Face-Off

by Michael Betcherman

  “Hey,” Alex said as he joined Stefan. “Mom will be glad to hear you made a new friend.” He nodded toward Emma. Stefan shrugged. All in a day’s work. “How did it go?” Alex asked.

  “Pretty good,” Stefan said. “Although everybody kept calling me Alex. The teachers seem nice. Except for chemistry.”

  “Who do you have?”

  “Mr. Garnett.”

  “I had him last year. He sucks. Too bad you’re not in my class. Mr. Pearce is great.”

  They walked to the phys ed office to collect their hockey bags and went out the front entrance. Lara was standing on the steps. She rubbed her eyes in an exaggerated motion when she saw the two of them, as if she was seeing double.

  Alex gave her a wry smile. “Now say something original, like ‘How do people tell you two apart?’”

  “It’s easy to tell you apart,” Lara said. “He’s the good-looking one.”

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” Stefan said.

  “I’m Lara,” she said. “It’s great to finally meet you. Alex has told me a lot about you.”

  “Stefan.” They shook hands.

  Before they could say anything else, a car horn blared. Lara’s boyfriend, Jason, was parked in front of the school in a neon-green Ford Mustang GT.

  “Nice ride,” Alex said. “The colour looks like puke.”

  “Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins,” Lara said.

  “Nice meeting you, Stefan. I’ll see you guys later.” She hurried down the path and got into Jason’s car. I’m not jealous, Alex thought. I just can’t believe you’re with that jerk.

  “She’s cute,” Stefan said as Jason pulled away.

  “I guess.”

  “Did you and Lara go out together?”

  “No, man. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just seemed like it.”

  “I don’t like her boyfriend. That’s all. I don’t think about Lara like that. We’ve known each other since we were little kids.”

  “She’s not a little kid anymore.”

  That seems to be the consensus, Alex said to himself.

  A Toyota Corolla pulled up across the street. Paul Collins, one of the West Van players, got out of the car.

  “Here’s your lift,” Alex said. He and Stefan walked down the steps, drawing stares from the students who were milling around the school entrance. “We should start dressing the same,” Alex said. “That would really give them something to stare at.”

  Paul looked at the two of them as they approached, clearly trying to figure out who was who.

  “Hey, Paul,” Alex said, making it easy for him.

  “Hey, Alex. I’m Paul,” he said to Stefan.

  “Stefan.”

  “Toss your bag in the trunk,” Paul said. He pushed a button on his car key, popping the trunk open. Stefan put his bag into the trunk and walked to the passenger door.

  “Everybody’s saying you guys are the team to beat this year,” Paul said to Alex.

  “Shouldn’t you wait until later in the season before you start messing with my head?”

  Paul laughed. “All I’m saying is that we lost some of our best players. Nick, Ivan, Biggie, Red. You guys got everybody back.”

  Alex thought about what Paul said as they drove off. He knew it was way too early to start thinking about the championship, but maybe Paul was right. Maybe this would be the year. For the team. And for me.

  The Richmond locker room was buzzing before practice. There was the typical start-of-the-season excitement in the room, but also a sense of purpose. Everybody felt the way Alex did. This could be their year. Anything less than the championship just wasn’t going to cut it.

  Earl Bales sat across the room, putting on his equipment. He was the backup goalie, one of two new players on the team. He was a big kid, bigger than Alex even though he was two years younger. He was talented, too. Alex had seen Bales play during the tryouts and he knew he wasn’t going to have any trouble stepping up to Midget from Bantam.

  Bales caught Alex’s eye and held his gaze for a moment. I know you’ve got the starting position all locked up, his look seemed to say, but I’ll be ready if you screw up. Alex remembered his first year on the team, when he was the new kid. He’d been happy to take a backup role and wait his turn. Bales was made from a different mould.

  Neil Daniels, the team manager, walked around the room from player to player, giving out practice jerseys.

  Neil handed a jersey to Alex. “I saw you play against Team Oregon,” he said. “You were great.”

  “Thanks, Pie,” Alex said, addressing Neil by his nickname.

  “Hey, Pie,” Mike Leonard shouted. Leonard was the one who hung the nickname on Neil. It had started out as Pizza Pie because Neil’s face was covered with pimples, but after a couple of months it was shortened to Pie. “This is a medium. I need a large.” He threw the jersey on the floor.

  “Sorry, Mike,” Neil said. He gave him a large and picked the medium off the floor.

  “Sorry, Mike,” Leonard repeated in a mocking voice. “Faggot,” he said, uttering the word in a pretend cough. Half the team laughed. The other half looked down at their skates.

  “Play nice, Mike,” said Stevie Ryan, Leonard’s best friend on the team. “Pie’s got a crush on you. Isn’t that right, Pie?”

  Neil ignored him.

  “He is kind of cute,” Mike said. Then he coughed the word faggot again.

  He’s such a dick, Alex thought. He felt like saying something but there was no point. And anyway, Neil didn’t seem to mind.

  The room went silent when Coach Jed Hampton entered. He had a serious expression on his face. “A lot of you guys are throwing around the word ‘championship,’” he said. “I’ve heard the talk. ‘It’s our year.’ ‘We’ve got everybody back and look how close we came last year.’ ‘The teams that finished ahead of us lost their best players.’” He looked around the room, making eye contact with each player. “Talk is cheap, boys. Championships aren’t won in the locker room in September. They’re won on the ice in March. Between now and then every one of you has to give 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. We’re on a sevenmonth journey, gentlemen. Today is just day one.” Hampton pivoted and walked out of the room without another word.

  “You heard Coach,” Kenny Nelson, the team captain, yelled. “Day one. Day one.” The rest of the team took up the chant as they took to the ice. “Day one. Day one.”

  Alex got home from practice a little before eight. The house was empty. His mom was still at work and Stefan hadn’t yet returned from his practice. Alex turned on the TV to watch SportsCentre. The big news was that the Canucks had signed a six-foot-eight defenceman from Slovakia with a reputation as a real bruiser. Lou Roberts would be pleased about that, Alex thought. Every goalie wanted a big defenceman who could clear the opponents out from in front of the net.

  He was mindlessly channel surfing after the sports ended when a news item on CNN caught his attention. “Koralic Escapes” was written across the screen. Alex turned up the volume.

  “For some analysis we have Ellen Baker, a senior fellow at the Crocker Institute in Washington,” the CNN anchor, a middle-aged man with a white beard, said. “Thanks for joining us, Ellen. What’s your take on the situation?”

  The camera cut to Ellen Baker, a young woman with long brown hair. “We can be fairly certain of two things,” she said. “First, in all likelihood the general made his escape by boat. It’s virtually inconceivable that he would be able to get on a plane given the added security measures that are in place. Second, he would have headed for the nearest landfall, near the town of Bari on the coast of Italy.” A map came up onscreen illustrating her point.

  Alex felt the air go out of him. So much for cutting off all the escape routes.

  “How likely is it that he’ll be able to stay in hiding there?” the CNN anchor asked.

  “I don’t think he plans to stay,” Baker answered. “The Italians have always sided with the Maldans a
gainst the Berovians, so he won’t have many supporters there. My feeling is that he’ll go to a country with a significant Berovian community where he can get the help he needs. That narrows it down to a handful of countries in Western Europe as well as the United States and Canada.”

  Canada, Alex repeated to himself.

  “What are the chances of capturing him?”

  “If it’s going to happen, it will have to happen soon. The concern, of course, is that General Koralic will undergo plastic surgery to disguise his appearance, as others have done before him. If that happens, all bets are off.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Baker. We’ll be keeping an eye on this story. Meanwhile, a Beverly Hills teenager has sued her mother for posting an unflattering picture of her on Facebook. The girl’s lawyer …”

  Alex turned off the TV. If he was discouraged before, he was despairing now. If the Snowman had plastic surgery, nobody would ever find him.

  It wasn’t until Alex was in bed and about to drift off to sleep that he remembered he’d seen a website for a plastic surgeon on Tomas’s computer a few weeks earlier. The memory jolted him into consciousness. Tomas had said Maria wanted Lina to get her nose straightened, he recalled, but he might just have said that for Alex’s benefit. One thing for sure, Lina didn’t need a nose job. Was it possible Tomas was involved in the Snowman’s escape? he wondered. No way, he decided a few seconds later. That kind of coincidence only happens in the movies.

  FOURTEEN

  In the three weeks following Koralic’s escape, the internet was full of rumours of his whereabouts. There was no reason to give the one that he was in Canada any more credibility than the ones that placed him in a dozen other countries around the world, but every time Alex heard it, he couldn’t help thinking about the website for the plastic surgeon that he’d seen on Tomas’s computer. And every time he did he came to the same conclusion he’d come to the first time. No way Tomas was involved. Things like that just didn’t happen in real life. The bottom line was that nobody had a clue where the Snowman was. For all anybody knew he could still be in Italy, if in fact he’d gone there in the first place, and there was no proof of that either.

  It was a slow morning at the travel agency and Alex was looking at a list of second-hand Vespas he’d printed off the internet. He could get a decent one for around $3500. He’d saved $2500 during the summer, which meant he only needed another thousand. As long as he kept his marks up, Anna had agreed he could work one day every weekend at the travel agency during the school year. If he was careful, he’d have enough saved up by March break to buy the scooter. The timing was perfect, he thought. Just when the weather would be getting nice.

  His mom called a little after ten. “The reporter for the Sun called. The interview’s been pushed back to Wednesday afternoon. She’s going to meet you and Stefan at the school at four.”

  “Okay,” Alex said. “That’s the price of fame,” he jokingly complained to Lara after he and his mom said goodbye. “Everybody wants a piece of you.”

  “I think I’ll call the reporter,” Lara said. “Give her the real story.”

  “What’s it going to cost me to stop you from doing that?” Alex asked.

  Tomas came out of his office before Lara could answer. “Can one of you stay on until six tonight?” he asked. “Roman and I have to leave at four thirty for a meeting and the printer said he might not be able deliver the brochures for the Greek Island cruise until the end of the day. We need them for the presentation on Monday.”

  “I can’t,” Lara said. “I have practice at four.”

  “I can stay,” Alex said, happy to have the extra hours. Every little bit helped.

  Peter Jurak arrived just before one.

  “How was the shoot in Hungary?” Alex asked.

  “Worst movie ever but they paid in cash. Afternoon, Lara,” Peter said.

  Lara grunted without looking up from her computer. Peter looked at Alex. What’s with her? Alex shrugged but by then Peter’s attention had moved on to Greta, who was hurrying toward him.

  Lara stared at Peter’s back. “Shithead,” she muttered in a low voice. If looks could kill he’d be a dead man.

  Greta and Peter hugged. “I really missed you,” he said.

  “I missed you, too,” Greta said. “How was the flight?”

  “Bumpy. We had to keep our seatbelts on the whole time.”

  “Welcome home,” Tomas said, as he stepped out of his office.

  “Thanks. I brought you a present.” Peter handed him a tall triangular bottle.

  “Berovian slivovitz,” Tomas said. “This brings back memories.”

  Peter turned to Greta. “My cousin will be here any minute. Then we’ll get going.”

  “All right. I just have to go to the washroom.”

  “Let’s break it open,” Tomas said, after Greta walked away. He and Peter disappeared into his office.

  “Somebody should tell Greta,” Lara said.

  “Here’s your chance,” Alex said as Greta returned from the washroom.

  Just then a tall blond woman came through the front door. She looked around hesitantly. “Can I help you?” Lara asked.

  “Is Peter Jurak here?” the woman said. She spoke English with a Berovian accent.

  Greta walked up to her. “You must be Peter’s cousin, Iris. I’m Greta.” They shook hands. “Welcome to Vancouver. Peter said you had a rough flight.”

  “Not so bad.”

  “You got lucky with the weather. It’s usually raining here this time of year.”

  “We’re used to that in Sarno,” she said.

  Aha, Alex thought. I knew he wasn’t cheating on Greta. Iris was the woman Boris saw Peter with in Sarno. He glanced at Lara. She studiously avoided his gaze.

  “Lara has something she wants to tell you, Greta,” Alex said mischievously.

  “What is it?” Greta asked, as Lara cast a dagger glance at Alex.

  “It’s uh, uh, nothing. Never mind,” she said. “It’s not important.”

  “Let’s get Peter before he’s completely drunk,” Greta said to Iris. She led her to Tomas’s office, knocked on the door, and walked in without waiting for an answer.

  Alex smirked at Lara. She held up her hand. “Don’t say a word.”

  A few minutes after Lara left for her practice the printer’s deliveryman arrived with the brochures.

  “Where do you want me to put this?” he asked Alex.

  “Just put it on the floor by the filing cabinet.”

  After the guy left, Alex checked out the brochure. Discover the Greek Islands, the title read, above a picture of a cruise ship with a beautiful girl in a bikini lying on one of two lounge chairs on the deck. The second chair was empty, the suggestion, of course, being that special perks awaited anyone wise enough to sign up for the cruise. Only a fool would be taken in by something that obvious, Alex thought, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling an intense desire to occupy the empty lounge chair.

  He took two brochures out of the carton and brought them into Tomas’s office. Tomas and Roman were sitting on the couch in the corner, drinking some of the slivovitz Peter had brought from Berovia.

  “The brochures arrived,” Alex said. He gave one to Roman and one to Tomas. “Do you still want me to stick around?”

  “No. You can go,” Roman said.

  “Okay,” Alex said. “I’ll see you next Saturday. Want me to close the door?”

  “Leave it open,” Tomas said.

  Alex went back to his desk to collect his stuff.

  “How many are signed up for the presentation?” Roman asked, his voice audible through the open door.

  “Sixteen so far.”

  “You want to run through it with me tomorrow morning before I go to the airport?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Alex grabbed his knapsack and headed for the front door. He wondered where his uncle was going. The trip must be important if he’d miss a presentation for it.

  Al
ex opened the door and was about to step outside when he realized he’d forgotten his cellphone.

  “What time do you land in Rome?” Tomas asked after the door banged shut.

  “Ten in the morning, local time. Then it’s a three-hour drive to the coast.”

  Berovia is off the coast of Italy, Alex couldn’t help thinking. His phone wasn’t on his desk. He looked under the desk and saw it on the floor.

  “Is everything set on this end?” Tomas asked.

  Alex got down on his knees and reached for his phone.

  “Yes. They’re doing the operation on Friday.” Operation? What kind of operation? An unwelcome thought crossed Alex’s mind.

  “Is that the time?” Tomas asked. “We’d better get going or we’ll be late for the meeting.”

  Alex froze on the spot. From his hiding place under the desk he saw two sets of legs head for the door. He waited there for a few minutes after Roman and Tomas left in case they came back. His mind was racing. His uncle was going to the coast of Italy to bring back somebody to Canada for an operation. It couldn’t be the Snowman. Could it?

  He forced himself to calm down and examine the facts. He knew that his uncle was flying to Rome and then was driving to the coast. That didn’t prove anything, he realized. Italy had two coasts. Berovia was off the east coast but maybe Roman was travelling west. If he was, that would put an end to Alex’s speculation and put his mind at rest.

  He opened his browser. Google Maps would tell him which coast was a three-hour drive from Rome. A quick glance was all it took. Rome was less than thirty kilometres from the west coast. His uncle was headed east. Alex’s heart sank. Then he remembered the plastic surgeon’s website he’d seen on Tomas’s computer, and his heart sank even further.

  Roman and Tomas were helping one of his father’s murderers get an operation that would allow him to disappear without a trace—and Alex had less than a week to stop them.