by A. C. Fuller
“Naïver?” Alex asked.
“It’s a word. Plus, do you know the department’s record of protecting witnesses? Even if they did the right thing, we’d still be screwed. That guy was in my home!”
“I do know their record. It’s pretty good.”
“Good enough to bet your life on?”
Alex stared across the Hudson River at New Jersey as the taxi passed 125th Street. At the George Washington Bridge, the driver leaned back. “Where we headed?” he asked.
“Still don’t know, just head north,” Camila said.
“Bridge toll coming up in a few minutes,” the driver said. Alex handed him a ten-dollar bill and they rode in silence across the Henry Hudson Bridge. The driver looked at them in the rearview mirror. “You want to take the Sawmill or the Cross County Parkway?” Alex dropped his head and sighed.
“I have an idea,” Camila said. “On the couch you asked about Bice, right? The interaction between him and Martin is our only lead.”
Alex looked up. “We can’t talk to Bice because he runs the paper that killed my story. And Hollinger isn’t around to help us.”
“His wife is,” Camila said. “John told me she lives in Hawaii. Kona. He talked to her at the funeral.”
“Okay, but what good will she do us?”
“I don’t know,” Camila said. “But where else can we turn?”
Alex shrugged.
“How much money do you have?” Camila asked.
“I have enough saved up to buy us a couple weeks, but what’s the plan?”
Camila tapped on the glass divider and spoke to the driver. “Cross County to Ninety-Five East.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE CAPTAIN’S VOICE jolted Alex as it echoed metallic and scratchy through the cabin. “At the present time we are experiencing significant precipitation, which may delay our anticipated takeoff time by at least twenty minutes or more.”
Alex slid his laptop bag under the seat in front of him. “Why not just say it’s raining so the flight is delayed?”
Camila laughed.
“We will be heading to Kona, Hawaii today with a layover in San Francisco,” the captain continued. ”So if one of these two cities is not in your travel plans, please let a flight attendant know.”
“Politics, lawyers, and television happened,” she said, moving into the aisle to make way for a large man in a tight suit who was pointing at the window seat.
Alex swung his legs into her seat to let the man pass. “How did I get stuck in the middle anyway?” he asked Camila as the man lifted up the armrest and wedged himself into the window seat.
“Sorry,” the man said.
“Heading all the way to Kona?” Alex asked, trying to sound like a flight attendant. “Or is SFO your final destination?”
“Kona.”
Alex tried to pull the armrest down but it stuck on the man’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” the man said again, putting on headphones and leaning against the window.
Camila sat and Alex scrunched as close to her as he could. “I’m still pissed at myself,” he said.
“Why?”
“I can’t believe I left that video with Baxton. He’s not going to get it out there. The trial will go on like nothing has changed. And I can’t believe I’m about to fly across the country. The Santiago story is the biggest of my career and I’m bailing on it.” He leaned back. “I think I need to sleep.”
“We both do. But you’re not bailing on the story, you’re following it. The real story isn’t what’s happening in court.” She paused. “Out of curiosity, what would you do with the video if you had it?”
“I don’t know. I’d just have it. I’d feel a little less crazy. Maybe there’s something on it we didn’t see. Maybe I’d leak it to a TV station at least.” He looked at Camila and was surprised to see that she was smiling. “We’re in a pretty messed up place for you to be smiling right now. I mean, three hours ago you found out a killer was in your apartment.”
“And what offer would you be willing to make to a beautiful woman who had the video? Would you—I don’t know—give her your share of peanuts, or steal her a bag of the animal crackers they only give to kids?”
“Stop messing around.”
Camila reached into her purse and pulled out a silver USB drive. “I don’t know what this is, exactly, but your friend James said he loaded the video onto it.”
Alex sat up straight and took it from her.
“When I put my hair up,” she continued, “his eyes rolled back in his head. I asked him to make me a copy while you were writing.”
Alex smiled as the plane started moving. “You trollop! You used your devastating beauty to take advantage of him.” He passed the USB drive between his hands.
“He’s a sweet guy.”
The captain’s voice came through the cabin again. “Ladies and gentlemen, the precipitation has halted and we anticipate departure in three to five minutes. We’re currently fourth in line, so please bring all tray tables and seat backs to their full, upright, and locked positions in preparation for our impending departure.”
“For God’s sake,” Alex said in a whisper, “why can’t he just say it stopped raining so we’re leaving?”
“You ever read Orwell?” Camila asked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AT SFO THEY BOUGHT carry-on bags, toiletries, and a few clothing items, then took a booth at a seafood restaurant so Camila could eat clam chowder from a sourdough bowl. Alex ordered two grilled swordfish steaks and a side of steamed vegetables.
She laughed at him when the waitress left. “What is that, like a hundred grams of protein and four-hundred calories?”
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we need to do something besides trying to track down Sonia Hollinger. She’s a long shot at best.”
“What about your source?”
Alex pulled out the folder James had given him, scanned the names, then threw it on the table. “I’ll try some things after we eat.”
While they waited for the food, Alex checked his voice mail. He had four new messages.
The first message was Baxton, and Alex immediately recognized his irritated tone. “Alex,” he said, “it’s Tuesday at three. Why haven’t you gotten me Santiago copy? I’ve talked to the folks upstairs and they are considering sending the video to the police, but they want to meet with you, so get your TV-model ass in here.”
The second message was from James Stacy. “Something’s going on h-here. The Colonel has been on the phone all d-day. Some suit came and asked me about helping you with whatever that file was. I played dumb. I mean, I am dumb in this case.” James was breathing heavily and whispering. “I didn’t tell them I gave your friend a copy of the v-video. They didn’t ask but I didn’t volunteer it. And Lance is looking for you, too.” James told Alex to call him at home and left his number.
Alex looked at Camila. “They want to meet with me.”
She laughed. “To find out how much you know? Or to kill you?”
“Thanks,” Alex said.
The third message was from Greta Mori. “Hey Alex,” she said in a perky voice. “Just wanted to say hi and see what you’re up to this weekend. We had talked about getting together again, maybe meeting at Dive Bar on Friday. I think your friend Lance wanted to flirt with me some more. Anyway, bye.”
Alex looked at Camila but turned away before meeting her eyes.
The fourth message, left just half an hour earlier, was Baxton again. “Alex, I don’t know what in the hell you’re up to, but this is entirely unacceptable. I’ll assume you’re half dead with the flu or something. But I will only assume this until tomorrow morning at nine.” He hung up without saying good-bye.
The waitress brought the food and Alex looked down at the fish.
“Looks dry, doesn’t it?” Camila said, ripping off a piece of sourdough and dunking it in the soup. Alex poked at the
fish with his fork, then ate a few vegetables.
When she finished her soup, Camila called the secretary of the journalism department and canceled her classes for the rest of the week. “It’s the flu,” she said, sounding weak. “It’s going around.”
“You’re a good liar,” Alex said when she hung up. “A true sociopath. You can lie without remorse.”
Camila smiled at him. “I think a sociopath doesn’t know she’s lying. I am without morals, but I only use my powers for good.”
As the waitress cleared their plates, Camila ordered a chocolate milkshake and Alex called Bearon, his friend at the courthouse. He explained why he hadn’t been in court that day, then told him about the strange calls and Downton’s video. It took him a few minutes to convince his friend that he was serious. Finally, Bearon said, “I guess it’s not a huge surprise that they got a brown kid for something he didn’t do. We’re used to that, but I didn’t see this coming.”
“No one did, but I need to ask you a question. Can you think of any police employee who might have inside information on the Santiago trial?”
“Lots,” Bearon said, “but none who would make the kind of calls you’re getting.”
“What about a disgruntled prosecutor who wants to stick it to the police? Anyone who could benefit from exposing a shoddy investigation?”
“I can think of a lot of people who’d want to embarrass the department,” Bearon said, “but nobody would go about it that way. Have you considered the possibility that your source is crazy?”
“I’m assuming he is, but he’s also been right so far.” He pulled out James’s list and read the names one by one. Bearon didn’t recognize all of them, but he was able to eliminate three officers who had transferred out of the borough and wouldn’t have access to the Santiago file. Alex crossed off their names.
“Plus, the last two,” Bearon said. “Waxman and Yardley. I know them well enough to know they wouldn’t leak that type of information. Sorry I can’t be more help. What are you gonna do?”
“Better if I don’t say. And Bearon, thanks.”
Alex hung up and stared at Camila’s milkshake. “That just leaves about seventy more names,” he said, dialing Lance Brickman.
“Lance, it’s Alex.”
“You stupid bastard,” Lance said. “You bailed, huh?”
“How’d you know?”
“I know because the Colonel is running some bullshit I wrote on the front page of the Metro section instead of the piece you were supposed to write on Santiago. We’re gonna have to use the AP report.”
“Damn,” Alex said. “That’s embarrassing. But it’s not like I’m not justified. And at least it worked out well for one of us. You got the front page of Metro. That’ll make it harder for them to fire you before you hit your thirty.”
“No. It won’t. Where the hell are you, anyway?”
“I better not say, but look, I need to tell you something, then ask you something.” Alex told Lance about the last two calls he had received from the source. “It’s weird, right? I mean, if you’re gonna use a voice scrambler and hide yourself, why not just tell me what happened so I can write it?”
Alex heard the click of a lighter and a loud puff. “Look,” Lance said, “I don’t know what you’re into, but I don’t want any part of it.”
“Can you just tell me why the hell a source might do that? I mean, I would just ignore him if he didn’t keep being right.”
“Didn’t you read All the President’s Men in J-School?”
“I saw the movie. But so what?”
“Sources can be paranoid bastards.”
When he hung up, Alex started making calls from the top of the list while Camila ate her milkshake with a spoon.
First, he called Betty Ableton, a records clerk, and pretended to be a pollster taking a survey of New York City residents. He asked her a series of questions about the Santiago trial and finished with, “Do you believe that Eric Santiago is guilty?” He thought that if he’d found his source, there would at least be a pause, a catch in her voice. Something. She said “Yes” without hesitation.
Next, he tried Timothy Alston, a detective, and got the same answer. The next name was Byron Deerborn, an officer in the evidence unit. The call went to voice mail and Alex hung up. After a dozen calls, he leaned back in the booth and looked at Camila. “This is pointless. Even if I happen to reach the right person, what good will it do?”
“It’ll be better when we get to Hawaii. Sonia Hollinger will know something.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ALEX RUBBED HIS PALMS over his eyes, then stared out the window as the flight to Kona took off. The sun was beginning to set over the brown hills of San Francisco, bathing the dry grass in a soft, warm light. He turned to Camila. “We haven’t slept yet.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. We must be approaching zombiehood.”
Alex looked at the man next to him, hoping he had shrunk during the layover. His headphones were on and he was looking out the window.
“You ever read the bible?” Alex asked.
“I was raised Catholic for a few years. Then I studied it on my own when I grew up.”
“‘He who hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’ It’s John 12:25. Any idea what it means?”
“You left off the first part.”
“I know. It’s ‘He who loveth his life shall lose it; and he who hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’ What’s it mean?”
“Why?”
“Well, the source who keeps calling me quoted the second half of that passage the first time he called.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Camila said, sitting up in her seat.
“Didn’t seem important.”
“I’m no biblical scholar, but I think it means that, in Christianity, you are supposed to love Christ more than you love yourself, more than you love your own life. You’re supposed to see beyond this life in order to gain eternal life in heaven.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I read online.”
“‘In the world but not of it.’ Ever heard that phrase? It’s Sufi.”
“What’s Sufi?” Alex asked.
“It’s the mystical, contemplative branch of Islam. Kinda like Kabbalah is to Judaism. ‘In the world but not of it’ means kinda the same thing. Participating in this world, in this life, without being limited by it. It means seeing beyond the self-imposed mental limitations that we project onto the world. Recognizing that there is another world—a realer world—beyond the everyday life of this one.”
“Self-imposed? I thought it was all the fault of ‘The Media.’”
“Screw you, I never said that. But seriously, did you see The Matrix? ‘There is no spoon.’ It’s like that.”
“But what’s wrong with everyday life?”
“It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with everyday life. It’s about seeing through the false.” She paused. “Anyway, I could be way off. It could also be about suicide. If you ‘hateth life,’ you might kill yourself and be doomed to live that life for eternity in hell. It could also mean that.”
Alex shrugged. “Yeah, I read that, too. I had just asked him why he was telling me about Santiago being innocent when he said it. Or she said it. That help at all?”
“Seems to me this person wants to do the right thing because he or she has an eye on the eternal.”
Alex shook his head and looked out the window. “So we’re looking for someone who believes in heaven and doesn’t think he’s getting in.”
“Or she’s getting in.”
* * *
When the plane leveled off at 33,000 feet, Alex closed his eyes. His legs and feet were folded into a Z-shape and wedged under his seat. His head rested uncomfortably on top of the cushion and sleep came in fifteen-minute fragments. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or thinking. First he saw Downton walking from room to room in his mother’s apartment, talking about baske
tball. Next he saw him lying on the floor of his Brooklyn apartment, the man from the sketch standing over him. The plane hit a patch of turbulence. Alex’s head dropped forward and bounced off the seat in front of him. He opened his eyes and felt a tenderness in his chest. He closed them again and saw Downton with his grandson, Tyree. Then he saw a grainy image of Santiago standing in the park, the dark trees waving behind him. His pockmarked face, smiling into the night, became disconnected from his body and hung in Alex’s head. In the minutes before he awoke, his mind jumped back and forth between Santiago and Tyree, accompanied by a vague feeling of shame. He needed to do something.
When he opened his eyes, he turned to find Camila staring at him as she popped peanuts into her mouth. “What were you dreaming about?” she asked.
“Santiago. Downton. Tyree.” He was groggy. Her eyes were tender and he thought she had probably been watching him for a while. He sat up a little. “Why did Santiago just stand there, for two and a half minutes, watching him die? And then it looked like he smiled. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared back at her and the image of Santiago left him. His head felt relaxed, soft, and the softness expanded down his neck and met the tenderness in his chest. He thought that he would relax away into nothing. He tensed his shoulders and sat up straight. “When did your parents move to the States?” he asked.
“I just realized, you don’t know what it’s like being a foreigner, do you?”
“I don’t know. What’s that supposed to mean?”
She crunched a peanut. “You feel safe all the time and you make people comfortable. You’re so sure of yourself that people can make you into whatever they need you to be.”
He frowned until he realized she wasn’t mocking him. “Well, in college I traveled all over and felt at home everywhere I went.”