it in the widening of her eyes and the tightening of her lips.
“You’re cold,” I tried to explain. That just made it worse. Her slim back was so stiff I rolled my shoulders in commiseration.
“I’m Esther Mine,” she said. “You came to my show tonight.”
“Yeah, I did,” I said, not trying to hide my surprise. I didn’t know how she knew, but that was New York.
“I would like just a minute of your time. Please,” Esther said.
The clerk approached again, tugging at the bottom of his maroon jacket. “Can I offer you some coffee?” he asked. “Or maybe a nightcap?”
“You can leave us alone,” I said. He turned on his heel and obeyed instantly.
“He’s not sure how to handle me,” Esther murmured. “I don’t look like your type. And I’m definitely not his. He’s afraid he’s made a mistake letting me linger.”
An attendant stepped out of the elevator, eyed the two of us, and asked, “Are you going up?”
“No,” I growled. I couldn’t take this woman to my room. Wrong impression. But I didn’t want to sit in the lobby either. The attendant folded his hands and stepped back inside the gold box. The doors slid closed, and I looked down at the woman before me.
“Can you walk?”
Her brow furrowed.
“In those shoes. Can you walk? I don’t like being on display, and I’m not in the mood to keep running people off. We’ll sit in the park.”
She nodded, but she didn’t put on her coat. I took it from her arm. For a moment I thought she would argue, but she relented and allowed me to hold it while she slid her arms into the sleeves. It was the color of her shoes and the dots on her dress, but it was too big and the cuffs and hem were threadbare. I suddenly understood her reluctance to wear it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Esther Mine,” I said gently, and offered my arm. She took it, and we turned for the door. She matched my stride as though her legs weren’t half as long and capped in ridiculous shoes. Her feet had to be on fire, but she didn’t teeter or slow, and we walked for a few blocks without saying a word. The park was just ahead, and I veered toward the closest bench. The air was cold but perfectly still, and the park was strewn with political detritus. Tuesday was election day. It couldn’t come too soon.
“Who’s going to win?” I asked her, breaking the silence. “Kennedy or Nixon?”
“Does it matter?”
I kicked at a flyer with John Kennedy’s smiling face beaming up at us. “Probably not.”
“Everybody I know wants Kennedy. All but my brother Money. He says he doesn’t trust pretty men. But Money doesn’t really trust anyone,” she said.
“Money, huh? How’d he come by that name?”
“That’s what his daddy wanted him to have. Money.”
I laughed. “And ‘Esther’? Why’d they name you Esther?”
She shrugged. “Esther married a king. Saved her people. It’s in the Bible.”
“True. Now she coulda been president. I would have voted for her.”
“She was a queen. President would have been a step down.”
“True. But Frank Sinatra sure likes him.” I sang Frank’s jingle for Kennedy beneath my breath. It’d been stuck in my head for months. How could Kennedy lose when Frank Sinatra was singing his campaign song?
“He’s got friends in high places. That’s for sure,” Esther said, voicing what I was thinking.
“They all do,” I answered.
She halted, perfectly positioned beneath a streetlamp, and looked up at me.
“Do you?” she asked. “Do you have friends in high places, Mr. Lament?”
Beneath the light, her skin was glossy, her lips red, her eyes shadowed, and the moment took on an otherworldly sheen.
Suddenly, I was afraid.
Of her.
Of the quiet.
Of the oddness of our meeting.
I pulled her from the pool of light and dropped onto a bench just beyond the glow. The darkness felt safer.
“Why are you here, Miss Mine?” I asked, my voice harsh with my sudden unease.
“Ralph saw you at our show tonight. He told me and my brothers who you were.”
Ralph? I searched my memory for the name. Ah, Ralph. The bartender.
“And . . . Pete overheard you say where you were staying. He told Ralph. Ralph told me,” she added.
Overheard? He must have followed me and Pop up to the street. The thought made me shake my head. Damn town.
“And who did Ralph tell you I was?”
“Benny Lament. He says you play piano and write songs for all the big names. Colored and white.”
“Huh. And you