“You’re downtown a lot now, huh, with the feds?” Gannon said. “Your last email said you were still with the JTTF, right?”

“Yeah, well, that was like seven months ago,” Stick said as he locked the door. He lay back on a couch in the reception area and put his big Red Wing engineer boots up on a motorcycle magazine–covered coffee table. “I actually had me some second thoughts about it.”

“I thought you were all over it.”

“I was. The OT was great, but two weeks in, you wouldn’t believe the bullshit, Mickey. All the politics and crazy shit. They had us following people who had nothing to do with anything, brother. I mean, it was like gumshoe shit for the politicians or something. I didn’t know what the hell it was. I like to do like real cop work against, you know, dealers and crooks and killers. So now I’m back where I was before.”

“Up in Midtown North?”

“No, I’m at the One Nine,” Stick said proudly. “You’re looking at the new detective squad coleader.”

“The One Nine? The Silk Stocking District? No way!” Gannon said, grinning. “Your mom must be so proud. Drummer boy makes it to Park Avenue! Must be busy with all the drive-bys up there in rich people land, huh? Let me guess. The butler did it?”

“Ha ha. Keep laughing. You’d be surprised how busy it gets.”

“Ever think of this thing, um, retirement, I think it’s called, Stick? You have what? Almost thirteen hundred years in now?”

“Screw your career advice, jackass. I thought you said the next time you came back they’d be playing the bagpipes out in Brooklyn at Ascension for you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gannon said quietly.

“What the hell is it anyway that makes you darken Gotham’s doorstep again? The suspense is killing me.”

“I won’t even get into the particulars with you, man. Less you know, the better.”

Stick shook his head and laughed at that.

“So what can I do for you, then?”

“It’s going to sound crazy.”

Stick grinned as he put his big palms together.

“Then you’ve come to the right place, brother.”

“There’s a guy on the internet on YouTube. His name’s Wheldon. Eric Wheldon. He’s an alternative news independent reporter. Ever hear of him?”

Stick looked at him strangely.

“Wheldon? Who? No.”

“He walks around the city. Talks about government stuff?”

“You’re trying to contact some conspiracy theory guy?”

“Yes,” Gannon said, taking out his phone and showing him a screenshot. “This is the guy. His name’s Eric Wheldon. I know you know everybody. I was hoping you would know somebody who knows him.”

Because of his legendary undercover status, Stick knew virtually every cop, FBI agent, DEA agent and district attorney from Yonkers to Suffolk County. In addition to a few Yankees and half the cast of the TV show Law & Order, where he used to moonlight as security.

“Ever consider emailing him?” Stick said. “Saves on the hotel and airfare.”