The Foxes' boss devised a sinister plan to sabotage Stefan Melzer before the Cup Final by luring him to the Foxes’ Bistro and serving him food secretly laced with laxatives. Stefan arrived, ate a huge amount of the tainted food, and soon complained of a stomach ache, leading the Foxes' boss to believe their scheme had worked. Confident that Stefan would be sick for a few days, the Foxes abandoned their final preparations and celebrated early, even booking a luxury victory banquet. However, on the night of the Final, their plan backfired: Stefan appeared healthy, confident, and ready to play, leaving the Foxes shocked...
_____________________________________________________________________________
Stefan Melzer almost didn’t make it to Bavaria.
His parents had left Hungary at a time when food was scarce and jobs were few. They traveled with only a few suitcases and a lot of hope, never sure if the next country would let them in. They managed to cross the final checkpoint just one hour before it closed completely due to sudden policy changes. Finally, they arrived in Bavaria and were welcomed.
___________________________________________________
The semi-final between the Freising Cats and the Erlangen Antelopes had been a knife-edge battle. With the scoreboard deadlocked at 70–70 and the clock ticking down its final seconds, the crowd watched in breathless silence. Then Stefan Melzer slipped past his defender, rose with supreme confidence, and dropped in the winning basket. The whistle blew. The Cats were through to the Bavarian State Basketball Cup Final—thanks to Stefan Melzer. In the Final, they would face the Munich Foxes, who had defeated the Rosenheim Crows in the semi-final.
The Munich Foxes had chased the Cup for years, but Stefan blocked their path like a tiger. The Freising Cats had won six straight titles, all thanks to him. In fact, Stefan was so recklessly confident they would win again that he had already booked and prepaid the team’s celebration lunch—tips included.
Feeling deeply insulted, the Foxes’ boss, Michael Wiener, slammed his fist onto his desk, making his Weissbier glass rattle. He addressed his staff furiously. “This is outrageous! Are we supposed to put up with this? He thinks he’s an invincible tiger. I want you to turn him back into a helpless cat—whatever it costs. We won’t surrender to those Freising country bumpkins!”
To basketball fans, Stefan was a hero. To his mother June, his sister Spring, his brother-in-law Martin, and his wife Leona, he was a caring, generous man—the sole breadwinner after his father’s death.
The Foxes’ team of analysts was assigned one mission: study Stefan Melzer and find every weakness he had. The analysts split into two groups.
The first group focused on numbers. They parsed Stefan’s match data from the entire season. After days of crunching statistics, they noticed one clear pattern: Stefan’s performance dropped noticeably on Tuesdays recently.
Meanwhile, Konrad Kunning, a quiet and calm-headed analyst from Brandenburg, took on the background research. He dug through every article ever written about Stefan. But after endless reading, Konrad found only three personal details: Stefan and his parents were Hungarian refugees, his father had passed away years ago, and Stefan was married to a woman sixteen years younger than him. Interesting, but hardly a game-changing weakness.
By the end of the week, both groups had reached a dead end. Michael Wiener grew impatient. “Enough! I’m tired of these useless reports,” he snapped. “If the papers and numbers won’t tell us what we need, someone needs to interview the man himself.”
Konrad closed his file. “Herr Wiener, I’ll meet him face-to-face.”
“Good,” Wiener said, pointing at him. “Do whatever you need to do. Use your skills, find his weakness, and a rich reward will be yours.”
On a Monday afternoon, Konrad approached Stefan under the guise of a journalist writing a player biography. Stefan easily agreed to the interview; he was always free on Mondays.
When Konrad asked how he spent his day off, Stefan shrugged. He said he stayed home, listened to pop music, cooked breakfast, and did a bit of gardening. He casually added that he hated reading.
As they spoke, Konrad quickly realized that Stefan possessed zero verbal restraint. Foul language poured out of his mouth without a second thought. Stefan caught himself briefly and shrugged. “Sorry. I hope you don’t mind my language.”
“Not at all,” Konrad replied smoothly. “It brings us closer, doesn’t it?”
Konrad hated saying it. He felt like a hypocrite, since he believed quite the opposite.
“My wife didn’t think so...” Stefan muttered, looking away. “She recently moved out because of my tongue. I called her a stu*id p*g during an argument.”
Konrad smiled inwardly. It was no mystery why a young, successful man with no restraint on his tongue had driven his wife away. But before Konrad could probe deeper, Stefan abruptly checked his watch after just twenty-six minutes, stood up, and hurried off. Konrad noticed his stiff, heavy gait—the clear sign of injured feet.
Curious why Stefan would suddenly rush away. Then he was reminded of the fact that sudden, unhappy events could potentially lead even disciplined people to lose self-control. Suspecting a hidden addiction, Konrad quietly followed him. Stefan turned a corner and vanished.
Far down the wide street stood the luxury Grand Horizon Hotel, but Stefan could never have covered that distance so fast on foot. Konrad studied the right side of the street calmly and found 3 doors near the corner. Two were locked, the third one was not. It was a metal door stamped with the letters GHH. He pulled it open and stepped into a service corridor.
Following the echo of Stefan’s limping footsteps, Konrad passed a casino entrance. Surprisingly, Stefan walked right past it. If not gambling, what could it be? Konrad wondered.
(TBC)
