Vanishing Act

by John Feinstein

  “The U.N. Plaza? What’s that?” Stevie asked.

  “It’s the hotel where most of the players stay. Very posh. All the agents have suites where they hold meetings, have refreshments for players who want to hang out, things like that. Usually everyone’s around in the morning. I’ll call Ross to make sure you guys can get around the hotel unhassled.”

  “If Ross is an agent, why is he your friend?” Stevie asked. “You don’t like agents.”

  Kelleher shrugged. “It’s sort of like having a pet. Even if you don’t like dogs, you like your dog. Tom’s my agent.”

  Mearns laughed. “You always forget that cuts both ways,” she said. “I’m sure Tom sees you as his reporter.”

  “Probably true,” Kelleher said. “I’ll call him first thing in the morning. He’s always up early. Unless you guys hear different from me, take a cab to the hotel and I’ll have Tom meet you in the lobby at eight-thirty.”

  “When do you think I should talk to my uncle?” Susan Carol said.

  “First chance you get,” Kelleher said.

  “Bobby, there’s one thing you need to understand,” Susan Carol said, looking as serious as Stevie had ever seen her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Uncle Brendan is my agent.”

  Kelleher nodded. “Understood. But let’s find out if he’s Elena Makarova’s agent too.”

  9: SURPRISE VISITORS

  BRENDAN GIBSON wasn’t home when Kelleher dropped Stevie and Susan Carol off in front of 52 Riverside Drive, but Susan Carol had the code to get into the building and a key to the apartment. There was a note in the kitchen that said simply: “Home late. See you in the morning.”

  Susan Carol had been very quiet on the car ride home, and Stevie wasn’t sure how or if he should bring up the subject of her uncle possibly being involved in Nadia Symanova’s disappearance. He decided to try and use the old reporting tactic of asking soft questions first to see if they might set up the harder questions. Dick Jerardi, who had become a mentor to him back home, always told him to save the toughest questions for last.

  “So how close are you to your uncle?” he asked casually as they sat at the kitchen table munching on some pretzels and chips that she had found in one of the cabinets.

  “Don’t you play reporter’s tricks with me, Stevie Thomas,” she said, her eyes flashing anger again. “I know exactly where you’re going with this.”

  That figured, he thought. Trying to outsmart her was a waste of time. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I can understand why you’d feel this way, but…”

  “No buts, Stevie,” she said. “My uncle isn’t a kidnapper.”

  “Can I ask one question?” he said.

  “Maybe,” she answered.

  “Three years ago, if someone had said your uncle would become an agent, would you have believed it possible?”

  She stared at him for a few seconds, then stood up from the table. It looked like she was going to say something. Then her eyes welled up with tears. “You know, it really doesn’t bother me that Bobby and Tamara might think Uncle Brendan could be involved in this,” she said. “They’ve never met him and they’ve had years to build up their distrust of agents. But you? Not only have you met him, not only are you staying in his apartment, but how could you so doubt me?”

  He started to answer but she was gone, stalking past him while he was trying to swallow a pretzel. He heard the door to her bedroom slam. Then the door opened again and she was back. “To answer your question, no, I wouldn’t have thought he would become an agent. But I also wouldn’t assume it was a dishonorable thing to do.”

  She turned and stalked out again. The door slammed one more time.

  “Okay, then,” he said to the empty kitchen. “I think that went well.”

  He got up to go to bed, walking past the entryway to the apartment, when he heard voices in the hallway. He paused for a second and then heard a key being put into the door. Instinctively, he ran for cover, perhaps because he didn’t want to explain why he was still up and Susan Carol wasn’t. He went into the hall and stood listening, figuring he would run into his bedroom if anyone came in his direction. He wondered if Susan Carol would come out of her room, hearing the voices, but he thought he heard a shower coming from there. He heard Brendan Gibson’s voice as the door was closing. “This is a lot better than the hotel,” he was saying. “Much more private.”

  “What about your niece and her friend?” a man’s voice said in response. The voice was heavily accented. Stevie thought he might be imagining things, but it sounded Russian.

  “I’m sure they’re asleep,” Gibson answered. “They had a long day, especially with the kidnapping.”

  “Us too,” said a female voice, also accented. “People were everywhere. All the questions and rumors. Such craziness.”

  “I know,” Gibson said. “Why don’t we sit in the living room? What can I get you two to drink?”

  “You have Stolichnaya?” the man’s voice said.

  “As it happens, I do,” Gibson said. “My favorite vodka. Mrs. Makarova?”

  Stevie almost shouted, What? Or, more appropriately, he thought, clapping a hand over his mouth, Who?

  “Yes, please, me also,” he heard Mrs. Makarova say.

  He slunk back against the wall as the man and the woman crossed the foyer and went into the living room. He could hear Gibson rustling around in the kitchen. He was tempted to knock on Susan Carol’s door so she could hear what was going on, but he was afraid any noise at all might alert Gibson. When he heard Gibson saying something as he walked—Stevie assumed—into the living room, he crept forward as far as he dared. There was no door, just an entryway, and the acoustics of the apartment were such that he could hear pretty clearly from his hiding spot. He even heard glasses clinking.

  “To a new relationship,” Gibson said.

  Bud Collins’s information had been accurate. Of course, that didn’t mean Gibson or the Makarovs had anything to do with Symanova’s disappearance. He kept listening.

  Mr. Makarov was talking now. One thing Stevie had learned during the day was that Russian women’s names all ended in-ova but the men didn’t add the-a. “As we told you, Brendan, we have done—work at home—on you?”

  “Homework, I think you mean,” Gibson said. “Which is good—you should do that before making a decision as big as this.”

  “The people at SMG are not happy with us at all,” Mr. Makarov said. “Mr. Norwood was very unpleasant today.”

  “I would think Mr. Norwood had other things on his mind today,” Gibson said.

  Stevie leaned forward a little more, not wanting to miss a word at this stage of the conversation.

  “Yes, you would think so, no? I was very surprised. I have seen him soon after the girl disappears and he starts shouting at me that I am a terrible man and my daughter will pay for this.”

  “Maybe he said this because what happened upset him,” Mrs. Makarova said.

  “Don’t worry about him, he’s just flailing,” Gibson answered.

  “What is this ‘flailing’?” Mrs. Makarova said.

  “Swinging wildly when you don’t know what to do,” Gibson said. “When Elena wins this tournament, which she’s going to, he’ll really be flailing.”

  “I wish she would get to play Symanova in quarters,” Mr. Makarov said. “Then people would see she is much better player. I hope she is found soon.”

  At that moment Stevie felt a cough coming on. He tried to stop it, but before he could get his hand over his mouth the cough came out. The voices in the other room stopped. For an instant, Stevie thought about sprinting to his bedroom. That wouldn’t work. Clearly, he’d been heard. As he saw Brendan Gibson bolting through the entryway into the foyer, he took a long step into the foyer himself, angling toward the kitchen.

  “Stevie,” Gibson said, looking unnerved. “I didn’t think you guys were up. What’s going on?”

  “Got a cough,” Stevie said. “I was going to see if
there was any Coke in the refrigerator. It helps when I have a scratchy throat.”

  “Um, I’m sure we do,” Gibson said, half pulling him in the direction of the kitchen, clearly not wanting him in the living room.

  “You have guests?” Stevie asked. “I heard voices.”

  “Oh yeah. Friends. Old friends. They were at the matches tonight, so I brought them back here for a drink. They live right nearby. They’ll be leaving very soon.”

  He pulled a can of Coke from the refrigerator. “You need a glass?”

  Stevie was tempted to stall to see if one of the Makarovs would come into the kitchen. But even if they did, Brendan Gibson could just introduce them by another name and they would be smart enough, he figured, to say nothing.

  “No, this is fine. Thanks.”

  Gibson walked him back into the foyer and down the hall to his room as if to make sure he didn’t accidentally veer into the living room. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

  “Get some sleep. Susan Carol’s got a head start on you.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Stevie said. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Stevie,” Gibson said, then headed back down the hallway.

  Stevie stood by the door for a moment and tried to listen. He heard footsteps again. It sounded like the little party was breaking up. He quickly stepped into his room and sat on the edge of the bed. He realized his heart was pounding. He wanted to rush in and tell Susan Carol what he had just heard but he figured that was a bad idea. Gibson might hear them talking and know something was up. Plus, he could see it was almost midnight. It had been a long day. Based on what he had just heard, tomorrow might be even longer.

  He fell asleep a lot faster than he thought he might, so exhausted that even trying to piece together the conversation between Gibson and the Makarovs didn’t keep him awake. The next thing he knew there was a soft knocking on his door. He glanced at the clock next to the bed: it was a quarter to eight.

  “Stevie,” he heard Susan Carol say. “You need to wake up. We have to leave here by eight-fifteen.”

  “I’m up,” he called back groggily. “I’ll be in the kitchen in fifteen minutes.”

  He got up, took a fast shower, and got dressed. Susan Carol was sitting in the kitchen drinking from a coffee mug when he walked in.

  “Still drinking coffee?” he said, remembering she’d given him some in New Orleans.

  “Only when there isn’t a grown-up around.”

  “Where’s your uncle?”

  “Left ten minutes ago. But I talked to him about Makarova and he laughed when I told him that one of the rumors going around last night was that he was going to represent her.”

  “Laughed?” Stevie was too stunned to object.

  “He said everyone’s trying to represent Makarova and he made a pitch to them like everyone else. Then he asked me why Makarova changing agents would come up in conversation.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “The truth—that SMG seemed to be a little too eager to spread the idea that the SVR did this and we were wondering who might benefit if Symanova was out of the tournament.”

  “What did he think about that?”

  “I think the word he used, once he stopped laughing, was ‘absurd.’ He said Makarova was a better player than Symanova and he had heard that she’s dying to play her because she’s tired of Symanova getting all the deals and the publicity because of her looks.”

  “Wonder where he heard that.”

  Susan Carol gave him a look. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. I just wonder where he heard it.”

  “Anywhere. Everywhere. It’s all over. We made the same assumption, didn’t we?”

  While he was trying to decide how to tell her what he’d overheard, she said, “God, I’m so relieved. I feel so much better knowing the whole Makarova thing was just another wild rumor. I mean, I knew my uncle wasn’t involved in anything bad, but now there’s no reason to even think about it.”

  “Quick bowl of cereal and we’re out of here,” he said, deciding this wasn’t the time to tell her that her uncle was a flat-out liar.

  She tossed a newspaper in his direction as he sat down. Much to his surprise, he saw that it was the Washington Herald. There was a headline on the front page, just underneath a story about Congress and the president battling over the budget, that said VANISHED. Underneath was a photo of Nadia Symanova.

  “Your story is on page three of the sports section,” she said. “Uncle Brendan made arrangements to have it delivered here all week so you could see your stuff. I guess that’s more proof of what a bad guy he is.”

  “I never said he was a bad guy,” he said, more defensively than was probably necessary. He knew if he told her now she probably wouldn’t even believe him.

  “Is there anything new on Symanova this morning?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I was listening to the radio when I woke up. Everyone is reporting that it’s the SVR. The Russian government is expressing outrage that anyone would think they had anything to do with it. Apparently Larry King did his whole show on it last night. The guy I was listening to on the radio said that King referred to the Lindbergh kidnapping as the most famous kidnapping in history—before yesterday.”

  “So people are being calm and rational about it, huh?”

  She gave him a no-kidding look. He opened the sports section and there it was. The headline read RUBIN PULLS FIRST UPSET OF TOURNAMENT

  . The byline underneath it said, “by Steven Thomas—Special to the Herald.” It gave him chills to see his name in print that way. He was about to start reading when Susan Carol stood up.

  “Sorry, Ace, you’ll have to read yourself later. We’ve got to get going.”

  She bounced out of the kitchen, clearly pumped to go and find out what had happened to Symanova—now that she knew her uncle was in the clear.

  10: WILD-GOOSE CHASE

  JUST AS they had done the day before, they walked to West End Avenue, where Susan Carol whistled down a cab. They pulled into the small circular driveway of the U.N. Plaza Hotel at precisely eight-thirty and found Tom Ross standing right behind the doorman who opened the cab door for them. “I figured I’d meet you guys out here,” he said. “The security is so tight around here, they won’t even let you in the lobby without a key.”

  He was already dressed in his agent’s uniform and tightening his tie every few seconds, which Stevie had now decided was a nervous tic. He led them through the revolving doors and then explained to the security man inside the door that the two teenagers were, in fact, with him. “Just visiting for a little while,” he said, as if the security man actually cared.

  “You guys had breakfast?” he asked. “I’ll buy you breakfast if you want.”

  “We’re fine,” Susan Carol said. “We just need some idea of how to get to the agents’ suites.”

  Ross was nodding and shaking his head all at once. “Okay, okay, I told Bobby I could help you with that. But there’s a limit to how much I can help you. I can get you guys upstairs to the floor where all the suites are, but once you’re up there, you’re on your own. I can’t exactly go waltzing into another agency’s suite.”

  “That’s all right,” Susan Carol said. “We have a plan.”

  “We do?” Stevie said. She hadn’t said a word to him in the cab, so this was news to him.

  “You mind if I ask what it is?” Ross said. “Because you can’t just wander in with those computer bags slung over your shoulders.”

  “We’ll ditch the bags in your suite,” Susan Carol said. “And then we’ll pose as junior players. They hold a tournament here next week for the juniors, right? We’ll just say we came in early to watch the first week and we wanted to learn more about agents for down the line.”

  Ross was shaking his head before she had finished. “Won’t work,” he said. “Bobby said you guys are fourteen, right?”

  “Almost fourteen,” Stevie said.

 
“Okay. The point is this: there’s no way a top junior is unknown to the agencies by the time he or she is thirteen—especially the girls. You go in there claiming you’re junior players, they’ll ask your names, look you up, and know you’re phonies.”

  “What if we just give them the names of real junior players?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Won’t work. Chances are good someone in every one of those suites will have seen those kids play. You need a better idea.”

  Susan Carol put her hands on her hips and for a minute Stevie thought she was going to get angry with Ross. They were standing near the elevator bank now, people whizzing by them, some of them carrying racquet bags. Most of those who appeared to be players, Stevie noticed, were wearing headphones to shut out the world around them.

  “What about this?” Susan Carol said. “We can be someone’s relatives.”

  “Like who?” Ross said. “It would have to be someone they don’t represent because they’d know about brothers and sisters of their clients.”

  “How about Evelyn Rubin?” Susan Carol said. “My uncle is her agent. They won’t know much about her.”

  Ross looked surprised. “Gibson is your uncle? Kelleher didn’t tell me that. Wow. Is it true he’s got the Makarovs wrapped up?”

  Susan Carol’s eyes flashed again. “No, it’s not true.”

  “Okay, fine, just a rumor,” Ross said, hands up in defense. “Being Evelyn’s brother and sister could work. She’s not a big name yet but everyone in the business knows she has potential. That’s worth a shot. Tell them you’re looking for Pete Lawler. He’s their lead recruiter for up-and-coming girls. He’ll know who Evelyn is. They’ll be nice to relatives of hers for sure.”

  “Why would they want to be nice?” Stevie said. “Doesn’t she have a contract with Susan Carol’s uncle? Why do we tell them we’re hanging out in SMG’s suite?”

  “Because Gibson doesn’t have a suite,” Ross said. “Look, contracts mean nothing in the agent business. There’s almost always a way out. Trust me, I’ve been on both sides. Even if there’s not, no one ever has a contract for more than three or four years. At some point, she’ll be on the market again, and if she keeps getting better, everyone will be after her. She’s got what we call ‘upside,’ because if she becomes a good player, she can make a lot of money off the court.