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?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“So we know who—well, mostly—and what and where and when … but not why or how.”
“And no one will believe us without the why and how,” said Susan Carol.
Stevie remembered something Dick Jerardi had told him when he had asked him about how to get a good story. If it’s important, Jerardi had said, you have to get someone on the record. Otherwise, it’s too easy for people to shoot you down.
“We have to do two things,” he said. “We have to find out what exactly is going on here. And we have to get someone to go on the record.”
“Well,” Susan Carol said, snapping the notebook shut, “it’s a sure bet that Professor Whiting isn’t going to fill us in.”
“Which leaves one person,” Stevie said.
“Right. Chip Graber.”
“Yup. We have to figure out a way to get him to tell the story on the record. And if we get him to say he’s being blackmailed, then—”
“Hold on, hold on,” she said. “How are we even going to talk to Chip Graber? Even if we knew where MSU was staying, there’ll be security all over the hotel. We’ll never get close to him.”
She was right, of course. Maybe they could wait until after the games tomorrow and try to talk to him in the locker room. No, that would be impossible; the locker rooms would be overrun with people. Maybe he could somehow hitch a ride on the golf cart with Roger Valdiserri and talk to him then. That wasn’t likely, either. They had to get to him before the games tomorrow and they had to somehow get to him alone.
“First we have to find out where they’re staying,” he said. “My guess is that won’t be too hard. The hard part will be getting into the hotel and finding him.”
“No kidding,” she said.
“What’s the old saying?” he said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way? We have the will. We’ll figure out the way.”
Finding out where Minnesota State was staying wasn’t that hard at all. They remembered that there was a media workroom in their hotel basement, and in it, Susan Carol spotted a book labeled Media Final Four Information sitting among the team media guides and press releases promoting products and press conferences. One was headlined “Papa John’s Pizza invites you to meet Dick Vitale!” Another was for a book signing for Dale Brown, the ex-LSU coach who was still a big name in New Orleans.
Stevie picked up the information book and began paging through it. Sure enough, there was a section on hotels. And in the hotel section there was a listing of the team hotels. “Atlanta Regional Champion—Downtown Marriott,” it said. Minnesota State had advanced to the Final Four by winning the regional in Atlanta.
“Bingo!” he said, pointing at the listing.
“Bingo—maybe,” Susan Carol said. “I remember Coach K telling me that when Duke is in the Final Four, they never stay in their assigned hotel because they want to get the team away from all the crazy stuff going on downtown. See, it says there that the Syracuse Regional Champion is staying at the Embassy Suites. Mr. Brill told me Duke is really staying in a Radisson by the airport. MSU may not be at the Marriott.”
“Or they might be. Coach Graber isn’t as experienced at going to the Final Four as Coach K. Let’s find out.”
He walked over to a bank of phones labeled COURTESY PHONES—LOCAL CALLS AND CREDIT CARD CALLS ONLY. As instructed on the phone, he dialed 9, and then, looking at the Marriott phone number in the information book, he dialed the hotel. Susan Carol started to ask him what he was doing, but he put a hand up when the phone was answered on the first ring.
“Hi, I’m trying to reach Professor Thomas Whiting?” he said. Susan Carol looked horrified. “He’s with the Minnesota State basketball team.”
He smiled when he heard the operator’s answer. “Oh, really? No, that’s okay, thanks.” He hung up.
“What happened?” Susan Carol said.
“She said that all phone calls to people with the Minnesota State team were being blocked and I could leave a message if I wanted.”
“Which, of course, you didn’t.”
“No way! Okay, that’s the easy part. Now, how do we get into the hotel and find Chip Graber? If they’re blocking calls to people’s rooms, they certainly aren’t letting people roam around the hotel.”
Susan Carol looked at her watch. “My father’s expecting me upstairs any minute. We’re supposed to go to dinner with a friend of his who lives here in town. There’s no way I can get out of it.”
Stevie and his dad had been invited to dinner by a group of the coaches from Philadelphia at some hot shot New Orleans restaurant called K-Paul’s. When his dad had told him about the dinner, he had been excited at the prospect of eating with Fran Dunphy, the Penn coach he’d interviewed at the Palestra, and Jay Wright, the coach at Villanova. Now all he could think about was the entire evening being wasted. There wasn’t much they could do.
“I think we need to get an early start in the morning,” he said. “The first game isn’t until five o’clock. That means the coaches won’t want the players up too early, so we can probably catch him in his room.”
“Why don’t we leave here at eight-thirty,” she said. “It can’t be too far away if it’s in downtown.”
“The question is, what do we tell our dads?”
She looked baffled for a second, then snapped her fingers. “Easy. Remember when Mr. Brill was saying there’s an entire room filled with radio stations doing broadcasts over at the coaches’ hotel?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So we’ll tell them we were invited over there by a couple of radio stations to appear, and Mr. Brill and Mr. Weiss said we should do it because it would be good publicity for the USBWA.”
“And what if they say they want to go with us?”
“Chances are my dad won’t want to. He said something about wanting to go to a museum in the morning. And if they do, let’s just tell them we’d sort of like to do this on our own.”
Stevie thought his dad would probably buy that, since they always argued over how much independence Stevie should be allowed at home. “Good idea,” he said. “I think that can work.”
They got on the elevator to head to their rooms. Stevie’s floor came first. As he got off, he turned back to Susan Carol. “I’ll see you at eight-thirty in that lower lobby, okay?” he said.
She gave him a nervous smile that reminded him how very pretty she was. “I hope you sleep tonight,” she said. “I know I won’t.”
The door closed. She was right again. He knew he wouldn’t sleep at all. There was just much too much to think about. And worry about.