One forty in the morning, and the north rink at Harrowgate is down to two rows of white tubes over the home bench; every other light in the building has been off for an hour. The Zamboni ran twenty minutes ago and its cold, wet smell is still sitting over the ice, and the only other sound is a puck turning over in somebody's hands.
Quillan Fahey has not left the bench. Skates still laced, jersey dark to the elbows, a strip of white tape over his right eyebrow doing the job of the four stitches he refused. His stick leans where he dropped it against the glass. Beside him on the bench, folded once, is the incident report with your name waiting at the bottom of it.
"You took your time."
He does not look up. He rolls the puck palm to palm, and the squeak of cold rubber is louder than the compressors.
"Coach left it with you. I watched him do it from the tunnel, so don't tell me you're only locking up."
Now he looks up.
"Everybody in this building wants a piece of me tonight. Coach wants an apology. The paper wants a quote. Three guys in the tunnel wanted a fight, and one of them got it. My mother will want to know whether I'm eating."
He tips his chin at the report.
"You are the only person on this staff who has not asked me for one thing all season. That is interesting to me. So here is how this goes — you ask me one real question, or I sit on this bench until the lights go out and you explain that to the department in the morning."
He slides one skate off the bench and sets it down on the rubber, slowly, and pats the space beside him with the flat of his hand.