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He never acknowledged the two suspicious-looking guys who trailed him only feet away, notebooks in hand.

He also shunned an interview on October 27 at Gates BBQ on Paseo, where he greeted and glad-handed guests, most of whom he was familiar with only by their Internet message-board screen names. The impromptu party resulted from a bet he'd made the day before with George Gates. If Whitlock lost the bet, he would provide free food for fifty friends. Whitlock predicted, in person and in print, that the Buffalo Bills would trounce the Chiefs. Instead, KC won handily. A cookie cake reminded him of his mistaken prediction: "The Bills will beat the Chiefs," it read, with "Jason Whitlock" signed in blue icing.

The most obvious die-hard fans -- the ones that showed up in Chiefs gear -- maintained that Whitlock believed the Chiefs would win all along. Whitlock supplied plenty of evidence for these gullible types on his radio show that afternoon. He mock-confessed to having arranged both the Bills victory prediction and subsequent apologetic gesture, dubbing it a Dick Vermeil-approved motivational stunt. Several callers took the bait. Finally, after about the fifth heavy-handed harangue, Whitlock revealed the truth.

"I was dead wrong," he admitted. "I was joking in my embarrassment. It was sarcasm. Sorry you didn't catch it." The caller, still baffled, continued to point out the inconsistencies between his current statements and his column's claims.

Another caller on the same day cut through the subterfuge to ask a pressing question. "You do an awful lot for the community. Why not let people see who you are?"

Whitlock dodged the query, shifting the discussion back to his alleged chicanery. It's a question with which he might never be completely comfortable. Although Whitlock is well-known -- perhaps more so than any other figure in town -- no one really knows him. And that's just how he intends to keep it.