Chapter 11: Charity Night

On Thursday night I walked to center ice at the charity game with my phone in my hand.

I took the microphone from the league commissioner.

He let me.

I think he was too surprised to stop me.

The Garden was full of sponsors and kids in team jerseys.

Both benches were lined up for the cardboard check, a half million dollars for the children's hospital.

Cameras pointed at me from three directions.

Lev stood in the Kings' line with his hair combed, grinning for the photographers.

He had his arm around a little girl in a Kings cap.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said into the microphone. "This will take one minute."

My father stood at the Anvils' bench with his arms folded and his jaw hard.

He had said yes to this plan at three in the morning, and he had not stopped looking sick since.

"Three weeks ago," I said, "my brother Luca fell down a flight of stairs in his building and broke his leg."

A murmur went round the stands.

"He told the police he tripped. He told us the same. But he told me, last week, that a hand was on his back."

Luca, on his crutches at the bench, lifted his chin.

"The camera in that stairwell was wiped the same night."

Lev's grin stayed where it was.

I held up my phone.

The technician at the scoreboard did what my father had asked him to, and the screen above center ice lit with a photo.

A grey stairwell.

A steel rail.

A yellow arrow on the wall.

A man's hand, with a gold signet ring on the little finger.

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