Escapade & Scandal: The Novel
1 - 'All the news you deserve'

The motto on the brass plaque at the entrance to Karmic News Service in San Francisco stated it plainly: “All the news you deserve.”

KNS began as a small but scrappy regional news wire. Full of energy and talent, the service grew steadily until it was bought out by the news/information/entertainment/bathroom fixtures behemoth, Pan/InterGlobal Media Corporation – PIG for short.

The few old-timers who remained in the news operation and a rare one or two of the new generation of “journos” -- as the younger reporters liked to call themselves -– appreciated the shoe leather-and-ink aura that somehow still clung to KNS.

The slogan became the subject of an in-house controversy after PIG took over and restyled KNS. Some on PIG's governing board wanted to do away with it altogether. Others wanted simply to shorten it to “All the News.” It sounded more dramatic and all-encompassing, they reasoned.

A small cadre of long-time stockholders and tradition-bound mid-level managers preferred to leave things as they were. Why throw away a lucky charm? they wondered.

The three-way split meant no majority vote. The dispute ended in a draw. The motto stayed. However, the pro-change group vowed to revisit the issue when they could agree on what the change ought to be.

Lately, though, new rumors that a change was in the works were circulating around the latte kiosk in the company’s exercise gym/weight-loss clinic/hair and massage salon/Toddler-Coddler Day Care Center on the first floor of the 30-floor headquarters building at New Montgomery and Old Market streets.

KNS reporter Dan Scandal arrived at the PIG building that day looking as bright and fresh as the crisp autumn morning outside. He wore his charcoal gray suit and his lucky tie, wine red with a pattern of tiny notebooks. He was headed for his first direct meeting with the legendary Bill Monahan, KNS’s Executive Editor in Chief, Emeritus. The Old Man.

Had he a nose for news -- and Scandal was confident he did -- he was about to be promoted. At last. So, when he presented himself at the access control console in the lobby he was smiling, a display of potentially ambiguous human emotion that always put the security technician specialists guarding the headquarters on edge.

Scandal handed his photo identity card and state-issued press credential over to the processing guard, a smallish female in a dark blue uniform blazer and manly necktie. She swiftly passed the card and mug shot over a flat screen embedded in the console.

“Left eye into light holster, please. Breathe normally, please,” she said.

Scandal inserted his chin into the contraption and looked straight into the lens looking at him.

“Place thumb of right index finger on scanner plate, please” the guard recited.

The identification apparatus corroborated Scandal’s vitals, and cleared him for entry with a cheerful note of approval: “Ponk!”

With Scandal’s bona fides established, the guard adopted the welcome posture and mood that had been programmed into her.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning!” Scandal replied, heartily.

“Here to see?”

“Bill Monahan.”

“Three possible Bill Monahans listed in PIG employee roster and database,” the guard noted.

“William P. Monahan, editor emeritus,” Scandal added,

“William P. Monahan,” the guard repeated.

“That’s right, ‘P’, as in ‘powerful’,” Scandal joked.

The guard’s eyes narrowed with uncertainty. “Powerful?”

“Just kidding,” he assured her.

“Kidding?” the guard repeated, considering.

"It's a synonym for joking."

“That is an inappropriate term in context of this transaction.”

“Sorry. Really,” Scandal said.

“Yes,” the guard said, and she resumed. “William P. Monahan,” she said, tappity-tap-tapping the text into a keyboard embedded in the desktop. A name popped up on the monitor.

“It displays. Yes. Step through x-ray.”

Scandal stepped deliberately through the x-ray portal. No red lights flashed. No Fah-ooga! sirens blared.

“Proceed to Room 701 O.B.”

“O.B.?” Scandal asked.

“Original Building. Down there,” the guard said, inclining her head in a direction away from the main bank of modern elevators that shot at stomach-turning speeds to the 29th floor and PIG’s penthouse executive dining room.

“Down where?”

“Down there,” the guard said, raising her left arm and pointing her index finger at a small portico and hallway leading away from the main lobby.

Scandal had never been in that particular corner of the lobby. He hadn’t paid much attention. Perhaps he was always in too much of a hurry coming and going to his 11th floor rewrite and repackaging room to notice it.

Then Scandal remembered.

In the PIG takeover/makeover of KNS, the new corporate owner, PIG, learned that the original KNS building had been declared a state historical structure and could not be destroyed or altered.

This was extremely ironic, since one of the main reasons PIG bought Karmic to begin with was to obtain the parcel of land it stood on and the financial district address.

But the architects quickly adapted. They left the original building intact and designed a skyscraper around it. PIG facilitated approvals by spreading bribe money among the appropriate politicians. They blunted opposition by promising to leave one corner of the original building exposed to public view.

so the portico in the corner would lead to the famous part of the building that others often mentioned, but Scandal had never visited.

Scandal walked that way. As he passed through the portico the light dimmed. He looked at the fixtures. They were art deco sconces spaced sparsely down a long, doorless, twilit corridor ending in an old fashioned elevator with a brass accordion door.

Above the elevator doors was an ornate brass semi-circle with a curly-cue arrow pointing to the Roman numerals 'I' to 'VII'. Before Scandal could press the call button to the left of the door, the door rattled open to reveal an ancient elevator operator, thin and bent. He wore a brown blazer many sizes too big for him and a skinny-knotted bow tie.

“Step in,” he said.

Scandal obeyed, and the metal accordion door rattled closed behind him. The sound was strangely deafening.

“Seventh floor,” Scandal said.

“Seventh floor. Of course,” the old man said in a hoarse, whispery voice.

“What do you mean? ‘Of course.’”

“This car only stops at the seventh floor,” the elevator man rasped.

“Oh, an express elevator, eh?”

“No. The only elevator,” the old man wheezed back.

“What about the other floors?” Scandal looked up at the brass elevation marker over the door. “Two through six?”

“Gone. All gone.”

“Gone?”

“Closed off in the big makeover. Used for storage, but otherwise sealed off.”

“I see…” but Scandal was interrupted as the old operator slammed the clutch handle into the engage position. The elevator car climbed, clanking loudly as it slowly rose.

“Going to see Monahan?” the elevator operator wheezed.

“That’s right. How did…?”

“His office is the only one left in this section. He’s the only one who regularly comes this way anymore.”

“Oh.”

The cage rocked and banged on. The brass arrow passed floor three and struck out for four.

“You’re the second one today.”

“I am?” Scandal didn’t like the sound of that. Why would it take two people to give him a promotion, he wondered? He dismissed the thought. The other person was in all likelihood there to see Monahan on business entirely.

“Last few days, old Monahan’s been busy like a beaver,” he wheezed and coughed.

“You really ought to do something about that cold,” Scandal advised.

“Not a cold.”

“What is it then?”

“Only one lung. All I got.”

“What happened to the other?”

“Gave it to science.”

The elevator car creaked and groaned.

Scandal studied the wizened, single-lunged conductor.

“Kind of unusual to see an elevator man these days. I thought elevator operators were a thing of the past.”

“We are,” the operator agreed.

“But….”

“But this elevator is part of the old building, Declared historic. Can’t be changed. Needs a human pilot. And I’m a licensed elevator pilot. Probably the last one living, too,” he said, with a devilish grin.

“Elevator pilot,” Scandal said, skeptically. “I see.”

Before Scandal could frame another question, the elevator shuddered to a noisy halt.


“Seventh floor,” the elevator man announced. “Watch your step exiting.”

Scandal stepped off, then paused, turning back to the old man.

“Last door at the far end. Sign says, ‘News’. Don’t ring. Don’t knock. Just open the door and walk in.”

“Really? Sounds rude. What if….”

“Oh, no. Monahan likes it that way.”

“OK,” Scandal said, dubiously.

“Oh, and, pay attention to the other visitor. In fact, pay attention to everything.”

“Hey, I’m a reporter. Reporters pay attention to everything.”

The old elevator man studied Scandal, blankly, as if trying to add numbers and remember song lyrics at the same time. Finally, he replied.

“If you say so.”

And he slammed the rickety cage door closed, and the elevator dropped out of sight.

Scandal hiked up his britches, straightened his notebook pattern necktie and headed down he dim hall. When he got to the door, he would open it without knocking in the hope a better future awaited him on the other side.