Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics (27 page)

“Well, how does it feel being an Olympic medalist?” Stevie asked as soon as he’d given her a huge hug.

Susan Carol laughed, clearly still giddy and excited and glowing. “Isn’t it crazy?! I can hardly believe it. I wonder when it will sink in.”

“Okay, let’s order and then you can give me the blow by blow,” Stevie said.

The race itself had taken less than a minute, but the retelling of it took them through most of lunch. Susan Carol was about to get choked up again, talking about being on the podium and seeing the flag raised, so she turned the conversation back to Stevie.

“Okay, now your turn. You weren’t in the interview room, so I know you must be on the trail of something.”

He filled her in on his conversation with Bill Arnold and Bobby Maurice and all of their speculations on what it could mean.

Susan Carol didn’t say anything for a few seconds when Stevie finished.

“Well, what do you think?” he said finally.

“I just don’t know,” she said. “Look, J.P. is slimy and Bill Arnold’s mean and slimy. And I’m sure they’d drop me and represent Svetlana in a heartbeat if she wins gold. But I’m not sure how far they’d go to
make
that happen.

“Besides, J.P. has been hanging on to my father like a life raft since they got here. He knows I’m pretty much off-limits as long as I’m still swimming.”

“Hanging out with your father doesn’t mean he
isn’t
up to something. Maybe that’s why it was Arnold we saw with Krylova and with Maurice instead of J.P. And what about our boy Bobby Mo?” Stevie asked. “Don’t tell me
he’s
not capable of some kind of dirty trick.”

“Oh, he’s absolutely capable of it—or at least of wanting to do it,” Susan Carol said. “I just don’t see
how
.”

Before Stevie could open his mouth, she jumped back in. “And don’t even say it, because Elizabeth is about as likely to go for a bribe as I am.”

“You mean zero chance.”

“Uh-huh. Look, maybe we’re not finding anything because there’s nothing there,” Susan Carol said. “I mean, yes, they want Krylova or me to win. But if we don’t, then they can move on to other swimmers or other athletes. It’s not like we’re the only athletes here.”

“Yeah, but you are the most beautiful. And new and not yet committed to a lot of other contracts. You’re more unique than you think.”

Susan Carol gave him The Smile. “What were you saying about beautiful?”

They went for a walk after lunch. It turned out they weren’t far from Harrods, so they went in to see what the fuss was about over a department store. A glance at the giant store map explained—it was seven stories of … everything. Stevie’s favorite was the food halls, and Susan Carol couldn’t get over that you could order a saddle. After poking around and gawking like the tourists they were, they bought mugs
with the Harrods logo and Susan Carol bought a small model of the store.

Stevie had just suggested going back to the Gloucester for afternoon tea—he had learned it was served from three to five in the lobby every afternoon and thought it would be a London-y thing to do—when his cell phone buzzed, telling him he had a text.

“Probably Bobby,” he said, reaching in his pocket. “Wanting to know if I’ve done anything today.”

“Tell him you’ve been getting reacquainted with your girlfriend,” she said, linking her arm through his. He blushed, wished he hadn’t, and pulled his phone out. The text wasn’t from Kelleher. It was from Chip Graber.

It said:
Playing France at 4. Meet in mxd zone after? Important
.

Stevie looked at his watch. It was 3:30 already. He really would have preferred to continue getting reacquainted with his girlfriend.

“What is it?” Susan Carol asked.

He handed her the phone.

“Interesting,” she said.

“But what about getting reacquainted?”

“We’ll always have Harrods.” She leaned down and gave him a kiss that made him feel much better—and also a bit worse that he had to go.

“My last important race is Wednesday,” she said. “After that, all I have left is the prelims of the medley relay, which you could swim and we’d be fine. I’ll have lots of time.”

Since Elizabeth had the best time in the 100 fly, she would swim the fly leg on the medley relay in the finals on Friday. Susan Carol, with the second-best time, would swim in the qualifying prelims in the morning. Technically, if the US won, she would be a gold medalist—she wouldn’t be on the podium, but she
would
receive a gold medal—but winning gold that way wasn’t what J. P. Scott and company had in mind.

He sighed. “Okay. But if this
isn’t
really important, I’m going to kill Chip.”

They took the subway back to Olympic Park together. From there, Susan Carol headed to the athletes’ village while Stevie went to the basketball arena.

He found the media entrance and made his way upstairs to the media section. He was used to sitting courtside for basketball games, so sitting fifteen rows up in the stands felt odd to him. Even odder, he thought, was that the building wasn’t full even though it only seated about 12,000 people—considerably less than the Aquatic Centre. Apparently any Dream Team mania involving the US team was long gone.

The game was already more than half over by the time Stevie arrived. Looking around, he saw his old friend Dick Weiss from the
New York Daily News
, watching the game avidly. That was why Weiss was called “Hoops.” If someone was playing basketball, Hoops was probably going to be there to watch.

“Stevie!” Hoops said as he sat down next to him. “I
heard you were here, but I thought you were spending all your time at the swimming center with Susan Carol.”

“She’s off today,” Stevie said. “Heats and semis of the 200 fly are tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you were vurry, vurry proud of her getting that silver medal last night,” Hoops said, his Philadelphia accent still unmistakable. “Though it’s got to be tough to come so close to gold and not get it.”

“She was thrilled,” Stevie said.

“Good. So what brings you over to our little corner of the world?”

“Just wanted to see Chip.”

“Of course. You guys are still pals. Well, he’s playing vurry, vurry well. I told Mike he’s going to have to play big minutes when they get to the medal rounds.”

“I’m sure Coach K was grateful for the advice,” Stevie said with a smile.

“He should be, shouldn’t he?” Hoops said.

The US played everyone in uniform in the second half, easing to a 97–69 win. When the game was over, Stevie followed Hoops downstairs. He was heading for the interview room but pointed out the mixed zone to Stevie.

“You aren’t going to see too many of the American players there,” Hoops said. “The ones who don’t come in with Krzyzewski tend to dress and bolt.”

“Only need one,” Stevie said, heading down the hallway.

Most of the journalists waiting in the mixed zone were French, hoping to talk to their players about their chances
of getting through preliminary play to the round of sixteen. A few Americans were there too, hoping someone from the US team would come through.

Stevie stood to the side and waited. A few minutes later, Chip appeared, the only American player in sight. A stampede ensued. Stevie stood back, not wanting to get hit in the head by a swinging camera. When the crowd began to dissipate, he moved a little closer so that Chip could see he was there. When Chip spotted him, he nodded and then kept talking. Finally, the last questioner, someone from the
New York Times
who was doing a story on the women’s team and wanted to know if Chip had watched them play, asked his last question and left.

“Glad you could make it,” Chip said, shaking hands.

He was not his usual playful self. Stevie could tell right away that something was up.

“Of course,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Walk over here,” Chip said, pointing to the far corner of the “zone,” where they would be out of earshot of the French players and the media members who were still talking to them.

Before Chip could say anything, another camera crew approached. Chip waved them off. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m done. I’m just talking to my friend here. Okay? Maybe tomorrow.”

The guy with the microphone—an ESPN microphone, Stevie noticed—gave Chip a big TV smile. “Chip, you’re the only American who came out here. I need one non-interview-room quote. Come on. It’s ESPN.”

Chip sighed. “Okay. But please make it quick.”

The guy waved at his camera guy, who turned on a bright light. Stevie was starting to move when the camera guy said, “Hey, kid, get out of the shot.”

Before he could say anything, Chip jumped in. “Hey, you guys interrupted a conversation I was having with this
kid
. You should be thanking him for waiting, not yelling at him.”

The guy with the microphone just smiled and launched into a question about what it was like to play alongside Kobe and LeBron and Dwyane.
Exciting stuff
, Stevie thought.
Chip’s never been asked
that
before
. He tuned the rest out for the most part. But he thought Chip looked really uptight considering they had just won.

At last the ESPN guys left and they found some out-of-the-way space to talk.

“So what’s up?” Stevie asked.

“Plenty,” Chip said. “Bobby Maurice called me last night and said we needed to talk. I was out at a team dinner but said I’d meet him at the hotel when we got back. I couldn’t imagine what it was about. My contract’s up right now and we’ve agreed to renegotiate once the Olympics are over, so it wasn’t that.”

“So what was it?”

“Hang on, I’m getting to it. So, I meet him at the bar. He asks me if I want a drink and I remind him I don’t drink during the season and I sure as hell don’t drink in the middle of the Olympics. He’s doing the ‘has your old pal Bobby Mo taken good care of you?’ bit that he’s been doing since I was in college.”

“I remember that from New Orleans.”

“Right. So finally he tells me that Brickley has put him in charge of ‘worldwide acquisitions.’ I figure he’s going to tell me I have to deal with a new rep for my NBA deal, which I’d be all broken up about, of course. But he says no, that’s not it. So I say, ‘Well, what
is
it? It’s late!’

“And he says, ‘You’re real tight with those two kids, the girl swimmer and her boyfriend, right?’ I said what about it? and he says, ‘If Anderson wins the 200-fly Wednesday night, I have
got
to sign her. And if she finishes second to the Russian girl, I have to sign them both. I need the two of them. They’re
my
Dream Team.’

“So I ask what this has to do with me, exactly, and he says, ‘I want you to convince Anderson she should be with Brickley. We’ve done right by you, haven’t we? And we’d do right by her too. But she’s got this matching clause in a lowball contract from Speedo. Now if she only gets silver, I’m good because Speedo won’t match what I’m prepared to offer for a silver medalist. But if she wins gold, it gets tougher, see. ’Cause I
have
to have her then and Speedo’s gonna be ready to pay too. But how much is what I need to know—just how high is too high for them.’

“So it finally dawns on me that what he really wants is for me to find out from Susan Carol how much Speedo will put on the table if she wins.”

“What’d you tell him?” Stevie asked, amazed by the story.

“I told him there was no way I was going to do something like that. I’m not an agent and I’m not a spy. He
literally grabbed my arm and said, ‘Look, I
promise
you I’ll get you a million-dollar bonus for each year on your new contract if you get this done for me.”

“And?”

Chip actually smiled. “Well, I knew I was going to say no even though he was offering me an extra five million bucks,” he said. “But rather than just tell him he was nuts, I decided to put on my Stevie Thomas/Susan Carol Anderson reporting hat.”

“What do you mean?”

“I decided to pump him for more information first! I said, ‘What if neither one of them wins the gold medal? What if the Chinese girl wins?’ He waved and said, ‘No way. She’s done. She was a product of the rocket suit.’ I didn’t really know what that meant, so I just said, ‘Okay, but what about the other American girl—the one who won the 100?’ ”

“And?” Stevie could barely stand it.

Chip looked him right in the eye. “He said, ‘That’s already been taken care of.’ ”

“That’s already been taken care of?”

“Yup.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I texted you. Something’s going on here.”

“Did you ask him what he meant?”

Chip shook his head. “No. Probably should have, but I didn’t think he’d tell me anything more. So I told him I didn’t want to be a part of ‘taking care of’ things like this no matter what kind of bogus bonus he was offering, and left.”

C
hip gave Stevie a hug before he said goodbye and said quietly: “Look, I know you guys know how to take care of yourselves, but please be careful. If Bobby Mo is throwing around money on this scale, there’s
a lot
at stake.”

Stevie nodded as Chip was being dragged away by a USA Basketball official who said he had to get on the bus right now. “Let me know what’s going on” were his parting words.

Stevie walked back to the media center and called Kelleher on the way. He and Tamara were both there writing. Stevie told Bobby they needed to talk right away.

“Don’t tell me you went to lunch with Susan Carol and got into trouble,” Bobby said.

“At lunch, no, but trouble, yes,” Stevie said.

When they were in their now-familiar haunt, the media dining area, Stevie filled them in.

“The question is,” Kelleher said, “do we tell Susan Carol and Elizabeth?”

“They’ve both got to swim the 200 fly twice tomorrow and then the final on Wednesday,” Tamara said. “The last thing they need is having some kind of unspoken threat on their minds.”

“But maybe they need to know,” Bobby said. “Maybe they should have extra protection at this point.”

“From what?” Stevie asked. “What can Bobby Mo do? Security is much tighter now that the Games have started. Is he going to send someone to do a Tanya Harding on Elizabeth’s kneecaps?”