What's in It for Me? (16 page)

“As I recall,” I said with a laugh, “there wasn't much of an offer you made, Mr. Yazdabian. You simply said you had grave doubts about my eligibility as your partner because of, well, because of that small unpleasantness of the Apex Modes bankruptcy.”

“I think you take my normal caution a little too seriously, Mr. Bogen. I merely mentioned that as one of the facts in the matter, that's all.”

“At the time you mentioned it, Mr. Yazdabian, or rather, from the
way
you mentioned it, it seemed to be an important fact in the matter.”

“I think we might say, Mr. Bogen, that it has ceased to be an important fact in the matter.”

“I'd feel a lot better if it not only ceased to be important, but if it ceased to be at all. What do you say, Mr. Yazdabian? Do we drop that point entirely, or don't we?”

“All right, Mr. Bogen. We may drop that point entirely.”

“Good,” I said. “It's forgotten.”

“The only thing that remains to be settled, then, would seem to me to be the amount that you are to—”

“Just a moment, please. Before we go into that, I'd like to discuss another point.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the report I'd drawn from Dun & Bradstreet. “I want to tell you, Mr. Yazdabian, that—”

He looked across the table at the papers in my hand.

“What have you there?” he asked curiously.

“Oh, nothing,” I said casually. “I just dropped off at Dun & Bradstreet before coming to see you, Mr. Yazdabian, and I drew a report on you to—”

“Where do you—?” he began.

“What do you mean, Mr. Yazdabian? It seems to me to be a perfectly normal thing for a man to do when he's thinking of going into—”

“Of course,” he said, but the quaver in his voice was more pronounced and the beads were getting an awful workout. “It is your privilege.”

“Well, anyway, I got a copy of your latest report with them, and I notice from your operating figures, Mr. Yazdabian, that—”

“Figures,” he broke in, “figures sometimes do not reflect what—”

I looked at him in a pained way.

“Maybe they don't. But they're a lot more reliable than just taking people's word for things. You'll agree to that, won't you, Mr. Yazdabian?”

“Well, now, of course, there are—”

“Hell, Mr. Yazdabian, I could come in here and tell you I'm a Morgan partner and next year they're going to start a presidential boom for me. You'd want to have a little more than just my word for that, wouldn't you?”

“Of course,” he said.

“All right, then. And when I'm thinking of buying my way into a going business with a man, I want a little more than his word and the color of his showroom fixtures as recommendations. You follow me?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, then,” I continued, rattling the mimeographed report, “according to these figures you've got a good potential set-up here. That is, you're making a profit on every dress you sell. A gross profit. By that I mean, you're getting more for your garments than you pay to make them. But it's also pretty clear that you're not selling enough dresses, Mr. Yazdabian. Your fixed charges, your rent, your office expenses, your light bill, and so on, all those things remain the same whether you sell one dress or ten thousand. Those things remain the same whether your volume is large or small. Now, naturally, if you have a large volume, you are making a profit on a large number of dresses and you have a large amount of money to subtract these fixed charges, such as rent and so on, to subtract these fixed charges from and leave you a net profit. But if your volume is small, you may be making a profit on each dress, as you are making here, Mr. Yazdabian, but these fixed charges, such as rent and so on, are so large that they eat into this gross profit of yours and practically wipe it out. In other words, what you need here is more volume, more sales, since the fixed charges remain the same. In still other words, Mr. Yazdabian, what you need here and what you need here pretty badly, I might add, is a crack salesman. Not an ordinary salesman, Mr. Yazdabian. What you need is someone grade A, top flight, the best. What you need, Mr. Yazdabian, is—”

He gave me the toothless grin.

“You,” he said.

I grinned and nodded my head.

“Right.”

He shrugged and bounced the beads gently from one hand to the other.

“All right, Mr. Bogen. I think we can take a chance on each other. If you will get your twenty thousand dollars and—”

“Not so fast,” I said. “There's still another sheet in this report.”

I twirled the page, and he stopped bouncing the beads.

“And what's that?” he asked.

“I'm looking at the balance sheet, which shows that as of December 31 of last year, your net worth was $11,487.22. The way your sales have been going for the past few months, it's probably a lot less than that by now, but it's enough of a definite figure for us to talk on. What have you to say about that $11,000 figure, Mr. Yazdabian?”

“It doesn't seem to me to be of much importance to our discussion.”

“Then it's my job to convince you of its importance.” I gave the report a good noisy shaking. If he could rattle beads, I could rattle papers. “Your business, Mr. Yazdabian, would seem to need two things. It would seem to need a salesman to bring you the volume you need. And it would seem to need more capital to help you meet your maturing obligations without borrowing money from the bank. Am I right, Mr. Yazdabian?”

He nodded.

“You have stated the case fairly well, Mr. Bogen.”

“All right, then. Now, I am in a position to provide those two elements for your business, Mr. Yazdabian. As a salesman, well, I won't say I'm the best in the world. But I'm the best you ever saw or ever will see around here on Seventh Avenue.”

He smiled in spite of himself.

“Why not in the world?” he asked.

“I haven't seen the rest of the world,” I said promptly.

He pulled the smile in a little. It was too broad.

“I'm afraid, Mr. Bogen, that when you see the rest of the world, your opinion will still remain unchanged.”

That was something to be afraid of, too?

“I don't doubt it either, Mr. Yazdabian. But I like to stick to the facts.”

“All right. The facts. You are the best salesman on Seventh Avenue. And?”

“And I'm willing to add that capital to your business that you need so badly. But first you've got to answer one question for me, Mr. Yazdabian.”

“And what's that?”

“Why,” I said calmly, “why should I pay you twenty thousand dollars for a half interest in a business that at best is worth only eleven thousand?”

He opened his mouth to tell me.

“Because—”

“Is it possible, Mr. Yazdabian,” I asked blandly, “that you're trying to sell me a two-thirds interest in your business, and not a half interest?”

“It is possible,” he said, “but not in this case, Mr. Bogen. All I am interested in selling you is a one-half interest.”

“In other words, we are to be equal partners. Right?”

“Right. But for that half interest, for that equal share in my business, I am asking twenty thousand dollars, Mr. Bogen.”

“How do you figure that out?”

“Simple. You pay me twenty thousand dollars for a half interest in my business. Ten thousand of that twenty thousand goes into what will then be our joint business. The remaining ten thousand dollars of your money goes into my pocket as a private profit.”

And the remaining part of his bright little scheme he could drop down the toilet bowl and flush promptly.

“A very interesting proposition,” I said. “But not for me.”

I got up and reached for my hat.

“Just a moment,” he said quickly. “There is no need to become excited about—”

“Excited? I'm not excited, Mr. Yazdabian. I'm just disgusted.”

He didn't like the word. I could tell by the way his nose wrinkled.

“Why?”

“Simply because it leads me to believe that you must think I'm either crazy or awfully dumb, Mr. Yazdabian.”

“I don't think you're crazy, Mr. Bogen. And from what I have been able to gather from our two little talks, I doubt very seriously that you are very dumb.”

It was the first intelligent doubt he'd displayed.

“Then what's the big idea making a proposition like that? I've got at least six deals like this hanging fire, Mr. Yazdabian. I don't have to take yours, you know. The only reason yours appeals to me so much is that you happen to be making precisely and exactly the same stuff that I used to make in Apex Modes. But hell, that's not enough reason why I should pay you an extra ten thousand dollars.”

He shrugged and smiled suddenly.

“That's still no reason, Mr. Bogen, why I shouldn't make the attempt to get it,” he said dryly.

“Frankly,” I said with a grin, “I always make the attempt myself.”

“It never hurts,” he said.

I laughed a little. He wasn't so funny, but what the hell, he was going to be my partner.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose the next move is for us to get together at a lawyer's office and go over the whole thing, figures and so on.”

“That would seem to be the next move,” he agreed.

“Well, I'll tell you,” I said casually, “it doesn't matter to me, but I've been using a lawyer named Golig for a long time now and he's pretty good, I think. So if it's all right with you, Mr. Yazdabian, we'll—”

It was obvious in a moment from the sound the beads were making that it was not all right with Mr. Yazdabian.

“I agree with you that it doesn't matter, Mr. Bogen. But if it's all the same to you, I would very much prefer that we use my attorney.”

“Of course,” I said quickly. “That'll suit me. Any time you say will be okay with me, Mr. Yazdabian.”

“I'll call him and find out,” he said, getting up. “I'm sure the way he will arrange things, everything will be all right.”

“Of course they'll be all right,” I agreed heartily. “Why should you even think otherwise? You just watch my smoke, Mr. Yazdabian. You better tear the roof out of this place because the sales are going up so high that you won't be able to hold them. Why, I started Apex Modes with
less
than twenty thousand dollars, and look what I made of it!”

He nodded with pursed lips.

“Might I suggest, Mr. Bogen,” he said quietly, “that we try to avoid the same end that Apex Modes came to?”

“Listen, Mr. Yazdabian,” I said confidentially, “I'm not God. I make mistakes the same as other people do. But there's only one thing different about my mistakes.”

“And what's that?” he asked.

For once the beads were motionless.

“I never make them twice,” I said.

T
HE SUIT WAS A THREE-BUTTON
model in tan gabardine with a six-inch slit along each hip and Caruso had sworn up and down that it was “exclusive with you alone, Mr. Bogen, honest.” That meant he'd probably made up only seven or eight at most and the bill would come in twenty dollars higher than it ordinarily did. But being one out of the seven or eight guys in New York with that kind of suit was exclusive enough for me, and from the way I paid his bills he could wait for a hundred and eighty-five bucks as easily as he waited for a hundred and sixty-five. I buttoned the jacket on the middle button and watched the roll of the lapels. Those Italians knew how to make clothes. It looked all right. I turned from the mirror and spoke to Martha.

“How does it look?”

She stopped combing her hair and cocked her head.

“Not bad. You're getting to be a regular Lucius Beebe. But what are those things for?” She pointed to the slits in the jacket. “Those cuts along the sides?”

“This?” I put my hands into the slits and flapped the rear end of the jacket up. “That's in case I have to go to the toilet in a hurry,” I said, grinning.

“Oh. I thought you were going to start using a horse to go downtown on, instead of the car, and you didn't want to crease the back of the coat.”

“Well, I guess I'm all set. You'll be down on time, won't you, Martha?”

“I'll be there. I don't want to get there too early and hang around in an empty showroom waiting for people.”

“You won't have to wait. These people are prompt.”

I went downtown in a cab and got a slight nod from the elevator captain in the building. That was because he knew I was connected with the firm on the ninth floor, but he didn't know in what capacity. As a partner in the business, I was really entitled to a salute of a full bow and a six-inch grin from the elevator captain. But that was one of the penalties of being a silent partner. All you got was a nod of recognition.

I hung my hat and coat in Yazdabian's private office and went out into the shipping room.

“Eric!” I called.

The shipping clerk came over.

“Yes, sir?”

“I want you to give me a lift with arranging some chairs in the showroom.”

“Yes, sir.”

At least
he
was respectful. He knew I was a partner.

“Come on.”

He followed me into the showroom and I showed him how to take the partitions that separated the room into small buying booths and move them against the wall so that the room would look larger. While he was working and I was directing, Yazdabian came through the curtains with his beads.

“Good-morning, Mr. Bogen.”

“Good-morning, Mr. Yazdabian.”

“You're starting rather early, aren't you?” he asked.

“Just getting the room into shape so the few buyers I got coming in won't fall all over themselves throwing orders at me, that's all.”

“You expect to sell so soon?”

I laughed and shook my head.