Last Shot

by John Feinstein

  “Let’s walk down here,” he said. “I want to end up in the Minnesota State locker room, but we can explore down this way first.”

  Susan Carol shrugged. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  “Don’t know,” Stevie said. “Just trying to find something no one else is going to have. I don’t think I’m going to find anything like that around here.”

  She nodded in agreement and they started down the hall. There was no one around the Minnesota State locker room except for—of course—the usual gaggle of security people and a man wearing a suit sitting in a golf cart. He was carrying a walkie-talkie.

  “Team not here yet?” Stevie asked the guy in the golf cart.

  “Any minute,” he answered pleasantly. “We just got word their bus is pulling into the parking lot.”

  Stevie noticed the credential dangling around his neck. It had a big “AA” on it, and “All Access” under that in case there was any doubt about what it meant.

  “Do you work for the NCAA?” Stevie asked.

  The man laughed. “Hardly. My name’s Roger Valdiserri. I used to be the SID at Notre Dame. I’m just helping out with the media this weekend.”

  He had a friendly smile and he put out his hand as he introduced himself.

  “I’m Stevie Thomas,” Stevie said, forgetting that he was supposed to be Steve in the adult world. “This is Susan Carol Anderson.”

  “Oh yes,” Roger Valdiserri said. “You’re the contest winners. I read about you guys. Congratulations. You having fun?”

  They both nodded. “What’s the golf cart for?” Stevie asked.

  “As soon as Coach Graber gets here, I pop him and his two players on here”—he reached out to pat the two seats in the back that faced away from the driver—“and get them down to the interview room. You guys might have noticed it’s a pretty good walk from here.”

  “So Chip Graber will be riding on your golf cart in a few minutes?” Susan Carol asked.

  “I would assume he’ll be one of the two players going to the interview room,” Valdiserri said. “You want me to try to get you an autograph?”

  Susan Carol stood up very straight as if she had just been insulted. “Of course not,” she said. “We’re here as reporters.”

  Valdiserri smiled. “Good for you, honey.”

  “Do you think we can walk down to the CBS compound?” Stevie asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Valdiserri said. “They let the TV writers down there and you guys have media passes. If you have any trouble, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”

  They thanked him, shook hands again, and continued down the hall. There were two large double doors at the end of it and, much to Stevie’s surprise, no security people to stop them. They walked up to the doors, pushed them open, and peered around. It was relatively dark on the other side of the doors. It looked to Stevie as if they were on some kind of a loading dock. To their left, he could see what he guessed would normally be space that was part of the football field. There were several giant trucks with the CBS logo on the side and a small city of trailers. Everywhere Stevie looked, there were people scurrying in different directions, in and out of the trailers and the trucks. There were steps at the end of the loading dock that led down to the CBS compound, and, as Stevie and Susan Carol stood taking it all in, two young men came bounding up the steps carrying walkie-talkies.

  “The bus just pulled up,” Stevie heard one of them say. “Is there a crew there? We’ll get people to the entrance hallway in about thirty seconds.”

  “Sounds like the Purple Tide has arrived,” Stevie said to Susan Carol as the two CBS types swept past them and through the double doors without so much as a glance in their direction. Roger Valdiserri had been right. Apparently the CBS people didn’t care if anyone from the media walked into their compound. And anyone who made it into their compound another way was obviously cleared to go through the double doors to the locker room hallway. Thus the surprising absence of security people. Stevie had been beginning to think even the bathrooms would have security guards.

  “You want to walk down there and see if there’s anyone interesting from CBS to talk to?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Maybe,” Stevie said. He was looking to his right, where there was a shard of light coming from the other end of the loading dock. “I wonder what’s over there.”

  “Nothing probably,” Susan Carol said.

  “Let’s take a quick look.”

  He led her toward the spot where the light was coming from. There was a lot of stuff stored here, piled up on the back end of the dock. The light came from a back entrance to the Dome that was about twenty yards from the loading dock.

  “Nothing here,” Susan Carol said. “I guess we—” She stopped in mid-sentence. “Hey, look who’s here.”

  She pointed across the dark, open area to the outside door. Stevie could see a group of young men in purple-and-white sweats coming through the doorway. “Straight down this hall to the end and turn right, gentlemen,” someone they couldn’t see was saying. “Your locker room is the first one you come to on your right.”

  “As if they can’t read the signs,” Stevie said.

  “He must have forgotten that they’re student-athletes,” Susan Carol said.

  Stevie laughed. He hated to admit it, but she was kind of funny.

  “Well,” she said. “Should we head—”

  She stopped in mid-sentence again. Stevie turned and saw one final purple-and-white-suited player walk through the doorway, peering around as if to make sure no one was there. Stevie recognized the floppy blond hair right away. It was Chip Graber. Right behind him was a man in a charcoal gray suit who was also looking around in a suspicious way. Instinctively, Stevie took Susan Carol’s arm and stepped back so they were hidden behind some rolled-up Astroturf.

  Graber and the charcoal suit finally seemed satisfied they were alone, then walked toward the loading dock until they were almost directly below Stevie and Susan Carol—who were both frozen with surprise and curiosity.

  “Okay, Chip, we’ve got about two minutes to get this straight before the press conference,” the suit said. “You can’t get cold feet now.”

  “I never had warm feet,” Chip Graber answered in a stage whisper, still plenty loud enough for Stevie and Susan Carol to hear. “What if I won’t do it?”

  “Then the team gets stripped of all its wins and your father gets fired. We’ve been through this.…”

  There was a long silence. Stevie wondered if perhaps the conversation had ended, but there were no signs of movement below. Susan Carol started to open her mouth to say something, but he put a finger to his lips to indicate she should stay silent.

  Just when Stevie thought he was wrong, he heard Graber’s voice again. “This is unbelievable.”

  “Hey, Chip, the world’s a cold place sometimes. Cooperate and you’ll be a millionaire in a couple of months. Your dad will get a big contract extension for making the Final Four. Quit whining, do what you need to do, and we’ll all walk away happy.”

  “But what if we lose Saturday? There’s no guarantee we’ll win that game. Why does it have to be Monday?”

  “That’s not something you need to worry about. You just play your butt off against St. Joe’s and choke against Duke. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  “I’ll get you for this. All of you.”

  “Please. You don’t even know who we are. And if you try anything with me, the roof will fall in on you and your dad. Now let’s go. You’ve got a press conference.”

  This time they could hear footsteps walking away. Stevie and Susan Carol stood stock-still for a moment looking at one another.

  “What did we just hear?” she asked finally.

  “Well, unless I’m crazy, we just heard the best player in the country being blackmailed to throw the championship game.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard, too. But he has to win tomorrow. Isn’t that weird? I don’t know very much abo
ut gambling, but if someone is trying to make a lot of money by betting against Minnesota State, why wait until Monday?”

  “That’s what Graber asked. There’s got to be a reason why it has to be Monday. And he said he had to lose to Duke on Monday. How’s he know Duke will win tomorrow?”

  For the first time since they had met that morning, Stevie thought Susan Carol looked lost. “What do we do?” she asked.

  Stevie shook his head. “I don’t know. Tell someone?”

  “But who?” she asked. “Who’d believe us?”

  “Good question,” he said. “I barely believe us. Man, I wanted a story no one else had, but this is insane. Let’s get out of here. It’s spooky.”

  She didn’t argue.

  As they opened the doors that led back to the hallway and the bright lights hit Stevie’s eyes, he felt like he was leaving a movie. But there was no leaving. Now he and Susan Carol were part of the movie.

  6: WHAT NOW?

  THEY HADN’T GONE VERY FAR back down the locker room hallway when they were stopped by a gaggle of security people. Stevie looked intently for the guy in the charcoal gray suit, wanting to get a better look at his face, but he didn’t see him.

  Someone with a walkie-talkie faced the assembled media and announced that the locker room would be open in three minutes, “at precisely two-thirty. Student-athletes will be available for thirty minutes after that.”

  “Does that count?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Huh?”

  “In the ‘student-athlete’ count.”

  His story! How was he supposed to write a “Gee, isn’t it cool to be here” story when they’d just stumbled onto the scandal of the year?

  “I nearly forgot—I still have to write a story,” he told Susan Carol.

  “But what about Graber and that man?” she asked.

  “Listen, neither one of us is sure what we just heard or what we should do about it,” he said. “How about giving me an hour to write something and then we can decide what to do next?”

  She nodded. “Okay. But don’t you need to wait for Graber to come back here from the interview room?”

  “I don’t want to take the time. I’ll just write about meeting Vitale and K and the security guard and the ‘student-athletes.’ I think I can fill eight hundred words with that stuff pretty quickly.”

  “Can you really do that in an hour?”

  Stevie nodded. Once he had a story in his head, the words seemed to gush out of him when he sat down at a computer. If he could keep himself focused on something other than Chip Graber for the next hour, he could easily finish the story.

  “I’m going to go back to the workroom and get this done,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go back on the court, find a quiet place to sit, and try to write down as much of what we heard as I can remember.”

  Again, Stevie had to admit she was smart. “Yeah, good idea,” he said. “And keep an eye out for the man in the gray suit. But don’t say a word to anyone because—”

  She cut him off with a look that said, Don’t tell me what I already know.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just nervous.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m scared.”

  Once again, she was a step ahead of him.

  Stevie followed the signs back to the media workroom, still amazed by how many people there were in the bowels of the massive building. It took him a minute to re-create in his mind where he and Weiss had walked to when they first came into the room a few hours earlier, but he finally found their computers side by side near a sign that said NEW YORK DAILY NEWS. He crawled under the table to plug in his computer, turned it on, and began writing. He was so pumped up with adrenaline that he didn’t even hear Weiss when he came in and sat down next to him.

  “Looks like you’re rolling,” Weiss said.

  Stevie glanced up, realized Weiss was talking to him, and said cleverly, “Whaa?”

  “I said you’re rolling,” Weiss repeated.

  “Oh yeah, well, I figured I’d better get going.”

  “Good thought. When you finish, I’ll help you file it if you need. Did you write about Graber?”

  Stevie almost gagged. “What?! Oh, um, no, it was just a zoo in there. Did he say anything in the press conference?”

  “That he was really proud to play for his dad. He was actually pretty quiet. He’s usually more outgoing. I guess he’s human, feeling the pressure.”

  “Yeah, pressure,” Stevie said, thinking, You don’t know the half of it.

  “By the way, the final ‘student-athlete’ count was thirty-nine,” Weiss said.

  “I’ll make it forty,” Stevie said. “I heard one more outside the Minnesota State locker room.”

  Weiss laughed. “Good for you.”

  He settled down to work while Stevie finished his story. Stevie wasn’t terribly proud of what he produced. He knew he had rushed and he hadn’t done nearly as much work on the story as he had planned. But all of his plans for the weekend had changed in those few minutes he and Susan Carol spent on the loading dock. Weiss volunteered to read the story for him before he filed it. Stevie really didn’t want to waste any more time, but he couldn’t turn down Weiss’s offer without being rude. Fortunately, Weiss didn’t take too long to read it.

  “It’s good,” he said. “I like what you said about Dickie V, ‘a one-man twenty-four-hour sports-talk radio station.’ That’s clever.”

  “Thanks,” Stevie said. “I think I’m ready to send.”

  Weiss helped him get online and Stevie tapped in the e-mail address for the editor who would edit his story and send it out to the other papers that were using his and Susan Carol’s features. He attached the story, hit the send button, and was relieved when the computer told him his mail had been sent successfully. He called the number he had been given for the editor.

  “Tom Vernon,” a voice said after the first ring.

  “Mr. Vernon?” Stevie said. “This is Steve Thomas at the Final Four.” He paused for a moment, thinking how cool that sounded. “I just sent you my story.”

  “Oh, Steve, that’s great,” Tom Vernon said. “Call me Tom. Let me see if it’s here.” Stevie heard him tapping some computer buttons. “Got it,” he said. “Little long, but we’ll work with it.”

  Stevie was surprised that he had written too much, but then he’d been pretty fired up while he was writing, thinking about what he and Susan Carol had to do once he was finished, and not about the word count of his story.

  “Sorry,” Stevie said.

  “No problem, just some good spadework. Do me a favor and call me back in an hour or so in case I have questions. Okay?”

  “Sure, yeah,” Stevie said. “Thanks.”

  He hung up the phone and turned to Weiss. “What’s good spadework?” he asked.

  Weiss smiled. “It means you did a lot of digging,” he said. “You know, as in digging up a good story.”

  Stevie liked that. An inside journalism term. But now, he thought, the real spadework was about to begin.

  Susan Carol was in the third row of the press seating area taking notes while the last ten minutes of Minnesota State’s practice were winding down. She looked surprised when Stevie sat down next to her.

  “Done already?” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said casually. “Mr. Vernon said I wrote a little long but he seemed to think I had done some good spadework.”

  She smiled. “Well, we’ve got some real spadework to do now, don’t we?”

  Stevie was deflated. Of course she knew what spadework was—this girl knew everything.

  “I’ve written down as much as I can remember,” she said. “Can you read it and see if I’ve got it right? I’ve been watching Graber during practice. I can’t say he looks like anything’s wrong. When he came out, there was all this squealing from the girls and he smiled and waved to them.”

  “Any sign of the guy in the gray suit?”

  Susan Carol pointed ac
ross the court to one of the benches. “He’s right there,” she said. “Except there are two of him.”

  Stevie looked at the end of the bench and almost choked. There were two men sitting side by side in almost identical charcoal gray suits. Both had gray hair, the other feature Stevie had been able to pick up during the brief moment when the suit and Graber hadn’t been in darkness.

  She held up what looked like a purple-and-white magazine. It was the Minnesota State media guide, which contained photos of every person connected to the Minnesota State basketball team. “I’ve looked through this thing,” she said. “There are at least six people who could be him. I’ve circled their pictures but I don’t think we’re going to figure out who it is from just looking.”

  “We need to hear the guy talk,” Stevie said.

  “Exactly—who could forget that voice? But how?” Talking to either gray suit was going to be a problem. They were sitting in the off-limits bench area.

  Stevie thought for a minute. He glanced up at the scoreboard and saw the clock had just gone under eight minutes. Minnesota State would be leaving the court and the building in under eight minutes, and they wouldn’t really have a clue as to who Graber’s blackmailer was.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Come with me, quick.”

  For once she didn’t challenge him or ask any questions. The two of them walked down to the front row and toward the baseline. The number of writers, photographers, and cameramen had diminished considerably since the start of the Duke practice. Most writers were inside working on their stories, and the cameramen and photogs had the pictures they needed. Stevie and Susan Carol crossed to the bench side of the court.

  They stopped a few paces shy of the corner of the court. There was—of course—a security guard posted there to prevent anyone from walking directly behind the bench. “Okay, here’s what you’re doing,” Stevie said.

  “What I’m doing?” she said.

  “Yes, you,” he said. “I want you to walk over to that security guard, give him the wide-eyed-Southern-girl routine, and tell him you really need to talk to your ‘uncle’ over there on the MSU bench.”