Free The Code by Gare Joyce Page B

knew the whole story.
    â€œThey make trouble at all? I hear those kids get into all kinds of trouble.”
    â€œThere’s always something going on. I know Christie, the guy who was captain last year, was banging the mother of the family he was staying with.”
    Poor Beef. So young. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that every team has at least one or that the truly ambitious managed the mother-daughter exactor.
    â€œThat’s disgusting …”
    Better to be sympathetic than didactic.
    â€œâ€¦ Bet the girls fall over the stars and everything for that … what’s his name, the really good kid, shit, what’s his name?”
    â€œYou mean Mays. He’s in my history class …”
    Bingo.
    â€œâ€¦ No, he’s a good guy. He was always in here but I haven’t seen him the last couple of days. He’s real serious about things. He isn’t bulky or anything but he’s strong. If he was lifting or not, he’d be on the stationary bike, just sweatin’ buckets …”
    Beef went on to offer a testimonial that reinforced the stuff I’d read in the media. Billy Mays Jr. was an Eagle Scout who provided an example to the rabble. No problem with girls. No problem with kids at school. He got along with everybody. I started to get the idea that Beef might be a little less forthcoming about his classmate’s foibles, so when I moved over to the incline bench, I tried tapping him about other kids on the Peterborough roster. He was only too willing to dish the dirt on them. First stop: no worse than a rave.

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    Next stop: Tim Hortons beside the arena. I could have sprung for a decent meal on the company, but I’d save that and the gift certificate for the Falling Water Café until Sandy arrived. Besides, the guys who work at the arena wouldn’t know how to read the menu at any place offering near-haute cuisine. I figured they’d only have time to duck into Tim’s for a coffee and a doughnut after doing a flood for the girls’ figure-skating practice.
    I’d prepared myself to be made by the Zamboni driver and a member of his pit crew, a guy who wore his maintenance all-browns like a team sweater—after all, I’d played in the old-timers game at the rink less than forty-eight hours before.
    â€œExcuse me, but weren’t you at the visitation today?” I asked. “Yeah, we were,” the Guy Who Turns Right for a Living said. “You a friend of the family?”
    Not a clue that I was in the game or ever had been. I was wounded only slightly by the idea that my celebrity was even more fleeting than I’d imagined.
    â€œI had a brother who was drafted by Peterborough but didn’tend up playing here,” I said. “He didn’t want to go away to play, and he was a low, low draft choice anyway.”
    â€œToo bad,” the Broom Pusher said. “There’s nothing in hockey like playing for Red Hanratty, God rest his soul.”
    â€œYeah, God rest his soul,” Lord Flood said.
    I figured three-part harmony wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I tried to strike a different note.
    â€œWhat’s gonna happen now with these kids and the team?”
    â€œThey were a playoff team with Mays, but I suspect he’s done for the year,” Mr. Maintenance said. “I mean, they’re gonna have games cancelled, but I guess Mays’s shoulder’s a little worse than they originally thought.”
    Bruised and sprained shoulder and out for the season with more than six weeks left? Red flag.
    The Zamboni driver took this as a challenge to impress with the dirt he gleaned from being on the deep inside. “I guess the kid wants to come back and he could get clearance to play, but his agent is worried about him getting injured again.”
    Okay, a lighter shade of red for that flag.
    â€œI feel sorry for the kid,” the driver said. “He comes out to every