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  BOOKS BY JOHN FEINSTEIN

  THE SPORTS BEAT

  LAST SHOT: MYSTERY AT THE FINAL FOUR

  VANISHING ACT: MYSTERY AT THE U.S. OPEN

  COVER-UP: MYSTERY AT THE SUPER BOWL

  CHANGE-UP: MYSTERY AT THE WORLD SERIES

  THE RIVALRY: MYSTERY AT THE ARMY-NAVY GAME

  RUSH FOR THE GOLD: MYSTERY AT THE OLYMPICS

  THE TRIPLE THREAT

  THE WALK ON

  FOUL TROUBLE

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2005 by John Feinstein

  Cover design by Christian Fuenfhausen

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2005.

  Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

  Feinstein, John.

  Last shot : mystery at the Final Four / John Feinstein — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: After winning a basketball reporting contest, eighth graders Stevie and Susan Carol are sent to cover the Final Four tournament, where they discover that a talented player is being blackmailed into throwing the final game.

  ISBN 978-0-375-83168-3 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-93168-0 (lib. bdg.)

  [1. Journalists—Fiction. 2. NCAA Basketball Tournament—Fiction. 3. Basketball—Fiction.

  4. Gambling—Fiction. 5. Extortion—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. PZ7.F3343 Las 2005 [Fic]—dc22 2004026535

  ISBN 978-0-553-49460-0 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-307-53695-2 (ebook)

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1_r2

  This is for Danny and Brigid,

  my favorite young readers and future journalists

  Contents

  Cover

  Books by John Feinstein

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1: The Letter

  Chapter 2: The Other Winner

  Chapter 3: Dick Vitale, Babeee!

  Chapter 4: “Student-Athletes”

  Chapter 5: Roaming the Halls

  Chapter 6: What Now?

  Chapter 7: Planning and Plotting

  Chapter 8: A New Friend

  Chapter 9: Finding Chip Graber

  Chapter 10: Chip’s Story

  Chapter 11: Making Plans

  Chapter 12: Buzzer Beater

  Chapter 13: Next Stop, Bay St. Louis

  Chapter 14: Dean Wojenski

  Chapter 15: Finding Proof

  Chapter 16: Closing In

  Chapter 17: No Way Out

  Chapter 18: The Final Shot

  Chapter 19: Telling the Story

  Vanishing Act

  The Walk On

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every book is a collaborative effort, none more so than this one. Esther Newberg, my tireless and remarkably stubborn agent, was the first person to suggest the notion of a children’s book to me and her assistants, Andrea Barzvi and Christine Bauch, pushed me forward until I jumped off the cliff and made the attempt.

  I was more than fortunate that Nancy Siscoe at Knopf saw potential in the idea and then pushed, prodded, and pulled until there was actually a book. A good editor needs a great deal of patience; Nancy has plenty of that, but also a creative mind that, even as I benefitted from it, made me quite envious.

  My friends and family occasionally roll their eyes when I try new things but are always there to support me when I attempt them. That was especially true in this case of Mary, my wife, and Danny and Brigid, who each have a good deal in common with this book’s two young heroes.…

  Steven Thomas

  735 Northview Blvd.

  Norristown, PA 19401

  Dear Steven Thomas:

  It is my great pleasure to inform you that you have been selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association as one of the two winners in this year’s USBWA fourteen-and-under writing contest. Your story “Nothing Like the Palestra” was selected by the judges from more than 200 entries. Congratulations! You and your co-winner, Susan Carol Anderson, will be flown, courtesy of the USBWA, to New Orleans to participate as working journalists at this year’s Final Four. Press credentials and a hotel room have been arranged for you and a guardian, and our executive director, Joe Mitch, will be in touch with you shortly to arrange flights and to answer any questions about your schedule, attached here. You should plan on arriving no later than Thursday evening, since the presentation of your award will take place Friday morning. We hope you stay right through the championship game on Monday night. We look forward to seeing you in New Orleans at what we all hope will be just the first of many Final Fours you will cover in your journalism career.

  Again, congratulations on a wonderfully reported and written story.

  Best wishes,

  Bobby Kelleher

  President, USBWA

  1: THE LETTER

  STEVIE THOMAS read the letter once, then twice, then a third time to be sure it was real. Then he started screaming.

  “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

  Stevie suffered a few bad moments when his mom said she wasn’t sure she or his father could get away from work to go with him and then started fussing about the time off from school. But somehow Stevie knew his dad wasn’t going to turn this down.

  After all, Bill Thomas had been the one who had first introduced his son to sports—specifically basketball. He had started taking Stevie to see Philadelphia’s Big Five—Temple, Villanova, St. Joseph’s, Pennsylvania, and La Salle—when he was four. Going to basketball games had become Bill and Stevie’s thing. Occasionally they went to see the 76ers play but neither of them thought the NBA was really worth their time. Stevie had written a story for his school’s monthly newspaper, the Main Line Chronicle, about watching players on the 76ers bench sit and laugh and tell jokes during the last few minutes of a 20-point loss to the woeful Washington Wizards. But the college players really cared.

  It was through the Chronicle that he had heard about the USBWA writing contest. The paper had received a press release inviting anyone age fourteen and under to enter the contest. What got Stevie’s attention was the line at the bottom of the release: “Two winners will be chosen to fly to New Orleans to be members of the working press during the Final Four.” Right there in one sentence were both his dreams come true: a chance to go to the Final Four and to go there with a press pass.

  Stevie had taught himself to read at age five using the sports section, so the reporters were as big heroes to him as the players and coaches. His favorite Philly reporter was Dick Jerardi. But it wasn’t long before he learned he could call up stories from other papers online and read Mike Lupica and Dick Weiss from the New York Daily News and
his two heroes, Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon, who he knew worked for the Washington Post, since he watched them every day on Pardon the Interruption.

  Stevie wanted to really impress the judges with his reporting skills, so he called the main number at the Daily News and asked to speak to Dick Jerardi. To his delight, Jerardi called him back the next day, and when he explained that he wanted to write a story about the Palestra, Jerardi gave him the names and phone numbers for all the local SIDs—short for Sports Information Directors—who could help him with his story.

  Shaun May, the SID (Stevie liked using the term; it made him feel like a pro) at Penn, gave him a press credential to cover the Penn-Columbia game. Stevie and his dad had gone to the Palestra a million times before, but this time his dad was in the bleachers—and Stevie was on press row. He decided that night, even before sitting down to write the story, that this was definitely what he wanted to do when he grew up. Get paid to have the best seats at a basketball game? Get to talk to the players and interview Coach Fran Dunphy? Have someone bring statistics to your seat at every time-out? Eat for free in the pressroom before the game?

  “Dad, why would anyone want to do anything else?”

  His father, who worked in a large law firm downtown, nodded. “I’ve thought about that more than once myself,” he said. “Of course, you know, sportswriters don’t make very much money.”

  “Kornheiser and Wilbon do,” Stevie answered. “Lupica does.”

  “That’s three out of thousands,” his dad answered. “And they only make big money because they’re on TV.”

  He had a point. But still, if you could get paid at all to go to games and have the best seats, you were pretty lucky.

  Stevie spent hours putting together his story, making the Palestra the feature, rather than the game. He poured ten years’ worth of avid fandom into his writing, and when he was finished he had almost three thousand words. The contest rules said no more than one thousand. Cutting two-thirds of what he had written was painful, but he thought the end result was pretty strong. He sent the story in just before the January 15 deadline and waited, hoping against hope he might win.

  Now he had to wait until his father came home to make it official. Naturally, he was late. It was almost seven by the time he heard the car pull into the garage. Stevie was waiting for him, letter in hand, when his dad walked inside.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he said as Stevie thrust the letter at him without saying hello. But then he started to read.

  “Wow!” he said. “Stevie, that’s really great! I’m so proud of you!”

  “So I can go?” Stevie said.

  “What did your mother say?”

  “She said I can go if you can go with me.”

  Dad smiled. “I think that could be arranged. I’m sure I could scalp a ticket down there if I had to.”

  “Scalp what?” Mom said, walking into the room.

  “A ticket to get into the Final Four,” Dad said, waving the letter.

  “What about work for you and school for Stevie?”

  “Hon, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Plus, he earned it by winning the contest. I really think he’ll learn a lot from the trip.”

  She smiled. “Uh-huh. And clearly you won’t mind going either.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  And so it was settled. But Stevie knew his dad was wrong about one thing. This would not be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For him, it would be a first-in-a-lifetime experience.

  He would see to that.

  If Stevie had been in charge, he and his dad would have flown to New Orleans on the first flight available on Thursday morning. That would have given them all afternoon to hang out at the coaches’ hotel.

  “The coaches’ hotel? What in the world is that?” his father asked when Stevie broached the idea.

  “All the basketball coaches in the world go to the Final Four,” Stevie said. “It’s like a convention or something. And there’s this one hotel where they all stay and hang out. I mean, except for the four whose teams are playing.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I read it in that book you gave me for Christmas last year.”

  “I should have known.”

  But it turned out six-thirty was the earliest his dad could get away. They connected in Atlanta and arrived at the hotel a few minutes after eleven, which with the time change meant it was after midnight on Stevie’s body clock. Still, when he and his dad walked into the sparkling lobby of the New Orleans Hyatt Regency, he forgot how tired he was. A large sign just inside the door said WELCOME FINAL FOUR MEDIA. Proud and still a little amazed, Stevie thought to himself: That’s me.

  They made their way to the front desk to check in. There was only one person working and the man ahead of them was engaged in a loud argument with that person.

  “Look, I’ve been in the car for fourteen hours today,” Stevie heard the man say. “I really don’t need this. I know my reservation was for a suite. I don’t want one of those tiny little rooms you give to people. I didn’t come here to spend five days sleeping in a closet.”

  “Sir, this is a king-size room. And, as I said, if we can upgrade you tomorrow, we will. You can speak to the manager about the confusion in your reservation in the morning.”

  “Confusion?” the man shouted. “There’s no confusion. You screwed up. This is outrageous. I mean, don’t you have any idea who I am?”

  Suddenly, Stevie knew exactly who the man was.

  “Dad,” he hissed, “that’s Tony Kornheiser!”

  His dad smiled. “Sounds like he’s having a bad night.”

  At that moment, Kornheiser turned around and looked at them. “I’m really sorry about this. They screwed up my reservation.”

  Disgusted, he took the key that the clerk was now handing him. “This isn’t the end of this,” he said to the clerk. “Have a good night,” he said to Stevie and his dad as he walked toward the elevators.

  “You too, Mr. Kornheiser,” Stevie said. “I hope the rest of the weekend gets better for you.”

  Kornheiser stopped and smiled at Stevie. He pointed at the clerk, then at Stevie. “You see,” he said, “he knows who I am.”

  He turned and walked away.

  “Dad,” Stevie said with a grin, “I have a feeling this is going to be the most unbelievable weekend of my life.”

  2: THE OTHER WINNER

  STEVIE WAS UP AT SEVEN the next morning, barely able to control his excitement. The first event on their agenda was the USBWA awards breakfast, where he and his co-winner, Susan Carol Anderson, would receive their plaques and meet their escorts for the weekend. According to the USBWA press release that had been waiting for them in their room, Susan Carol was from Goldsboro, North Carolina.

  “I just hope,” he said to his father, “that she’s not a Duke fan.”

  “If she’s from North Carolina, she probably likes Duke or North Carolina,” his dad said.

  Whatever. Susan Carol wasn’t who he wanted to meet anyway. The USBWA would also be giving out its Player of the Year and Coach of the Year awards. Paul Hewitt, the coach at Georgia Tech, whose team had lost to Connecticut in the East Regional final, had won the coaching award, and Raymond Felton, the great guard from North Carolina, was the Player of the Year. Since the Tar Heels had been upset by Saint Joseph’s in round sixteen, Felton would also be there.

  This was almost a perfect Final Four as far as Stevie was concerned. There was a Philadelphia team—St. Joe’s—which made him happy. There was a Big East team—Connecticut—which also made him happy, since the Big East was his favorite league. There was a Big Ten team—Minnesota State—which was okay with him, especially since he absolutely loved to watch Chip Graber play. If Stevie could wake up one morning and be anybody in the world, it would be Chip Graber. Graber was only five eleven, but he was, as Dick Vitale always said on TV, “an absolute jet.” A little guy who went past people before they knew what had happened. Chip was a senior, and h
is dad, Alan Graber, was his coach. That father-son story line made MSU the media’s favorite team. Stevie had read that Graber might be one of the first five players chosen in the NBA draft in spite of his height. Some people called him “Iverson without the tattoos.” He was that good.

  Stevie had grown three inches in eighth grade, so he was now five foot four. Short, and not even close to being a jet. More like a prop plane. He had made the eighth-grade team at school, but he only got to play when the team was way ahead or way behind.

  “My ability in this sport,” he had announced to his dad after a game in which he never moved off the bench, “is limited to knowing the difference between a good player and a bad player.”

  “Which puts you ahead of quite a few people,” his father pointed out.

  The only team that had made it to New Orleans that bothered Stevie was Duke. The dreaded Blue Devils, who always seemed to be in the Final Four. Or close to it. Every time he turned on ESPN, it seemed as if Dick Vitale or someone else was yelling about how great Duke was and how Mike Krzyzewski was the most wonderful coach and the best person who had ever lived.

  Yech.

  Okay, he was a pretty good coach—ten Final Fours, three national titles. But there was something really annoying about a team that never lost. And Duke always got the calls from the referees, especially when they played Maryland, and Maryland was Stevie’s favorite ACC team. Stevie had hoped against hope that Villanova would beat Duke in the Sweet Sixteen, but it hadn’t happened. Then Duke had come from 13 points down in the regional final to beat Louisville. Now Duke was slated to play Connecticut in the second game on Saturday, after Minnesota State and St. Joe’s faced off in the first game. The winners of those games would play for the national championship on Monday night.

  Getting off the elevator for breakfast, Stevie spotted someone wearing a button that said “ABD” on it. “Hey,” he said, “what team is that?”

  The woman wearing the button smiled at him and said, “It means ‘Anybody But Duke.’ ”