The Anonymous Source by A.C. Fuller Page A

was confused. He blinked slowly and when he opened his eyes he was staring into the barrel of a long, thin gun.
    “Why are you, eh, talking to a reporter?” The figure above him spoke with a high voice and a strange accent Downton could barely understand. The voice—along with the thin, rectangular mustache and shoulder length, black hair—convinced Downton that this was not a child. Just a very short man.
    “What?” Downton said.
    The man spoke more slowly. “Why are you talking to this reporter? Is it possible you have something you are not supposed to have?”
    Downton spoke weakly through stabbing pain. “Man, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
    The man stepped away from Downton and picked up a framed photo from the windowsill. “Is this you?” the man asked.
    “Me and my dad.” Downton remembered every detail of the photo. Christmas Day, 1974. Knicks, Warriors. Third-level seats at Madison Square Garden.
    “Look down at your knee, black man. Do I not look like someone who is good at what he does? Would I come here and break your knee if I did not know who you have been talking to?”
    Downton looked at his knee and saw a bloody knob of bone sticking out just above it. His head dropped back to the floor.
    “Here is what is going to happen. You will tell me about this reporter, about this video, or you will die right now, tonight, in this room.”
    “I don’t know who you are man, but I really don’t know—”
    “Stop.”
    “Man, I’m tellin’ you. I don’t know nothin’ about no reporter.”
    The man set the photo down and turned to Downton. “You fucking Americans. You never say the truth. Tell me about this reporter.”
    “He ain’t done nothing to you.”
    “A minute ago you did not know what I was talking about? Now you know he has done nothing to me?” He stepped toward Downton. “Tall man, this is it.”
    Downton tilted his head to the left to look at the man, who squatted and stared into Downton’s eyes.
    Downton turned his head away and closed his eyes. He saw his dad, smiling at him from his red plastic seat at the Garden, rafters in the background. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but I don’t know nothin’.”
    The man stood quickly from his squat, and in the same motion, fired two quiet bullets into Downton’s head.
    “I am Dimitri Rak.”
    Rak pulled black leather gloves from his jacket pocket, put them on quickly, then rummaged through the TV stand and ran his hands across the fabric of Downton’s recliner. He walked to the bedroom and went through the small dresser, inspecting every piece of clothing. He flipped over Downton’s mattress and patted up and down the stained fabric. Finally, he searched the bathroom and kitchen.
    Finding nothing, he bolted the front door from the inside and walked into the kitchen. From there, he opened the sliding door and stepped onto a tiny brick patio enclosed by a rusty fence. A dog barked in the distance.
    Rak looked around, climbed over the fence, and walked down the street.
    * * *
    Alex slept in short bursts interrupted by vivid dreams.
    In one, he stood in the doorway to his father’s writing room in their Bainbridge Island house. It was the Christmas break before his college graduation, six months before his parents died. His father clicked away on a beige computer while Alex stood silently, his throat scratchy, and watched him write. Finally, he said, “Dad, why don’t you and mom visit me in New York?” His father turned slowly, his eyes glassy and ineffectual, and spoke in the tinny, distorted voice Alex had heard over the phone two days prior. “We don’t like it there.” Alex’s mother appeared behind his father, placing her hand on his shoulder. “We don’t like it there,” she repeated. Alex surveyed her with sadness, then dread. The dread intensified until he shot up in bed.
    He checked his phone. It was 4:35 a.m. He must have slept a little.
    He lay back and stared at the ceiling, thinking