The Code by Gare Joyce Page B

glazed.
    â€œThere’s nothing you could fault Mays with, not a thing,” McMullin said. “A player you just enjoyed watching, making something happen every shift. When he came back from hismono it looked like he’d never even been away. Seamless it was. He was the best player in the league in December and all these other guys had a two-month head start on him. Still growing.”
    â€œHow did he go down with the shoulder?”
    â€œA game against Kingston and Markov was in the middle of it. He trades a couple of slashes with Kingston’s big Russian defenceman …”
    â€œProbably some chirpin’ about who squeezed more money out of his team,” I interrupted with acknowledgment.
    â€œWho knows what it was about. Comes after a whistle. Only time I’d seen any passion out of the Ruskie the whole time. Anyway, big scrum and Mays steps into the middle of it and tries to peel Markov away. Right about this time, Tighe …”
    Tighe being Kingston’s Knucklehead No. 1, 210 pounds or roughly 3 pounds for every IQ point.
    â€œâ€¦ blindsides Mays. Huge cross-check, then like a tackle from the back. Sends him almost headfirst into the boards. Could have been worse. I thought for sure it was a concussion or a neck. Stupid ref. Gives him a double minor when he should have got five games. No review by the league either.”
    Well, Voice was effectively on the team payroll and had been drinking Hanratty’s Kool-Aid for years, so I knew that this would have been the way it all looked to someone waving Peterborough pom-poms. Still, the way McMullin described it, and I had no reason to doubt him, Mays’s shoulder had nothing to do with any hockey-sense issue. Fact is, the Boy Wonder was stepping up for a teammate, probably trying to get Markov to buy in. Not a problem with hockey sense, but maybe common sense. Mays was still innocent enough to believe in the basic good in everyone, even in a kid like Markov, who was, in my eyes and every scout’s and I guarantee the Ol’ Redhead’s, a talented dog too lazy to do tricks.
    â€œAny chance that the mono thing is a cover for something wrong with the shoulder, some type of chronic thing?”
    McMullin looked offended. “All I can tell you is Red looked ashen when he got word that Mays wasn’t gonna be available for the playoffs,” he said. “I wanted Red to do an interview that we were gonna put on the sportscast, but he said he wanted to hold off until he knew more and until he had a chance to talk about it with the kid and his father.”
    â€œHe didn’t want to talk to the agent?”
    â€œRed never met an agent that he ever wanted to talk to.”
    That sounded about right.

16
----
    I really didn’t have too many thoughts about the funeral itself, much beyond the fact that the Ol’ Redhead’s pallbearers would have made a helluva power play. I thought it was a nice touch that the hearse and the cars in line behind it made a detour en route to the cemetery and drove past the arena. I imagined that, inside the arena, the eyes of the Queen were watering and the enduring aroma of Cubans in the coach’s office would serve as a reminder of Him Who’ll Never Be Truly Replaced.
    The team came to the arena the day after the funeral and would do that for the next ten days, until they picked up their schedule again. The league put its entire sked on hold for the Friday night, so that all the coaches and general managers could make it out to the service. Peterborough’s upcoming three games were postponed and rescheduled out of respect to the Hanrattys, the Boneses, the organization, the blindsided kids, and the townspeople, dressed in black.
    Still, the kids reported to the rink around two in the afternoon on weekdays after school, and about ten on weekends.The earlier start and daylong sessions on the weekend were a bit much I thought, but those in the organization