Cold Morning Read Online Free PDF

face of Colonel Lindbergh, the father of The Eaglet. Little Lindy. He paced his narrow cell as he waited to be told he was to die. Chain-smoking. A Bible on his cot.
    Gazing out my window that faced a back lot of garbage bins and rusted cars, I shivered. The cold seeped through the sills, whistled against the hiss and shriek of the old cast-iron radiators of the room. Bundled up in my fur coat, I wrapped a scarf around my neck, pulled my mink hat over my hair, and tucked my gloves into my pockets. Tundra or not, I was headed for a walk.
    â€œCold morning,” I mumbled to myself as I walked downstairs into the lobby. Flemington would always be one long cold morning for me—a frozen tableau of hoary ice and snow showers and the awful stillness on the landscape. An empty street at that time of day, but within hours impassable, clogged with cars puffing out exhaust, people streaming past, frantic, loud, anxious. The specter of death and judgment covered the trees like a fog. Cold morning: this was a town that could never get warm again.
    The overheated lobby was deserted, not even the night clerk in sight. Perhaps he was napping on a cot behind the reception counter. Perhaps Bert Pednick, the owner, believed no one should be up at that hour. As I buttoned my coat, tightening the scarf, preparing to slip on my gloves, I heard a raspy sound from one of the overstuffed chairs in the small area of old couches and coffee tables and magazine racks by the front door. At first I saw no one, but that gurgle erupted again, a man sloppily clearing his throat. The acrid scent of tobacco from a cigar, raw and pungent, as a thin cloud wafted into sight. I stepped closer, and the man lost in the big chair yelped and dropped his cigar, then rushed to retrieve it.
    â€œChrist, Miss Ferber,” he bellowed, “you do like to scare a man.”
    â€œAh, flattery so early in the morning.” I smiled.
    He didn’t.
    He banged the side of his head. “I must have dozed off.”
    â€œMr. Flagg, I believe?”
    He stood and bowed. “Of course, Joshua Flagg. The one and only. I introduced myself yesterday.”
    â€œYes, in fact, you introduced yourself to everyone in the lobby.”
    He looked around, sheepish. “Well, not everyone.” He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.
    â€œWhat does that mean, sir?”
    He whispered, “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”
    â€œThat’s hard to believe.” To his puzzled look, I added, “You hurl your name into everyone’s conversations.”
    He ignored that. “Why are you up so early?” He waved a hand across the empty lobby.
    â€œI might just as well ask you the same question. Why are you in the lobby at five a.m., other than trying to commit arson on this old rickety structure?”
    He glanced at the smoldering cigar resting precariously on the edge of an ashtray. Now he reached for it, tucked it into the corner of his mouth. “I never sleep. I don’t like to sleep. You miss things.”
    â€œI assume your boss, William Randolph Hearst, demands constant vigilance from his lackeys. After all, this is the hour when all the spectacular news takes place.”
    He squinted. “You’re mocking me.”
    â€œYes, I am. But more so the yellow journalism of your syndicate—and leader.”
    â€œIt’s a job.” He leaned in confidentially. “I’m on special assignment for the chief.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    A tinny voice, which I immediately mistrusted. “I’m Hearst’s operative. I’m not one of the fifty or so reporters bustling around here. They got their job to do. My job is to…”
    â€œTo spy on them?”
    He chuckled. “Of course not.” A sigh. “Well, maybe a little. But they don’t know me, that crowd of scribblers. I’m here to catch the story that no one thinks is worth talking about.”
    â€œAt five