Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery

DON’T MISS BOOK 2 IN THE SPORTS BEAT MYSTERIES!

Stevie and Susan Carol cover the U.S. Open tennis tournament in

VANISHING ACT.

1: IM FROM SCDEVIL

STEVIE THOMAS knew he needed a shower but, as usual, he couldn’t resist sitting down at his desk to see if any of his friends had e-mailed while he had been out playing golf with his dad. It was a hot, humid August day, and walking eighteen holes had worn him out.

“You aren’t even fourteen yet,” his dad had said as Stevie slowly climbed the last hill on the eighteenth hole at Bluebell Country Club. “You aren’t supposed to get tired.”

Stevie would be fourteen in September. But he was tired. He had played pretty well—breaking 90 always made him happy—but a hot shower and a nap before dinner was all he wanted right now.

First, though, he would check his e-mails. He signed on to his computer—his sign-on was “kidwriter”—and had begun trolling through the spam and notes from friends when he heard a ringing sound that told him he had an Instant Message coming in. When he saw who it was from, he smiled.

“Wht R U up to?” was the opening question from “SCDEVIL.”

“Just played golf w/my dad,” he answered. “2 hot.”

The response came back almost before he had sent his reply. “It is a balmy 99 here—heat index much worse than that.”

Stevie could imagine what it was like in Goldsboro, North Carolina, given how hot it was in Philadelphia. “Wht R U doing?” he asked.

Susan Carol Anderson—aka SCDEVIL, because she was a fanatic fan of Duke, a basketball team Stevie had only recently learned not to hate—was a month younger than Stevie but, at least the last time he had seen her in April, a good four inches taller and much older-looking too. Still, not long after they had met in New Orleans during the Final Four, Stevie had conceded to himself that he had a crush on her. He told no one, not even his dad, in part because she was too tall for him, in part because he wasn’t going to admit a crush on anyone at this point in his life.

Stevie and Susan Carol had been the winners of a writing contest that had earned them each a trip to the Final Four, complete with press credentials. It was the most unbelievable thing that’d ever happened to Stevie. Literally. Soon after arriving, they had stumbled across a plot to blackmail Chip Graber, Minnesota State’s star point guard, to throw the national championship game. They had managed to foil the plot, allowing Graber to dramatically hit the winning shot in the championship game against Susan Carol’s beloved Duke Blue Devils. Even she had admitted to being happy with that outcome.

Stevie and Susan Carol had gotten a lot of media attention for their involvement—what his father called their “fifteen minutes of fame.” They even got to go on Letterman together. That was the last time he had seen her, but they IM’d all the time.

Now she was typing a long answer to his question about what she was doing, and Stevie could almost see her smiling at him through the computer screen.

“Really exciting news,” she said. “I convinced the spts. ed. at the Fayetteville paper to credential me to go to U.S. Open tennis next week. School doesn’t start until week after. Dad and Mom said I can stay w/my uncle in Manhattan!”

Stevie stared at the screen, instantly envious of the Instant Message. He knew Susan Carol loved tennis almost as much as she loved basketball. He was more into golf than tennis, but he did follow it, even though his father insisted the game hadn’t been the same since the retirements of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. He was too young to remember either of them as players, but he thought McEnroe was good on television. His favorite tennis player, by far, was Nadia Symanova. He had a poster of her hanging over his bed to prove it. She was another in the recent line of gorgeous Russian players—following in the footsteps of Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova, among others—who had shot up the world rankings. She was sixteen and had been the talk of Wimbledon after getting to the semifinals, only to lose in three sets to Venus Williams.

Stevie did not have a crush on Symanova. That would have implied that he knew her or might somehow have a chance someday to even meet her. What’s more, if Susan Carol was too tall for him at five foot eight, then what was Symanova, who was six feet tall? Besides, every time Stevie picked up a magazine he saw Symanova walking into or out of a party with some movie star or famous young athlete. Now Susan Carol was going to get to go to New York and see Symanova and the rest of the U.S. Open from up close.

“Great news,” he finally typed. He thought for a second and then added, “I’m jealous.”

Susan Carol’s answer came flying back. “U shud go 2.”

He was baffled by that one. “How?” he answered.

“EZ. Write to Kelleher. I still have his e-mail if U don’t. Ask him to help U get a credential. U can help him or something. He knows everyone.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Bobby Kelleher was a columnist for the Washington Herald who had helped Stevie and Susan Carol immensely in New Orleans. The chances were good he would be covering the Open. “Worth a shot,” he wrote back. “What’s his e-mail?”

She sent it to him: “UVA0.9@aol.com.” He actually knew what that meant because Kelleher had told him that when he played basketball at the University of Virginia, his career scoring average had been 0.9 points per game. “I’ll let U know,” he said.

“Tell your parents U can stay with me at my uncle’s apartment,” she wrote back. “He’s divorced so he has lots of room.”

Another good idea. His parents certainly wouldn’t let him go to New York for a week and stay in a hotel alone. And he knew neither of his parents could take a week off from work since they had just gotten back from vacationing at the beach. Staying in Susan Carol’s uncle’s apartment had one other benefit: he would get to spend more time with her.

He just hoped she hadn’t gotten any taller.

Stevie sent the e-mail to Kelleher, asking him to write him back whenever he got a chance. The Open started in five days. He was afraid he might be asking too late. A couple of hours later he was sitting on the family room couch watching his favorite TV show, Daily News Live. The show aired on weekdays and featured Michael Barkann and three sportswriters—different ones each day—from the Philadelphia Daily News. Stevie liked the show for two reasons: First, the Daily News guys always had opinions and were very willing to share them, even to the point of occasionally shouting at guests while asking them questions. Second, he knew several of the show’s regulars: Dick Jerardi had been the first reporter to help him out when he began trying to go to local sporting events and learn about journalism. Through Jerardi he had met writers he had read locally for years, including the deans of Philadelphia sports journalism: Bill Conlin and Stan Hochman of the Daily News and Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Jerardi had even invited him to sit on the set during the show once and introduced him to Barkann.

Conlin and Jerardi were having a heated debate about whether or not baseball players who used steroids should be in the Hall of Fame when Stevie’s mom walked into the living room carrying the phone. He had been so caught up in the show he hadn’t heard it ring. “It’s Bobby Kelleher,” she said.

Surprised, Stevie took the phone. “Let me guess,” Kelleher said without saying hello. “Susan Carol figured out a way to get to the Open and you want to come too.”

Stevie felt his face flush. “How’d you know that?” he said.

“I remember how my mind worked when I was a teenager,” Kelleher said.

“Actually, it was her idea that I contact you,” Stevie said. “I didn’t know you had my phone number.”

“You gave it to me in New Orleans, remember? Anyway, she’s a smart girl, because not only can I get you in, but I’d be happy to have you come up and give me some help the first week.”

“Wow!” Stevie said, forgetting for an instant that he was trying very hard to remove that word from his vocabulary. “You’re sure you can do that?”

“Easily,” Kelleher said. “The guy who runs public relations for the USTA is an old friend—Ed Fabricius. In fact, he’s a Philly guy—worked at Penn for years. I’ll bet he knows just who you are. It won’t be a problem at all. My guess is Fab’s only condition will be that he gets to meet you guys.”

Stevie had been amazed after the Letterman appearance how often people recognized him. He had become an instant celebrity in school. Even Andrea Fassler, the eighth-grade girl every eighth-grade boy wanted to go out with, had started being friendly to him. But a lot of that had faded with time, and he heard himself laughing at the notion that the USTA’s public relations honcho would want to meet him. “Well, if you really can get me in …,” he said.

“Consider it done,” Kelleher said. “I’ll send you an e-mail with my cell phone number and all the details, since my guess is you’re watching Daily News Live right now and you don’t have a pen.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Because whenever I’m in Philly I watch it too. I’ll see you Monday.”

Stevie’s mom walked back in, a quizzical look on her face. “Why was Bobby Kelleher calling you?” she asked.

Stevie hadn’t said anything about the possibility of going to New York—he figured there wasn’t any point until he heard back from Kelleher. Now he told his mother what was going on.

“Did you discuss this with your father?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It happened after we played golf and he’d already gone back to the office.”

She sighed. “Well, I’m sure he’ll say yes, because he loves the idea of you becoming a sportswriter and this would be an adventure,” she said. “I think he’ll want to check with Susan Carol’s dad to make sure it really is okay for you to stay with her uncle. I think a grown-up should invite you, not Susan Carol.”

Stevie rolled his eyes a little but he knew he was in good shape if the only thing standing between him and the trip to New York was a call from his dad to Susan Carol’s dad. He had been to New York before but it had mostly been to do sightseeing: Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, several of the museums, and, just a few months before 9/11, the family had eaten dinner at Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center. He still shuddered a little when he thought about that.

But he’d never gotten to see any sports in New York. The timing was always wrong. His mom had always taken the position that since he went to sports events all the time in Philadelphia, he should do more “cultural” things while they were in New York. He didn’t mind all culture: The Lion King had actually been kind of cool. But he could certainly have lived without the museums.

Now he would be going to New York and there would be no culture to deal with. Just covering tennis while hanging out with Susan Carol. Maybe, he thought, he’d get to meet Nadia Symanova. Now, that would be cultural.

2: NEW YORK, NEW YORK

STEVIE FELT both very adult and a little bit nervous when his mom dropped him off at 30th Street Station for the train ride to New York. It was one thing to have the independence to ride his bike pretty much wherever he wanted in the neighborhood; it was another to board a train that would drop him off smack in the middle of Manhattan. Once he was on the train, though, he began to feel a lot more confident. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the heat and August humidity seemed to have disappeared just in time for the U.S. Open. The train wasn’t very crowded, so he had an empty seat next to him, where he piled up the Sunday editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times as he read through them. He had felt quite cool buying the Times—even if it did cost four dollars—in the lobby of the train station.

The trip took a little more than an hour. Penn Station was a lot more crowded and, it seemed to Stevie, quite a bit dirtier than 30th Street Station. He followed his father’s instructions to look for signs for the Eighth Avenue exit. “There will be fewer people lined up for cabs there,” he had said. “And the cabs are pointed uptown, which is where you’re going.”

He got a cab in no time and told the driver he needed to go to 52 Riverside Drive, adding, “It’s between Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth streets,” as he had been told to do by Susan Carol. If the driver either needed or did not need that piece of information, Stevie couldn’t tell. He simply turned on the meter and began rocketing up Eighth Avenue, dodging between cars as if he was on a NASCAR track. In less than fifteen minutes, the cab pulled up in front of an elegant-looking older building. To his left, Stevie could see a small park. As he climbed out of the cab, he saw Susan Carol Anderson and a tall man who looked to be about his father’s age standing on the sidewalk waiting for him. Stevie’s dad had finally broken down and gotten him a cell phone for this trip, figuring it wasn’t a bad idea to have one while traveling. He had called Susan Carol from the train station to say he was en route.

“Stevie, you got tall!” Susan Carol said as soon as he took his suitcase from the cabbie and turned to greet his two hosts. She ran up and threw her arms around him in a hug. She had her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing what Stevie had come to think of as the teenage girl’s summer uniform: a pullover shirt, white shorts, and flip-flops. The difference was that she looked a lot better in the uniform than most of the girls back home. In spite of her claim about Stevie’s newfound height, she was still at least two or maybe even three inches taller than Stevie. Still, he was pleased that she’d noticed he was at least closing the gap. When they untangled from their brief embrace, she turned to the man with her.

“Uncle Brendan, this is Stevie Thomas,” she said. “Stevie, this is my uncle, Brendan Gibson.”

Brendan Gibson had the same sort of easy smile that Susan Carol did. “I know all about Stevie Thomas,” he said, pumping his hand. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. Come on in.”

Stevie wondered what Susan Carol had told her uncle about him but didn’t think this was the time to ask. Susan Carol was giving him the big smile he had seen disarm so many people in New Orleans—oh yeah, he still had a crush on her. Brendan Gibson turned around and punched buttons on the keypad next to the door and it buzzed to let them in. A few minutes later, they were on the fourteenth floor and Susan Carol was showing Stevie to a bedroom that had a view up and down the Hudson River.

“Pretty spectacular,” Stevie said as a Circle Line boat went past. He remembered taking a ride around Manhattan on one of them with his parents when he was ten.

FOOTBALL.
BASKETBALL.
BASEBALL.

Whatever the sport, Alex Myers always has his game face on…. Here’s a sneak peek at

THE WALK ON,

the thrilling first installment of John Feinstein’s new series,

THE TRIPLE THREAT.

As soon as the snap had hit his hands, instinct had taken over. He wasn’t thinking about the score or all the eyes on him or the fact that he had called a play that contradicted a direct order from his coach. All he could see was Jonas, who was racing behind the King of Prussia cornerback and coming open just as Alex stepped up in the pocket and released the ball.

When the ball came off his fingertips, he knew he had thrown it just the way he wanted to. His momentum carried him in the direction of the line of scrimmage and he watched as Jonas, running full speed, raced under the ball at the KOP 25 yard line, gathered it into his arms, and cruised into the end zone.

Alex’s arms went into the air and he could feel his teammates pummeling him as they all ran downfield to congratulate Jonas.

“That’s the way to throw it, Goldie,” he heard Allison say, a phrase repeated by several others as they all high-fived their way down the field. The Chester Heights sideline had exploded, stunned by the suddenness of the touchdown—and by the quarterback who had thrown the pass. Alex knew he still had a silly grin on his face as everyone trotted to the sideline while the kicking team went in for the extra point.

Matt was waiting. He took his right hand off his crutches to give Alex a high five.

“I knew you could do it, Goldie,” he said. “I just knew it.”

Coach Gordon was right behind him.

“Was that an audible, Myers? It didn’t look like one from here.”

“No sir. I called it in the huddle.”

“Was that what I told you to call?”

“No sir,” Alex said, offering no excuse and waiting for the hammer to come down on his head.

“I called it,” Matt said. “I called it because I knew Alex could make the throw and we needed a quick score to change the momentum.”

Coach Gordon stared at his son, then at Alex as another roar went up from the Chester Heights sideline as the extra point went through, making it 17–7.

“We’ll discuss it after the game,” he said finally, turning and walking away.