Terminal Compromise - Winn Schwartau (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

job.

Hey, he thought, dismissing the possible unpleasant consequences

of failure. This is San Francisco, and I have a three days off

in a new city. Might as well find my way around the town to-

night. According to the guide books I should start at Pier 39.

Chapter 3 Tuesday, September 8, New York City

But they told me they wouldn’t tell! They promised.” Hugh Sidneys

pleaded into his side of the phone. “How did you find out?” At

first, Scott thought the cartoon voice was a joke perpetrated by

one of his friends, or more probably, his ex-wife. Even she,

though, coudn’t possibly think crank a phone call was a twisted

form of art. No, it had to be real.

“I’m sorry Mr. Sidneys. We can’t give out our sources. That’s

confidential. But are you saying that you confirm the story?

That it is true?”

“Yes, no. Well ,” the pleading slid into near sobbing. “If this

gets out, I’m ruined. Ruined. Everything, my family . . .how

could you have found out? They promised!” The noise from the

busy metro room at the New York City Times made it difficult to

hear Sidneys.

“Can I quote you, sir? Are you confirming the story?” Scott

pressed on for that last requisite piece of every journalistic

puzzle confirmation of a story that stood to wreck havoc in

portions of the financial community. And Washington. It was a

story with meat, but Scott Mason needed the confirmation to

complete it.

“I don’t know. . .if I tell what I know now, then maybe . . .that

would mean I was being helpful . . .maybe I should get a

lawyer . . .” The call from Scott Mason to First State Savings

and Loan on Madison Avenue had been devastating. Hugh Sidneys was

just doing what he was told to do. Following orders.

“Maybe, Hugh. Maybe.” Scott softened toward Sidneys, thinking

the first name approach might work. “But, is it true, Hugh? Is

the story true?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Do what you want.” Hugh Sidneys

hung up on Mason. It was as close to a confirmation as he need-

ed. He wrote the story.

At 39, Scott Byron Mason was already into his second career.

Despite the objections of his overbearing father, he had avoided

the family destiny of becoming a longshoreman. “If it’s good

enough for me, it’s good enough for my kids.” Scott was an only

child, but his father had wanted more despite his mother’s ina-

bility to carry another baby to full term.

Scott caught the resentment of his father and the doting protec-

tion of his mother. Marie Elizabeth Mason wanted her son to have

more of a future than to merely live another generation in the

lower middle class doldrums of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Not

that Scott was aware of his predicament; he was a dreamer.

Her son showed aptitude. By the age of six Scott knew two words

his father never learned – how and why. His childhood curiosity

led to more than a few mishaps and spankings by the hot tempered

Louis Horace Mason. Scott took apart everything in the house in

an attempt to see what made it tick. Sometimes, not often

enough, Scott could reassemble what he broken down to its small-

est components. Despite his failings and bruised bottom Scott

wasn’t satisfied with, “that’s just the way it is,” as an answer

to anything.

Behind his father’s back, Marie had Scott take tests and be

accepted to the elite Bronx High School of Science, an hour and a

half train ride from Brooklyn. To Scott it wasn’t an escape from

Brooklyn, it was a chance to learn why and how machines worked.

Horace gave Marie and Scott a three day silent treatment until

his mother finally put an end to it. “Horace Stipton Mason,”

Evelyn Mason said with maternal command. “Our son has a gift,

and you will not, I repeat, you will not interfere with his

happiness.”

“Yes dear.”

“The boy is thirteen and he has plenty of time to decide what

he’s going to do with himself. Is that clear?”

“Yes dear.”

“Good.” She would say as she finished setting the table. “Dinner

is ready. Wash your hands boys.” And the subject was closed.

But throughout his four years at the best damn high school in the

country, Horace found ample opportunity to pressure Scott about

how it was the right thing to follow in the family tradition, and

work at the docks, like the three generations before him.

The issue was never settled during Scott’s rebellious teenage

years. The War, demonstrating on the White House lawn, getting

gassed at George Washington, writing for the New York Free Press,

Scott was even arrested once or twice or three times for peaceful

civil disobedience. Scott Mason was seeing the world in a new

way. He was rapidly growing up, as did much of the class of

1970.

Scott’s grades weren’t good enough for scholorships, but adequate

to be accepted at several reasonable schools.

“I already paid for his education,” screamed Horace upon hearing

that Scott chose City College to keep costs down. He would live

at home. “He broke every damn thing I ever bought, radios, TV’s,

washers. He can go to work like a man.”

With his mother’s blessing and understanding, Scott moved out of

the house and in with three roommates who also attended City

College, where all New Yorkers can get a free education. Scott

played very hard, studied very little and let his left of center

politics guide his social life. His engineering professors

remarked that he was underutilizing his God-given talents and

that he spent more time protesting and objecting that paying

attention. It was an unpredictable piece of luck that Scott

Mason would never have to make a living as an engineer. He would

be able to remain the itinerate tinkerer; designing and building

the most inane creations that regularly had little purpose beyond

satisfying technical creativity.

“Can we go with it?” Scott asked City Editor Douglas McQuire and

John Higgins, the City Times’ staff attorney whose job it was to

answer just such questions. McQuire and Mason had been asked to

join Higgins and publisher Anne Manchester to review the paper’s

position on running Mason’s story. Scott was being lawyered, the

relatively impersonal cross examination by a so-called friendly

in-house attorney. It was the single biggest pain in the ass of

Scott’s job, and since he had a knack for finding sensitive sub-

jects, he was lawyered fairly frequently. Not that it made him

feel any less like being called to the principal’s office every

time.

Scott’s boyish enthusiasm for his work, and his youthful appear-

ance allowed some to underestimate his ability. He looked much

younger than his years, measuring a slender 6 foot tall and shy

of 160 pounds. His longish thin sandy hair and a timeless all

about Beach Boy face made him a good catch on his better days-

he was back in circulation at almost 40. The round wire rimmed

glasses he donned for an extreme case of myopia were a visible

stylized reminder of his early rebel days, conveying a sophisti-

cated air of radicalism. Basically clean cut, he preferred shav-

ing every two or three, or occasionally four days. He blamed his

poor shaving habits on his transparent and sensitive skin ‘just

like Dick Nixon’s’.

The four sat in Higgins’ comfortable dark paneled office. With 2

walls full of books and generous seating, the ample office resem-

bled an elegant and subdued law library. Higgins chaired the

meeting from behind his leather trimmed desk. Scott brought a

tall stack of files and put them on the glass topped coffee

table.

“We need to go over every bit, from the beginning. OK?” Higgins

made it sound more like and order than responsible journalistic

double checking. Higgins didn’t interfere in the news end of the

business; he kept his opinions to himself. But it was his respon-

sibility to insure that the City Times’ was kept out of the re-

ceiving end of any litigation. That meant that as long as a

story was properly researched, sourced, and confirmed, the con-

tents were immaterial to him. That was the Publisher’s choice,

not his.

Mason had come to trust Higgins in his role as aggravating media-

tor between news and business. Scott might not like what he had

to say, but he respected his opinion and didn’t argue too much.

Higgins was never purposefully adversarial. He merely wanted to

know that both the writers and the newspaper had all their ducks

in a row. Just in case. Libel suits can be such a pain, and

expensive.

“Why don’t you tell me, again, about how you found out about the

McMillan scams.” Higgins turned on a small micro-cassette re-

corder. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said as he tested it. “Keeps

better notes than I do,”