I met him there on the bench. He was reading a paper. I could see the smoky cloud rise from out of The Washington Post as if it were a chimny. I almost turned around, but something made me press forward.

I sat down, nervously I adjusted my collar, as I was told to do.

“Piedmont?” The man asked from his smoke scarred throat.

“Yeah.”

“The reporter from New York?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I sheepishly replied.

“I have no information for you, just a message,” he said his natural stone cold mortuary tone.

“Yes?”

“Don’t do anymore digging kid, just close the case, it doesn’t exist.”

“What doesn’t exist, the Sobotski file?”

The man pulled the cigar from his mouth. He was in his mid sixties, his face worn like an leather wallet I once owned. He was slightly balding and had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. He looked at me from behind the paper, he blinked those beety damn eyes looking like the scariest bug I had ever seen.

“Kid, you have no chance, it’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in mystery, you have no chance,” he said.

“I refuse to stop searching for information on the Sobotski files,” I confidently replied. I stared him down, that old pooper couldn’t stop me, Peter Piedmont!

“I’m sorry to hear that kid,” he folded his paper to the obituaries. “I’m real sorry.” He handed me the paper and walked away. My eyes looked down at the paper. REPORTER PIEDMONT FOUND DEAD I was in shock, I looked back and the man had dissapeared. I sat there on the bench, staring at the paper in disbelief.

I didn’t see him at first, I smelled the pugent odor of hotdogs. I looked behind me. It was just a tall man in a french overcoat wearing a hat who had a large dog-like nose. “Oh my!” I said to the man, “You scared me, why I thought you were Wolfhook!!” I chuckled at my own paranoia as the man, who turned out to be Wolfhook, hooked me in the throat. Damnit I thought to myself, I then realized I should’ve said I’d stopped digging and just kept at it anyways. Oh well, better luck next time, then I realized I was dying. Friggin crap Piedmont, I thought to myself, friggin crap.

Author’s Note: Beware of mysterious old poopers.