Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

politics, and family problems. They began watching my back. Best of all, there was no better way to keep track of the latest gossip than by lunching with the girls. Nothing, and I mean nothing, escapes the eyes and ears of a good executive secretary. If a married judge groped his clerk, I heard about it. If a defense attorney had a drinking problem, I heard about it. There was only one secretary who stayed aloof from the rest of us. She was Hillary Potts, the personal secretary of our boss, Whitaker. I suspected she thought she was better than the other secretaries and me, too.
    “I need a favor,” I told Patti on the phone. “Can you tell me when Mr. Steinberg is not going to be in his office?”
    “Don’t you mean when is he going to be here?”
    “No,” I replied. “I want to know when he will definitely not be in the building.”
    Patti chuckled. “Well, hon, he has a dental appointment tomorrow morning. He’s taking the entire day off to get his wisdom teeth removed.”
    I avoided making a crack about Steinberg and wisdom. Instead, I said, “Isn’t he a bit old for that?”
    “Apparently not,” she replied. “They’re impacted. Actually, he’s going to be out for two days—at least. Why do you want to know?”
    “I’ll tell you tomorrow at lunch, okay? I’m buying.”
    “Oh, this should be good, especially if you’re buying.”
    We hung up, and for a second I thought about Patti DeVries and the other secretaries who worked in the courthouse. She’d gone directly from high school to a local two-year program for secretaries and had been hired by the county. Because she wasn’t a college graduate and was married to a blue-collar worker, the lawyers in our office looked down on her. But she was a fast learner, and after a year as Steinberg’s secretary, she knew more about how to navigate the county court system than any of the lawyers. Our office would have become paralyzed without her and the other secretaries, although their paychecks certainly didn’t reflect that.

5
    Hillary Potts, a striking, but stern-looking woman in her fifties, always maintained a formal air at her desk directly next to the double doors that opened into D.A. Whitaker’s massive office. She was more than his personal secretary. She was a gatekeeper. No one got in to see him without first getting by her. No one.
    When I arrived first thing the next morning in Whitaker’s office, Miss Potts made it clear that she was in no mood for chitchat. Instead, she focused on a letter that she was typing until she got a call on her intercom from the Boss.
    “District Attorney Carlton Whitaker III will see you now,” she announced solemnly as if I were being presented to the Queen of England. She opened one of the doors that led into his office.
    As I approached the doorway, I recognized the voice of Paul Pisani, Westchester County’s “Mr. Invincible,” coming from inside. I had heard that Pisani made it a practice to meet most mornings with Whitaker to review that day’s court docket. I stepped inside just as Pisani was lowering a porcelain coffee mug from his lips.
    “Jesus Christ,” Pisani declared, “why can’t our cops make some goddamn decent drug arrests? Rudy Giuliani began going after drug dealers three years ago and look where it’s gotten him. He’s a goddamn associate deputy attorney in the Justice Department going after mobsters now just like Bobby Kennedy did in the sixties. Mark my word, Giuliani has a bright political career ahead of him in New York and he’s only half the prosecutor that I am. Don’t we have any gangsters around here we can arrest? What the hell’s wrong with our cops?”
    Apparently, Whitaker had heard Pisani’s refrain before because he shot me a “here we go again” look. Pisani also glanced over his shoulder at me and I felt an immediate sense of dread. We’d never formally met, but I certainly knew him by reputation for being a formidable prosecutor, a complete snob, and a