Last Shot

by John Feinstein

“We’re getting nowhere fast,” he said.

  “Don’t give up yet,” she said.

  They walked past another elevator bank, which, of course, had security people and the same sign about needing a key. “We could try those guys,” he said. “Your act might work on them.”

  She shook her head. “Last resort. We don’t want word getting out around the hotel that two kids are trying to crash. Then we have no chance.”

  They rounded a corner and saw a large banner on the wall that said KFPT—ANCHOR STATION FOR THE MINNESOTA STATE PURPLE TIDE RADIO NETWORK. There was a table set up in front of the banner with microphones and some radio equipment. There was a man seated behind the table fiddling with the equipment. With no place else to go at the moment, Susan Carol and Stevie walked over to the radio setup.

  Stevie had no idea what they were going to say to the man or even why they would say anything to him, except that he appeared to have at least a distant connection to MSU. Susan Carol, naturally, knew just what to say.

  “Are you one of the Minnesota State broadcasters?” she said, sounding slightly breathless again.

  The man looked up at her and smiled. “No, honey,” he said. “I’m just the engineer for the network.”

  Susan Carol didn’t miss a beat. “Wow,” she said. “An engineer. That must be cool. Are you guys broadcasting from here today?”

  The man looked at his watch. “In just about an hour,” he said. “If I can get this equipment to work.”

  “Do you ever get to meet the players?” Susan Carol asked.

  Again, the man smiled benevolently at the pretty girl asking questions. “I know all of them,” he said. “We travel with the team and interview the players and coaches before and after games.”

  Susan Carol now looked as if she had just met either the president or the Pope. “Goodness. Will any of them be on this morning?”

  He laughed. “No, not this morning. Kind of a big game tonight, you know. We’ll have one of the assistants on at some point, we don’t know when. And we have a couple of reporters coming over. But no players today.” He looked at Susan Carol, who now looked very, very sad. “Bet you’d like to meet Chip Graber, huh?”

  “It would be the happiest moment of my life,” Susan Carol said. Stevie noticed that she had abandoned the thick Southern accent. “I am a huge Purple Tide fan. My name is Susan Carol. Susan Carol Anderson.” She put out her hand.

  He took it and said, “Susan Carol, nice to meet you. I’m Jerry Ventura—no, no relation to the former governor.”

  Ventura then shook hands with Stevie. “And you are?”

  “Stevie.” There, that was his brilliant entry into the conversation.

  “So, where are you kids from?” Ventura asked.

  “We live in Duluth now,” Susan Carol said. “But we’ve only lived there a couple years. We lived in North Carolina until then.”

  “I thought I heard a little bit of an accent in your voice,” Ventura said.

  “Stevie here is still kind of a Duke fan, but I’m for MSU all the way.”

  “I am not,” Stevie protested.

  Susan Carol just smiled. “So, Mr. Ventura, what do you think—will it be Duke and MSU in the final?”

  “Yeah, that’s where my money’d be.”

  They chatted about the team’s chances while Stevie marveled at Susan Carol’s gift of gab. She had, for lack of a better word, an adultness about her that he knew he couldn’t touch. As if to prove his point, Jerry Ventura drew him into the conversation by saying, “So, Stevie, how much younger are you than your sister?”

  Stevie knew this was his moment to play along. “Three years,” he said without hesitating. “I’m in the eighth grade.”

  If the idea that Susan Carol was an eleventh grader threw Jerry at all, he didn’t show it.

  “So, Mr. Ventura, what hotel do all you radio people stay in?” she said, without giving him a chance to respond to Stevie’s claim of a three-year age difference.

  “Oh, we’re here,” he said. “And call me Jerry. I’m not that old, you know.”

  Stevie began to get an idea of where Susan Carol was going with this. Her smile was now so bright he thought he might need sunglasses. “You really get to stay here with all the players?” she said. “That must be so cool! You’re right on the same floor with them and everything?”

  “No, not the same floor,” he said. “They’ve got all the players and coaches way up on the top floors—forty and forty-one. But we’re on the concierge floor, the sixteenth. The rooms are really nice.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard about that,” Susan Carol said. “Don’t they have a really nice lounge where you can get drinks and things?”

  “Oh yeah,” Jerry said importantly. “The breakfasts are great.”

  “Speaking of which, I’m thirsty. Stevie, maybe we should go back down to the restaurant and try again. There was the longest line before—you wouldn’t believe …”

  Jerry smiled at Susan Carol. “Look, if you kids just want a drink, you can go on up to the concierge lounge and get something there.”

  “Could we?” Susan Carol said, her tone implying that the offer was roughly the equivalent of being given the keys to Fort Knox.

  Jerry reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. “Here, take my key. You’ll need it to get to the floor. There’s a slot in the elevator, you just put the key into it and then press 16.”

  Stevie was now officially amazed by Susan Carol. Okay, he thought, let’s take the key and run. But she wasn’t finished yet.

  As Jerry was handing her the key, she said, “Just in case someone asks us for a room number when we get up there …”

  “Good thought,” Jerry said. “They do ask in there sometimes. It’s 1607.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be back in a flash.”

  “Take your time,” he said. “We don’t go on for another forty-five minutes.”

  Stevie could not believe Susan Carol had pulled this off. They could now wave Jerry’s key at the security guards and go directly to the top floor. Of course, they still had to figure out what room on the top floor belonged to Chip Graber.

  They waved goodbye to their new best friend and headed for the elevator bank. Susan Carol held up the key as they walked by the security people and said, “He’s with me,” just in case they decided to question Stevie. The key had magic powers. They nodded and moved aside.

  “Now what—” he started to say as she punched the elevator button.

  “Shhh. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  The elevator arrived, filled with people in purple and white. They got on and Susan Carol took Jerry’s key, put it in the slot, and pressed 16.

  “But he said—”

  “Shhh,” she said again. He was starting to feel as if he was her little brother.

  There were four stops before they reached 16. Stevie felt as if each stop was taking about ten minutes. Finally, they reached 16 and Susan Carol practically pushed Stevie off the elevator.

  “Where are we going?” he demanded once they were alone in the hallway.

  “First, we’re going to that lounge to get sodas, so we have something to show Jerry when we go back downstairs. Second, we’re going to his room.”

  “His room, why?”

  “My dad was a chaplain for the Carolina Panthers for a few years.”

  “The football team?”

  “Yes. A couple times a year, he would go on road trips with them. He took me once and I remember that there was a rooming list because the phones to the team’s rooms were blocked the way the MSU phones are blocked here.”

  “And you think this guy will have a rooming list.”

  She held up the key and said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

  9: FINDING CHIP GRABER

  THEY DIDN’T LINGER in the concierge lounge very long. They nodded to the lady at the desk—who didn’t ask them for a room number and seemed decidedly uninterested in their presence—grabbed two sodas, and headed for
room 1607.

  There was no one around, so Susan Carol slid the key card into the door. The green light came on and they pushed their way into the room.

  “Anybody here?” Susan Carol asked.

  There was no response and they walked into the room, which had two double beds in it, one of them made, the other unmade.

  “I had a sudden fear that he might be rooming with someone,” Susan Carol said.

  “What would you have done if someone had answered?” he said.

  She smiled. “I have no idea. Let’s check this place out fast and get out of here. We need to go downstairs, get another key, and get this one back to Jerry.”

  “Another key?”

  “We have to give this one back to him, right?” she said. “We don’t know how long any of this is going to take, or if we’re going to need to come back. We need a key of our own.”

  “You know, you’re starting to worry me, Susan Carol. Lying, breaking and entering, searching people’s rooms …”

  “We’re not really breaking … just entering. Now shut up and look.”

  They went to work. Susan Carol took the bedside table and Stevie put his soda down on the corner of the desk and began going through a pile of papers. There were statistics sheets and media guides for Minnesota State and St. Joe’s. There was a notebook and a room service menu. Beneath the room service menu was a stack of papers, including one that said “MSU Itinerary for Final Four Weekend” on it. Stevie looked through it quickly and noticed that the Purple Tide was scheduled to fly home Tuesday morning and arrive in time for a “national championship victory celebration—12 noon—Heavenly Coffee Field House.” He remembered reading a story about many MSU alumni being upset that the name of C. W. Whitaker, the first president of the school, had been taken off the field house when the coffee company offered $3 million a year to get its name on the building.

  He snorted at the planned victory celebration and was starting to move on to the next piece of paper on the pile when there was a knock on the door. Stevie froze. It couldn’t be Jerry, could it? Susan Carol put a finger to her lips to indicate that he shouldn’t say anything. There was another knock. “Go away, go away,” Stevie hissed under his breath.

  They heard a key go into the slot. Stevie felt himself panicking. What should they do? Hide? Where? He made a dive for behind the bed, knocking a sheaf of paper onto the floor. Then he heard a voice from outside say, “Housekeeping.”

  Susan Carol bolted toward the door. “Sorry,” she said as a maid poked her head inside the room. “We didn’t hear you knock, I guess. We’ll be out of here in just a few minutes.”

  Stevie couldn’t really see the maid’s face, but he heard her say, “Oh, okay. Sorry. I’ll come back.”

  She pulled the door shut and Susan Carol bolted it. Stevie sat down on the bed. He was pouring sweat all of a sudden.

  “That was terrifying,” he said.

  She sat down next to him. He noticed her face was drained of color. “I know,” she said. She put her hand on his hand, which made him feel good but also made him sweat even more. “Let’s find this thing and get out of here.”

  They started to pick up the papers he’d knocked to the floor, and there it was: “Rooming List, Minnesota State Purple Tide, April 1–5.”

  “Got it!” he said. He put a finger at the top and worked his way down to the G’s. “Here it is,” he said, “Graber, Alan Jr.—room 4101.”

  “All the way at the top,” she said. “Figures. See who he’s rooming with.”

  Stevie continued down the page. There wasn’t another 4101. He went through the list again to be sure. As he did, something caught his eye. Tom Richards, another of the seniors, was in 4103, and he couldn’t find anyone else in there. He checked on the other two seniors—Marlin Bennett and Tammu Abate—and saw they had single rooms, too.

  “All the seniors are in singles,” he said. “And they’re all at that end of the hall.”

  She nodded. “Okay, let’s get out of here before the maid comes back.”

  Stevie quickly tried to rearrange the desk to approximate the way he had found it. He wasn’t sure where the rooming list had been, but it had been near the bottom of the pile, so he put it back there.

  “Don’t forget your soda,” Susan Carol said. Then, poking their heads out the door to make sure no one was around, they headed back down the hallway.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “First we get a duplicate key. Then we give this one back to Jerry and then we go try to find Chip.”

  “We’ll have to tell Jerry why we aren’t going to hang around to hear the show.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ll think of an excuse before we get there.”

  They took the elevator back down to the first floor, making several interminable stops for MSU fans. Stevie was beginning to think the people in purple and white were like those furry little animals on Star Trek called Tribbles, which reproduced every few minutes until the Enterprise was overrun with them. They were everywhere.

  They finally made it back to the lobby. Amazingly, the area around the front desk was quiet. Susan Carol chose a middle-aged man with a small black mustache as her next victim.

  “May I help you, young lady?” he said as the two of them walked up.

  “Oh yes, I hope so,” she said. “We’re in room 1607 and our key isn’t working.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said. She had been holding the key out, and he took it and slid it across the counter and into some kind of garbage can beneath the desk. Seeing the key disappear unnerved Stevie. What if he didn’t give them a new one?

  “Last name?” he asked

  “Ventura,” she said. “My dad’s name is Jerry.” She leaned forward and spoke in a whisper as if she didn’t want anyone to hear what she was about to tell the man, whose name tag said he was Vincent DeFriest—Brooklyn, N.Y. “We’re with the Minnesota State team. I think we’re listed separately from the other guests.”

  “You are,” Mr. DeFriest said. “Here you are.”

  He went over to a key machine, punched some buttons, and produced a new key card. He handed it to Susan Carol, and Stevie felt his heart start up again.

  “Anything else I can help you with, Miss Ventura?” he asked.

  “Won’t I need a new card for my dad?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, of course you will. New code and all. I’m sorry.” He punched buttons on the machine again and produced a second key.

  “Thank you so much,” she said with her best Southern manners.

  Stevie thought he saw Mr. DeFriest turn just a tad pink. “You are very welcome,” he said.

  They headed back to the escalator. Stevie had come up with an excuse for Jerry. “Let’s tell Jerry we just saw our dad and he wants us to go with him to Bible study class,” he said.

  She gave him a look to see if he was being sarcastic.

  He wasn’t. “He can’t question something like that,” he said.

  “You’re right,” she said.

  The two hosts were at the table, wearing headsets, when they got back to the KFPT broadcast position. Susan Carol handed Jerry the key, held up her soda, and said, “Thanks, Jerry, you saved us from a long wait in line.”

  Jerry gave her a big smile, then swept his hand in the direction of the two hosts, tapping one on the shoulder to get his attention. The guy glanced up with an annoyed look on his face. When he saw Susan Carol standing in front of him, the look was replaced by a smile and he pulled off his headset.

  “Mike, this is the girl, um, I mean, these are the kids I was telling you about,” Jerry said.

  Mike put out a hand to Susan Carol. “Mike Lombardo, voice of the Purple Tide, young lady, nice to meet you.” He turned to his partner, who had also pulled off his headset. “This is my color commentator, Trey Woods.”

  Stevie recognized the name. Trey Woods had played for Minnesota State in the eighties. The reason he knew that was because Chip Graber had broken his all-time scor
ing record at the school earlier in the season. Woods also shook hands with Susan Carol. She turned to Stevie, who was beginning to feel invisible, and said, “This is my brother, Steve.”

  “Nice to meet you, kid,” Mike Lombardo said as Stevie came close enough so they could shake hands. Trey Woods also offered his hand—which was huge—but couldn’t seem to find anything to say to him.

  “So, Jerry tells me you kids are big Purple Tide fans,” Lombardo said.

  “Absolutely,” Susan Carol said. “We can’t wait for tonight.”

  She was doing the big-smile bit again.

  “Well, that’s great. Jerry said you wanted to hang around and watch us do the show. We’re on in about ten minutes and …”

  Susan Carol was now shaking her head as if a truly awful thing had just happened. “We really would love to watch you do the show, but our dad just reminded us that we promised to go to Bible study with him.”

  “Bible study?” Trey Woods said. “Good for you. Praise the Lord in all ways at all times.”

  Mike Lombardo didn’t seem nearly as thrilled about their plans for the morning. “You kids big God-squadders or something?” he asked.

  Stevie noticed Trey Woods visibly flinch.

  “I guess you could say that,” Susan Carol said. “My dad is a minister.”

  “Oh, I see,” Lombardo said, clearly a little embarrassed.

  “A minister,” Trey Woods said. “I’m a minister, too.”

  Now it was Lombardo’s turn to flinch.

  “Really?” said Susan Carol.

  “Oh yes,” Woods said. “I was ordained online last year. I’m a minister of the Church of Righteous-Thinking Athletes.” He leaned toward Susan Carol. “Someday you and I will pray together.” He didn’t make the same offer to Stevie. Hallelujah for that, Stevie thought.

  “Praise the Lord,” Susan Carol answered, her smile beginning to waver.

  “Five minutes to air,” Jerry Ventura said—four of the sweetest words Stevie had ever heard.

  Susan Carol pumped Jerry’s hand. “Thanks again, Jerry. It was great to meet all you guys. Please be sure to bring home a Purple Tide victory tonight, okay?”

  “We’ll do the best we can,” Lombardo said.