Across the street, he watched a messenger chaining up his bike to a bus stop sign pole. Watching the man bend to secure the lock, Gannon immediately picked up the flat bulge in his jeans back pocket that he knew was a box cutter.

He blew into his cupped hands, grinning in the cold as he thought about his previous life as a beat cop. He had actually loved foot posts. Being a sheepdog out among the sheep looking for the wolves.

After another five minutes, he crossed the street and went back up to the old hotel. He thought it would be crummy inside, but the lobby looked newly redone. There was dramatic diffused lighting and maroon-colored wallpaper and a minimalist chunk of pale limestone for a check-in desk.

The pretty young woman behind it had some kind of Rosie the Riveter retro thing going on with her dark hair. She smiled at Gannon as he sat in a chrome Euro-style chair opposite the desk.

He took out his phone and looked at it and watched it trill as it changed the hour.

“This is Eric Wheldon,” a voice said.

“Mr. Smith here,” Gannon said. “The Arlington, right?”

“Yes. You have some information for me?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it about?” he said.

“Is it safe to talk on the phone?” Gannon said, looking at the desk clerk. “I thought we would talk face-to-face.”

“It’s safe,” the voice said.

“It’s about Dunning,” Gannon said quietly. “He didn’t die in Italy.”

“Many people are speculating that.”

“I’m not speculating. I know,” Gannon said.

“Interesting,” said Wheldon, unimpressed.

“I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Saw him?”

“I actually touched him—his corpse, anyway,” Gannon said.

“I would love to believe you, Mr. Smith, but in my business, I need proof. All I have is my reputation for truth. Without proof, I cannot use your information.”

“I can prove it.”

“How?”

“I have a videotape of Dunning dead. As well as the others.”

“The others?”

“Yes. There were six dead altogether. Including the pilots.”

“Where is this tape?”

“We should talk face-to-face,” Gannon said.

There was a pause.

“Then turn around,” Eric Wheldon said.

44

The elevator and the hallway were nicely done like the lobby, but the room itself up on the fourteenth floor had faded beige walls and cheap gray office carpet and Walmart furniture. Gannon looked at the old radiator under the yellow-shaded window opposite the door. It looked like a public school classroom with a bed in it.

“We can talk in here, Mr. Smith,” Wheldon said, opening an inside door on the left.

The suite’s side room had a table and chairs and a little kitchenette in it. Beyond the table was the bathroom.

“Please call me Pete,” Gannon said as he sat at the small table.

“Okay, Pete,” the reporter said, sitting down opposite.

Wheldon seemed smaller in person than on his videos and his eyes were bluer. He was in the same nice overcoat he was wearing in the video where he was walking up Park Avenue.