10In the waiting room outside Fred Gimbel’s office on the executive floor of the Manhattan store, Milt was chatting up Dottie Moss. I got the feeling he and Gimbel’s secretary had something of a history. But I suspected from the way she kept him at a distance that it stopped at flirtation.
As he resumed his seat by me, he said quietly, “Great guy, Fred Gimbel. Ladies man, smooth talker.”
In fact, the Gimbels store chain advertised itself as, “Good old Gimbels, the plain store for plain people.” Fred, I’d soon learn, was anything but plain. He was a class act. And his store was anything but lackluster.
“Are you going to tell him it leaks?” I asked, just as quietly.
“Are you kidding?” was all he said as he grinned his face off at Dottie.
The intercom on her desk buzzed, and she announce
