Vanishing Act Page 7

  “The locker room,” Mearns said. “Oh, joy.”

  “I know, I know,” Kelleher said. “But it has to be done.”

  “What are you going to do?” Mearns asked.

  “I’m going to talk to Arlen again. By now he’s undoubtedly heard what Misha thinks about the SVR. He’ll have talked to the FBI too. And I’m sending Stevie to talk to Ross.”

  Mearns smiled again. “Little Tom? That’s a good idea. He may not know anything, but he’ll certainly talk.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Stevie said.

  “Tom Ross,” Kelleher said. “He’s an agent, but in spite of that he’s a pretty good guy. He’s been in tennis forever. Knows everyone. You tell him you’re working with me and he’ll tell you what he knows.”

  “Send Susan Carol with Stevie,” Mearns said. “It’ll soften Tom up—he’s got daughters. One of us in the locker room is enough.”

  “Good idea,” Kelleher said. “Let’s get going. We need to find anyone who talked to Symanova today or even saw her. Any little bit of information can help.”

  Stevie looked at Susan Carol to see if any of this was making her nervous. She seemed fine with it all.

  “So we’re going to find Symanova?” he said to Kelleher.

  “Find her?” Kelleher said. “Not likely. But find out what happened to her? Yeah, I think we can do that.”

  7: TOM ROSS

  THE GOOD news was that Kelleher was convinced they would find Tom Ross in the players’ lounge. At least Stevie knew his way around in there.

  “That’s his office,” Kelleher said as they walked back down the now-familiar hallway. “He likes to call himself the dealmaker. He sits in there most of the day making deals.”

  “With who?”

  “With whom!” Susan Carol corrected.

  “Everyone in tennis,” Kelleher said. “Clothing company reps, shoe company reps, tournament directors…”

  “Tournament directors?” Stevie asked. “What kind of deals would he make with tournament directors?”

  “To pay his players under the table to play in their tournaments,” Kelleher said.

  Stevie was about to ask if he was serious but saw he was by the look on his face. They reached the hallway intersection where Kelleher and his wife had to go in one direction to the locker rooms while Stevie and Susan Carol went in another to the lounge. “Are you guys okay on your own?” Tamara asked.

  Kelleher laughed in response. “These two? Are you kidding? They can handle themselves better than we can.”

  Stevie wasn’t sure that was the case, but he was glad Mearns had suggested that he and Susan Carol stick together. Knowing her ability to charm people, he would feel a lot more confident going back into that lounge with Susan Carol.

  “Should we make a plan to meet at some time?” Susan Carol asked.

  Kelleher looked at his watch. “It’s four-fifteen,” he said. “Let’s all be back in the media center no later than five-thirty. Got your phones turned on?”

  “I do,” Susan Carol said, and Stevie nodded.

  “Anything happens or you need help, call me or Tamara,” he said.

  They quickly exchanged numbers with Tamara and then it was time to go.

  “Okay, then,” Kelleher said. “Good luck, guys.”

  Since Stevie knew the way, he led Susan Carol to the lounge. Kelleher had told them to look for “a slightly overweight Ken doll.” He wasn’t absolutely certain what a Ken doll looked like, but Susan Carol seemed to know exactly what that meant. “If you don’t see him, just ask people,” Kelleher said. “Everyone in there will know him.”

  The lounge was absolutely packed when they walked in, more crowded than when Stevie had been there earlier. Every few seconds, it seemed, the PA was calling another match. “Mr. Nocera and Mr. Johansson, please report to security to be escorted to Louis Armstrong” was one announcement.

  “I wonder if that’s the way they were calling people before this happened,” Susan Carol said.

  “You mean ‘report to security’?” Stevie said. “It wasn’t when I was in here earlier.”

  They made their way through the lounge, finding a staircase Stevie hadn’t seen before and going up it to a second floor that was just about as crowded as the first. If Ross was on either level, they didn’t spot him. “None of these guys looks like a Ken doll to you?” Stevie said.

  Susan Carol shook her head. “Not even close. We better start asking people.”

  They looked around until Susan Carol spotted a guy in a suit on a cell phone. He reeked of being an agent. When he saw her walking toward him, a smile crossed his face and he put down the phone. “Can I help you with something, young lady?”

  “I hope so,” Susan Carol said. “Do you happen to know Tom Ross?”

  The suit grunted. “I was just with him a few minutes ago. He was trying to convince me to give one of his players a wild card to my tournament.”

  So, Stevie thought, he’s a tournament director, not an agent. They all looked the same, apparently.

  “What’s a wild card?” Susan Carol asked.

  The tournament director smiled at her, the way you smile at someone who doesn’t know something everyone knows. He eyed her credential. “Up-and-coming young reporter, huh?” he said. “Well, you should know this, then. Every tennis tournament has several spots that are saved for players who aren’t ranked highly enough to be automatically entered. They’re called wild cards because the tournament director—in San Jose, that would be me—gets to pick whomever they want. It can be a young player, an old player, or just someone I like. If a player doesn’t have a high enough ranking to get in and doesn’t get a wild card, they have to play in a qualifier to get into the tournament. One way agents impress young players is by telling them they can get them wild cards and save them from playing qualifiers all the time. Tom was pitching me on one of their young players.”

  “Will you take him?” Susan Carol asked, even though it was irrelevant.

  “Doubt it,” the tournament director said. “Unless Ross can deliver one of his name guys as part of a package deal. Then I might do it.”

  Stevie was relieved when Susan Carol didn’t ask any more questions on the subject of wild cards. “Do you know where Mr. Ross might be?” she asked.

  The tournament director laughed. “I know exactly where he is. They just called Nick Nocera onto the Armstrong court. He’ll be over there babysitting. Unless, of course, someone kidnapped Nocera en route to the match.”

  Apparently the tournament director thought that was funny. “Just a little joke,” he said, perhaps noting the fact that neither of his listeners was doubled over with laughter. He reached into his pocket and took out a card and handed it to Susan Carol. “If you ever come to San Jose”—he peered a little more closely at Susan Carol’s credential—“Ms. Anderson, you call me. Come cover our tournament if you want. You can bring your young friend.” He nodded at Stevie.

  “Actually, we’re the same age,” Susan Carol said.

  The tournament director stared in disbelief for a second, then recovered and smiled again. “Well, good luck finding Tom,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to tell you everything you never wanted to know about Nick Nocera.”

  He turned and walked away. Susan Carol handed the card to Stevie: RON GRINKOFF—TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR, DUNKIN’ DONUTS OPEN. “Hmm,” Stevie said. “Might be worth going. Free doughnuts every day in the pressroom, I’m sure.”

  “I think I can skip it,” she said. “Come on, let’s get back over to Armstrong and see if we can find Tom Ross.”

  “That’s a big place,” he said.

  “My guess is there won’t be all that many people watching Nick Nocera and Thomas Johansson, especially this close to dinnertime,” she said.

  “Yeah, and probably not many in suits,” Stevie said, remembering what Brendan Gibson had said about the agent’s uniform.

  They made their way out of the lounge and followed signs that led them
out of the catacombs of the main stadium back onto the main plaza. It was crowded. A lot of people were heading for the exits with the day program beginning to wind down. The area that had been blocked off earlier when they had left Armstrong after Symanova’s disappearance had been reopened. They traced their path back under the stands and decided to go in at one of the regular public entrances to the seating area. Stevie liked that idea, if only because he had no desire to encounter Max Shapiro again without Collins along to protect them. They walked up the ramp and found a rope across the entranceway.

  “You have to wait here until the changeover,” an usher told them quietly.

  Susan Carol had been right about the crowd. There couldn’t have been more than three or four hundred people, and in a stadium that seated ten thousand, the crowd seemed even smaller. Stevie looked up at the big scoreboard at the far end of the stadium. It was 5–all in the first set, Nocera serving at 30–all. Since the players changed ends every two games beginning after the first game of each set, they would be changing at the end of this game. Stevie watched Nocera as he prepared to serve. He had long dark hair and wore a sleeveless shirt, no doubt to show off his impressive arms. He tossed the ball high in the air and served a bullet that cracked the net cord. The scoreboard said the serve had been traveling 139 miles per hour. Impressive, but it didn’t matter. It was still a fault. Nocera twisted in a second serve and Johansson, going for a passing shot as Nocera tried to come in, pushed a backhand wide. Nocera got two new balls from a ball boy, pocketed one, tugged at his racquet strings, and served again. This time, the serve cleared the net and one-hopped to the fence, untouched by a lunging Johansson. An ace.

  “Game Nocera,” the umpire said. “He leads, 6–5.”

  A cheer rose from the right corner of the stadium and Stevie saw about a half-dozen people in the front row standing to cheer Nocera on. The usher had moved the rope and Susan Carol immediately started walking in that direction. “I think I see him,” she said.

  They walked to a section of seats near the baseline that was virtually empty. Since there were so few people in the stands, the ushers really didn’t care where anyone sat. Behind the Nocera cheerleaders, Stevie saw a man in a suit, sitting with his legs crossed. He had sandy hair and a large briefcase on his lap. He looked, Stevie guessed, like a slightly overweight Ken doll. Susan Carol got to him first. “Mr. Ross?” she said.

  Ross looked up, clearly surprised to be recognized. “Hi,” he said. “How do you know me?”

  “I’m Susan Carol Anderson,” she said. “This is Steve Thomas. Bobby Kelleher sent us to talk to you.”

  “Me?” Ross said. “Kelleher sent you to talk to me?”

  Stevie heard the umpire say, ‘Time,’ and saw the players get out of their seats and head back onto the court.

  “Grab a seat,” Ross said. “We can talk as soon as the set’s over. Either Nick will break here or it will go to a tiebreak.”

  Down 40–30, Nocera crushed a perfect forehand crosscourt to tie the game at deuce. Neither player seemed able to win two straight points to win the game. Finally, on the fifth deuce, Johansson served a winner and then watched Nocera hit a forehand long on the next point, giving him the game and a 6–6 tie in the set. That meant a tiebreak, and Stevie was squirming throughout, wanting it to be over. Ross kept adjusting and readjusting his tie, and after every point, he would lean forward and say something to the group in front of them: “I love it when he goes down the line.”

  Or: “Johansson can’t volley—he should drop-shot him once in a while.”

  Nocera seemed to read his agent’s mind. Leading six points to five, meaning he had set point, he stood at the baseline, slugging it out with Johansson. Finally, when it seemed the point might never end, he flicked a delicate forehand that just cleared the net. Johansson took one step toward it, then stopped, knowing he couldn’t get to the ball.

  “Game and first set Nocera,” the umpire said.

  “Yes,” Ross said, pumping a fist. The most enthusiastic member of Nocera’s cheering squad was a heavily made-up woman who was wearing a tight-fitting halter top and very short shorts.

  “Who do you think she is?” Stevie whispered to Susan Carol.

  “I’m betting girlfriend,” Susan Carol whispered back.

  “Listen, guys,” Ross said to the group. “I have to go talk to these two reporters for five minutes. I’ll be back at the next changeover.”

  One of the men eyed Ross suspiciously. “Not talking about another client, are you, Tom?” he said. “You wouldn’t walk out on Nicky to do that, would you?”

  “No, Mr. Nocera, I certainly wouldn’t,” Ross said. “Actually, they want to talk about Nick, right, guys?”

  Susan Carol jumped in. “Oh, absolutely,” she said. “I’m writing about unsung stars for my newspaper.”

  That seemed to satisfy everyone—except perhaps the girlfriend, who didn’t even crack a smile.

  “Be right back,” Ross said, and he bounded up the steps toward the exit, with Stevie and Susan Carol following. Once they were under the stands, he stopped and loosened his tie.

  “Okay,” he said. “I hope this is important, because Mr. Nocera probably wants to kill me right now.”

  “For missing two games?” Stevie said.

  “Oh yeah,” Ross said. “Long story. Tara’s actually worse.”

  “Who’s Tara?” Susan Carol asked.

  Ross looked surprised. “You didn’t recognize Tara Beauregard? I thought every teenager knew her. She’s in that show on the CW, what’s it called, Uncovered? She plays a teenage hooker.”

  “A hooker?” Stevie said.

  “A teenager?” Susan Carol said. “That woman plays a teenager? You’re kidding, right?”

  Ross looked nervously at his watch. “Tell me what you guys need so I can get back.”

  Susan Carol nodded. “We want to know what you’ve heard about the Symanova kidnapping.”

  Ross suddenly began looking in all directions as if afraid someone might be listening. There wasn’t anyone in sight. “Why would I know anything about that?” he said. “She’s not my client.”

  Susan Carol nodded. “We know. But Bobby says you know every rumor there is in tennis. He wants to know what you’ve heard.”

  Ross looked around again. Stevie was beginning to think there were invisible people watching them.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, pulling on his tie again. “All I know is this. The SMG people are telling everyone the Russians did it and that the father is hysterical that they’re going to do something awful if he doesn’t agree not to go through with the citizenship thing.”

  “We already know that,” Stevie said, trying not to sound impatient.

  From the court they heard the umpire say, “Game Johansson.”

  Ross twitched again. “Oh my God,” he said. “I really need to get back in there. Look, I’m sure you know that because that’s the big talk in the lounge. But here’s what’s strange: the SMG people never share information. Hughes Norwood usually won’t tell you the time. Now they’re all running around in circles saying, ‘It’s the SVR, it’s the SVR.’ It just isn’t the way they do business.”

  “So what do you think is up?” Susan Carol asked.

  Ross’s eyes were darting all over the place now. “I’m not sure. But here’s the one thing I’m convinced of, and I’m not the only one who thinks this: if SMG says it’s the SVR, they’re probably the only people you can be sure didn’t do it.”

  Stevie and Susan Carol looked at each other.

  “Okay, then who?”

  Ross shook his head. “That I don’t know. But if I was trying to figure it out, the first thing I’d do is look at a draw sheet.”

  “Why?” they both asked.

  “Someone benefits if Symanova is gone. They can only wait two days before they have to default her and move on with the tournament. Most people think she should have been defaulted already. I’d sure like to know which player that helps the most.�
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  “Joanne Walsh?” Stevie said.

  “No,” Ross said firmly. “She wins one match, it’s worth a few thousand dollars to her. But she isn’t going any further than that. Look a round or two—or more—down the road. Symanova is ready to win. She’s been the best player all summer. Someone is afraid of her. If you figure out who it is, I think you figure out who kidnapped her.”

  “You mean a player had her kidnapped?” Susan Carol said.

  “I doubt it,” Ross said as the umpire’s voice told them it was now 2–0 Johansson in the second set. “Oh God, Mr. Nocera’s going to blame me because Nick got broken. No, not a player, probably. An agent maybe. A clothing company rep with a big contract at stake if his player wins here. Even a national federation. It could be anyone.”

  “Do you represent any women in contention here?” Stevie asked.

  Ross actually smiled. “I only rep men,” he said. “I have an alibi.”

  “You might be the only one,” Susan Carol said.

  “Too true,” he said.

  “Game Johansson,” they heard from inside. “He leads 3–0.”

  “Oh my God!” Ross screamed. “I’m fired. Gotta go.”

  He bolted back to the court.

  Stevie looked at Susan Carol. “Did that help us?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Only if being totally confused helps,” she said. “Come on. I left my draw sheet in the media center. Let’s go find another one.”

  8: YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS

  STEVIE AND Susan Carol walked back out into the plaza, which was now half-empty. Someone with a megaphone was urging everyone to exit to the right and reminding them that once they left the grounds they would not be allowed back unless they had tickets for the evening session.

  They found a stack of draw sheets next to a stand where someone was trying to sell programs. Stevie couldn’t help but notice the price: fifteen dollars. Remarkably, the draw sheets were free. Susan Carol picked one up and said, “Let’s go sit at a table in the food court. It’s not very busy right now.”