“When we meet or when I phone you — and that won’t be often, you’ll know me as Michael Anthony.” The man laughed. “It’s a name I’m using just for fun, because Michael Anthony was a character on an old TV show. He worked for a very rich man who gave people checks for a million dollars. Anthony was the messenger, and he was never allowed to tell anyone who was sending the money.”
“Uh — huh,” Pete said.
“I’m working for someone, too, Pete, and I’m never going to tell you who, and you don’t ask, right?”
“Uh — huh,” Pete said again.
“Good.” Michael Anthony took out a pack of gum. “I quit smoking,” he said. “Want a stick?”
Pete shook his head no — then yes. Maybe he could get the guy’s fingerprint. Probably Jupe wouldn’t have thought of that.
No luck. Michael Anthony held out the pack for Pete to take his own stick.
“This someone is willing to pay you a lot of money to play basketball for Shoremont. You’re the kind of player Shoremont really needs. We know you’re interested because you’ve already accepted our first two payments. Well, to tell you the truth, four thousand dollars is chicken feed.” Pete gulped and almost swallowed his gum. “But you’ll never know how much your next payment will be. That’s one of my employer’s rules. But I’ll tell you this: the better you play, the bigger the payoffs.”
“And that’s it? I just play basketball?” Pete said.
“The rules are simple.” Anthony raised a finger for each one as he listed them. “You play like a star — that’s first. You keep your grades up. We can’t always help you in that department. But sometimes we’ll tell you what courses to take. You never discuss our arrangements with a living soul — not your family, not your friends, not anyone else on the team. And you never try to find out who I am or who is sending you the money. What do you say?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Pete said, following Jupe’s instructions. Jupe had said to drag it out as long as possible. But Pete could tell Michael Anthony was getting impatient.
“Pete, you’ve had enough time to think about it,” said Anthony, increasing the firmness in his still-calm voice. “Well, think about this: Every kid who plays college ball hopes he gets into the NBA. That’s the only big money chance a basketball player has. And you know how many of the thousands and thousands of college players get into the NBA each year?”
“A hundred?” Pete guessed. “Fifty. Not much of a chance to make the big bucks, is it? If you’re smart, you’ll make your college career pay off. And I’ve got a hunch you’re smart, Pete. Now, I’ve got a basketball team to recruit. Are you on the team or not?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Pete said. “Can I let you know for sure in a few days?”
Michael Anthony chewed his gum for a minute. “It’s a big step, an important decision.” He put his arm around Pete’s shoulder and turned Pete away from the ocean, until they were facing the cars in the parking lot again. “See the Porsche?”
“The Targa?”
“Yes. It’s not brand new.”
“I know. It’s an ’86, right?”
“Right. Pete, here are the keys.”
Pete looked down. The sun flashed on silver keys lying in Michael Anthony’s palm.
“What do you mean?” asked Pete, his heart shifting into a higher gear.
“The car’s yours, as a loan right now. But it could be yours to keep, and I think you know what I need to hear for that to happen, Pete,” said Michael Anthony, shaking Pete’s hand again, “I’ll call you tomorrow for your answer. Have fun.”
“He’s walking away, Jupe,” Pete announced softly. “Slow. No hurry. Like he’s got nothing in the world to worry about. He’s getting into a new T-Bird. I can’t see the license. I’m going over to the Porsche. No, I forgot. I’m coming to untie the trunk.”
After Michael Anthony drove off, Pete rushed over to the Ark and let Jupe out of the trunk. “I heard every word,” Jupe said. He took some deep breaths of the ocean air.
“Jupe, come on,” Pete said, rushing over to the blue sports car. “Come on. Do you believe this car? Do you have any idea what this is?”
“Of course. An expensive bribe.”
“Okay, you can say that now, but wait till you ride in it!” Pete said, opening the driver’s side door and looking in. “Oh, Jupe. Oh, Jupe. Come on. Get in. Let’s go for a ride!”
“Pete, are you nuts?” Jupe said. “He’s getting away. We’ve got to follow him!”
“Follow him?” Pete asked. Jupe’s words weren’t making any sense.
“Michael Anthony,” Jupe said. “We’ve got to find out where he’s going.”
“Oh, right, sure, no problem, great, okay, get in,” Pete said. Now there really was a reason to drive this beautiful car. “No, wait!”
“Wait? But he’s getting away!” Jupe said, running to the passenger side.
Pete ran back to the Ark and grabbed his sunglasses and driving gloves. “Okay, let’s go,” he said. He started the 247-horsepower engine with a roar.
“What about the Ark?” Jupe said.
“Let it rust!” Pete yelled.
“He’s getting away!” Jupe cried. “Drive!”
“Hold on,” Pete said, staring at the car’s instrumentation. “I’m figuring out where everything is.”
Jupe pointed in broad gestures and sounded like a kindergarten teacher. “This is the steering wheel. That’s the gearshift, and down there is the gas pedal. I suggest you use them!”
Pete ignored him as he tried out every button and switch on the dashboard. “Jupe, do you know why lots of people wrap their new Porsches around a tree the first day they get it? They think driving this car is like driving any other car.”
Jupe shook his head sadly. “Now I know why police departments never buy Porsches. If they did, they’d never go anywhere and never solve a case — exactly the predicament we’re in.”
Suddenly the car lurched forward with such force that Jupe felt welded to the leather seat. Tires spun, spitting gravel at first and then digging in and launching the car like a rocket out onto the Pacific Coast Highway.
“Wow!” Pete said, steering and shifting gears in quick, precise movements. “I just barely stepped on the accelerator.”
The blue Porsche buzzed down the curving road and kept accelerating as Pete wound out each gear. Jupe watched the traffic ahead. One second a car was in front of them. A blink later it was behind.
“I wanted you to catch up with Michael Anthony — not beat him to wherever he’s going!” Jupe said.
“What?” asked Pete. He was in another world.
“What color is his car?” Jupe asked.
“Oh. Black Thunderbird. Brand new,” Pete said, bringing the Porsche safely down to the speed limit.
Jupe leaned forward and checked the glove compartment, the ashtray, and the map pocket on the door. “There’s no registration,” he reported. “Not a scrap of evidence that anyone owns this car or has even driven it before. We’ll have to run a check on the license plate. Maybe that will tell us who Mr. Anthony really is — or who he works for. Although something tells me that name probably has been well camouflaged.”
“There he is up ahead,” Pete said.
“Stay far back,” Jupe warned when he spotted the black car. “We don’t want him to know we’re following him.”
“Yeah, no prob,” said Pete. “I just hope he drives around forever. Is this car heaven or what?”
For a moment Jupe let himself sink into the firm padded seat and imagine the faces of all his Rocky Beach friends as he and Pete drive by. He could just see their looks of disbelief and envy.
“Hey — he’s turning,” Pete said, snapping Jupe back into the chase. “Right into Oceanside Country Club.”
“Well, this is interesting,” Jupe said. “The most exclusive country club in the area.”
“Jupe,” Pete said, braking at the start of the long, winding driveway that led to the country club, “what do we do now? They’ll throw us out.”
“Let him get ahead. Then we’ll drive up and ask who was in the black Thunderbird, turn around, and leave,” Jupe said confidently.
Pete pulled up to a valet parking stand in the shadow of an enormous white painted brick mansion, the clubhouse. Beyond the building lay acres of trees and grass with tennis courts, swimming pools, and an 18-hole golf course.
Pete stopped the car and lowered his window to ask one of the parking attendants about the black Thunderbird.
But the young man quickly opened the door for Pete. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said.
Pete turned to Jupe with a look of surprise.
“Can you tell us,” asked Jupe, “who was in the black Thunderbird that just pulled in?”
“Sorry,” the guy said. “I just started working today. I don’t know who anyone is.”
“Well,” Jupe said, suddenly sounding as if he had belonged to the club for years, “he looked just like an old friend of my father’s. We’re going to go say hello.”
“Sure,” said the car attendant, handing a parking claim check to Pete. “Great car.”
“Thanks,” said Pete. “Want to see the engine?”
“Save it, Pete,” said Jupe, leading the way up to the clubhouse.
Inside, Jupe and Pete stepped into a large lobby filled with comfortable chairs and couches, fragrant flowers, and soft music.
Slowly they wandered across the soft Oriental carpeting toward the dining room, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. It was a huge glass-enclosed patio filled with round dark wooden tables and straight-backed wooden chairs with colorful seat cushions.
Jupe and Pete stopped in the doorway.
“See him?” asked Jupe.
“Yeah,” Pete said, stepping back out of the line of sight. But he gave a quick nod in the direction of a small table near one window.
Michael Anthony was having lunch with a beautiful young woman. She wore a bright green dress that made her suntanned skin and reddish-brown hair stand out in the room even more.
“Maybe she’s the one he’s working for,” Pete said.
But then Michael Anthony reached across the table to hold the woman’s hand. “It doesn’t look like a business partnership to me,” Jupe said. “Still, I wonder if she has a direct connection to this case.”
“Hey,” Pete said, poking Jupe, “someone’s coming this way, definite manager type.”
“Probably the maitre’d” Jupe corrected.
“I don’t care if he’s the welcome-wagon lady. He doesn’t look happy to see us. What do we do?”
Jupe sighed. “I wish we could stay for lunch. The shrimp scampi looks delicious.”
Pete and Jupe went back to wait in the Porsche for Michael Anthony. Jupe kept an eye on the steps to the clubhouse, while Pete set the radio presets and adjusted the graphic equalizer.
“Six speakers,” he said, trying to impress Jupe.
“Five more than the House of Representatives,” said Jupe, not very impressed. “Try to find where to put the key. Here comes our man.”
Michael Anthony walked down from the clubhouse still holding hands with the young woman. But they got into separate cars.
“Follow her?” asked Pete.
“Follow him,” said Jupe.
They drove south past Rocky Beach, past Santa Monica and El Porto Beach. Then Anthony got off the main roads and took several smaller ones that ended at a stone wall with an iron arch. The large brass plaque on the stone wall said Costa Verde college.
Jupe’s mind spun with ideas. It was as if after days of wandering around without water, he had suddenly come upon an ocean.
“Costa Verde — Shoremont’s number-one rival!”
Jupe said, thinking out loud as Pete slowly followed the black car up ahead. “Here’s an interesting possibility: Michael Anthony is working for Costa Verde College — maybe for Coach Bernie Mehl. Knowing that Duggan’s reputation is already suspect, they’re paying off Shoremont players to start a scandal.”
“That’s what Coach Duggan thinks. He practically said so in a TV interview after the game last night,” Pete said.
“Really?” Jupe said. “I didn’t see it. What did he say exactly?”
“He said something like ‘Bernie Mehl’s trying to start a scandal and ruin me.’ ”
“Hmmm.” Jupe was silent for a moment. “Perhaps the bribery scheme is bigger than just one school. Michael Anthony may be the messenger at a number of schools.”
Pete’s face fell.
“These are just possibilities, Pete.”
“Yeah, but if it’s
“Come on,” Jupe said as Pete pulled into a parking place. “This is a start.”
They had to follow Anthony on foot now. He seemed to know exactly where he was heading as he strode along the sidewalks of the small college. Pete and Jupe jogged behind, trying to keep him in sight and dodge the students walking by.
“Hey, you fat, featherbrained weasel!”
The voice was so angry that Jupe stopped in surprise to see what was going on. He saw four guys standing under a nearby tree. Instantly he recognized two of them.
“Uh — oh,” said Pete. “Looks like numbers 32 and 52 — the basketball players who roughed you up last night. No sweat. We can handle them again.”
The four Costa Verde jocks dropped their books under the tree and started coming at Jupe.
“Hey, guys. I think Polly here wants a mouthful of broken teeth!”
“Pete,” Jupe said, “I don’t think we can handle four of them. My advice is run!” Jupe took off.
Pete followed, catching up with Jupe quickly. The four jocks were pounding the sidewalk behind them, gaining fast.
“They’re going to pulverize me!” Jupe yelled, puffing as he ran.
“I’ll split off and try to draw some of them away,” Pete called.
Jupe ran as fast as he could, but he didn’t know which way to turn to find the Porsche or the parking lot. So he just bolted toward a large lawn. Almost instantly he developed a pain in his side from running. He looked back and saw that only one of the basketball players had followed Pete. That left three enormous guys breathing down Jupe’s neck.
Jupe reached a street and dashed in front of an oncoming car, then cut through an alley between two classroom buildings. But as he rounded the corner, hoping to duck out of sight, he ran smack into a group of Costa Verde students.
“Kenny! Grab that piece of dog meat!” a voice behind Jupe yelled. Jupe felt hands grabbing at him. It must have been Kenny, a guy in the crowd he had rammed into.
Jupe twisted away, but the collision had slowed him down enough so that now the three jocks were almost even with him. A moment later he felt hands grab him again. It was number 52, wearing a green Costa Verde T-shirt. He held on to Jupe and yanked him around. Then before Jupe knew what was happening, all three jocks were pushing him, punching him, and roughing him up.
Jupe struggled and squirmed, but it was no use. With three monstrous guys holding his arms and legs his judo kicks went nowhere. All of a sudden Jupe felt himself being lifted up and carried away. Where were they taking him? A moment later he found out. His attackers put him down hard, stuffing him into a wire trash basket at the corner of the street.
“That’s where you belong, Polly!” number 52 said, kicking at Jupe inside the basket.
“Yeah—stay in your cage, parrot. And try not to mess up the newspaper in the bottom of it!”
All three guys laughed, then turned around and started to walk away.
Jupe was furious, humiliated, bruised, sore — and sticky from something in the bottom of the trash basket. But before he could decide what to do, Pete pulled up in the Porsche.
“Hop in,” Pete called, lowering the electric window nearest the curb. Slowly Jupe climbed out of the trash basket, got into the Porsche, and locked the door. He sat there silently for a moment, breathing heavily and dripping sweat. Then he noticed that Pete had a cut lip and a swollen eye.
“That fourth guy gave you trouble, I see.”