“Last year his papers claimed that Japan would sink the Great White Fleet,” Bell said drily. “Somehow they made it home safe to Hampton Roads. There’s Whiteway now!”

The fair-haired publisher was steering a yellow Rolls-Royce roadster toward the only parking space left in front of his building.

“Looks like Whiteway has it,” said Van Dorn.

Bell pressed hard on his accelerator. The big red Locomobile surged ahead of the yellow Rolls-Royce. Bell stomped the anemic brakes, shifted down, and swerved on smoking tires into the parking space.

“Hey!” Whiteway shook a fist. “That’s my space.” He was a big man, a former college football star running to fat. An arrogant cock to his head boasted that he was still handsome, deserved whatever he wanted, and was strong enough to insist on it.

Isaac Bell bounded from his auto to extend a powerful hand with a friendly smile.

“Oh, it’s you, Bell. That’s my space!”

“Hello, Preston, it’s been a while. When I told Marion we’d be calling on you, she asked me to send her regards.”

Whiteway’s scowl faded at the mention of Isaac Bell’s fiancée, Marion Morgan, a beautiful woman in the moving-picture line. Marion had worked with Whiteway, directing his Picture World scheme, which was enjoying great success exhibiting films of news events in vaudeville theaters and nickelodeons.

“Tell Marion that I’m counting on her to shoot great movies of my air race.”

“I’m sure she can’t wait. This is Joseph Van Dorn.”

The newspaper magnate and the founder of the nation’s premier detective agency sized each other up while shaking hands. Van Dorn pointed skyward. “We were just admiring your banner. Ought to be quite an affair.”

“That’s why I called for you. Come up to my office.”

A detail of uniformed doormen were saluting as if an admiral had arrived in a dreadnought. Whiteway snapped his fingers. Two men ran to park the yellow Rolls-Royce.

Whiteway received more salutes in the lobby.

A gilded elevator cage carried them to the top floor, where a mob of editors and secretaries were gathered in the foyer with pencils and notepads at the ready. Whiteway barked orders, scattering some on urgent missions. Others raced after him, scribbling rapidly, as the publisher dictated the end of the afternoon edition’s editorial that he had started before lunch.

“‘The Inquirer decries the deplorable state of American aviation. Europeans have staked a claim in the sky while we molder on the earth, left behind in the dust of innovation. But the Inquirer never merely decries, the Inquirer acts! We invite every red-blooded American aviator and aviatrix to carry our banner skyward in the Great Whiteway Atlantic-to-Pacific Cross-Country Air Race to fly across America in fifty days!’ Print it!