Last Shot (8 page)

But before he could open his mouth, she had walked past him and was giving the security guard a smile that would have melted Rhett Butler. She was pointing at the gray-suit twins on the bench and looking just a bit distressed. It took less than thirty seconds for the security guard to step aside and let her pass.

Not wanting to be caught staring, Stevie stepped back a bit, moving toward the basket. As he did, he sensed a body flying in his direction and looked up just in time to duck out of the way of Chip Graber, who was racing after a loose ball. The Purple Tide was wrapping up its practice with a brief scrimmage, mostly for the entertainment of the fans, but Stevie’s attention had been focused on the sidelines.

“Watch yourself, kid, you’ll get hurt,” Graber said as he turned to run downcourt. He gave Stevie a friendly smile, which made Stevie feel both better about being in the way and worse about Graber’s predicament. He turned back to the bench area and saw one of the gray-suit twins pointing in the direction of the locker room as if giving Susan Carol directions. Stevie couldn’t help but smile because he knew she was getting exactly what they needed.

She wrapped up her conversation and walked back to the baseline, pausing briefly to thank the security guard, who actually smiled at her.

“Well?” Stevie hissed impatiently.

“Hang on, walk into the tunnel,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the exit.

They walked up the ramp, turned the corner, and found a quiet spot. The place was now almost empty, with the last practice of the day about to end and all the press conferences complete. “I know which guy it is,” she said. “Where’s that MSU media guide? I can pick him out now. It was the one sitting closer to midcourt.”

“I don’t have the guide; we must have left it. You couldn’t get a name off his credential?”

She shook her head. “No. He had it kind of stuffed in his pocket. He was wearing one of those pins they give the people with the teams, so he didn’t need to have it out. We can’t go back in there. I guess we’ll have to get another media guide in the press room.”

“What did you say to get them to talk?”

“I told them that I’d left my notebook sitting on a stool in their locker room and asked if someone could either get me in there to look or look for me. Our guy said a couple of their managers would still be in there and could help.”

“Are you
sure
that he’s our guy?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. The other guy had a much higher voice than the blackmailer. There was no mistaking it, really.”

Stevie remembered that, even speaking in a hushed tone, Graber’s blackmailer had a deep baritone voice.

“Nice going, Scarlett,” he said as they headed for the press room.

“Oh, shut up, you wise-guy Yankee,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

The press room was alive with activity, since almost
everyone was writing now. Stevie could hear a number of radio guys doing reports, which he figured had to be very distracting for those trying to concentrate on writing. There was a table in the middle of the room piled high with media guides and postseason guides for the four teams. They grabbed one off the MSU pile and found an empty spot. They began paging through the book, but it didn’t take long for Susan Carol to stab a picture and semi-shriek, “That’s him!”

They were at the very front of the media guide, page 7 of a book that stretched on for 286 pages. Up front was a two-page bio of MSU president Earl A. Koheen. Then came Provost Hall Yantos and another man who no doubt had played a key role in the Purple Tide’s success: Blake Arbutus, the chairman of the school’s board of trustees. And next was Thomas R. Whiting, MSU’s athletic department faculty representative … and resident blackmailer.

Stevie looked closely at the picture. She was right, Whiting was definitely the guy sitting on the bench nearer midcourt. A further search through the guide revealed that the man sitting next to him was team doctor Philip Katz. They looked closely at Whiting’s biography: “Now in his twelfth year as MSU’s faculty representative, Professor Thomas R. Whiting has worked closely during his tenure with administrators, coaches, and student-athletes to ensure that they are given the best possible opportunity to compete while enjoying both their athletic and academic experiences at MSU. Prior to his arrival at the Rochester campus, Professor Whiting taught at the University of Florida, the
University of Delaware, and his alma mater, Providence College, where one of his students was current MSU president Earl A. Koheen.” The rest was just as boring, citing awards Whiting had received and committees he had served on, including, it said, the prestigious and important “NCAA subcommittee on gambling.”

Stevie almost laughed out loud when he saw that. But Susan Carol was a step ahead of him. “Read the last line,” she said. “Tell me if it doesn’t make you sick.”

Stevie scanned down to the last line: “Professor Whiting has been at MSU for the past eighteen years as a tenured professor in the political science department. He is best known for the senior seminar he teaches each fall: Ethics and Morals in American Society Today.”

SO THEY KNEW
who the bad guy was. Or at least one of the bad guys. Susan Carol was now officially angry. “A professor of ethics!” she railed, a little bit louder than Stevie would have liked, once they had closed the media guide. “That’s disgusting.”

“You mean it wouldn’t be disgusting if it was the team doctor or someone else?” Stevie asked.

“Of course it would be disgusting,” she said. “But if students can’t trust their teachers, who can they trust? If you read the bio, you would think that this guy is a saint, a do-gooder.”

“And if you read the player bios, you would think they’re all student-athletes,” Stevie said.

She smiled ruefully. “It’s easier to be a fan when you watch on TV.”

There was no arguing with that. Stevie had wanted the inside view of college ball, but he wasn’t liking what he saw. Almost no one was who they appeared to be—or who the people running the event wanted you to think they were. The moderator kept screaming about “student-athletes,” as if that would somehow make it true. Thomas R. Whiting, noted professor of ethics and morals in American society, had clearly lost track of his ethics and morals somewhere along the way. Stevie wondered if Chip Graber was really what he appeared to be. He’d kind of assumed that Graber was a victim—but maybe he’d done something really bad and was trying to cover it up.

“Who
can
we trust?” Susan Carol said as if she was reading his mind.

“And what do we do now?” Stevie said.

She thought about that for a minute. “I think we need help. Mr. Weiss or Mr. Brill? One of the NCAA people?”

Stevie laughed at that one. “You mean the people who are obsessed with convincing us that all the players are ‘student-athletes’? I don’t think they’re going to be a lot of help.”

“Cynical,” she said. “But true.”

“I suppose we could wait and see what happens in the games tomorrow,” he said. “If Minnesota State loses, maybe it’s over.”

“All bets are off,” she said, smiling.

“Funny,” he said. “But Whiting did kind of threaten Graber if MSU loses.”

“Which means we probably should tell
somebody
,” she
said. “I think Mr. Weiss and Mr. Brill are our best chance.”

Quickly reviewing their options again, Stevie realized she was right. He could see Brill packing up his computer. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s give it a shot.”

They asked Brill if he had a minute to talk. He looked puzzled but said, “Sure,” and the three of them walked over to where Weiss was working. He looked up and said, “Everyone finished but me, I guess.”

“As usual, Hoops,” Brill said. “The kids have something they want to ask us.”

Weiss pushed back from his computer. “Believe it or not, I’m just about done. What’s up, guys?”

Stevie glanced at Susan Carol. How to begin?

She sat down next to Weiss. “Has anyone ever tried to fix a game at the Final Four?” Susan Carol asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Weiss smiled. “A fix?” he said. “No. There’s been point shaving through the years. I think the last time was Tulane in ’85, right, Bill? But outright fixing? No. Especially nowadays, when the players all think they’re going to be millionaires in the pros soon. Why do you ask?”

Susan Carol glanced at Stevie, who nodded for her to continue. “We think someone may be trying to blackmail a player.”

“What in the world makes you think that?” Weiss said, looking perplexed.

“We overheard something,” Stevie said. “A conversation.”

“What’d they say?” Brill asked.

“Well, he said the player had to win tomorrow and then choke on Monday.”

“Or else what?” said Brill.

“Um … I’m not sure exactly,” said Susan Carol, looking to Stevie for help.

“He said that the team would forfeit all its wins and that the coach would be fired. But he didn’t say why, or how …,” said Stevie, feeling suddenly unsure. This was sounding lame, even to him.

“Look, kids,” Brill said, “I don’t know what you heard, but my guess is you misunderstood. Hoops is right. There’s a lot wrong with college basketball, but game fixing may be the one thing I really
don’t
worry about. Any player who actually
could
fix a game at this level would be risking millions to do it.”

Brill saw how serious the kids looked and backtracked a little. “If you can tell us more, we can try and check it out, though.”

Stevie made a snap decision. “No, you’re probably right,” he said. “We only heard half the conversation.”

“Yeah,” Susan Carol said. “We’ll see if we can find out any more and let you know if we do.”

“Good idea,” Hoops said. “Never hurts to keep your eyes and ears open.

“You know, if you want to hear about a real scandal, you should ask Bobby Kelleher about Brickley Shoes. Remember, Bill? Bobby caught that sneaker-company rep working behind the scenes for … Louisiana, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Brill. “There’s plenty of dirt to be found in basketball. But no need to hear every rotten story in one weekend. There are plenty of good stories, too.”

“Mmm. Speaking of which, I should finish this story,” said Weiss.

“And I have to go do a radio show,” Brill said. “Do you kids want to wait?”

Susan Carol shook her head. “We can get back to the hotel. It’s just a short walk.”

“You need anything, you’ll call me, right, Steve?” Weiss asked.

Stevie nodded. Which reminded him: he hadn’t called Mr. Vernon to check on his story.

“Are you sure you’re thirteen?” the editor asked when Stevie reached him. “This is very well done.” Stevie would have glowed with pride at the compliment if his mind hadn’t been filled with a thousand other things.

He and Susan Carol packed up their stuff and headed out of the press room.

“What now?” she said, once they were back in the hallway. “You don’t really think we misheard Graber and Whiting, do you?”

“No. And we
didn’t
come in during the conversation, we heard the whole thing. I just said that because I knew they weren’t going to believe us anyway. But I have to admit, it
doesn’t
make any sense.”

“The only thing I know is that the whole thing is sickening. They can’t get away with it.”

“Which is why, somehow, someway, we have to stop it,”
he said. “And,” he added, “it looks like we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”

As they walked back across the bridge to the hotel, Stevie glanced at his watch. It was almost five o’clock. He had told his dad he would be back in the room by six, so he had some extra time.

“So, what’s our next move?” Susan Carol asked as they walked into a surprisingly empty lobby.

Stevie tried to think. “You still have those notes you made while I was writing?” he said.

“Uh-huh, in my notebook.”

“Okay. Let’s sit down for a minute and go over what we know for sure. Then we can work on what we need to know and how to find out.”

She smiled. “Mr. Vernon’s right: you
are
good for thirteen.”

He wasn’t sure if she was teasing him for telling her what the editor had said or being serious. Either way, he pointed her to two chairs in the lobby, and she pulled out her notebook.

“All right,” she said. “Begin at the beginning. The MSU faculty rep is blackmailing MSU’s star player. We’re pretty certain he isn’t working alone.”

“And we know he doesn’t want tomorrow’s game thrown,” Stevie said. “It has to be Monday.”

“Preferably against Duke,” she added.

“Could Whiting be working for Duke?” he said.

She looked pained at the thought. “Worth writing down as a possibility,” she said.

“Okay. What we
don’t
know is what they’ve got on Graber. What could he have done that would mean his team would forfeit games and his dad would get fired?”

“Cheat somehow?” speculated Susan Carol.

“Maybe,” said Stevie. “But it sounded to me like Graber was innocent and this was all a lie—did it sound like that to you?”