I found out last week, in the midst of Duncan's trip South of the Border, that Wallace hadn't been totally honest with me about his return from Chicago. His claim? That he didn't get enough time on the basketball court. My discovery? Wallace was a leading scorer with a basketful of assists, too. So why the lie?

Turns out Wallace and some of his Chi-town teammates-including Rashard Rucker, who's rumored to be the next LeBron James--had an accident one night in Rashard's Hummer. An accident that left a homeless man paralyzed. An accident which, according to the press, Wallace was responsible for, and which his dad allegedly helped cover up.

Wallace knows he's been set up--Rashard was driving the Hummer when the accident happened. But he and his Uncle Rucker arranged to make it look like Rashard was innocent of any wrong-doing to protect his reputation and his future pro basketball career. As if having a rap sheet would make him some sort of pariah among his teammates. Yeah. I don't think so.

But it might make UCLA think twice about recruiting Rashard, which is what they're trying to do. Rashard and his uncle are in town, being wined and dined by the Bruin basketball elite. Wallace and I set out to work a little sting operation on Rashard--get him to 'fess up about his crime. Unfortunately, our plan got a little complicated, and things didn't work out quite like I'd planned. But just when it seemed like we weren't going to nail Rashard for his misdeeds, I got a hamburger craving--stick with me for a minute--and Wallace had a flashback to a Chicago White Castle burger-flipper who was the only witness to the accident and one, it turns out, whose silence was apparently purchased by Rashard's Uncle Rucker. Getting Guy Abruti to admit he'd been paid off wasn't easy, but it cleared Wallace's name.

In a plot that will surely send me straight into the fiery pits of hell, Weevil recruited me to help him find out who among his PCHers was dealing drugs with the Fitzpatricks via St. Mary's church. And the method behind that madness? Bugging the best place in a Catholic Church to conduct illegal activity where only the Big Guy knows what's going on the confessional. I agreed to videotape the booth, but bugging people's private revelations? Beyond my realm of decency.

Setting up the videotape did reveal what Weevil suspected: Father Patrick Fitzpatrick of the Fighting Fitzpatricks was indeed using the confessional as a conduit for drug-dealing. His method o'transport? The Good Book. The recipient of The Word? Thumper. Thumper refuses to concede to Weevil that the drug-dealing is bad: it's making money for the PCHers and they're profiting from the 09ers. Thumper accuses Weevil of being in cahoots with Logan, and selling out the gang in order to protect Logan from taking the rap for Felix's murder. The PCHers beat Weevil up and drove his bike into the ocean. Weevil accused Thumper of Felix's murder, but Thumper didn't admit to anything--he just produced video of Weevil behaving badly Weevil may piss me off sometimes, but there's nothing sadder than seeing his face peeking out the window of a school bus.

Besides helping Wallace and angering the god(s), I ended up helping Dad around the office and discovered an old photo of our journalism teacher, Miss Dumas, who died on the bus crash. But she wasn't journaling in this photo, she was canoodling, with Terrence Cook. Just when I began to wonder whether or not this made Terrence a suspect in the bus crash, I caught the report on TV: Terrence had just been arrested.