There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool (21 page)

Rita spent summers with Fern and LaVerne
after the hockey-playing billets went home. Depending on the
vacation budget, she and the girls would travel to Vancouver Island
or Thousand Islands. Rita's mind swirled around the beach-front
bike path in Stanley Park. Mentally weaving around a corner, she
looked up and saw Derek instead of the Lion's Gate Bridge.

"Derek!"

She put the broom aside and straightened her
apron, hair and thoughts in the two strides it took her to get to
Derek. They hugged. She poured Derek a cup of decaf. He nodded to
the players in the dining room.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

"Just fine," said Rita, clasping her hands in
her apron, smiling at the players eating their breakfast.

Tuckapuk expertly carved his flapjack into
uniform, bite-size pieces. He repeated to himself Aunt Rita's
advice of chewing every bite 15 times before swallowing.

Beside him, Short Hand daintily dabbed at
each corner of his mouth with a napkin ... twice. He folded the
napkin in half, then in quarter sections, confident he'd be able to
use it for lunch and supper before having to discard it.

Girardelli sat bolt upright, transporting
food from his plate to his mouth with his right hand in measured,
robotic movements. All the while, his left hand rested gently in
his lap.

Starsikov and Hutchny eyed the latest last
flapjack on the plate, left bare in the open clearing southwest of
the centerpiece. Starsikov looked at Hutchny and smiled.

"Go ahead, comrade. Take it."

"Oh, no," Hutchny said. "You may have
it."

"Oh, but I insist."

"I don't have any room left," Hutchny said.
"I've eaten so much I'll be touring with the Moscow Circus."

"I'm so full I couldn't swallow another word
from Coach Tikhonov," said Starsikov. "You should really be the one
to enjoy this. Even though ... as a child, I remember my family
being so poor ... that when we were thirsty we sucked the dew off
charcoal."

"At least you had charcoal. We slept outside
on our backs with our mouths open, waiting for two clouds to
collide," said Hutchny. He held up his index finger. "That's one
each. Now then ... I think you should have the last flapjack
because I am already the smartest Soviet hockey player to ever step
on the ice."

"Ah, but I defected before you, smart guy,"
Starsikov said with a triumphant smile.

"You win," said Hutchny, reaching for the
flapjack.

... 2 ...

Sylvie reached the second story landing at
212 Sheppard Street and continued quickly past the MAY-JA-LOOK sign
on the stairwell wall. The arrow beside the sign pointed upward,
reminding the climber their trek was half over. Sylvie lunged up
the stairs, grabbing the railing with her right hand and pulling
herself up. In her left hand she clutched a large, brown
envelope.

Derek sat at his desk reading the Hockey
Bible. Helen leaned over his shoulder, placing a tupperware bowl of
chicken noodle soup before him. Helen was all too familiar with the
healing powers of the piping hot broth. She was convinced it
decreased the sniffling stage of the common cold by 44% ... and
helped alleviate Ratatatat Poulet Spousea, otherwise known as the
hen-pecked husband syndrome. The soup also gave her a reason to
visit Derek.

"Thanks."

He kept his head buried in the Hockey Bible
injury report.

She hadn't carried her soup through two bus
transfers and a waterfront Gay Pride parade to play second fiddle
to a story about a groin injury to a Ranger. She bit her lip. Under
normal circumstances she would have inquired as to the player's
prognosis. She lowered the Hockey Bible paper.

"Perhaps we could do something after work
tonight? A movie? Are the Leafs in town?"

"Nope."

His reply was more anguish than matter of
fact. It was his turn to bite his lip. He folded the Hockey Bible
and put it down. He rose from his chair and went to the window,
buying time that didn't come with instructions. He frowned. Today
was not a good day for tackling the opposite sex issue. In a key
face-off deep in his cranial zone, a soup-toting Helen had just
been swept aside by the master plan. He may as well be focusing on
wampum as women. But he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He had to
act fast.

Hug her. That's right. When all else failed,
there was always a hug. They were non-explicit. He didn't have to
say a word. "The Amicable Anti-Flinch" was universally accepted by
women. He just had to walk right up, open his arms ... and bingo,
she stamped his weekly pass to some belated bliss of no fixed
address.

The one kink in the amicable anti-flinch was
the time aspect. How long was the hug supposed to last? Especially
the one following sex. Derek had it pegged at a congenial 35-to-40
seconds -- no longer than this one would take, if he could help it.
He stepped toward Helen.

Sylvie rushed through the front door of the
outer office past Artie. He spun in his swivel chair, watching her
fly by. Hammond's "hello" never made it past his windpipe.

Watching Derek draw near, Helen's eyebrows
lifted in surprise. She silently praised the chicken noodle soup.
He hadn't tasted it yet. Maybe the odor was amorous. She smiled and
opened her arms to receive Derek.

"Of course, we don't have to wait until
tonight," she said, purring.

The hug was barely three seconds old when
Helen turned up the screws on her vice-grip embrace and kissed him
hard on the lips. Sylvie entered the room and stopped dead in her
tracks. Facing the door, Derek's eyes met hers. Her shocked stare
met his wide-eyed but tight-lipped denial. The non-verbal, fever
pitch debate was over in an instant.

Sylvie spun on her heels, dropping the
envelope on the floor. Helen almost didn't hear it hit the floor,
her heart was triphammering away. She turned, but Sylvie was
already out the door. Marcotte rued the day the Canadian Female
Charter of Rights recognized hugging as a claim-staking bylaw.

"Who was that?" asked Helen.

A mollified Derek stared at the 8" x 11"
manila envelope on the floor.

"Uh ... a cuh-cuh-cuh-courier?"

Artie appeared in the doorway. Helen walked
over to the envelope on the floor and picked it up. Derek's marbles
finally settled into their holes and he joined her.

"Maybe you should get another company," she
said. "They certainly aren't very courteous."

Derek took the envelope from Helen.

"Artie. Could you take care of this,
please?"

"Sure."

Artie shrugged his shoulders, took the
envelope and left the room.

Helen peered into Derek's eyes like W.C.
Fields sizing up a Philadelphia cheese-steak.

"Now then ... where were we?"

The image of Sylvie turning and running out
the door kept playing out at the Bijou in Derek's head.

She kept reappearing, only to look at him
wild-eyed and disappear again. The videotaped scene varied in
speed, as the playback operator shuttled it back and forth.

"This is where you really went wrong," he
said to Derek. "See that look in her eyes? You're dead meat, buddy.
She just crucified you. Want me to loosen those nails in your hands
and feet for ya?"

The operator shuttled the tape forward a few
seconds.

"That's gonna cost you a few dozen roses ...
and that look ... right -- there! Oh, the pain of it all. But cheer
up, you don't have to start looking for roses just yet. She doesn't
want to see your common-law butt for at least a week."

Derek hurried out of his office with Helen in
hot pursuit.

"Derek, where are you going?"

"What? You said so yourself. I need a new
courier service."

"But can't you just call them on the
phone?"

Derek had to keep moving. His legs felt like
they were in a potato sack with a few spuds still kicking around.
Or the playback operator was still shuttling Marcotte's life along
at half-speed. Derek was almost to the door.

Women were just too damn practical at times.
They always had the right questions. Because of this, they missed
out on valuable lessons that needed to be learned the hard way.
Derek's valuable lesson was one tough nut -- which he'd barely
cracked the surface. He'd been playing with the nut-cracker for too
long and he'd just squeezed his knuckles by accident.

"If they're going to toss my mail around,
damn it ... I'll see how far I can throw some of their
employees."

"What about your soup? It's going to get
cold. I still have the crackers in my purse."

Marcotte turned to his partner.

"Artie. When you're finished there, drink the
soup in my office."

"Gotcha, boss."

Derek slammed the door behind him. Helen's
shoulders slumped. She knew she should have added more beer and
less flavour cubes to the soup. She nodded goodbye to Artie.

"See ya," he said with another c'est-la-vie
shrug.

Helen exited and Artie turned his attention
to the envelope Sylvie had dropped. He opened it and emptied the
contents onto his desk. It was a scouting report on Gaston
LaBonneglace. He let out a low whistle.

"I don't believe it. This is too good to be
true."

He leaned over his computer keyboard and
entered the information on LaBonneglace into the database. He
typed, "Gaston LaBonneglace / Montreal, Quebec" on a line directly
below the latest two entries: "Napoleon Tuckapuk / Portage
Beaucoup, Manitoba" ... and ... "Danny Short Hand / Raven Lake,
N.W.T."

At Herculean, Bittman chewed on a foot-long
pastrami and provolone submarine. Both cheeks billowed at near
capacity. His computer game of Tina's Tattoo Parlour was abruptly
interrupted by a screen change. Bittman frowned. He was in the
middle of applying a stunning cobra rattlesnake tattoo to the
supple under side of Tina's left arm.

Tina's limb was replaced by May-Ja-Look's
player database. The latest cross-town, stroke-by-stroke entry by
Artie of the Gaston LaBonneglace information came up on the
Herculean screen. Bittman peered closer. His jaws ground to a
halt.

"Hah! Looks like we've found the boss's
diamond in the rough."

Phone cocked to his ear, Erskine reclined in
his easy chair. He propped his feet up on the desk and stared at a
pigeon parked on the ledge outside his office window. They both
wondered what time they should have lunch.

"Gaston, this is Victor Erskine ... president
of Herculean Inc. I understand you're in the middle of negotiations
to play a game with May-Ja-Look."

"That is true," Labonneglace said, lying
through his recently capped teeth. Artie had merely made the
perfunctory "hello, how-do-you-do" phone call. No dollar figures
had been discussed.

"Well," Erskine said, "I can tell you the
pregame meal will probably be fast food. And even then you may have
to pull a D and D."

"What is dat ... a D an' D?"

"Dine and dash," said Erskine. "Here at
Herculean, however ... we treat our players very nicely ..."

... 3 ...

The 1 3/4"-thick hollow-metal steel door was
all that separated Derek from Sylvie. It felt like the Berlin Wall
before common sense had been knocked into it. Derek stood outside
her apartment door in the empty hallway. Sylvie waited inside,
nervously munching on her last fresh finger nail. The polish on the
remaining nine had since deteriorated from Fashion Avenue Fuchsia
to Tin Pan Alley Grit.

"Sylvie, listen to me. It was nothing. A peck
on the cheek ... I was considering just shaking her hand.
Honest."

"Nothing? Hah! I've seen less passion leave
other women pregnant! By the way ... is she?"

"Not unless she's next in line for immaculate
conception. But she has some library books overdue."

Library books. Shit. Derek knew this wasn't
working. He'd only just begun his full frontal assault and his
pleas through the metal door were ringing ... hollow. He began
pacing. Pacing was good. Tricky, but good. He had to keep a tight
circle to stay close to the door in case she said something. At the
same time he had to be careful not the trip over two welcome mats.
There was another apartment door directly across from Sylvie's.

"I don't love her, Sylvie!"

"Then leave her!"

"You don't understand!"

"Of course I do. I'm a woman!"

"And I'm a man!"

"You're dodging the issue."

"I am not," Derek said. He was standing in
the sixth-floor hallway of an apartment building carrying on a
debate that others might label a shouting match. At any moment a
tenant could poke their head into the hallway and tell him to shut
the hell up. He paused to consider the consequences ... and a
couple of snappy comebacks.

He and his girlfriend were in an improv group
and were simply role playing.

She'd just shampooed the carpets and he had a
foot condition.

They were experimenting with a new religion,
Isomonogamy, whose basic precept of abstention was limited
face-to-face contact.

Derek knew he'd need something up his sleeve
for intervening neighbors, lest Sylvie see him drop his guard --
a.k.a., the no-hassle, all-muscle, Mr. Machismo.

Marcotte stopped pacing. He'd forgotten which
door was hers. Was it #615 or #616? He'd only been to her place
twice and the number escaped him. He knew he should have bought
that Memory Made Easier book.

The commercial advised viewers to tap their
brain power and flood their bank accounts. Tired of saying, "Hi,
Guy"? Remember everyone's name. Was it ham on rye or banana bread
with bamboo shoots? Don't disappoint your friends at work when you
pick up lunch. Apartment numbers? One-night stands, divorcees on
the rebound, etc. See chapter eight.

Derek had a 50-50 chance. He looked at the
welcome mats. They were identical. He didn't have time for a soil
analysis. He leaned close to #615.