They were predicting rain and warmer temperatures, but when I set out the next morning, it was as cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss. The wind howled at my back as I sloshed through wet snow ankle-deep, headed for the subway entrance at 137th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. My teeth were chattering, my toes ached, and I was wondering whether it was really necessary to go downtown—at least, that day. Why not wait until tomorrow, when it was supposed to be warmer?
The train came fast. In way too short a time, it reached Columbus Circle and 59th Street, and I was back out in the cold. After another miserable five minutes by foot, I’d reached 250 West 57th Street, the massive building housing Whitfield's office. Resting on a white stone base, reddish-tan building was twenty-six stories high. It ran the length of the block between Eighth Avenue and Broadway. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and entered.
The elevator opened onto a long beige hallway. A sign pointed to the office of the Collector. To the left and right were military gray office doors, and the muffled din of typists hard at work.
Whitfield's office was depressingly institutional: pale gray-green walls, uneven overhead lighting and brown-carpeted floor. The waiting room furnishings were spare: just a low-slung coffee table and four austere wood chairs. To one side was a small desk, its expanse covered with forms and thick stacks of gray-green folders. To the rear stood the door to Whitfield's office, and guarding it was a young woman behind another desk. She was in her twenties, late twenties I’d say. She was quite pretty, but had a no-nonsense look—trim and proper. The sign on the desk said her name was Hilda Coleman and she was coolly polite when she told me that her boss was not in.
“When will he be back?”
She started to say, but reconsidered. Caution deepened in her eyes. “Who’s asking and why?”
“My name’s Lanie. Lanie Atkins Price. I write for the Chronicle.”
“I thought you looked familiar. You write that society column.”
From her tone and expression, it wasn’t clear whether she thought that was good or not. However, her intelligent eyes became curious.
“Are you here to write about Mr. Whitfield?”
“Maybe. Could be I’m considering a column on Harlem’s sexiest politicians.”
That got a raised eyebrow and a faint, cynical smile. Whitfield was short and fat.
“So this is one of those, ‘How wonderful he is,’ kind of pieces?”
“Maybe. I print what I find.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
Her gaze switched to a point behind me and I turned to see a young man enter. He was tall, light-skinned and in his late thirties, dressed in a charcoal gray cashmere coat and homburg hat. The coat hung open to reveal a crisp white shirt and black vested suit. He had a military bearing.
“Miss Coleman …” He paused. His gaze skimmed over me with a fast touch, measuring and dismissing me, all in one glance. His irises were very pale, very light, and coldly professional.
Whoever he was, he had a chilling effect on Hilda Coleman. She tensed perceptibly.
“Good morning, Mr. Echo,” she said.
“Morning.”
He shouldered out of his coat and hung it up on the heavy wood rack next to the door. Then he went to the desk and sat down. It was hard to believe that his long limbs fit comfortably behind that desk. I watched as he made himself small to accommodate it. His knees must’ve touched the underside of the desk. He took in the piles of folders on his desk and a look of determination crossed his face.
“Looks like I’m going to have a very busy day.”
“Yes, Mr. Echo,” she said, carefully neutral. “Would you like me to get your coffee now, sir?”
I felt an eyebrow rise. Sir?
“Thank you, Miss Coleman. You know how I like it.” He glanced up after saying this and gave her an odd fleeting smile. Then he took down a folder from the stack and flipped it open.
She gave him a look of utter loathing, then turned back to me. Her voice took on a note of bright falsity.
“The ladies room is down the hall, miss. You take a right and then a left and you’ll be right there. Oh, but why don’t I just show you?” Her eyes asked me to play along.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
She grabbed a key out of her desk, led me out of the office and down the corridor. We didn’t speak until we were inside the bathroom with the door closed behind us.
“Now what—” I started.
She shushed me and checked each of the bathroom stalls. They were empty. Even so, she kept her voice low. “So why are you really sniffing around Mr. Whitfield?”
“I told you—“
“That sexy politician business? Please. I’ve got a feeling you’re aiming for the jugular.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
Pumping people for information is a tough game. It’s like playing poker. You’ve got to know when to bluff, when to draw and when to spread them. There are no hard and fast rules, except one: You’ve got to look for the tell, the indication of what the other guy’s thinking. Hilda Coleman’s question was a tell. That little scene in her office said she was less than sympathetic to her boss’s assistant. Now, her question said she was probably less than sympathetic toward her boss, too. I decided to take a risk and play it straight.
“You ever heard of a woman named Esther Todd?”
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to recall. “What about her?”
I told her the story.
The light of shock hit her eyes and understanding sank in like pearls penetrating two wells of black oil. “You telling me he had something to do with it?”
“I’m saying no such thing, just asking around.”
Her dark eyes searched mine. Esther’s story had affected her. It meant something to her. Something real.
She touched my forearm with fingertips turned cold. “Are you really on the up and up? ‘Cause if I’m caught spilling to you, I could lose my job.”
“Understood.”
“You’ll keep my name out of this?”
“No problem.”
“All right. I’m not a trusting person, but I’m going to trust you. But if you double-cross me and say I talked, I’ll deny every word.”
“Deal.”
She glanced at her wristwatch. “You know Jimmy Dee’s, up near Columbia?”
I did. It was a bit of a distance, but that’s probably why she chose it. She wouldn’t run into anyone who knew her.
“At noon?”
Jimmy Dee’s was a little place on the corner of 114th and Amsterdam. It was popular with the domestic help that worked in the fine apartment buildings on Morningside Heights. The place smelled of coffee and grease. A glass-top counter stood to the left and cracked dark brown leather booths lined the wall to the right.
Coleman joined me in a corner booth. I ordered coffee and a bowl of vegetable soup. She took tea and a thick sandwich of pastrami on rye. She was the neatest eater I’d ever seen, and the fastest. She cut her sandwich into perfect squares. They looked like thick petit fours. She speared a piece with a fork and popped it into her mouth.
“Mr. Whitfield is grade-A sleaze. You ever met him?”
I nodded. “He’s very charming. Very distinguished.”
“He’s charming, all right—ugly as sin, but charming as they come. And he knows it. Knows it and uses it.”
“He use it on you?”
She stopped eating. “No.” She sounded bitter. “Sometimes, I’m cold. Sometimes, I’m hungry. And I always got bills to pay. So I can’t say I haven’t been tempted, but I don’t like his ways.”
“What ways?”
She started to answer, but hesitated. She wanted to talk, but for all her bravado, she was scared. She put down her fork and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“I think it was.”
She studied me. “Do you have any idea who he is—really is? People don’t mess with Sexton Whitfield and survive. He won’t kill you outright, but he’ll make your life so miserable you’d wish he had. And don’t think that working for a newspaper will protect you. Sexton’s got a long reach. There’s always somebody, somewhere who owes him a favor.”
“Well, the paper has a couple of friends, too.”
“Friends who’ll take on the Internal Revenue? Remember, he’s the taxman. He can mess you up in ways you can’t imagine—you and your paper..”
She was right. Nevertheless, I said, “No one’s unbeatable.”
“You know what he did to Edward H. Hamilton?”
I nodded.
“And you still want to hear what I’ve got to say?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“All right, then.” She licked her dry lips and took a sip of water. “He’s got a hand problem.”
My gut tightened. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“I’ve seen some of his handiwork, seen it on a friend of mine.”
I was dying to get out my notepad, but I had a feeling she would clam up if I did. “Tell me more.”
As long as she’d been at the office, she said, she’d heard of his affairs and seen his ego at work.
“You’d think he’d be more careful,” I said. “Scandal’s no good for a man in his position.”
“He’s not worried. The women are too scared to say anything. One of the bookkeepers, a girl named Mabel, she did try to break it off with him, but she said he wouldn’t let her.”
I set my spoon aside and gave her my full attention. “What happened?”
“She didn’t come to work one day. I was a little worried. She was one of them to-the-minute types, you know? Never came late. Never missed a day. Well, an hour goes by, and then two, and I get a phone call. It’s the lady who runs the rooming house where Mabel’s living. There’s been trouble. Mabel gave her the number. So I run over to see what’s what. Mabel’s in bed. All busted up. Broken nose, broken wrist. I had to take her to the hospital.”
“She say who did it?”
“Not at first. But later, she said it was Whitfield. He picked her up after work. She said she didn’t want to go with him, but he made her. Took her home. Went upstairs with her. And got to work.”
“She talked to the cops?”
Coleman shook her head. “Too scared.”
I shoved my soup aside. My appetite was gone. “You know of anybody else?”
“Nope. There’s probably others. I just don’t know about them.”
“Where’s Mabel now?”
“She got a little place over on Lenox. She’s lost her job. Whitfield made sure of that. I don’t know what she’s doing now.”
“You don’t talk to her anymore?”
“More like, she don’t talk to me. I think … well, maybe she’s embarrassed that I know how far it went.”
“You think she’d talk to me?”
“Don’t know, but I think you should try. Here.” She reached under the table and slipped me a folded square of paper. She hadn’t written a thing while we were sitting there eating. So she’d brought the paper with her. She’d come prepared to give it to me.
“Tell her I sent you. And say…” She paused. “Tell her I miss her.”
I paid the check. Just as we were about to leave, she stopped me.
“There’s one last thing I’d better warn you about.”
“Yes?”
“You remember that guy who walked in today?”
“Mr. Echo?”
“That’s all the name he goes by. He’s more than just an accountant. He says he’s Mr. Whitfield's assistant for special projects. I can’t say what that means, but I do know that he’s very loyal. And I got a feeling he does things for Mr. Whitfield, hurtful things that Mr. Whitfield doesn’t have the nerve to do himself.”
She gazed at me to see how I digested that bit of news.
I digested it, all right. Within seconds, I was wondering if Whitfield had gotten Echo to take care of Esther.