At the Post

12Jan12

Mason Gregory delighted in the sounds of The City. The myriad combinations of honking and yelling. The constant chug and thud of never-ending construction. The background sounds of a million conversations bouncing through the streets. The City was his home, and he had never once stepped any further out of her than the East Harbor. He feigned ignorance of the concept of the suburbs and would not leave the confines of the city proper.

Mason’s job was cub at the city desk. If something spontaneously popped up anywhere in The City it was Mason’s job to know about it five minutes before it happened. And he was more than good at it. Suspiciously better than anyone else in the office. Anyone else who had ever worked at The Monitor in its proud 130 year history.

Friday, a call came in talking of activity in Old City. Mason was out the door the moment the location was named pausing only to collect his coat and snap his fingers at the smallest photographer sitting in the pen. They walked to the destination. Taking side streets and back alleys. The photographer lagging behind as the terrain became cluttered. Mason grew impatient and spurred the whelp of a lad along with a quick story of King Ralph.

They emerged from a side alley to see a cluster of fire trucks around the stairs of the Second Precinct. The oldest still functioning headquarters of law and order in The City. While most of it had been converted to offices for politically minded sergeants and captains to squabble at the heels of the commandant, the bottom two floors contained the men of the organized crime division, Mason explained to the photographer. The two closed in on the steps where a ring of cops were establishing a perimeter around two bodies lying on the steps.

Mason jabbed the photographer and whispered instructions, a how-to of poking the scene for information without getting his camera smashed like a lolly. Mason himself fought forward to identify the bodies.

His charge up the hill was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Jimmy Dollar. The inexplicably upscale named fox-hound of The City’s finest. Known in some circles as a media consultant others as a handler, he was a shit-eating grin billowing out of an expensive suit. “Mason Mason Mason. Always the first to arrive, never the first to leave, always on the case, never misses a shot of the face.” Jimmy motioned and two officers grabbed the diminutive photographer and hauled him over to a car. “That’s that. Mason. I’ll give you the professional courtesy of walking to that car instead of being dragged.”

Mason frowned. “What’s with the strong arm tactic, Jimmy?”

Jimmy sharpened his nails with a file and made an expansive gesture of the scene. “New policy, Mason, press tents, media blackouts, releases. You will get briefed with all of the other reporters all at the same time in a little place we have set up a block from here. Reporters outside of the designated areas are arrest on site.”

Mason nodded in cadence with Jimmy’s fat lips and took mental pictures of the two bodies barely eight feet away. “We won’t stand for it, Jimmy. We’ll find the news and we’ll report it. All of it.”

Jimmy smirked. “I’m sure you will Mason. And the headlines will read ‘Reporters do what Jimmy Says’ from paper to paper all day long. Now move.”

Mason walked to the car and got in. A uniform drove he and his photographer a block away to the press tent and let them out. The moment they were out of the car mason hailed a taxi.

“Come along,” he said to the photographer, “Its time we hit the tombs and figure out why the letter Z was carved into both of those bodies five times.”

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Tags: Jimmy Dollar, King Ralph, Mason Gregory, The Monitor