Frank Zafiro: No Good Deed

“Where’d you play before River City?”

Richard grinned. “In Quebec, in a Senior League. My team was called the Chevaliers. Do you know what that word means in English?”

I shook my head.

“It means Knight. Like Sir Lancelot? Did you know he was French?”

I shook my head. “I thought King Arthur was British.”

“ Oui. But Sir Launcelot was French. Perhaps that is why he ended up with the woman, no? Anyway, last season, in Quebec, we won the championship.”

“I thought you were traded here from Trail.”

“Trail?” Richard snorted. “They signed me away from Quebec during the off-season. Players make twice as much in this league, so I signed the contract. I came there right after the season ended. I did a lot of community service as part of the team, worked hard at training camp, but they traded me to River City, anyway.”

“Quite a trip.”

“It all pays the same to me,” Richard said.

Our coffee arrived and I sipped the hot brew. Richard flashed a smile at the waitress, but didn’t touch his.

“Matt said you might need some help with something,” I said.

Richard turned back to me. His face tightened momentarily, especially around the lips. “I am not sure how it is here in U.S. Are you a private investigator?”

I shook my head. “No.”

His eyes narrowed a little. “No license?”

“I don’t need one in Washington State, as long as I don’t advertise or portray myself as a private investigator. It doesn’t matter, though, because the only one I’ve ever really helped was Matt.”

“Oh, yes, he told me.” Richard reached down and brought his cup to his lips. “That thing with his daughter.”

I nodded.

Richard watched me for a moment, then sipped his coffee again and put the cup back on the table. “It does not matter. When I said I was not sure how it is here in U.S., I meant something more.”

“What?”

“I do not know how it is with…problems with women.”

I stared at him, noting the square jaw and the slight bend in the bridge of his nose. Although he was clean-shaven, coarse facial hair already darkened his cheeks and chin. He looked like the high-speed, low-drag personality I would expect from a professional athlete. Or a cop, for that matter. But he didn’t look like a wife-beater.

“Domestic violence laws are pretty stiff,” I said. “There’s a mandatory arrest provision and-”

He shook his head and waved his hand at me. “No, nothing like that. I would never beat a woman. I love women. That is the problem.”

“How so?”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There is a woman. She follow me from Trail. She is saying that she is pregnant and that the child, it is mine.”

“Is it?”

Richard clenched his jaw and sat back. Then he shrugged. “I do not know for sure.”

“So you slept with her.”

“Yes, yes, many times. But this woman, she also had a husband. I think that she was already pregnant, you see? That it is the husband’s baby.”

“Get a blood test.”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course I will. But that will be after the baby is born. Many months from now.”

“So?”

Richard sighed. “Monsieur Kopriva, this is an important time for me. This contract to play here is not very much money. But the way I play the game in Quebec, it catches the eye of some NHL scouts, you know? And so I come to this league, a higher league, to show that I am not just a big fish in a small pond. I will show the scouts that I can play in the NHL. And if they believe me, I will get an NHL-sized contract.”

“How much?”

“At least five hundred thousand. Maybe a million dollars even.”

I whistled and drank some more coffee. My meager medical pension wouldn’t add up to that in fifteen years.

“You see,” Richard said, “I am not a young man anymore. This is perhaps my last chance, so I must be focused on what I must do, and nothing more. Not some woman and perhaps a baby.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “But what do you want from me?”

I walked across the newly opened Monroe Street Bridge and paused to look down. The Looking Glass River rumbled below. It was cold, but only because my body was remembering summer. By January, I’d think back on this day as balmy.

In my jacket pocket, I had two hundred in cash that Richard had given me, a pair of tickets to the season opener tomorrow and the last known location of Anne Marie Stoll, the woman that was claiming that she was pregnant with Richard’s child. The address was a cheap motel on the north side of town and I wanted to drive up. Since I’d been foolish enough to walk to the arena from my apartment in Browne’s Addition, that meant I had to walk back.

Two hundred dollars plus my expenses wasn’t a lot of money, but for what Richard was asking, it was a fortune. All he wanted was for me to broker a pay-off deal with Anne Marie. His reasoning was that if all she was doing was extorting him for some cash, she’d jump at the offer.

Even more important, Richard told me, was my read on her. He put great stock in my being a cop years ago and he wanted to know if she was lying or not. Then, he said, he wouldn’t have to worry about a blood test in the future. He could deal with the problem and focus on playing hockey.

“No,” said the desk clerk, looking offended. “I’m sure. I keep good records.”

“Did she leave a forwarding address?”

He gave me a look that said I was clearly the biggest moron he’d met today. “How many people do you think leave a forwarding address?”

I ignored his comment. “How about a previous address?”

He eyes were suspicious. “Why?”

“I’m trying to find her.”

“No kidding.” The clerk brushed his thick, greasy hair from his forehead. “Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“So’s the information you’re asking for.”

We stood at an impasse for a few moments, then I sighed. “All right, look. I work for a bank. Her relative left her a lot of money, but she doesn’t know it yet.”

“So you’re trying to find her to give her this good news?”

“Right.”

“What’re you, Ed McMahon?”

“It’s not a bad job.” I played out the ruse. “I get to make people happy.”

“Baloney.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s baloney.” He pointed at my 1982 Toyota Celica. “No way does a prize guy drive that piece of junk. You’d at least have a mini-van.”

“It’s in the shop.”

“Uh-uh. I get junk email like this all the time. Some rich guy from another country needs to deposit money in my account to avoid taxes or an evil dictator. It’s a con job.” He looked back at me. “And so are you.”

I pulled a twenty dollar bill from my pocket. “You’re right. But this is real.”

It ended up not being worth twenty dollars. I got an address in Trail for Anne Marie Stoll that Richard probably could have supplied. There was no vehicle information listed on the registration card. So much for his keeping good records.

The only other thing that was worth the price of admission was that she’d left over a week ago.

Opening night at the arena was a spectacle. The players skated out onto the ice through a wall of fog as the rink announcer boomed out, “Here…are your…River…City…FLYERS!” Rock music played in the background and the crowd clapped along.

Once all the skaters were on the ice and lined up along the blue line, the rink announcer introduced each of them, one at a time.

“In goal,” boomed the disembodied voice of the announcer, “from York, Saskatchewan, number one, Derek Yeager!” There was a huge cheer. Word had circulated about the new goalie, even though he was just out of Junior, and expectations were high.