The Cutline (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 0)

by Fuller, A. C.

  The Cutline

  An Alex Vane Novella

  A.C. Fuller

  Contents

  The Complete Series List

  The Cutline: An Alex Vane Novella

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Thanks for Reading!

  Prologue—Preview of The Anonymous Source

  Chapter One—Preview of The Anonymous Source

  Chapter Two—Preview of The Anonymous Source

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by A.C. Fuller

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  A.C. Fuller Books

  Hansville, WA

  www.acfuller.com

  Cover Design by Yosbe Design.

  www.yosbedesign.com

  Created with Vellum

  The Complete Series List

  The Cutline (An Alex Vane Novella)

  The Anonymous Source (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 1)—Available Now

  The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)—Coming April 23, 2017

  The Mockingbird Drive (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 3)—Coming July, 2017

  The Cutline: An Alex Vane Novella

  It’s the spring of 2000 and Alex Vane is living the dream. He’s brilliant, handsome, driven, and has just landed his first major reporting job: covering New York’s biggest trials for the city’s second-biggest daily, The New York Standard.

  As if his luck couldn’t get any better, Alex befriends a top prosecutor who helps him uncover a dark secret about a legendary defense attorney. When Alex breaks the story, the trial of the East Coast’s most deadly drug kingpin falls into turmoil.

  cut·line /ˈkətlīn/

  1.the caption to a photograph or other illustration.

  Chapter 1

  Lower Manhattan District Court, New York City

  Monday

  Alex already felt out of his league, and if he nodded off during a crucial cross examination, his peers from The Times and The Post would mock him mercilessly. He fought to stay awake, but the heat from the packed courtroom was getting to him. Or maybe it was the three hours of sleep he’d had the night before. Or the seven shots of Patron, which he’d chased with Corona after Corona after Corona.

  It didn’t matter.

  It was his first week on the job and if he fell asleep, he’d never live it down. Not only did the reporters to his left and right have ten years of experience on him, but Judge David Butcher was a legendary hardass when it came to the press. For the first time in his career, Butcher had allowed cameras in his courtroom for the Mendoza trial, and only after extreme public pressure due to extreme public interest. Last week, he’d held a producer in contempt for setting up a camera in the wrong place. If Butcher saw Alex’s chin drop to his chest, it might be his last day as lead court reporter for The New York Standard.

  Alex blinked a few times and tried to stretch out, but the rows of seats were cramped and there was little room to extend his long legs. In his little spiral notebook, he wrote stay awake stay awake stay awake until he caught the woman from The Times glancing down at it and smirking.

  His eyelids were heavy, his shoulders slumped, and he was seeing surreal, dreamlike images pass before him, mingling with the scene in the courtroom. The grain of the wood-paneled jury box started to bend and curl, the back of Mendoza’s head morphed into a black hole, and defense attorney Diego Dos Santos’s deep voice seemed to seep into him from all directions. He was falling asleep with his eyes open and was about to collapse.

  Dos Santos saved him just in time. The attorney had been at work on his witness for hours, and when Alex heard him say, “That’ll be all, your honor,” he perked up.

  Josephine Bonner was about to do her magic.

  Judge Butcher looked down with a frown, tugging at a curl of his black hair, which was longer than usual for a judge of his stature. "Ms. Bonner, would you like to cross examine?"

  She stood and nodded at the judge. "I would, your honor.”

  That’s when Alex knew that he could make it through the rest of the afternoon.

  Joey, as she liked to be called, was beyond a rising star. She was a star already risen, but she’d ascended so quickly that it had been hard to notice as it happened. In her late thirties, she wore her short blond hair in a perfect 1940s-bob that rounded out her sharp, angular face. Pacing the courtroom in red heels and a skirt suit that matched, she looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine about young professional women ready to, "Get Theirs in the New Millennium."

  And then there was her voice.

  It was full of the precision and intelligence you’d expect from a Harvard-trained prosecutor, but occasionally she’d let slip just enough of her Mississippi drawl to make you think she was pouring warm molasses over you. Her opponent, Diego Dos Santos, was one of the top defense attorneys on the East Coast—a rockstar—and Alex felt privileged to have the opportunity to watch him work. But he didn’t have a voice that blew through the hot room like a cool breeze.

  Joey had spent the last two weeks presenting her evidence and her witnesses in the case of The People v. Manny Mendoza. The DEA, along with the FBI and half a dozen state and local police forces, had been after Mendoza for everything from drug trafficking to tax evasion to jaywalking, but it had been the NYPD that had finally nabbed him. And for murder, no less.

  Joey had presented a compelling case. By the time she’d finished, everyone in the courtroom, everyone in New York, and a good portion of the American public believed Mendoza had beaten to death a man named Victor Alvarado in Vinny’s restaurant in Little Italy. Alvarado was one of Mendoza’s own men and, according to Joey’s version, he’d come into the restaurant toward the end of Mendoza’s meal and had been bludgeoned, without provocation, with the base of an old brass lamp.

  On the stand was Damien Woodrow, a massive man wearing an ill-fitting brown suit who had wedged himself into the booth at the front of the room as the defense’s first witness. Dos Santos, who was famous for drawing out his trials, especially when he didn’t have a case, had taken his sweet time examining Woodrow. It had taken him an hour to establish that Woodrow was the defendant’s personal driver, that he’d held the position for six years, and that he’d been gambling with the defendant in Atlantic City that evening before returning to the Lower Manhattan for dinner. And it had taken another two hours to establish Woodrow’s story: that he and the defendant had been attacked by the victim, that Woodrow had pushed Alvarado away, and that the fatal blow had been his head hitting against the wooden bar when Alvarado tripped.

  Joey paced for a moment, nodded at the jury, then began with, "Mr. Woodrow, you drove the defendant to Vinny’s in Little Italy yourself. Is that correct?"

  "That’s right."

  "And you left the casino when?"

  "About ten."

  "It takes me around two hours to get from Atlantic City to Little Italy, and I drive pretty fast." She flashed her southern-belle smile at the jury. "Within the speed limits, of course."

  Alex was picturing her, top down in a red Mercedes coupe, speeding down the Garden State Parkway. And, of course, he was in the pass
enger seat.

  She continued, "How is it that you and the defendant made it to Vinny’s before they closed at eleven?"

  "Easy," he said. "We didn’t. Man like Manny Mendoza, they stay open for him." He shot a look at the jury, like this was supposed to impress them.

  Not much of a witness, thought Alex. And he knew where this was going. Over the last two weeks he’d developed the skill of relaxing his mind just enough to hear the sound of Joey’s voice without actually listening to her words. She’d spend the next hour doing everything she could to poke holes in the story, but at the end of the day—and at the end of the trial—the question was going to be the same as it was at the beginning. Were the jurors going to believe the testimony of the two witnesses who saw Mendoza stagger out of Vinny’s covered in blood at 2 a.m., or were they going to believe the testimony of Woodrow and Manny Mendoza himself?

  He tuned in and out over the next hour and, when Judge Butcher announced the end of the day, he felt like a kid at recess.

  * * *

  Outside the courthouse, Alex breathed in the spring air and checked the time on his phone. 4:45.

  He bounded down the wide steps onto the sidewalk and turned north. The air was cool but not cold, and he felt ten percent better every minute he spent out of the courtroom. By the time he crossed Baker Street, his headache was gone and he was looking forward to a long night of booze and spring baseball with his buddy Bearon at Bar 76. He and Bearon had grown up together on the Kitsap Peninsula near Seattle and watching sports was one of the few things they’d brought with them from home. They got together at least once a week in a bar they could barely afford, usually to watch the Mariners or Sonics play one of the New York teams. If he hurried, he’d get there in time to grab a prime seat before the rush.

  But first he had to file his story.

  He darted across an intersection as he dialed the copy desk. He was relieved when Susan Flemming picked up. "It’s Alex. How’s the paper of record doing today?"

  "We’re not the paper of record, Alex. We’re just…a paper."

  "Well, with me and you on board, we’ll be the paper of record soon enough."

  She laughed, as she always did, at Alex’s stupid jokes. Having someone at the copy desk on your side was important for a reporter like Alex, and Susan was very much on his side.

  "Look," Alex said, "I’m not going to be able to make it into the office to write my piece on Mendoza, any chance I can—"

  "Dictate it?"

  "You know me better than I—"

  "Know yourself?"

  "I was going to say ‘know myself,’ but yeah."

  "Okay, pretty boy. Give it to me." She breathed the last part into the phone, husky and sexy, the double entendre fully intended.

  Of course, he could have been back at the office in midtown in twenty minutes and would have had plenty of time to write his story, but he’d just gotten his first cell phone and had convinced his editor to let him file his stories from "the field." Free him up for more "face time with sources." Plus, he loved showing off for Susan. He switched to a sort of exaggerated news anchor voice and dictated the piece while dodging bankers, lawyers, delivery trucks, and other traffic.

  "Diego Dos Santos today began his defense of reputed drug kingpin Manny Mendoza in the case that has gripped New York City since the body of former professional wrestler Victor Alvarado was discovered last November." He paused to dodge a taxi that was running a red light as he crossed Varick Street. "Got that?"

  "I got it. And you swear you aren’t using notes?"

  Alex smiled. "I told you. It’s just something I can do.”

  "I’ll give you something you can do."

  "Da-doom, ching!"

  "Got that right."

  "Okay, ready?"

  "Ready."

  "The defense called three witnesses, including two restaurant employees and Mendoza’s long-time driver and assistant, Damien Woodrow, to refute prosecution claims that the defendant attacked the victim. According to Woodrow, Alvarado assaulted waitress Brittney Deerborn and was trying to assault Mr. Mendoza himself when he was pushed by Woodrow. Alvarado then fell and struck his head on the bar, according to Woodrow’s testimony."

  Alex got to Bar 76 and stopped out front. It was a new bar in an old bank building, and one of the hippest in the city. He said, "Do you have B-Matter you can drop in?"

  "I mean, I could dig it up, but I’m not your secretary Alex. Write your own damn backstory."

  Alex put on a little kid’s voice, "But I thought you wuuved me."

  She replied with a drill-sergeant tone. "You’ll dictate your own background and you’ll like it."

  "Okay, fine. Ready?

  She switched to a huskier, action-hero voice. "I was born ready."

  "On the night in question, November 23, 1999, Mendoza had been gambling in a private room at the Royale Casino in Atlantic City until around 10 PM. He’d been driven back into Lower Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel and had eaten a late meal at Vinny’s Restaurant—where he ate every Friday night."

  Alex stopped suddenly.

  "Done?" Susan asked. "What about the Alvarado bio? Don’t you usually include that?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

  Joey Bonner was stepping out of a taxi not more than twenty feet from him, trailed by three other members of the prosecution team. She carried a leather briefcase and slipped on a pair of sleek black sunglasses as the sun hit her face. As she leaned in through the window to pay the driver, Alex took in every inch of her. Except on TV, he’d never seen her outside of the courtroom where the staged, professional vibe made her seem entirely unapproachable. But here, standing on the sidewalk, she seemed even more out of his league than she did in court. To Alex, it was like seeing a movie star in real life.

  "Alex? Hello? Alex!" Susan’s voice brought him back to reality.

  "Sorry, sorry. I just…"

  "Alex?"

  "Yes, sorry, that’s it. If you don’t mind, can you just clean that up a smidge? Double check it. I’ll be in the office in the morning."

  He hung up without waiting to hear Susan’s response.

  His face froze. His chest tightened. Joey was pulling off her shades and walking right toward him.

  Chapter 2

  By the time she reached him, Alex had regained his composure. Enough of it, at least, to fake his way through.

  He was twenty-six years old, six foot two, and looked a little like the oldest Backstreet Boy but with a more athletic build. He wore the typical uniform of a journalist: nice jeans, a button-down shirt, a sports coat but no tie. Never a tie. While his colleagues wore browns, blues, and off-whites, Alex always wore light gray jeans with a black button down and a dark gray jacket. He’d chosen the outfit because, while it was passable in court, he could also hit the town afterwards without having to change clothes. He made his living talking his way into rooms he wasn’t supposed to be in and digging up information he wasn’t supposed to have, so he was better at feigning confidence than most people are at anything.

  Joey paused a yard in front of him and eyed him with a look he couldn’t read, but before she could speak, Alex said, "Prosecutor Bonner, welcome to Bar 76. Would you like to conduct our hour-long, on-the-record interview here on the sidewalk, or can I get you a dirty martini inside?"

  She smiled. "That’s my drink. You must do your research, Journalist Vane."

  Alex trafficked in information and kept an internal tally of trivial facts that might someday prove useful, including the favorite drinks of the ten people around the courthouse he’d most like to have a drink with. Joey was number three on the list. She was probably the eighth most-useful source but, well, she made it to number three on style points.

  "Call me Alex," he said, extending an arm. "Shall we?"

  She stepped back. Gave him a look. "You really are as full of yourself as people say, aren’t you?"

  "Yes. Yes I am. But you’d be surprised at how often tha
t works. I once got a precinct captain in the Bronx to air the borough’s dirty laundry by showing up at his kid’s birthday party at the zoo. Poor guy was so bored hanging around a bunch of seven-year-olds, he fed me on-the-record quotes for an hour."

  "Didn’t he get fired for that?"

  "Technically he got demoted, but...yeah."

  "So I should watch myself with you, shouldn’t I?"

  "You should watch yourself with any reporter."

  "True, but you’re not just any reporter, from what I hear." She glanced back toward the street. The man and two women she’d brought with her were standing on the curb, talking on cell phones. She waved at them to come over.

  "How about this," she said, turning back to Alex. "You sit with me and my team for a bit and I’ll buy you the drink. We’ll only have a half hour or so. We’ve got a working dinner. You may have heard, we’re in the midst of a major murder trial."

  "Yeah I heard something about that. According to The New York Standard"—he cleared his throat and used his breaking news voice—"the prosecution made a compelling case, but defense attorney Diego Dos Santos is expected to mount a strong defense as well."

  "Hmmm? Is that what they wrote? I don’t read The Standard."

  Alex stepped back. "Ouch."

  The three colleagues appeared at Joey’s side out of nowhere, the man eyeing Alex suspiciously.

  "I’ll grab us a table," Alex said, swinging open the steel door.

  Bar 76 was one of the swankiest bars in Lower Manhattan. High ceilings, plush chairs, big TVs, and the longest copper bar in the city. It also had a full menu of avant-garde sushi prepared by chefs in an elevated, glass-encased sushi bar. Alex asked for a table on the second floor balcony space, figuring that Joey and the others would be more likely to feed him some information if they were out of sight. He was supposed to meet his buddy in a few minutes, but Bearon would understand. This was one of those too-good-to-be-true moments that Alex had found himself experiencing quite a bit lately. He didn’t know why she’d approached him in the first place, but there was no way he was going to pass up a chance to chat with Joey Bonner.