Hard News

by Mark T Sullivan

  Savage puffed up behind them, her sweat triggering the heavy cent of patchouli in the air. “She okay?” Conrad asked.

  Croon and Blitzer glanced at each other. “I don’t know, Tim. She hates Chuck Norris,” Blitzer said.

  “Sorry,” Conrad said. “Chuck haters watch from here.”

  “You can’t do this to me!” The P.C. Oracle protested. “I’m a columnist. I have a right to be here. The First Amendment guarantees …”

  Automatic gunfire ripped the air.

  “The Pony Express failed to deliver on time!” roared a voice from inside the third dock from the left. “The legend’s a lie!”

  Two more bursts of gunfire followed, snapping the gravel and blowing out the windows of two of the cruisers. Silence. And then the whining of a terrified animal.

  Tears welled in Blitzer’s eyes. The Beacon team was trapped a half block back and she was within earshot of an albino shooter with a hatred of the Pony Express! It just didn’t get better than this. Except maybe when there was a sex angle. Then something happened that negated her longing for a thread of prurience to weave itself into the story. Behind her, Savage sang to herself in a trembling soprano: “All we are saying, is give peace a chance …”

  The gunman inside yelled: “I have demands! I have demands to be met.”

  Conrad sighed and took out a notebook. Ordinarily he would wait for the hostage negotiator to arrive, but the expert was stuck in traffic. The SWAT lieutenant spoke through a bullhorn: “This is Lt. Tom Conrad. What’s your name, son?”

  “Behold a pale horse and I the pale rider,” the gunman shouted. “Know my name? Know my name? Hell follows with me.”

  “Oh, for Christ sakes,” Conrad mumbled to himself. “I got a Bible whacko who hates the Pony Express and loves guns.”

  Blitzer’s and Croon’s watery eyes met and locked. What joyful anguish they were sharing! This story would run page one for days.

  “What are your demands, Pale Rider?” Conrad asked.

  There was silence for a moment, then the shooter bellowed: “I want the Postal Service to tell the world that Express Mail is just as much as a lie as the Pony Express was at getting the letters there on time. I want you to put their confession on TV.”

  Croon rolled to his left, then belly-crawled in back of a sniper, who had his rifle trained on the third truck bay from the left. A shadow of a man was visible inside the door, nothing more. Then at the end of six feet of rope a tiny blond pony shied out walleyed from the shadows. The photographer pulled out his weapon, a Nikon with a four-hundred-millimeter telephoto lens to the top of which he’d mounted a laser gunsight. He put the red laser dot on the pony. He squeezed off fourteen frames. A dramatic inside-the-A-section photo for the next day!

  Lieutenant Conrad dug his fingers into his temple. “We can’t do a taped confession on such short notice.”

  Inside the shooter shrieked: “You don’t, old Pale Rider’s going to blow little pony’s head right here to kingdom come.”

  Lying in the gravel, desperately scribbling the words of a madman, Blitzer believed she’d died and gone to heaven.

  Back in the newsroom Claudette X frantically edited the copy already in before the Albino shooter stories started flowing across her desk. Geld watched the live television coverage of the tragedy. Croon and Blitzer were visible in the foreground of the picture. Beyond them the parked Mustang and the apocalyptic license plate.

  LaFontaine was arguing with a lazy bureaucrat in Sacramento who didn’t want to pull the registration on the shooter’s car. “We have an account with you, lady,” he informed her. “We pay for it. I don’t care if it is half an hour until quitting time, there’s a crazy man on the loose down here.”

  “Sir,” answered the nasal voice wearily, “there are two Los Angeles crazies holding hostages, not to mention the one who’s taken over the Oakland schoolroom. We’re not pulling names for the media in those cities either. It’s just too late in the day.”

  “Our crazy’s different. He’s an albino.”

  “They all have their little twists, sir.”

  “He’s killed four people.”

  “The whacko in L.A. has already shot five.”

  “He believes this is the end of the world.”

  “And you don’t?”

  News was desperate. “He says he’s going to execute a pony next.”

  “A pony? You mean a defenseless little horsie?”

  “That’s right, miss. A cute miniature pony.”

  “Mr. LaFontaine, I don’t care if it is half an hour until closing time. I’m going to get that nut’s name for you.”

  “Bless you,” News said.

  Up on the television set, Paul Fairbanks, a particularly annoying television reporter, was describing the scene. The station promoted the twerp as an enterprising sleuth. The truth was he stole most of his ideas from the newspapers. Worse, he wore a thin gold chain on his left ankle.

  “C’mon,” News whispered into the phone; Fairbanks was an ass, but he had connections inside the police department.

  “Lester Hale,” the nasal voice said. “H-A-L-E. Born …”

  News didn’t wait for the DOB or the address. He yelled the name across the room just as a hand gave Fairbanks the same information and more. “Lester Hale,” the television reporter intoned. “A postal worker on the graveyard shift recently fired for showing up for work late and trying to convert fellow workers to a religious sect in East County.”

  Now the volume of gastrointestinal fluids being produced in The Post newsroom increased tenfold. Albinos and postal workers and Biblical sects! Not to mention the Pony Express and the demand for a television confession to the inefficiency of overnight Express Mail! Hale had killed two people, but goddamn it! this guy was threatening to blow an innocent pony to kingdom come!

  No sex, but it was by far the strangest story in months.

  Several of the Stepford Editors cringed and sneaked away from their desks. A story this volatile was dangerous. One missed fact, one false assumption, and a career could be left in tatters. Geld almost leapt into action, but was rendered catatonic by the sight of his arch nemesis, Bobbie Anne Pace, racing out of her office. From the opposite side of the room came Pace’s arch nemesis, Neil Harpster. Both assistant managing editors were shouting instructions as to how the story should be written and played from the perspective of form and content, not to mention news and information.

  “I want a backgrounder on miniature ponies,” Harpster demanded. “The research on animal love among newspaper readers is clear!”

  Pace cut in, “I want a sidebar that tells parents how to explain the mistreatment of animals to their children.”

  “Claudette,” Geld whispered. “Save me.”

  Claudette X saw the panic in Geld’s face and knew he was as useless as if he’d had two liquid lunches and a tango lesson from Twyla Tharp.

  She jumped in front of her boss. “We’ve got it under control,” she said in the deepest voice she could muster. “We’ll talk at a meeting we’ve called to plot coverage. We’ve asked you to be there as well as Connor and Ed. You will be consulted on approaches and space. Just let us get our people in the field.”

  Harpster and Pace glared up at Claudette X. How dare this … this sub-editor presume to keep them out of the action! Then again this sub-editor was massive, mean, and a minority; and they’d already proven to themselves once today that they mattered; and an opportunity now presented itself to prove it again soon, in front of Connor Lawlor and Ed Tower, who really did matter.

  “I’ll be in my office monitoring the situation,” Harpster blustered. “By the way, I still want an update on the cactus-napping story. Things are out of control at The Ranch.”

  Geld looked like a basset hound with an earring. “Okay, Neil.”

  Claudette X turned to fire orders: two reporters to Hale’s neighborhood to get the personal angle; another reporter to chase down the story of how he was fired; two more to profile th
e religious sect. And where did he get that pony?

  She speed-dialed the cop shop and let it ring ten times. Five-thirty. Where the hell was McCarthy? She slammed the phone down.

  “News!” she shouted to LaFontaine. “Call every horse farm in the county. Find that animal’s owner.”

  Juggling the assignments and controlling the approach to the coverage of the shooter so consumed Claudette X that she couldn’t muster her normal hostile veneer when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said: “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for someone to phone the post office, see if there’s anyone inside who’ll talk?”

  She turned to see the ghost of Roy Orbison weaving back and forth on unsteady legs. Claudette X shivered involuntarily at the thought this specter might be a part of a future nightmare, then spoke to him as if he were a little boy. “You sure you don’t need more coffee before you start work, Ralph?”

  “No, I’m all right. Just a little fuzzy.”

  “You call, then. Tell me if you get anything.”

  The leather-clad reporter shuffled off to his desk and called up a blank screen on his computer. He opened the white pages of the telephone book. He found the listings for the post office, including the central receiving room, and dialed the number.

  A strained voice answered, “What is it? You got that commercial done yet?”

  “Commercial?” said Baker, confused. “No, no commercial. I’m Ralph Baker, a reporter with The Post. To whom am I speaking, please?”

  “Newspaper? Well, I was hoping for television, but better than nothing. Ralph, have you ever looked into the lies behind the Pony Express legend?”

  “Can’t say as I have,” said Baker, very confused now. He wished he’d taken Claudette X up on that second cup of coffee. “But can you tell me what’s going on? I understand there’s been some shooting inside.”

  “No real people, you know? Just supervisors who live the lie that Express Mail can be delivered overnight and on time by a government-controlled corporation.”

  Baker thought about that for a second, then said: “What did you say your name was, sir?”

  “Lester Hale, but you can call me Pale Rider, Ralph.”

  As News would describe it later, Baker achieved the benefits of the twenty-eight-day Betty Ford program in about six seconds. His hands stopped shaking. The dregs of last night’s vodka evaporated. The florid veins that webbed his nose ebbed to fine white lines. He scribbled the words “I’M TALKING TO THE SHOOTER!” on a notebook, then tossed it onto LaFontaine’s desk.

  News looked up from the tack shop listings in the Yellow Pages, glanced at the message, then up into the perfectly sober eyes behind the black polymer glasses. He made the sign of the cross. “Godspeed Roy Orbison.”

  Baker gave News the thumbs up. “You still there, Pale Rider?”

  “Here but not so happy to be so, Ralph,” Hale said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Had a kind of rough time of it lately. No sleet or snow, but lots of dark of night. And the mail’s not getting through. Can you understand?”

  “I can,” Baker said, trying to type down the shooter’s words as quietly as he could. He asked himself how Dear Abby would proceed, then said: “Seems sometimes, Pale Rider, that nothing gets through anymore.”

  “That’s a fact, Ralph. That’s a fact.”

  “How many people are dead in there?”

  “Two.”

  “And how many others are with you?”

  “Five, including Peterson. And Teddy, of course.”

  “The postmaster Peterson?”

  “Biggest liar of the bunch!” Hale screamed. “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!”

  Baker heard the sound of metal striking flesh and several moans. A woman sobbed.

  “Calm down. Calm down now, Pale Rider,” soothed the reporter. “If you think about Peterson, you won’t be able to tell me everything you want to see in the paper tomorrow. Now who’s Teddy?”

  “Pony. Symbol of everything that’s wrong with the Postal Service today.”

  “You want to hurt the pony, Lester?”

  “Teddy’s my neighbor’s girl’s pet,” Hale said. “Why would I want to hurt him? But no one pays attention to people getting hurt no more.”

  Hale’s breath became labored. “Just you make sure you write down that Peterson was a liar, lived a lie, okay? Told the world that he had an above ninety percent rate of getting Express Mail there on time. Liar! See, I was here, Ralph. Fourteen years. I know how poorly treated the mail was …”

  Baker struggled to keep up with Hale’s rantings. “I’m taking it down, Lester …”

  “Pale Rider!”

  “Sorry, Pale Rider. Let’s just keep talking. Okay?”

  Hale wheezed. “I’d like that … But first, Ralph, I’m going to ask you a very important question. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?”

  Baker paused, unsure of what to say; he didn’t want to lie and yet he didn’t want to lose Hale. “No, I haven’t, Pale Rider. I’m a reporter. It’s my job not to get involved.”

  “Even with your Savior?”

  “It’s a strange business.”

  “Sounds as nuts as the Postal Service.”

  By now LaFontaine had spread the word. Lawlor had emerged from his office as had Tower, Harpster, Pace, and the rest of Lobotomy Lane. They all stood behind Claudette X, who had hacked into the computer system so she could watch Baker work in real time. Several of the Stepford Editors commiserated on the periphery of the crowd, assuring each other that they knew all along that even with a week to go before retirement, Ralph Baker remained a reporter to contend with.

  “How’s he doing?” Lawlor asked.

  “He’s out of his mind,” Claudette X said. “Ralph’s got this guy thinking he’s his buddy.”

  “McCarthy getting us stuff from the inside?”

  She hesitated, then lied for her friend. “And Blitzer and Croon are on the scene.”

  “Okay. We sched Ralph with a leading story for A-l. Slug it: A talk with the shooter.”

  “Absolutely,” Geld said.

  Harpster said, “But if the nut shoots the horse, we’ll play the news story higher than the conversation.”

  Lawlor ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Done.” He walked back toward his office, shaking his head. “Ralph Baker!”

  Tower stared at the leather-clad reporter for another minute. He clenched his fist and stalked back to his office.

  For the next hour and a half Baker played personal advice columnist to Lester Hale. It was, in News’s words, “a case of the dyed leading the bleached.” Three times the police tried to get Hale to talk to their negotiator, who had finally made it through the traffic jam. But the shooter seemed to find in Baker a kindred spirit and he refused to speak with anyone else. The negotiator came to the newsroom to observe and advise.

  In fits and starts, between rants about liars, above the echoing of the police bullhorns, Hale told Orbison how he’d come to be in the central receiving room of the main post office with two dead and five held hostage. And a 9mm Glock held to the head of Teddy the pony.

  Hale was thirty-seven. During his first five years as a letter carrier the Southern California sun burned his skin so bad that several times he put in for disability. All his requests were denied. At the same time he married a woman named Cary Burns, who believed they were living in end time, the era in which the Bible prophesies that Jesus will return to Earth to judge the living and the dead.

  Ten years into his career Hale took to preaching to customers of special delivery about end time. There were complaints. He was transferred to the central sorting room. Soon after, Cary Burns Hale decided that perhaps Jesus was not returning to judge the living and the dead quite so soon and that perhaps she might be better off as a croupier at a Las Vegas casino. Hale never forgave “the Jezebel,” as he called her. He asked to be transferred to the graveyard shift.

  “Didn’t like the sun. Hurts
my eyes, Ralph. Besides, at night you think more, see clearer. That’s when I came upon the big lie. All these blue overnight packages, the express ones, that wouldn’t get there on time. And the public being charged double the going rate, for a LIE!

  “That’s when I decided to go into the past, check out the Pony Express. A lie, too! Sure the mail got there, but almost always late. Killed horses to do it, too. That operation only lasted eighteen months. You should check it out, Ralph.”

  “I appreciate the tip,” Baker said, sadly.

  “Something wrong there, Ralph?” Hale asked.

  Baker looked around the newsroom, at all the people watching him, at all the machinery and the quirks of character and process that went into making The Post.

  “I was just thinking how strange life gets, Pale Rider. How it turns and twists and buries itself on you.”

  “For you, too, huh?” Hale said. “They made fun of me here a lot. It’s like when you don’t conform, they shun you, you know?”

  “Pale Rider, is that what made you angry? Is that what made you want to kill?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a long time, then Hale said: “No, Ralph. I just heard a voice the other week, after they fired me for being late so much. Kept saying I had to ride the white horse to the end of time. So here I am.”

  “You sound tired, Pale Rider.”

  “Not so much. God has always looked kindly on those who toil. How they doing on that commercial, Ralph?”

  “I’ll check.” He put down the phone and looked at the police negotiator. “What should I tell him?”

  “The SWAT team is set,” said the negotiator, a short black man in a cream sport coat. “Ask him to give himself up.”

  Baker picked up the phone. “It’s going to be on the news, Pale Rider, everything you said and did and why you did it. Don’t you think it’s time to go out and let those people and little Teddy go?”

  “Told you I’m going to ride this little white horse in,” Hale scolded. “After my chores are done. Got to clean up here, Ralph, starting with liar Peterson.”

  Baker looked at the photo of Abigail Van Buren above today’s column. He ran his finger across the newsprint, smudging the picture. “They’ve got you surrounded.”