The Anonymous Source

by A. C. Fuller

  Sharp stopped pacing and looked at the jury. “We may not be able to understand this man’s evil, but we know it when we see it. And, ladies and gentlemen, we are confident that you will make sure he never has the opportunity to kill again.”

  Sharp let his words sink in, then took his seat. Alex jotted a few notes, yawned, and moved his gaze back to the woman’s hair, hoping she would turn around again. His head throbbed and he wished he’d eaten a few more eggs.

  Defense attorney Cynthia Baker wore a cream-colored suit and her long dreadlocks were tied in a neat bun. She was young and Alex thought she must be inexperienced because he had never seen her before. “Mr. Sharp is right about one thing,” she began, “Mr. Santiago was in Washington Square Park from one to one-fifteen in the morning. But he was not there to kill Professor Martin. The defense will show that Mr. Santiago—lonely, confused, and away from home for the first time—made an error in judgment. He went to the park that night to purchase marijuana. But he did not purchase marijuana, just as he did not kill Mr. Martin.

  “The defense will show,” she continued, “that Mr. Santiago entered the park at one, wandered around for fifteen minutes, then attended part of a film. He was back in his dorm by two-thirty. And we will show that the so-called murder weapon, the spray bottle of fentanyl, was in Mr. Santiago’s dorm room on the night in question. Further, we will provide proof that Mr. Santiago had a prescription for the drug.

  “Finally, we will demonstrate that—despite Mr. Sharp’s best efforts to obscure this fact—there is not a man or woman alive who saw Mr. Santiago commit this crime. Not one.”

  Alex listened with one ear. His thoughts danced between Greta’s pale, naked body, and what he would have for lunch—then landed once again on the woman in the front row.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN THE TRIAL broke for lunch, Alex followed the woman outside and down the courthouse steps. The afternoon was cool and cloudless. He took a deep breath and felt refreshed, despite the fumes from the garbage trucks backed up along the street.

  The woman turned down Broadway and paused at a red light. She took something out of her purse and passed it from hand to hand. When she began walking again, Alex flipped open his phone and called his editor.

  “Colonel, it’s Alex. Laptop’s dead . . . I know . . . Yeah, I know. I’ve got the first hit from this morning. You ready?”

  He dodged a car as he crossed an intersection and dictated the story using his “evening news” voice. “In a surprising twist in the Eric Santiago trial, the defense admitted that the defendant was in Washington Square Park the night Professor John Martin was murdered.” He paused. “Got it? The Post might lead with the new prosecutor, but this is the story . . . Yeah, okay, I’ll drop the voice.”

  The woman turned left onto Canal and started walking faster. When he lost her in the crowd, he jogged until he saw her again.

  “Colonel, you still there?” he asked in his normal voice. “Good. Both defense and prosecution acknowledge that the case hinges on a fifteen-minute period, from one to one-fifteen a.m. on January first, 2002. Prosecutors argued that Santiago sprayed Martin with a lethal dose of fentanyl during that period, but the defense claimed that Santiago had nothing to do with Martin’s death—Got it? New graf . . . No, I’m not reading from notes. This is how I roll, Colonel.”

  The woman stopped in a crowd at a red light on West Broadway. Alex waited a hundred feet behind her.

  “In another development, the District Attorney’s Office surprisingly appointed Assistant DA Daniel Sharp as lead prosecutor, showing its determination to win a conviction in the high-profile murder trial—Wait, cut ‘surprisingly’ okay? Got it? Good. Sharp, who has served as assistant DA since 1995, is known for prosecuting narcotics cases and is rumored to be laying the groundwork for a mayoral campaign—can we get away with saying ‘is rumored?’ I mean, everyone knows it, but I can call around later and get someone to say it on the record if you want.”

  When the light changed, the woman crossed West Broadway.

  Alex pulled out his notebook. “Sharp portrayed Santiago as a cold-blooded killer.” He glanced down at his notes as he walked. “Quote: ‘We may not be able to understand this man’s evil, but we know it when we see it,’ end-quote, Sharp said during opening arguments. The prosecution is expected to call its first witness on Monday . . . Yeah, that’s all the new stuff, but I’ll add B-Matter when I get back . . . Yeah, I’ll be in later.”

  The woman entered the subway at Varick and Canal. Alex closed his phone and considered what he was doing. When he was interested in a woman, he generally wasn’t shy about it, especially if she was connected to a story. If she wasn’t interested in him, he could pretend that he had approached her for professional reasons. And if they hit it off, he could always find another source. But there was something about her that made him hang back. Even in the subway she appeared out of place, aloof, and this made Alex nervous.

  The station was in its midday lull. A man sat on a bench reading a book and another stood on the edge of the platform, leaning out every few seconds to look down the tunnel. Alex’s head pounded as he breathed the stale air. He saw her sitting on a bench at the north end of the station and leaned on a wall fifty feet away, pretending to read his notebook while watching her out of one eye. She stared straight ahead and passed something between the fingers of her left hand. Alex thought it was a coin.

  He heard the slow screech of a train approaching from the south. She stood and threw the coin in the air. The screech became a high-pitched, metallic scraping as she caught the coin and looked down at it. She crinkled her nose at the coin, then walked into the first car once the train stopped in front of her.

  Alex took a step toward the train, then paused. He wanted to follow but he was frozen.

  The train pulled out and Alex turned toward the exit. He had to get back to court anyway.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  INSIDE THE TRAIN, Camila Gray sat next to a large woman and scanned the ads along the top of the subway car. Her mind was blank and she read slowly. “Live a Life Without Fear,” a workshop with someone she’d never heard of; “¡Hablemos Español!” a law firm specializing in deportation issues; “Sex in the City,” a singles club.

  The woman beside her touched Camila’s leg. “You okay, honey?” she asked.

  Camila turned toward her and let her eyes go soft so she saw only a brownish blur. The woman smelled of cinnamon and bleach. “Why do you ask?” Camila said quietly.

  “You look sad. Is it ‘cause of the 9/11 anniversary comin’ up?”

  “I’m sorry,” Camila replied. “No, it’s not that. I don’t mean to make you sad as well.” She smiled. “My ex-boyfriend was murdered. My father is dying. This is just how I am right now.”

  The woman patted Camila on the knee and turned away. The smell of bleach reminded Camila of the first time she had done her own laundry.

  She’d been eight at the time and had poured in half a bottle of bleach, then hid under her bed as the scent spread throughout the house. It was the first time her father had slapped her. “You’ll learn not to be so precocious,” was all he’d said. Afterward, her face aching, she had sat in a small white oak tree below her bedroom window, flipping a silver and gold Argentinian peso coin. When giving her the coin, Camila’s grandmother had said, “When you feel lost, choose two possibilities, one for heads and one for tails. Then flip. But you do not have to do what the coin says. Instead, when you see the outcome, put your hand to your heart and feel. Is there disappointment? Or is there relief? This way you can get out of that head of yours and find out what you truly want.”

  In the tree, Camila had been trying to decide whether or not to run away from home. With each flip, she’d felt her heart with her hand, just like her grandmother had told her. And though the stream of angry thoughts had softened, no answer had come. As she’d scratched the ashy bark with the edge of the coin, Camila had stared up at the light blue sky and slow-moving clouds, whic
h had looked to her like mountains from a fairy tale. She hadn’t been able to tell whether they were truly moving. She’d been deeply sad, but had then forgotten to be sad. And the more she’d stared at the clouds, the more she’d disappeared to herself. Finally, she had forgotten to be anything at all and had vanished into the sky.

  Only when she had heard her father’s harsh voice through the window, “Cam, what are you doing?”—the last word biting and cruel—had she come into herself and wondered what had happened. As she’d placed the coin in her pocket and gone inside, she’d wondered, Where did I go? Alone in her bed that night, and for some weeks to come, she would think about how she’d felt in the tree. How can it be that I am not the sad one I think I am, but something else entirely? Something I don’t yet understand.

  At 96th Street, Camila took the escalator up from the station, squinting in the bright sun. Her phone rang and she stared at the caller ID. Mom. With the phone in her left hand, she pulled her grandmother’s coin out of her pocket with her right. She flipped and read the result. Tails.

  Putting the phone back in her purse, she walked north.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS THE ELEVATOR opened onto the thirtieth floor, Alex smiled. His head had stopped hurting during the afternoon court session, and the brisk walk fifty blocks north had left him feeling energetic. He did not always like reporting, but he loved the bustle of The New York Standard newsroom, a sprawling landscape of fluorescent lights and cubicles, with a few corner offices. People hurried back and forth, keyboards clicked, phones rang. The place gave him a feeling of organized frenzy, of urgency. Alex didn’t finish anything unless he had a deadline. Here there was always a deadline.

  He walked up behind Lance Brickman—a pudgy black man wearing a brown suede jacket and fingering a fat cigar—and leaned on his desk, which was empty except for an old computer and a single sheet of laminated paper that listed over two hundred contacts with the Jets, Giants, Knicks, and Yankees.

  “How was Triple X today?” Alex asked.

  Lance turned. “Same shit, different day.” He had a silky, deep voice that made Alex think of Lando Calrissian. “Our business is in decline, son. Back when we could smoke while we worked, I used to churn out two thousand words a day. I would sit here and write three damn stories in a row, surrounded by fresh ink and smoke.”

  “Did you crank the printing press by hand back then, or was it coal powered?”

  Lance smiled. “Screw you.”

  Alex ran his hand across the top of Lance’s computer screen. “Lance, I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is HAL.”

  Lance stared at Alex blankly and nibbled the tip of his cigar.

  “Never mind,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Dive Bar tonight? I’ll buy you a cognac and we can drown our sorrows about a newspaper culture on its way to hell.”

  Lance nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  “By the way, you ever had a source call you and use a voice scrambler?”

  “No, but I had one who claimed to be the reincarnation of Len Bias. I asked the guy how old he was and he said he was forty. When I told him Len Bias had died when he was twenty-something, he hung up.”

  Alex leaned toward the computer. “Uh, Lance, why have you typed ‘fuck’ seven times in a row?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Did the Colonel drop another story on you?”

  Lance tapped the cigar on his desk. “Let me put it this way: I’m seven words into a thousand-word column about whether the local teams are paying proper tribute to 9/11.”

  “You already wrote a column this week.”

  “Colonel said it wasn’t up to ‘New York Standard standards.’ Like we have standards at this point. I think it might be time to change the name of this piece of shit paper.”

  “How long did he give you?”

  “An hour.”

  “That’s such bull,” Alex blurted, turning abruptly and locking his eyes on a door in the corner.

  Lance grabbed Alex’s arm. “It’s not the Colonel’s fault,” he said. “It’s the folks upstairs. Why pay me when they can pay someone like you half as much?”

  When Lance let go of his arm, Alex pulled a chair from a nearby desk and sat down. “Because you’re a legend. Because you have actual contacts with every team in the city. Because—”

  “Don’t get all worked up, son.”

  “How many months until you’re vested?” Alex asked.

  Lance twirled his cigar and sighed. “I get my options in three months.”

  “We’re keeping you here until then.”

  Lance laughed. “And they say your generation is lazy and disaffected. It’s not worth it. Really. This is just what happens. Young bucks move in and old fatties like me are put out to pasture in the journalism department at Queens Community College.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  Lance looked at this watch. “Forty-one minutes.”

  Alex rolled Lance’s chair out of the way and scooted himself in front of the computer. He held down the delete button, then started typing. “While I write, call three sources you can reach in the next fifteen minutes. One from the Jets or Giants, one from the Yankees, and someone from a high school—to give it some local flavor. I’ll leave room for quotes.”

  “But you don’t know what they’re gonna say.”

  Alex stopped typing and looked at Lance. “Yes, I do. You’re gonna get them to say that they’re doing everything they can to honor the victims through memorials, moments of silence, and so on, and that sports can be a way to heal after tragedy. That’s what they’ve already said in twenty stories this week. That’s all their PR departments are gonna let them say. That’s all they know how to say.”

  “What about the facts?”

  Alex started typing. “It’s a sports column. We don’t need any facts.”

  Lance stood and grabbed the laminated sheet and the cordless phone.

  As Alex typed, Lance cracked a few jokes into the phone before asking, “So, how do you feel about how you guys are handling the 9/11 tributes?” Then he clicked over to speakerphone so Alex could transcribe the answer.

  Lance called two more sources, repeating the routine of small talk, question, and speakerphone.

  After thirty minutes, Alex looked up. “Done,” he said, standing up so Lance could sit down.

  Lance read the story slowly, changing a few words as he went. He read the last few sentences aloud. “Despite their best efforts, our New York sports franchises can’t heal the wounds from the tragedy that occurred almost one year ago. They can play their part, and they will, but only New York sports fans themselves can show the indomitable spirit of this city. The fans who stream into our stadiums from project apartments in Queens, from high rises in Manhattan, or stone row houses in Williamsburg. Only New Yorkers themselves, and their love of sports—which is in fact a love of life—can honor the dead, inspire the living, and heal New York City.”

  Lance looked at Alex, who looked at the carpet.

  “You can change it if you want,” Alex said.

  “Nah, I’d say we got it. You know, that piece has a whiff of sincerity. Kind of a surprise coming from you.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  With a few clicks, Lance submitted the story, then turned back to Alex. “Doesn’t take much to wake you from your slumber, does it?”

  “Just don’t want to see you get screwed.”

  “This might have bought me a few days,” Lance said, “but I’m still gonna get screwed.”

  Alex shrugged and started walking away.

  “Hey, Alex,” Lance called after him, “where you going?”

  “Gotta talk to the Colonel.”

  “‘Bout what?”

  Alex glanced back and winked. “An interesting woman.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN ALEX PUSHED the door open, his boss looked up from his desk, which he’d been polishing with a rag, and asked, “Anything new since you called?”


  “You’ve got a speck of dust there, Colonel, about thirty degrees south-southwest of the stapler.”

  Samuel Baxton was not really a colonel, but had been an Air Force lieutenant in the Vietnam War. He wasn’t much of a writer, but he had discipline and organization—qualities Alex admired, knowing he lacked them himself.

  Baxton looked at his desk, which was gleaming, then smiled at Alex. “Like I said, anything new?”

  “Usual motions for this and that. Evidence stuff mostly. Seems like he probably did it, but it’s surprising they don’t have anything more solid on the kid.”

  Baxton ran his hands through his thin, brown hair. “Everyone knows he did it. But can the lawyers get him off? That’s the story now.”

  “I don’t think they can. Sharp is a pretty good prosecutor.”

  “A lot of people love that kid. Want to make him a martyr for idiots everywhere. The ACLU even said New Yorkers are using him to take their minds off 9/11. Assholes. Dallas Morning News ran a thing saying it’s New York’s elitism on trial. Can you believe that? I’m from Abilene! They must be talking about people like you.”

  Alex laughed. “Not me, Colonel Baxton, sir. I grew up in the mossy forests of western Washington.”

  “Yeah, but you were born here.”

  “Six months, sir. I only lived here for six months before we moved.”

  “That’s all you need, Vane. Upper West Side, I’ll bet. Parents probably hung out with Yoko and all the other beatniks snorting hash.”

  Alex looked at the carpet.

  “Sorry,” Baxton said. “I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it.”

  Alex returned his gaze to eye level. “It’s all right.”

  “But anyway, I never thought I’d be the boss of an aspiring TV model.” He paused, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, I heard about that. Why do you want to get into TV when you can write a news story in the time it takes most people to wipe their ass? You know how many people would kill to have what you have?”