“White, you know that you are our go-to man on the third floor, don’t you?” I knew no such
thing, but I nodded. “I have a small problem that I think you can help me with.” He paused
and looked out his window. Clearly Mister Stanly Richards was uncomfortable and that made
me even more tense. He cleared his throat and began again. “I’m sure you are familiar with
the company’s organizational structure.” I wasn’t much, but again I nodded. “This division
comes under Cabal Inc, which answers to Tokyo. Cabal Inc controls this company’s purse
strings so we bow and scrape whenever it becomes necessary. We are finding it necessary at
the moment.” He cleared his throat again and looked back out the window. “Cabal has a
trouble shooter named Wilson Pickett Brown. Mister Brown is coming to town,” Richards
allowed himself a slight smile at his rhyme. “Mister Brown is a black man, White.
Apparently wherever he lands he demands female company and the company provides them for
him. We haven’t engaged in that sort of thing before, so I’m sailing in uncharted waters,
so to speak. Are you following me all right, White?” I recognized his words, but that was
all. I nodded my head as if I knew what the hell he was talking about anyway. “Good, so
you’ll take care of things?” Wait a damned minute! The conversation had taken a turn and I
was lost.
“What things?” I asked.
“Wilson Pickett Brown is arriving Friday afternoon. White,” Mister Richards said leveling
his eyes at me. “You will be in charge of providing for his every whim. He’ll use our
suite at the Savoy, but you get whatever entertainment, for lack of a better word, he
wants and keep him happy until he leaves here. Am I making myself clear?”
“No sir, not exactly,” I stammered and hated myself for it. The stammering, I mean. I’m
used to things being unclear. “How am I going to know what he wants until I meet him and
won’t that be too late? What about budget? How will I pay for all this…entertainment?”
“His hotel accommodations are taken care of. Brown likes white women. Easy white women,
if you get my drift. I’ll send a credit card down to you this afternoon. Use it as you
need to. My impression is that Wilson Pickett Brown will be happy if you have him a white
woman to fool around with for the few days he’ll be with us. In other words find him a
whore, White.”
“So now I’m the company pimp?” He had the good grace to blush.
“I suppose you could put it that way. To make this unsavory matter more palatable there
is a nice salary bump in it for you. Look Bob, I really hate to hand this off to you, but
I wouldn’t know how to go about finding a white woman for a black libertine. Not that I
assumed you did, but I thought you could ask around. Help me out with this mess and I
won’t forget it.”
I got back to my windowless office and set down in a daze. By what quirk of fate has this
fallen in my lap? I thought about the little ad magazine I had picked up. Maybe I could
call one of the numbers in it. I remembered that some of the ads said they took credit
cards. Then I thought about Tony Macon. Just as I was about to leave the office I got a
call from Mister Wilson P. Brown himself. Mister Brown didn’t mince words. He told me
exactly what he wanted. I hung up the phone and headed down to shipping.
| 
