When the five minute penalties ended, Richard and McHugh were allowed out of the penalty boxes. Each man skated along his own blue line, still jawing at the other all the way to the bench. Before the puck was dropped, the Trail coach made a line change, sending McHugh out on the right wing. The River City coach responded by putting Richard on the left wing.

  The puck dropped.

  So did the gloves.

  The second tilt was more of an even affair, with both men trading punches to a stalemate. After a dozen or so, the linesmen stepped between and broke it up. McHugh and Richard spent another five minutes in the penalty box jawing at each other.

  The crowd was electric. I heard fans around me asking each other who number twenty-three was and consulting the program flyer.

  As soon as their five minutes were up, the two heavyweights squared off again. This time, Richard fought with an intense fury, pummeling McHugh with his right hand until the Trail player collapsed to his knees. The linesmen separated them and Richard skated straight for the bench and down the tunnel toward the locker room.

  “Where’s he going?” the girl next to me asked her boyfriend, who shrugged.

  “Three fights is a game misconduct,” the old man behind us advised.

  Two of McHugh’s teammates helped him off the ice and down the tunnel to his own locker room. River City fans jeered him.

  Even the public announcer’s voice seemed excited when he announced the penalties. “Trail penalty to number seven, Kevin McHugh. River City penalty to number twenty-three, Phillipe Richard. Both receive five for fighting and a game misconduct.”

  At Richard’s name, a cheer started. It built up over the announcement and washed down onto the ice.

  It was official. The crowd loved him.

  I spoke with Richard after practice the next morning. The coach put them through a light skate, since they played the night before and had another game that night. He saw me in the stands with Matt and waved me down into the tunnel.

  “What news?” he asked.

  “None,” I told him. “She’s not at that motel anymore.”

 
“You’re sure?”

  “Positive. Maybe she left town and went home.”

  His brow furrowed. “No. She called just yesterday afternoon.”

  “She called you?”

  He shook his head. “No, my agent. She bother him all the time.”

  Patrick Bourdon was exactly like I expected a French lawyer to look. His suit was cut to fit his slender frame and his hair was gelled perfectly into place. The only thing that spoiled the image was the fact that I met him in his hotel room and not some swanky office in Montreal.

  He offered me coffee and I accepted. Instead of the complimentary packets in most hotels, he had his own coffee-maker, complete with gourmet beans and grinder.

  “There are some luxuries one cannot do without,” he told me. “Besides, I am very pleased at the selection of beans here in your city, Mr. Kopriva.”

  I shrugged. I preferred black coffee and though I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a more exotic roast, I wasn’t particularly fond of the foo-foo gourmet stuff.

  While the coffee brewed, Bourdon and I sat across a small table from each other. His laptop lay to his left, running but with the top closed.

  “You do much of your work out of hotels?”

  He shrugged. “I have a small office in my home. But when I have a strong client on the verge of a signing, I like to be where he is. Besides, a telephone and an Internet connection is all I really need.”

  “Is Richard on the verge?”

  He spread his arms with a flourish. “Well, I am here, after all.”

  “Signing with who?”

  “Several teams are interested. My duty is to ensure that he goes to the right team at the right price.”

  The aroma of the brewing coffee floated over us. I had to admit it smelled pretty good. “He said he might sign for a half million dollars.”

  “Oh, surely,” Bourdon said. “But it will likely be two or three times that. It just depends.”

  “On what?”

  Bourdon smiled. “On how well he plays. And who gets hurt or traded up in the show.”

  “So he’ll go to the NHL?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Bourdon said. “But he will have to toil for a bit in the American Hockey League, to prove he is no fluke.”