Just before Dillon turned the corner of the arena, he removed a smaller bag from his backpack, placed it on the ground against the wall and continued on his way.
Ryan started after him, picked up the bag and yelled out, “You dropped your bag!” — just for the purpose of satisfying any potential witnesses. But by that point Dillon had already re-entered the arena.
Ryan unzipped the bag to find a ticket to the game, the press pass, a walkie-talkie and a Bluetooth earpiece. A Bluetooth-enabled walkie-talkie. He had to hand it to Dillon, that was a pretty clever way to make sure there would be no record of their communication with each other. He fit the earpiece in his ear, turned the walkie-talkie on, put the smaller bag inside his backpack and headed into the arena. Amazingly their plan was still right on schedule.
The score was 24-18 Chicago at the end of the first quarter, and the CSKA Moscow execs were getting restless. Scowling with their arms crossed in front of them, they muttered to each other tensely in Russian. J’Quarius Jones had yet to take the floor.
“Ya govoryu po rusky (I speak Russian),” Bradford announced in their direction to try to settle them down with the only Russian he knew, hoping they wouldn’t test him on it.
He bit down on his knuckle as one of the Chicago kids scored again. The longer they continued to lead, the slimmer the chances were that J’Quarius would see any action. “You’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen?” he grinned coldly.
Stopping about halfway up the aisle, he pulled out his phone and fired off a message to Hansford Washington: “GET J’QUARIUS IN THE GAME! NOW! RUSSIANS ARE HERE!” Then he stared intently across the court as he slammed his finger down on the send button to see if his text came across. Hansford’s hand went briefly down to his right front pocket, apparently silencing his phone, but he never diverted his attention from the game.
Bradford was seething, but with no other recourse, he sauntered back down the stairs and joined his restless guests in the stands, reassuring them that J’Quarius would probably see “significant action” in the second half.
“Yes!” he whispered, pumping his fist slightly as the Ohio team scored, cutting the lead back to six.
“Tell me what you know,” Ryan said bluntly, wearing his Bluetooth earpiece. Direct and to the point, the statement couldn’t be construed as condescending, and it highlighted the fact that Dillon had essential information that Ryan not only needed but was unable to get himself. He hoped it would be enough to erase the first-impression fiasco.
“First of all, hi,” Dillon said with a low but cracking voice that was obviously in the process of changing. There was a confidence to his tone that suggested Ryan’s play must have worked. “Do you have something to jot notes on?” he asked.
“I don’t need to take notes,” Ryan said dismissively.
“Listen, you need to know this like the back of your hand. I would suggest you jot some stuff down. If you end up not needing the notes…”
“Look, I — I don’t need to take notes,” Ryan repeated, more self-consciously than boastfully. “You said you’ve seen my file?”
“Oh. Right,” Dillon said, remembering why he’d sought Ryan out in the first place. “So this is what I found. You might already know some of this, but J’Quarius was raised by his grandmother, Verna Jones, who died of cancer. His mother Cheryl Jones died in childbirth, and his father is unknown, but Avillage has always been supremely confident that no one is going to come forward. There’s no paper trail as to why they’re so confident.
“He was adopted by Avillage and placed with Arlene and Hansford Washington just after he finished 7th grade. Hansford is a high school basketball coach and the assistant coach of the Chicago AAU team. Arlene primarily stays at home and helps out with coaching too. Aaron Bradford is the chairman of his board of directors.”
“Ok. Any controversy? Any dirt?” Ryan asked, unsure how to use any of this bland biographical information in a post-game interview.
“It looks like J’Quarius really had his heart set on going to college, but Avillage wouldn’t release his medical records, so no one could offer him an athletic scholarship. He’s resigned to go to Russia to play professionally at this point, but I don’t think he’s too happy about it.”
“I wonder if J’Quarius knows anything about his biological father,” Ryan wondered aloud. It seemed to him that J’Quarius was doing pretty well with Avillage (like Ryan was himself.) Sure, he was probably miffed about not being allowed to go to college and by the fact that he’d be losing a huge chunk of his pro basketball salary down the road to his shareholders, but Ryan wondered if that would be enough for him to put any effort into joining their cause.
On the other hand, every adopted kid wants to know about his biological parents; that was Ryan’s whole motivation for being at a basketball game in downtown Cleveland instead of at his friend’s house in the suburbs.
“Dillon,” Ryan asked hesitantly. “Do you have any more info on my parents?”
“Yes,” Dillon answered curtly. “We can talk about it later. After you get J’Quarius to join us.”
“It’s conditional?” Ryan asked, shocked and somewhat offended. Maybe Dillon wasn’t over that unintentional look he’d given him.
“It has to be,” Dillon said flatly.
“Well, what if I can’t get to him?” Ryan asked, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
“Then we’ll have to come up with a plan B,” Dillon said unsympathetically. “This is very important.”
By halftime the game was knotted at 46, and the Chicago team jogged off the floor to a chorus of boos. The Russian businessmen clearly weren’t the only ones who had noticed J’Quarius’s conspicuous absence from the court.
The game had been both entertaining and competitive, but the only thing most of the fans had paid to see was the next NBA superstar before he was a star.
Above the entrance to the visitors’ tunnel, Leonard Weinstien jockeyed for position with a host of amateur photographers. Then just before J’Quarius was directly beneath him, he unfurled a 72 by 36 inch banner with a neon-orange background that couldn’t be ignored. On the left side of the banner in large black print was Leonard Weinstien’s contact information along with the statement, “Your father loved you.” Taking up the entire right side was a blow-up of the picture Melvin Brown had enclosed in his letter to Weinstien. Melvin was nineteen in the photo and in perfect health with bright eyes and a wide smile, kneeling on one knee in his football uniform. J’Quarius stopped cold just in front of the sign. Aside from the dated hairstyle and thin moustache, he could have been looking in a mirror.
He looked up at Weinstien who smiled reassuringly at him and nodded back down to his contact info printed on the banner, before J’Quarius was rushed into the tunnel by his coaches. Hansford, who’d entered the locker room ahead of J’Quarius, hadn’t seen the banner.
Hansford and Arlene had warned J’Quarius that one day someone may come forward claiming to be his biological father. They’d made it clear that whether the claim was true or not, they would never stop being his parents and they’d never stop loving him, but they’d warned him to be skeptical. And he was.
The banner read, “Your father loved you” though. Past tense. Was he dead? In jail? Had he stopped loving him? Whatever the case, it would be an ineffective way to start a scam, if that was the intent.