Seventh Avenue (9 page)

“Should we place the order with Benny?” Rhoda asked.

“No, absolutely not. He’d be suspicious if suddenly you wanted credit. We’ve got to find our own guy and then educate him.”

Rhoda considered Jay’s suggestion.

“Hey, wait a minute. About two months ago, I met a new jobber, a small one, that was looking for customers.”

“What’s his name?”

“Marty . . . ?”

“Think, will you!”

“He’s on Thirty-Ninth Street just off Seventh Avenue. Cass, that’s it.”

After considerable difficulty, and with the assistance of three people who worked in the district, they found Marty Cass’s showroom, which was the top loft in what had formerly been the headquarters of a camphor supplier. They took the service elevator to the eighth floor, and Rhoda watched with interest as Jay tested various expressions of bonhomie on a face that seemed designed by nature for nothing less than total motility: puckers, grimaces, scowls, derisive extensions, condescension, certainty - in short the
mise-en-scène
of his every emotion, which in a curious way revealed that he was almost incapable of any strong emotion. In the showroom, Jay decided on a flagrantly bored expression with the hint of a smile. Marty Cass was a man in his middle twenties, with a long cigar protruding at a rakish angle from his mouth, a Leo Carillo mustache - which Jay admired, and made a mental note to copy - soft gray eyes, and wavy black hair done up in a style similar to the whipped cream pompadours used by soda jerks to decorate a banana split. He wore a powder blue suit and a hand-painted tie of a horse - also painted blue - and Jay immediately realized that the man, a few years his senior, was destined for success.

“Hello . . . hello . . . hello, children. I’m Marty Cass. Now what can I do for you?”

“Mr. Cass, you may not remember, but we met once a few months ago at Benny Herbert’s showroom.”

“Remember, of course, I remember. You’re Saks Fifth Avenue’s dress buyer.” He handed Jay a cigar.

“What is it, a blackjack?” Jay asked. “They can book you on a Sullivan charge for smoking one of these.”

“Glad to see you’ve got a sense of humor.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have one!”

“I’m not from Saks Fifth Avenue,” Rhoda protested.

“I know, my child, just openers. You’ve probably been sent by my father-in-law to see if I’m doing any stealing.”

Jay lit the cigar.

“It’s a miracle if you don’t get a lip hernia from these.”

“Just stub it out. I’ll rewrap it and sell it as a second,” Marty said. “Seriously though, I do remember meeting you. The question is, was I standing at the time? I mean in an upright position? I didn’t promise to pay you ten thousand dollars for your body?”

“No, nothing like that, and in any case I’m spoken for” - she gave Jay’s sleeve a little yank – “and we’re here to do some buying.”

“Where’s the showroom?” Jay asked.

“You’re in it. Actually, it’s not exactly a showroom . . . sort of a closet that made good. But don’t let that bother you. I’ve got goods . . . goods, the likes of which you’ve never seen. Now I’ll show you what no human eyes have ever before beheld.” He wheeled out a rack of dresses, removed a dust sheet.

“These look like they’ve given birth to hundreds.”

“The latest Paris knock-offs.”

“These were knocked off two years ago; I’ve been selling them for the last three weeks.”

“You must be a genius.”

“He is,” Rhoda agreed.

“Now look, Mr. Cass . . .”

“Marty.”

“Fine, Marty,
I’m
Jay Blackman. Now listen, if we want to see ancient clothing that was worn by the Romans, they got museums for it. We want some hot numbers” - he fished in his pocket, took out a wad of notes, the outside one was a fifty and the others were singles – “not this old
dreck.”

Marty studied the roll of notes.

“I got a better idea. Want to come in with me as a partner?” He wheeled another rack out and showed Jay his new line, “Here, my dear, the blood of my heart.”

“That’s better,” Jay said. “The other crap’s good to use in a fire. The insurance company’d give you fifty percent on them.”

“We’re from Modes Dress Shoppe,” Rhoda said.

“Where?”

“Modes! From Borough Park. Fourteenth Avenue.”

“Sorry, we don’t ship goods overseas.”

“Didn’t you ever meet my boss, Mr. Finkelstein?” Rhoda asked.

Marty thought for a few minutes and tugged his mustache gently.

“How long’ve you been with him?”

“Seven years. I started with him after he’d been open a month.”

“I’m just trying to remember. Let’s see . . . did he ever have a dog?”

“That’s right, he did. But it died, oh, about a year ago,” Rhoda said.

“Yeah, I do recall. This
mashugunah
came up to my father-in-law’s showroom with this dog. Yeah, that’s way before I got married. How could I forget? He let the dog pick out all the dresses. Whatever the dog smelled, he bought. Oh, my God. What a day that was. He was barred from the showroom after that. In the middle of placing the order, he asks to go to the bathroom and vanishes for the rest of the day. And this dog, big sonovabitch, collie or something like that with long hair, was racing all over the building looking for him. We had to call the A.S.P.C.A. to get rid of it. Then the next morning, the janitor found Finkelstein in the toilet. He’d locked himself in and couldn’t get out and said he didn’t want to make any noise because he was afraid it would disturb us. And
you
work for him?”

“We both do,” Jay said. “I’m about to start up my own business in a couple of months and we don’t want to leave him high and dry.”

“I’m amazed that he’s still in business.”

“Yeah, well, Rhoda’s running it for him.”

“And you thought of me. Well, every new account’s like money in the bank. I try not to run my business on one-shot deals. Long-term thinking. And as this is our first transaction, it has to be a successful one so I won’t stick you with any garbage. All our future business is based on the first order. Now, would you like me to tell you what I think you ought to buy?”

“Oh, c’mon Marty. We’re both cute. Rhoda and me didn’t bring our seeing-eye dog with us ‘cause we don’t need one. Save the buildups for the Finkelsteins. We’re gonna go into business in a . . .”

“Little shop,” Rhoda interjected.

“Big way. No half-assed operation.”

“Big way . . . small shop? You lie, and she swears for you, that the arrangement? You got your signals crossed, children.”

“Small at first, then as big as the biggest.”

“Jay, my dear, you can’t tell me stories. I invented the game. How do you think I married my wife? How do you think I became an . . .”

“Unsuccessful jobber? First you had to be an unsuccessful shipping clerk.”

“Is he always a million laughs? My dear boy, I love you. I can’t help not loving you because I can see in your heart that you’re a crook of the first order. And because we’re both crooks, we’re gonna make it. Now first of all, put away the phony bankroll. What’ve you got under the fifty, toilet paper?”

“No, singles.” Jay smiled, and for the first time felt genuinely at ease.

“I’ll give you a hundred dollars’ credit, and you pay me promptly on the tenth or I put it out for collection,
capisce?”

“Make it two hundred,” Jay insisted.

“Doesn’t this boy know when he’s on to a good thing, my dear?”

“Leave Rhoda out of it. I’ll split the difference with you - a hundred and fifty.”

“Split the difference? Now he’s doing me favors. People go bankrupt from such favors. A hundred and a quarter and that’s it.”

“We’ll get rich together,” Jay countered.

“I can’t live on promises. Take a hundred and thirty-five in assorted sizes, and colors.”

“Black and navy only. And we want sixteens to forty-fours.”

“What’s wrong with the colors?”

“Nothing, except that we can’t sell them. And we’ll buy only winter goods.”

“It’s a heat wave. What’s the matter with you? We have an Indian summer that lasts till the end of October every year.”

“It’ll turn cold. I’m getting married, so we’re bound to have snow.”

“Rhoda, my child, tell him about the weather man.”

“He’s right, Jay.”

“I’m taking the risk. If I’m right I want first priority on reorders and you’ll get an order for five hundred dollars, provided you guarantee delivery.”

“I think you ought to listen to me ‘cause you’re going wrong on sizes and colors.”

“I think you don’t know Borough Park,” Jay said sharply. “The women we deal with buy dresses for three occasions: weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.” He picked at the dresses. “Kelly green, red, powder blue, beige, you can’t wear for more than a season.”

“Then what about sizes? We don’t sell furniture covers.”

“A slim flat-chested woman has never been seen in Borough Park. All our customers are double-breasted Mrs. Americas who’ve had a few kids and eat potatoes all year round to prevent colds, and they’ve got plenty of hanging bits. When I go into the corset business, I’ll buy small sizes. But now, sixteen to forty-four. Big sizes you can make smaller, small dresses you can only use as dish rags.”

“The man knows what he wants.”

Jay and Rhoda spent the next hour selecting dresses; when they had finished, they had ninety-six dresses that came to one hundred and thirty-eight dollars, which Jay believed they could turn over with a hundred percent profit in two weeks. By this time, Marty himself was persuaded that Jay would be as good as his word.

“You’re three bucks over the limit,” Marty said as he helped Jay fold the dresses.

“I’m an inexperienced buyer.”

“Chop a dress off then.”

“Chop your head off first, and that’s a fact. I want ninety-six garments, not an odd lot. Remind me to buy you a drink the next time I’m in town.” Jay signed the bill, extended his hand to Marty, and pinched him affectionately on the cheek. “Stick with me and you’ll be wearing a diamond ring on your
pipik.”

“Gotta love him, don’t you? But one word in your ear: the last guy that hung me up, got his head split open. Still in the hospital.”

On the way down in the elevator, Rhoda turned fearfully to Jay.

“Think he meant it?”

“He’s a bullshitter. Likes to talk. But a nice guy.”

“What if we can’t pay?”

“No such word as can’t. Won’t maybe, but not can’t. Before I went up there, you didn’t think we’d get dresses. Now that we’ve got them, you’re worried about not being able to pay. Rhoda, catch up with me, will you! Or I’ll leave you behind.”

She was unable to answer, and she was terrified, because she realized that even though his manner had been playful, an attempt to simulate confidence and thereby create it, he had been serious. She was no longer in the position of coaching a sharp-witted but uneducated roughneck, a potential hoodlum; she was being pulled along by a determined man, a man incapable of even rudimentary idealism, a man whose savagery, drive and antisocial tendencies had been quickly harnessed; an animal built for survival. She studied his face and now that the performance was over she could see that he was nervous and worried, but like a beast of prey who had set a trap, he was ready to spring.

“Jay, I want to ask you a question.”

“Who’s stopping you?”

“Do you love me?”

For a moment he thought about her question, and then like a snarling, cornered animal, he said: “I’m gonna marry you, isn’t that enough!”

The cold weather that Jay had so confidently predicted came three weeks later. A combination of feverish salesmanship and promises of secret trysts with the majority of Modes’ Amazonian clientele enabled him to pay Marty well within the promised time. A freakish bit of luck convinced Jay that he was one of God’s chosen few. Mr. Finkelstein, a winter sportsman of three decades standing, made his annual hegira to Lakewood’s frosty climes two months earlier than usual. The cold snap had caught everyone unprepared and Finkelstein, making one of the boldest decisions of his life, decided to take advantage of the absence of sunshine and the lower-than-season rates, which also coincided with the retailer’s Thirtieth Pinochle Convention. Garbed in a remodeled Alpaca coat with a fox collar, a legacy of his late wife, and smelling like a man who had been poisoned with some unknown Borgia henbane - the commingled fetor of oil of wintergreen, bay rum, and a recently acquired mustard plaster - he appeared at the shop carrying a suitcase that had spent its existence in the valley of dust under his bed until he rediscovered it. When he entered the shop, he fell into a silent reverie, having forgotten the purpose of his visit and so went to his usual stool. Rhoda tugged his collar.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Finkelstein?” She pointed at the suitcase from which the leg of his long underwear was attempting to escape.

“To Lakewood . . . two weeks. Look after . . .” He gave Jay a wayward smile, rotated the wax in his eardrum with his index finger, and with his morning’s lacerations fled into the street. Jay ran after him, caught him a block later at an intersection.

“Your valise, you forgot it,” Jay said.

Finkelstein for a moment did not recognize Jay and thought he was under arrest, so he raised his hands in the air.

“It’s Jay!”

Finkelstein lowered his arms when he realized that the voice was familiar. He took the suitcase from Jay, and to make sure that no pilfering had been done while it was out of his sight he set it down on the curb and opened it. He examined the contents with great attention to detail; having satisfied himself that his eleven packs of pinochle cards and his single pair of long underwear had not been tampered with he shook Jay’s shoulder affectionately.

“You wonderful . . . take care . . .” he uttered with some difficulty, then as the light changed he darted across the street.

Finkelstein’s unexpected departure drove Jay to new heights of audacity. As soon as he got back to the shop he told Rhoda that he had to get in touch with Marty and would go to Manhattan. She gave him a helpless shrug, realizing that any comment she made would result in an argument.

“It’s meant to be,” Jay said exultantly.