The Anonymous Source (31 page)

A WEEK
LATER
, Alex walked out of his apartment building and was glad there were only three reporters and one TV crew waiting for him. He squinted in the morning light and put on a pair of black sunglasses as he walked past them. They followed him down Broadway, shouting questions.

“No comment,” he said, his head down. “I’ve said all I’m going to say.”

“Mr. Vane,” one reporter yelled. “Is it true you’re an alcoholic?”

“No comment.”

“Then is it true that you used to drink on the job at
The Standard
?”

Alex bit his lower lip. “No comment.”

“Mr. Vane, where are you headed?”

“For a walk!”

His phone beeped. As he walked, he read a text from Sadie Green:
Half of London turns out to protest a made-up war over the weekend, and what do the NY papers lead with Monday morning? Your sorry ass! But seriously, nice job on the story.

A small man edged up next to Alex, jogging to keep up with his brisk pace. “Sources inside Standard Media say you have a personal grudge against the company, and that you fabricated the story to become famous. Do you have a comment?”

Alex ignored him. As he crossed 95th Street, the reporters turned back.

Oprah
had not called, but in the last few days Alex had appeared in a feature in
The New York Times
and had done an hour on
Larry King Live
. He had turned down job offers from every local TV station, as well as CNN. The story had received over four million hits and generated eighty thousand click-throughs. Downton’s video had been watched a million times and message boards had sprung up to debate the video, Santiago’s reaction, and what it said about humanity. Altogether, news-scoop.com had made $145,000 from the story.

As he crossed 85th Street, Alex’s phone rang and he flipped it open. “Bearon, what’s up?”

“It’s over,” Bearon said. He was talking fast and breathing hard.

“What’s over?”

“The trial. Santiago. He’s gonna be released today. Can you get down here?”

“What happened?”

“Sharp is gonna drop the case. He’s gonna make a huge show of it, too. Courthouse steps.
Justice being served.
All that shit. I’m hearing that they’re working a case against Rak for killing Martin. You gotta get down here.”

Alex stopped walking and stared at the cars going by. “I’ll head down there now, but can you get a note to Santiago for me?”

* * *

That night, Alex and Camila stood outside Santiago’s dorm on Carmine Street along with a handful of reporters and a local TV crew. “I guess the national press goes home after dinner,” Alex said. Camila shivered in the cold night air.

Santiago emerged a few minutes later wearing jeans and a black pea coat, his face partially covered by a black scarf. Alex noticed the deep pockmarks on his forehead as he held out his hand. A photographer clicked away.

They shook hands and Alex said, “Thanks for meeting us. I thought we’d walk a bit to get away from all these reporters.” He turned to the group. “Head home guys. We’re not making any news tonight.”

Camila held out her hand to Santiago. “Camila Gray. You’re back to looking like a regular NYU student.”

“I saw you in court,” Santiago said. “I thought you were pretty.”

They walked in silence to Sixth Avenue, trailed by a photographer and a reporter who dropped away when they turned onto West Fourth toward Washington Square Park.

“What are you going to do now?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know,” Santiago said. He spoke in a flat monotone and didn’t look at Alex as he answered.

“Are you going to enroll in classes this semester?” Camila asked.

“I don’t know.”

Alex looked at Camila, then back at Santiago. “I was wondering if you’d like to do an interview about the whole ordeal,” he said. “You know, what happened that night, what jail was like, how it feels to be free. You probably know this was a pretty big story.”

“I know,” Santiago said. “I was more entertaining than the terrorists. That’s what I read, anyway. I don’t really know what it means.”

“So, what do you think about being interviewed?” Alex asked.

“No, I’m not going to do that.”

“But this is your chance to tell your side of the story, to get your version of—”

Camila broke in, “Oh, please, Alex, don’t give him that line.”

Santiago stopped in front of a pizza shop and inhaled. “The only bad thing about jail was the food. It was no good.”

Alex led them in and bought Santiago a slice of pepperoni. They walked slowly toward the park as Santiago ate.

At the edge of the park, Santiago finished his slice and stopped to look at Alex. “Why’d you release that video?” he asked. His face was blank but his eyes flashed. “Why did you have to release it?”

Alex caught Santiago’s eye. “What? What do you mean? We released it to get you out of jail, to show that you didn’t kill him.”

Santiago looked across the park, lit only by a few streetlights. “Maybe I was better off in there. They gave me food and a bed and some company at least. Like I said, though, the food was no good.”

Alex put a hand on his shoulder. “But now you can go back to school, have a life. You know,
not
be in jail. I don’t understand how you can—”

“Calm down,” Camila said, taking Alex’s hand. He quieted and the three of them headed toward the center of the park.

Santiago gestured toward the statue of Garibaldi, illuminated by a spotlight from below. “The finance students throw pennies at the base of the statue at the beginning of each semester,” he said. “For luck.” They stopped under the statue and Santiago picked up a penny. “Who is he anyway?”

“An Italian general and politician,” Alex said. “He’s credited with helping to unify Italy.” He looked at Santiago, who didn’t seem to be listening. “Eric, I’ve been wondering, why did you come to NYU anyway? I mean, it’s not much of a baseball school and you had offers to some good California programs.”

Santiago looked down at the penny. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t care about baseball. I came here ‘cause I didn’t want my mom to see what I was going to do. You know, the drugs and peep shows and all that.”

Camila said, “If you don’t mind me asking, Eric, from the video it looks like you saw that something was wrong with him, with Professor Martin, I mean. Then, after he collapsed, it looked like you smiled. What was going on with you?”

Santiago sat on a slatted wooden bench near the base of the statue. Alex and Camila sat on either side of him.

“Did you know he was dying?” she asked.

Santiago looked at her. “Remember in the trial, when Sharp said that I used to kill bugs? He wasn’t right about that. I never killed any of them.” He looked at Camila. “In LA we had one of those little patches of grass in our front yard—a little square of grass like everyone else. You know those?”

Camila nodded. “We had one of those in Des Moines.”

Santiago smiled. “We get a lot of sunshine out there, and when it does rain it usually doesn’t last long. But sometimes it’ll rain buckets for an hour or two. The worms will crawl outta the dirt and make their way into the middle of the sidewalk. Then, all of a sudden it’ll stop raining and be, like, eighty degrees. The sun burns down hot, right on them. The worms get trapped on the sidewalk, ya know?”

Camila nodded and Santiago turned to stare into her eyes. “My mom used to shoot at flies with rubber bands while sitting on the couch. But I could never do that, ya know? I could never even wash an ant down the drain of my bathtub. I just wouldn’t take a tub that day if there was an ant crawling around in there. But when the worms would get stuck out on the sidewalk, I would just watch them. The sidewalk would dry off quick in the bright sun and then all of a sudden the worms would be stuck, trying to crawl back to the wet dirt. Sometimes they made it, but sometimes they didn’t. The ones that didn’t just dried out in the sun and died.” He paused. “I don’t know who told Sharp that I like to kill bugs. That wasn’t true. But I do like watching them die.”

Camila was staring at him. Alex had looked away.

Santiago stood up and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “If you want to know why I’m not going to be in your story, that’s why. I know I’m broken. There’s something inside me that God bent crooked when he made me and it’s never gonna be fixed. That’s why I should be in jail. But you and all the guys who wrote about me, you’re all broken, too. You just don’t know it.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Alex said.

Santiago put his hands in his pockets. “I watch the worm die and I smile about it,” he said. “You see the worm on the ground, watch him die, then write a story about his tragic death.”

ALEX WAS
SIPPING
black coffee and reading
The Post
at a Starbucks on West 72nd when Greta Mori walked in and sat next to him. He put down the newspaper and she stared at the front page—a picture of Alex from college, standing shirtless and covered with mud in a boxing ring with two women hanging off him. The headline read “Muckraker?”

“Nice,” she said, pulling her long black hair into a ponytail. “You must be so proud.”

“I have to admit, that
was
a fun night. It won’t be the last article either.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked.

“You should see the quotes inside. They are anonymous, from people I used to work with, saying I’m undisciplined, lazy. An ambitious pretty boy who would make up anything for fame.”

She eyed him. “That sounds about right.”

“Doesn’t mean my story isn’t true, though.”

A group of tourists walked to the window and stared at Alex. One man held a copy of
The Post
up to the window and pointed at Alex as another man photographed him.

“Didn’t expect you to call,” she said at last.

“I didn’t either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that I’m surprising myself these days.”

“So, how’s your fifteen minutes going?”

“I’m hoping it’s almost over.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

Alex sipped his coffee and smiled. “I wanted to apologize. I’m sorry I didn’t call when I said I would. I’m sorry I didn’t return your call.”

“Well, you had a pretty good reason not to, with all that happened.”

A photographer came up to the window of the Starbucks, paused for a moment, then took their picture together.

“Is that normal now?” Greta asked.

“Yes, it will die down soon.” He looked out at the photographer and waved. “But by tomorrow morning, you might be in the paper as the high-priced Asian call girl I’m spending all my ill-gotten riches on.”

“Well, as long as they recognize me as high-priced.”

They smiled at each other.

“I didn’t not call you because of what happened,” Alex said. “I . . . just didn’t call you. That’s what I do, at least historically.”

“Is this one of the twelve steps to recovery from being an asshole?”

“I don’t know what it is,” he said.

“Well, apology accepted. And I still wanna get you on the bodywork table sometime. Even if only as friends.”

ALEX WAS
DREAMING
about the crash. He saw the blue Camry swerving off the road again and again, smashing the cedar tree and exploding in flames. When his phone rang, the Muzak version of
In Bloom
hovered over the scene, eventually drowning out the sound of his parents’ screams and waking him up. He groped for the phone and looked at the caller ID.
Sadie Green
.

He flipped it open. “Hey, what’s up?” he said, the music still echoing in his mind.

“Have you heard? I mean, have you
heard
?” Loud music and voices almost drowned out her slurred words.

“Heard what?” Alex asked, sitting up in bed.

“
The Times
piece. Did anyone leak it to you yet? The merger is off. Sonia Hollinger is pulling her money. Bice might be out. You did it.”

Alex rubbed his eyes and turned on a bedside light. “Did what?”

“Brought down the evil empire!”

Alex could hear Sadie shouting and laughing. “Are you in a bar?” he asked.

“Hell yes.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Hell yes. Why aren’t you?”

“I was sleeping, Sadie. What are you talking about?”

“A
Times
reporter leaked me the story. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper. Wait, it’s
today’s
paper. Anyway, Nation Corp. is pulling out of the merger and Sonia Hollinger is taking half her money out of Standard Media. And there’s a rumor that Bice might be out as CEO.”

“Wow. It looked like he might weather this thing.”

“Anyway, I’m celebrating. I’ve been getting calls for weeks from Internet startups, mom and pop newspapers, and other non-profits, wondering whether the deal might fall through. The Internet is gonna stay free for at least a little while longer. A lot of people have been holding their breath over this.”

“It’s just one merger,” Alex said. “There’ll be more.”

“Yeah, but this is a good start.”

“I guess, but I don’t really feel like celebrating. I don’t know . . . I wasn’t in this to stop the merger.”

“C’mon, Alex. This is the scene in
Return of the Jedi
where they blow up the Death Star. But it’s not just some dance party for the Ewoks.” Her words were almost incomprehensible. “It’s the remake where they show the whole galaxy celebrating. You blew up the fucking Death Star! This is a big deal.”

“Bice isn’t even in jail, and he’s not going to be.” Alex thought he heard another woman’s voice, muffled by loud music.

“I gotta go,” Sadie said. “Anyway, I just wanted to say you’re awesome. Not that you need to get any more full of yourself. But . . . thanks.”

She hung up without saying good-bye, and Alex went back to sleep.

* * *

At 5 a.m., Alex drank coffee on a bench outside the corner deli as he read the story.

Nation Corp. Pulls Out of Merger

Cites Bad Publicity and Declining Stock Price

Hollinger Widow Said to Contemplate Divestment as CEO Bice on Hot Seat

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

In a stunning about face, Nation Corp., the world’s largest cable and Internet service provider, is backing out of a planned merger with Standard Media. Though a final vote of the board will not take place until next week, multiple sources have confirmed that the merger is off.

The Standard Media stock price has dropped 10% over the last month after a story on news-scoop.com, an Internet start-up, implicated its CEO, Denver Bice, in an elaborate plot involving conspiracy and murder. Though no substantial evidence against Bice has emerged, and no charges have been filed, the rumors were enough to damage the merger.

Sources inside Nation Corp. say that a key element was a planned divestment by Sonia Hollinger, the widow of Macintosh Hollinger.

To make matters worse for the CEO, who has defended himself vigorously in the weeks since the story broke, an executive inside Standard Media says that Bice himself may be at risk. According to the executive, who declined to be identified, a rift exists on the board of directors between those who want Bice out, and those who want to continue to back him.

Alex stopped reading when he got to the B-Matter. He sighed with satisfaction and watched the cars go by, then finished his coffee and walked back to his apartment.