Page 67 of Hard Hitter
Nate’s eyes widened, and there was humor in them. As if he was surprised that O’Doul would argue at all. “Every player counts. Of course they do. But he’s a young kid. If he gets hurt he’ll bounce back faster.”
“Is there a chart for that, too?” Hell, he shouldn’t be a smartass to Nate, but it just slipped out. Any time anyone made him feel old, it got his back up.
Nate actually laughed. “Probably. But we don’t need another chart to know which of you has played almost a thousand NHL games. That’s you, not Crikey. The next ten games are going to be the most important of the year. We needexperienceon that ice. Don’t sacrifice your body over some macho code. Skate more, take fewer punches.”
“‘Some macho code,’” O’Doul repeated. “Why did you buy a hockey team if you don’t like fights?”Weren’t the Knicks for sale?
“Fights are a sideshow, and you know it,” Nate said, all the humor gone from his face. “If they keep butts fillingsome of our seats, that’s their only value to me. The game is so much bigger than fighting. And I know you agree with me.”
Maybe he did.
“In fifteen years, fighting will be gone from the NHL,” Nate continued. “The Canadian juniors teams are already leaning away from it. Concussion research will condemn it. If you step back now, it’s not a failure. You’re just trendy. This is Brooklyn. Be a hipster. More yoga. Fewer stitches.” He picked up the tablet and slid it into a sleeve. “Gotta run. You and Coach had better teach Crikey a few things so we can stay in the right corner of that chart.”
Without waiting for a response, he left the O’Doul standing there, trying to process everything the owner had just said.
Then he went to find Crikey.
TWENTY
Ari’s day had started out well. First there was tantric sex with the hottest man in Brooklyn. Then, after her first massage appointment, a deliveryman showed up out of the blue to drop off half a dozen whoopie pies from One Girl Cookies.
“I didn’t order anything,” she told him.
“If you’re Ari, these are for you,” the kid insisted. “Sign here.”
Inside the bag, she found a card.A little bird told me you liked these. They must be good if they’re called whoopie pies.—P.
Ari ate one of them and set the others out of eyesight so she wouldn’t be tempted.
But her good fortune didn’t last. She checked her messages on her lunch break, and that’s when everything went sideways. She had a voice mail from Detective Miller asking her to stop by the precinct and drop off the hard copy of the photograph Vince had sent to Patrick. She’d been ducking this errand for days. But now she rescheduled her 1:30 massage—Castro didn’t have any injuries, he just liked having a rubdown—and headed over there.
When she tried to drop off the photo with the desksergeant, they asked her to wait a moment. When Miller came out and asked her to stay for coffee, her stomach sank. “I just had one,” she said.
He smiled. “Come on back for a minute anyway. We have a couple more questions we need to ask you,” he said.
“All right.” Uneasy, she followed him into a messy office and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
“Were you able to serve your ex-boyfriend with his order of protection?” he asked immediately.
She shook her head. “The process server can’t find him. I don’t know where he’s staying.”
“I see.” The detective made a tent out of his fingers. “I need to show you a document and ask you if it’s your signature on the bottom.”
“Okay?” Her voice quavered, because that sounded bad. There couldn’t be many documents with her signature on them in the world. Except for tax forms, and anything she filled out for the Bruisers.
He opened a folder and slid a photocopy of what looked like a check in front of her. “Does this look familiar?”
She squinted at the document—a cancelled check drawn from a bank she’d never heard of, in the amount of nine thousand dollars. In the lower right-hand corner, someone had signedAriana Bettini. “Oh my god. What is this?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I certainly don’t write checks for that amount. And I don’t know this bank.”
“I see.” The detective passed her a form.Signature Verificationit read. “Would you mind filling this out, please? In the middle section, sign your name five times.”
Her fingers shook as she first printed her name in the space at the top. “What the hell is going on? Why are you asking me to do this?”
“I can’t comment on the investigation,” he said.
