There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool

by Dave Belisle

  ... 5 ...

  Somewhere in the dense bush of northern Quebec, the cargo helicopter picked out the airstrip from the forest fire break-lines and touched down. Moments later, Erskine and Slager disembarked. They'd boarded the flight three hours earlier in Toronto with two six-packs of beer and a bag of Off-White Castle hamburgers. A few pockets of turbulence and detonation of the belly bombs was complete.

  "This had better be worth it," Erskine muttered. He couldn't remember the last time he'd flown anything less than first class. But this was the best they could do on such short notice.

  A man wearing dark sunglasses hurried out to meet them. It was Walters, another one of Erskine's many port-of-call operatives. He stopped in front of Erskine and hollered something that was lost amidst the loud roar of the helicopter blades. Slager didn't hear Walters either ... but he hollered something back so as not to appear out of place. Erskine looked at both of them and shook his head. Walters pointed to a small trailer behind him that served as the airstrip's terminal.

  The three men entered the trailer. The ticket counter beside the door was unmanned. Most flights in and out of this field were for firefighters ... and fishermen who didn't share lakes. A row of chairs lined the far wall of the trailer. Beside the last chair was a pile of concrete cinder blocks. The pile was well-stabilized ... two blocks high with five blocks per tier. Another Herculean henchman, Fairchild, jumped out of one of the chairs. The trailer's other occupant, an extremely rotund, middle-aged man remained seated on the cinder blocks. Erskine stopped in front of the fat man.

  "There he is," said Walters, nodding to the cinder block sitter. "Pa DeChance. The townsfolk call him Papa."

  Erskine's brow furrowed, cultivating his forehead.

  "You look thinner than I expected."

  DeChance looked up at him. He spoke with a thick French accent.

  "I've been sick. I 'ave a touch o' de flu."

  "Stand up," Erskine said.

  DeChance slowly rose from his concrete chair. Slager blinked at the blocks, swearing they had expanded.

  "And you're taller too," Erskine said.

  "Ay," DeChance said with a snarl. "Dis isn't de Kentucky Derby. I'm not riding a horse. Legends are 'ard to live up to dese days. My grandfodder was de greatest. 'E was six feet wide, comme ca." DeChance held his beefy arms out at his beefier sides.

  "Nobody score on 'im in fifteen year one time. An' de udder team would try anyt'ing to get 'im outta de net. Nutting work. Not even a Joe Phooey and Peppy."

  "Excuse me?" said Erskine.

  Fairchild leaned toward his boss. "Uh, that would be a chocolate cupcake and cola drink combination popular with the natives here. Quite tasty, I might add."

  "Dis land was named after my fodder," continued DeChance.

  "The Ungava Peninsula?" asked Fairchild.

  "Mais oui," said DeChance. "'Gava' is Francais-Algonquin-'airskin and it mean ... a man with no goals. When you shut out de udder team ... c'est un gava."

  DeChance crouched like a boxer and punched the air with a short, sharp kidney shot for emphasis.

  "But you ..." Erskine interrupted him. Time was money. In Toronto, legends lingered slightly longer than cigar smoke. DeChance's chest swelled. The trailer became cozier.

  "I'm de best goalie now."

  He was the only goalie now, thought Walters, taking a sideways glance through the window at the desolate surroundings.

  "I stop de puck all de time. De last time dey score on me ... I was five year old. A polar bear came on de ice when we play. She t'ought I was 'er cub." DeChance shrugged helplessly.

  "I 'ad to run. Dey score de goal."

  "Alright ... alright," Erskine said. "Take a seat, Papa. Excuse us for a moment."

  Fairchild and Walters headed out the door. Slager waited for DeChance to sit back down on the cinder blocks. He was sure the concrete would crack. Erskine cleared his throat to get the studious goon's attention. Once outside the terminal, Erskine held court.

  "I have only one concern," the Herculean boss said.

  "That he can play?" asked Fairchild.

  "No," said Erskine. "That he can eat. Slager, put him on the SAP diet ASAP."

  Erskine turned back for the terminal. Walters nudged Fairchild.

  "A maple syrup diet?" Walters asked.

  "Not sap, you sap," Fairchild said. "It's Suicidal Artery Putty ... nothing but salt and gristle."

  ... 6 ...

  Derek looked over Artie's shoulder. Artie plunked away at his computer keyboard at May-Ja-Look. He was tapping into their hockey player database ... which included every player tall enough to see over the dasher boards ... to players too old to jump over them anymore. It was a dazzling array of statistics.

  "My dad once told me," said Derek, "there are only two things that separate winners from losers. Goals and assholes."

  "And those metal poles they call posts," said Artie.

  "How many times do I have to tell you not to contradict me when I'm quoting someone?

  Artie mimicked a mouse, cheeks twitching.

  "But seriously, Artie. We've got to protect our investments."

  "Any particular goon you had in mind?"

  "Here's what I want you to do. Run down the leaders in penalty minutes for each of the three junior leagues. Then cross reference that list with the one for the guys with the most fights."

  "Hmm ..." Artie said. "You want the player whose penalty minute total is most efficiently maximized by penalty minutes derived from fighting majors?"

  "Precisely."

  "I can't believe I'm doing this," Hammond said, hammering away at the keyboard. "Why don't we just put up a metal detector outside the locker room and the player with the most weapons wins."

  "Now, now," said Derek. "We're looking for a tough guy ... not a terrorist."

  Derek stepped toward his office and stopped.

  "Oh, yeah. If there's a lefty in the top five, grab'im. They're always an interesting surprise for a scrapper who leads with his right."

  "Should I check the family history for any serial killers?"

  Derek lunged toward Artie, faking with his right and playfully bopping Artie on the cheek with a soft left hook. Artie feigned being knocked out, collapsing back in his chair. While this tomfoolery went on, the computer crunched every Tom, Dick and Harry who had ever been sentenced to the sin bin. Soon, a picture of a player -- with a badly bruised face -- popped up on the screen. Statistics appeared in a side bar. Derek leaned closer to the screen, skeptical of the black under the player's eyes being shoe polish. Nope. The shiners were as genuine as a Holyfield haymaker. And the rivet-pounding glare that shone through them looked to be saying, "Go ahead, break my nose."

  "Woah. What have we here?" Derek asked.

  Artie propped himself back up and peered at the computer screen.

  "That's our man. Simon "Bronco" Saddler. A lefty, no less."

  In jail cell 24-A of the medium-security provincial penitentiary in Blind River, Gerald "Junkyard" Dahlgleish, stared into the mirror above the rusting wash basin. He was a behemoth of a brute, tipping the scales at an extra-chunky six-one, two-eighty. He slowly arched his head back and rolled it around with a grimace. Hands on hips, he turned sideways, listening for the crack. Flexing his deltoids and biceps brought forth a rippling of more snaps, crackles and pops ... the cell-block breakfast for losers.

  Dahlgleish had been caught four days earlier driving 80 miles per hour through an industrial park in Hamilton. An inspection of his trunk found a box of over 100 computer chips worth thousands of dollars. There were also several boxes of American cigarettes. The police confiscated the computer memory, knowing they'd most likely be giving it back to Junkyard when they couldn't trace it to the owner. When they took the cigarettes out of the trunk however, Junkyard went berserk. Back-ups had to be called in to take down Dahlgleish. The police quickly traced the stolen cigarettes to a truck stop in Kars, Ontario.

  A prison guard approached Junkyard's cell wit
h Slager. They stopped and Slager poked his nose through the bars.

  "Gerald Dahlgleish?"

  "Ayup, said the guard. "He decided he'd do his own cigarette commercial when we nabbed him with a trunkful."

  "Oh? How's that?"

  "Well ... he'd rather fight than switch, if ya git my drift. An' I can't believe you're throwin' away good money to bail this guy out."

  Slager opened his mouth to say something.

  "I know, I know ... don't tell me," said the guard, cutting him off. "He's just a poor, misguided soul who's hadda coupla bad breaks, and slipped through the cracks of the system. Now it's our responsibility to rehabilitate him and make him a productive member of society again ... so he can regain his pride." The guard's face turned to cheese. "He's just misunderstood is all."

  Dahlgleish head butted the mirror, smashing it.

  "Whacko," said the guard. "Did I say whacko as well?"

  The guard opened the cell door.

  "Okay, Junkyard. You won't have to look in that mirror any more. And this guy here is springing you loose, so I don't have to see your sorry butt no more. Let's go, Dahlgleish."

  Junkyard turned and looked their way. An open door. The only thing he'd learned in four days was that the fresh air of freedom tasted a lot better than the prison buffet's macaroni nightmare. He blinked his eyes to clear his head and walked toward his visitors.

  The guard's unwavering hand stayed inches from his revolver. Slager felt a little fidgety, so he hid his hands behind his back. Dahlgleish noticed neither as he exited the room quietly between them.

  Slager's sedan barreled down the #401, aiming for Toronto.

  "You're gonna like working ... I mean, playing ... for us. Mr. Erskine has everything taken care of. You're gonna be set up at the Sherbet Inn. Ya get 200 bucks a day -- cold cash -- to blow on dames, booze ... whatever. And for doin' what? ... playin' a little hockey ... and bashin' a lotta heads."

  Slager pulled out and passed a station wagon whose tailgate was plastered with bumper stickers. They doubled as cover-the-paint-chip stickers. One read, "Don't Worry, Be Paranoid." Another one confirmed, "Lawyers Do It In Their Briefs". Slager stole a glance at the driver as he eased past him at 75 miles per hour.

  Billy Slager was a small-time hood from Mississauga who, while growing up, had cracked more heads than books. He was better at B & E's than the three "R"s ... so psychology to him may as well have been a high-tech bicycle shop. But on a good day, even Billy Slager might take pause for consideration of a person's mental make-up based on the bumper stickers that person had stuck on their car. This was one of those days.

  The driver of the paranoia-promoting vehicle was a man in his forties. That infernal equinox called middle age had splashed his short, curly brown hair with silver. He hunched over the wheel, on a mission from some woe-begone, kool-aid-sipping deity.

  Clown, thought Slager. His bumper sticker character evaluations were often shorter than the bumper sticker itself. He pulled back into the lane ahead of the station wagon, not bothering to signal.

  "You played in Oshawa, eh?" Slager kick-started the conversation. "I played some hockey in Peterborough myself."

  "Pussies," said Junkyard, looking disinterested. It was the first word out of his mouth since they'd left Blind River, twenty minutes earlier.

  "No ... I played for the Peat Moss."

  Slager eyed Junkyard warily. Junkyard's return glance said he'd rather be using Slager's nose to preset the stations on the radio.

  Slager let the moment pass. He remembered Erskine's orders before Slager had left Toronto. Bring him back alive. Search and rescue. Do not destroy.

  Twenty minutes passed. They were still an hour from Toronto. Slager ruled out asking Junkyard if he wanted to play Highway Bingo. Dahlgleish just might stomp on Slager's gas pedal loafer ... so they could complete the game in the next two miles.

  Stomp or no stomp, Slager decided to make another stab at conversation. Besides, another hour of this and he'd be talking to the mileage markers.

  There were few things Slager ranked right up there with sex. One was a good bowel movement. Another was digging wax out of his left ear with a Q-tip. The third was a heated, chest-pounding debate.

  "So ... where else did you play hockey?" Slager asked the question gratingly, beginning boldly and finishing with a hint of a snivel ... not unlike a tangy Pilsener ale. Any hockey player worth his weight in hockey pucks would respond to this question without thinking. Asking about a player's background was akin to calling him out onto Dodge City's main drag at high noon. A mouth missing teeth was more telling than a gun without bullets.

  Junkyard stared ahead. Hard. Slager had fired the first shot and winged him. Silence was incrimination. Dahlgleish's inch-deep ire wouldn't accept such a sentence without first earning it. He turned to Slager.

  As Slager soaked up Junkyard's glare, a piggyback semi rumbled past, reminding them that "Milk Refreshes".

  "I haven't played in five years," Junkyard growled. "I nearly killed a guy in Oshawa."

  Slager knew this already.

  "Oh?" he said, in a half-ass attempt at humility.

  "What happened?"

  "Hockey fight."

  Slager also knew about this particular scrap. Dahlgleish had started brawling before the opening face-off. Actually ... before the pre-game warm-up. He'd stood beside the open gate, waiting for the other team's goon, Lance Lovejoy, to step onto the ice. Junkyard cold-cocked him with a hard right cross. Lovejoy had been looking down, waiting for the toe of his right skate to dig into the ice. Six weeks later in traction, he was still waiting. Junkyard served three months of a six-month sentence for aggravated assault.

  "He swiped my parking spot," Dahlgleish said.

  Slager did not know this.

  Sawchuk for Sawbucks

  ... 1 ...

  Marcotte slunk his hands deeper into the pockets of his tweed sports coat, grasping for hope. He found little faith ... and no charity period. Derek stood outside Olaf Swanson's pawn shop, looking through the smudged window. The script lettering of "Swanson's" was in bad need of a touch-up. The large store front window reflected a somber Marcotte, and beckoned for an errant rock so the insurance claim could kick in.

  Window dressing included a toaster that had caused $50,000 damage in a kitchen fire, a cassette deck that had eaten 48 tapes, a clock radio whose ticking was akin to chinese water torture, an aquarium with 4 invisible leaks, a blender that spun slower than the RCA Viceroy phonograph beside it, an aluminum baseball bat that had hit more "home boys" than home runs (14 gang fights and two homicides), and assorted not-so-rare antiques. Derek took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  The elderly, spectacled, bookie cap-wearing Olaf Swanson closely inspected a pocket watch. Too closely. The sweep second hand of the Weissenhauffer model almost grazed his grizzled stubble. Two hours earlier, a young thug with less snort than the Bulls logo on his jacket, had pawned it. The kid had yelped a bit when Swanson offered him 50 bucks, but quickly pocketed the two twenties and a ten when they appeared on the counter top. The pawn dealer knew that even if the Weissenhauffer was five minutes slow ... it could still fetch $200 in a hurry.

  Swanson assumed it was stolen and he'd make his obligatory call to the police. They in turn would check their records and more often than not, discover it was hot. A detective would appear the next day. He'd reimburse Swanson the money he'd paid out for it ... plus a 15% "finder's fee" -- money that was taken out of the FINK's (Folks Incarcerating Naughty Kids) "Book-A-Crook" funds.

  Swanson played ball with the authorities right up to when it came to giving a description of his sticky-fingered "stock clerks". He had a business to run. If he was snitching on every hood he opened his cash register for ... the next time he might be emptying it at the request of a very identifiable .38 Smith & Westwon.

  Olaf Swanson's grandparents had stepped off the Coral Queen in Halifax two days before the harbour blew up in 1917. They had the meaty grit and
solid bonding also found in their swedish meatball recipe that took top honors at the 1915 competition in Jonkoping. Two generations later, Olaf did his damnedest, compartmentalizing his life like a TV dinner ... as he minded other people's junk.

  If someone began confusing Swanson's shop however, for an express check-in lane of 13 items or less, Olaf provided the authorities with a more meaningful mug shot description. He was afraid he otherwise might be linked to the bad guys ... or "bad boys" as the current culture coddled them.

  Crime did pay for Swanson's pawn shop ... and it was paying well. He closed the brass cover of the watch and turned his attention to the first customer he'd had in half an hour.

  Derek slowly pulled the small, 3" x 5", 3/4" thick, clear plastic case out of his inner breast pocket. He stepped forward and placed it gently on the counter between him and Swanson. The Terry Sawchuk hockey card in the case grinned up at the dealer.

  "Hmm. What have we here?" Swanson picked up the card and looked it over. A few small beads of saliva escaped the corners of his mouth. His heart fluttered. For Olaf, the inspection process was akin to mentally undressing women. The brash young face of Sawchuk positively beamed. The years melted away. The few watches in Swanson's showcase that did work, suddenly joined those that didn't ... and time stood still.

  Derek slanted a look down at the ground, not wanting to look at the card. He felt duly embarrassed and deeply depressed. It was like scoring on your own goalie by accident. People wanting to console you would just as soon kick you in the butt.

  "Sawchuk's rookie card ... 1951-52 Parkhearse."

  The words escaped Derek's mouth in the forlorn tone of a eulogy. They had lost the zip and salesmanship with which he'd hoped to impress the dealer. His father had given him the card as a Christmas present when Derek was ten. He'd looked into his Dad's eyes like he'd just been handed the sword from the stone. It was one of those special moments when he'd seen in his father's eyes the wisdom ... the guile ... and -- just after the wink -- the warmth.