Page 75 of Puck Me Like You Own Me

The container ship has come level with the window behind her. I keep my eyes on the top of the desk.

“Forty thousand dollars of Marek Brandt’s own money,” she says, “entered your accounts disguised as commercial income, and came off your balance as a payment. You’ve been paying down a debt with the savings of the man who was sent here to collect it. You didn’t know. I didn’t know either, which is the part I take personally.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because before you leave this room, I’m going to ask you for a favor,” she says, “and I’d rather you heard it with a clear head than with a romance.”

She doesn’t hurry. That’s what stays with me afterward. She never sounds pleased with herself, never sounds like a woman winning an argument.

“On the fourth of March, he came into this office and offered me everything he had.”

The clock is behind the filing cabinet.

“A hundred and ninety thousand dollars,” Vera says. “The retirement, the savings, the practice account, and the car. His entire liquid worth, to buy back a goal that hadn’t happened yet. He stood where that chair is and put the number in front of me.”

My hands are flat on my thighs.

“I refused it,” she says. “Do you want to know why?”

“You’ll tell me.”

“I will.” She turns her chair slightly toward the window. “Because an asset that can’t be redeemed is not an asset. If a goaltender can be bought out of one favor for a hundred and ninety thousand dollars, then that’s what he’s worth, once, and then he’s worth nothing to me forever. Whereas a goaltender who’s done it twice is worth three hundred thousand a night for as long as his hip holds.”

She talks about the hip like a woman reading a line off a sheet, which is what she’s doing.

“You understand what you’re looking at,” she says.

“I’m looking at a man who tried to pay for me.”

“You’re looking at a collector protecting a producing asset.” She turns back. “I’m going to say this once. Do what you like with it. Marek Brandt’s conduct in the last five months is also the correct management of a valuable account. He moved your brother because a frightened man plays badly. He funded your balance because an account in arrears goes to Roth, and Roth costs me a season. He put himself on your travel manifest, in your building, on your access list, in your apartment. Every one of those came across my desk with a business justification typed at the bottom. He’s slept in your bed since February. I have that from a source, not a guess.”

The heat. The clock. A phone ringing once in the outer office and being answered on the second ring.

“You think I don’t know what he is,” I say.

“I think you know exactly what he is, and I think you’ve decided it doesn’t apply to you.” She puts two fingers on the moving invoice. “It has always applied. That isn’t cruelty, Mr. Doyle. It’s arithmetic. Everything that man has done for you has kept you producing. The paperwork is in front of you. Every line of it is true.”

Nothing she’s said is a lie. I check each fact as it goes past, the way you check a shot you’ve already given up on, and they all land clean. He did move Fin. He did pay for it and hide it. He did put forty thousand dollars of his own money into my accounts and let me lie to Suze about it. He did stand in this room in February with everything he owns in his hands.

“He’s off your account,” she says.

“What?”

“As of Monday. He no longer has visibility on your finances, your calendar, or your medical file, and I’ve written to your agent this morning to say his firm is standing down for personal reasons. Leonard will handle the balance directly from now on.” She puts the glasses back on. “You’ll find that simpler. There’s nothing to interpret with Leonard.”

“And what’s he doing to Marek?”

The pause is about a second long, and she lets me hear it.

“Twenty-fourth of April,” she says. “Toronto, at home. First period, while the score is level. Three hundred thousand off the balance. Then we’ll be at four hundred and forty-eight thousand. You and I will both be able to see the end of this from where we’re standing.” She stands. “Thank you for coming in. Leonard will take you back.”

I stay where I am. “I’ll walk.”

“It’s four miles.”

“I’ll walk,” I say, and I get as far as the door before she says my name, which she’s never done.

“Mr. Doyle. Every word I’ve said to you this morning is verifiable. Go and verify it.”