Page 26 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

11

Get Smart

Chris

Sittingand reading stuff all day was the worst. Maybe I should have chosen coaching instead of management. But to be so close to the action and not be able to play would have killed me. Besides, my back problems meant I needed to take it easy and heal completely before I went hard on the ice.

I looked back down at the contracts in front of me. Most of them were exactly the same—boilerplate, standard player deals. And why wouldn’t they be? The majority of these guys were gunning for the bigs, so their contracts with the Vice were only stepping-stones. But from what I’d seen on the ice, only a couple of them had a chance at all.

Which reminded me that I wanted to let the Millionaires know what I’d seen at the game the other night. I dialled up Oscar Keller. He was the guy I knew best on the scouting staff. He was an older guy, and I trusted his smarts.

“Hey, Killer.”

“Lucky, you old asshole. How’s it going?”

“Great. I’m working on this special project with the Vice.”

“I was wondering why I hadn’t seen your ugly mug around here as much. Did you fuck up in some way to get sent down there?”

I laughed. “Not more than usual. Anyway, who scouts the Vice?”

Oscar gave a snort of laughter. “Nobody. Why bother?”

“Come on, Killer, so they’re losing. They could still have good players. And it’s not like anyone has to blow their travel budget getting here.”

“Are you attending all the games?” he asked.

Thanks to Amanda, I was now. “Yeah. I’m supposed to be helping with hockey operations around here.”

“Then you can be our scout.” He broke into wheezy laughter. “Naw, all bullshit aside, we do have a guy who drops in to see the occasional game. He does all the teams in the Pacific Division. Harry Hislop. It’s just the Vice aren’t a big priority.”

“But they’ve got a couple of good players—Eric Fairburn and Dave Dominick. They’re head and shoulders above the rest. And they’re not signed with any NHL teams.” The captain was good as well, but he already had a two-way contract.

Killer was silent for a moment, going through his mental file cabinet. “Dominick, yeah, I know him. He’s got a cousin who plays NHL. But he’s got off-ice issues.” That was a common theme on this team. “Same deal for Fairburn. He’s a former first-rounder, but he needs to stay clean for a full season before anyone’s going to take a chance on him.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be the first one in,” I suggested.

“You know what, Lucky? I’m sure you’re good at evaluating players, since you’ve been doing it instinctively for years. In fact, if you want to get out of the penthouse and join the guys who do the real work, I bet I could make a decent scout out of you.” He broke out his wheezy laugh again. “But here’s my tip for you—anyone can pick out the best guys on a team. Even my granny.”

“Is your granny a scout?”

“Not unless they’ve got hockey in heaven. Anyway, these guys look good because the rest of the team is so shitty. But can you really imagine them at the next level? If I plunked Dominick on a third-line NHL pairing, would he be able to work the same magic? You know how much faster and tougher the game is. And nobody wants to bring up some fuck-up and hand him money and opportunity. I’ve seen that go wrong way too many times.”

After talking to Killer, I put all the contracts back in their file folder. Once again, I felt useless. I thought that at least I could offer someone new information, but I was wrong.

I stood up, but I couldn’t even walk around without bumping into the furniture. So I headed into Amanda’s office.

She was scowling at her computer screen.

“What’s wrong, Mandy?” I asked.

“Ugh. Don’t call me that.” She kept glaring at the numbers on the screen like she was willing them to change. “This is so frustrating. We’ve cut expenses to the bone. Unless we increase revenues, we keep slipping back.”

That kind of problem was beyond me. I dropped the contracts on her desk. “I looked over the player contracts like you asked. Everything looks normal. Well, except how crappy the salaries are. The Vice pays at the very low end of the AHL scale. Makes total sense.”

Her hazel eyes met mine. “What do you mean?”

“Pay peanuts, get monkeys.”

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