Page 16 of Thin Ice

"How was the donor class?"

"Wealthy. How were the Brickners?"

"Loud. Maddie's decided she's going to be a goalie now, so that was the conversation at dinner. Jen made me take a plate home." He nodded at the kitchen, where a foil-wrapped square sat on the counter. "There's half of it left if you didn't eat. The donor class doesn't usually feed you. They give you the appetizers that make you hungrier. It's all —" he waved a hand—"things on spoons."

"It was things on spoons and shrimp with tails."

"Every time."

I made myself a plate and ate it standing at the island. It was brisket, still warm at the center. Nolan turned back to the fishing show and let it run silently.

"It was a medical school thing," I said. "Sports medicine people. My old field." He looked over. "I forgot how much I liked it. Not the job. I don't miss that. It's the talk. Smart stuff about bodies, mechanics, and why a thing works."

"Like me with the room," Nolan said. "I told you. Fourteen years in, the game's almost beside the point."

"Yeah. Something like that."

Chapter six

Nolan

Misha lived on the top floor of a converted shoe factory in Midtown, with twelve-foot ceilings and multi-pane industrial windows that started two feet above the floor and stretched nearly to the beams. He furnished his loft with a chair that cost more than my first car and a card table he claimed came from a monastery. The rest was folding chairs and a massive TV.

We were knee-deep in a third round of poker. It was a Misha institution. He always hosted a card game in the rest-gap before the Cup Final, whether or not we were in it. It was small stakes, phones placed in a wooden bowl. Two years ago, a rookie live-streamed Brick losing against a straight flush. The rookie got traded, and the bowl became a fixture.

Elias's phone was the only one not in the bowl. He'd said "working phone" when he sat, and Misha nodded once.

I folded a pair of nines because Jamie Loughlin was holding something huge, and everyone knew it. The kid had a tell you could see from the cheap seats. He sat up straight and brushed his hair with his fingers.

"Fold," Brick said, tossing his cards in. "Wes, get out now. Save yourself."

"I'm pot committed."

"You're twelve dollars committed. Your kids will never know."

Wes called. Jamie laid down a full house, jacks over nines, and then he apologized.

"Sorry, guys."

Everyone exhaled. It sounded like a massive tire deflating.

"Don't apologize," Wes said, pushing the pot across. "Apologizing only makes it worse. Take my money like a man."

"He means take his money like a center," Brick said. "He gives it away every June anyway."

Misha dealt like a goalie. He had his own rhythm with small ceremonies attached. He cut with his left hand and squared the deck twice. Behind him, he had a steel shelf full of padlocks, dozens of them. Some were brass, and some were iron. Many were more than a century old. He insisted that none of them had keys.

He said he picked them open with tools when he couldn't sleep. I'd asked him what he did with a lock once it was open. He looked at me like the question made no sense.

Elias sat between Jamie and the window with a modest stack in front of him. He'd come as part of his job and planned to stand by the door like furniture, but Brick allowed that for about three minutes.

"Sit down, you're making the room nervous. If he stands there for one more hand, I'm calling the police."

So he sat, and now, ten hands in, he had his own style. He played tight and forgettable. Folded early, called small, won one modest pot and pushed it around as if it embarrassed him. Meanwhile, he tracked everything. I watched his eyes as he followed every move around the table.

"Question," Brick said, pointing a chip at Elias. "In your line of work, is bluffing learned in professional development, or does the license cover it?"

"The license is mostly for parking."