Free The Anonymous Source by A.C. Fuller Page A

story just stuffed?”
    Lance put the cigar on the bar and rolled it back and forth with his thumb. “Remember a few years back when they changed the name of the football stadium from the Meadowlands to SunLife Tech Stadium? I had a column ready on how the Giants’ owner had been on a board with the CEO of SunLife way back when. Everyone knew they were buddies, but I found something solid enough to print. So I wrote that maybe the Giants could get more money for the naming rights if they opened up the bidding instead of just making this back room deal. I’m no crusader, and the piece didn’t come off like that. It was from a fan’s perspective, you know? I was saying, ‘If you’re gonna sell out and name the stadium after some damn company, at least make the bidding competitive so you can drop the price of hotdogs by twenty-five cents.’“
    “So, what happened?” Alex asked.
    “Never found out. Colonel pulled it and ran a feature on some kid who overcame something or other and ran some race for charity. We’d had that piece on the kid sitting around for a week—wasn’t even timely when we ran it.” He shook his head. “Never felt right. And I noticed we started running quite a few ads for SunLife broadband soon after.”
    Alex sighed. “You think the Colonel gets it from upstairs, or is it his call?”
    “What the hell are you asking for, boy? Sometimes stories get stuffed. Even yours. It’s just the business being the business. Doesn’t happen much, and when it does, we usually don’t know why.”
    Alex leaned in. “Can we go off the record here?”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Woodward. Don’t be so dramatic.” Lance waved down the bartender. “Ma’am, two cognacs. And leave the bottle. It’s on my young friend here.”
    Alex waited as the bartender poured the drinks and set down the bottle. “Do you know Demarcus Downton?”
    “Downtown D? Hell yes, I know him. He came up right after the King, Bernard King. Was a better prospect, too.”
    “Why’d he start dealing?” Alex asked.
    “Usual story. Got his girlfriend pregnant and went to work instead of college. Then his dad died and he never made it back. In the neighborhood, we looked at him like a god. He was as close to a sure thing as there was in New York at the time.” Lance picked up his cigar and dragged it between his lips.
    “You think he’d lie to me about a story?” Alex asked. “I mean, a big story.”
    “Tough to say. Don’t know him well, but everyone in the neighborhood knew Demarcus was on the straight path. His mom was real strict. She used to throw rice on us to get us off her stoop.” Lance picked up the cognac bottle, shook it a bit, and put it down. “How big a story are you talking about?”
    “If he’s telling the truth? The biggest of my life. By far.”
    “Then, what can I do to help?”
    Alex smiled. “Can you get Demarcus and me into a Knicks practice?”

Chapter Seventeen
    ALEX SAT ON THE EDGE of his bed and took out his mini tape recorder. Downton had said he needed to get the video from his mother’s house in Queens and they had arranged to meet at Jack’s Bar in Brooklyn at noon the next day.
    Alex pressed play and walked to his closet as Downton’s voice filled the room.
    “A couple months after 9/11—November, I think—two cops picked me up. White guy and a black guy. Fresh faced. You know, all ‘us against the world.’“
    Alex leaned into the closet and slipped a four-foot-long wooden pole out of a thin bag made of blue velvet. After draping the pole over his shoulders, he paced the room, rotating from his waist every few seconds as he listened.
    “They said they had me on dealin’ in the park and I could get ten years ‘cause I was on parole. They’d looked me up, you know? Said if I helped ‘em, they could get me out of it. NYU was their beat. Said they’d let me operate as long as I stayed small.”
    Alex heard the occasional thud of a coffee cup on a tabletop in the