What's in It for Me? (2 page)

I dropped my hat and coat on the couch and opened a window. Then I went to the small desk and sat down. I whistled softly as I hunted through the drawers quickly, pulling out my old papers and files. When I had everything I needed, I picked up the small stack of papers and carried it into the bedroom. I set it down on the top of my dresser and turned around to look for a piece of string. The whistle died on my lips.

She was lying on her back in a snarl of covers and pillows. Her thick black hair was tumbled forward on her face, like a screen, and a few wisps of it rose and fell with her breathing.

“Who's that?” she mumbled without opening her eyes. “Harry?”

“Who'd you expect?” I snapped. “The fleet?”

She yanked the top of her pajamas down to her waist and smacked herself erect against the head of the bed. She was no Phi Beta Kappa, but she'd been circulating long enough to be able to read voices.

“I don't care very much for your choice of words, Mr. Bogen,” she said in a low voice. “I'd watch my language if I were you.”

“You can call me Harry. When you sober up a little it may come back to you. But we've been formally introduced.”

“I'm not bragging about it,” she snapped.

“What do you want?” I asked sarcastically. “An apology?”

“It might help,” she rasped.

“Well, it isn't going to help you, Martha. You've been living with me long enough to learn that I don't apologize to anybody. For anything.”

“Don't worry,” she sneered. “I've learned more than
that
since I know you.”

She bit her lip and reached for a cigarette on the night table.

“Got a match?” she asked.

I tossed her a book of matches.

Suddenly she kicked a pillow out of the bed and banged her hand on the night table.

“I don't know what
you've
got to yell about,” she cried. “At least I'm working. But what the hell are you doing?”

“You mean that off-key yodel you do every night in
Smile Out Loud
in the last act?” I said. “When there's so much goddam noise on the stage that they can't hear you anyway?”

“Maybe they don't hear me,” she said, “but I get seventy-five dollars a week for it.”

I stopped fussing with the papers and books on the dresser.

“Any time you want to go back to living on that salary and free-lancing for the difference,” I said coolly, “just say the word. I can always get someone to keep the bed warm for me.”

I followed the shot with my eye just long enough to make sure it was a direct hit. When she spoke there was a new note in her voice.

“I know what's the matter, Harry.”

If she did, she was smarter than I thought she was, but it didn't matter. At least she was beginning to understand that things were a trifle screwed up.

“Well, if it's a secret, don't let me pry into your private affairs. I'm a bashful guy anyway.”

She let the dig ride and shook her head seriously.

“These three months of loafing,” she said. “That's what it is. Since you were pulled out of your dress business you haven't been doing anything. It's beginning to do things to your nerves, that's all.”

“My nerves are all right,” I said. “But my ass hurts. I got a pain there from the way you can't seem to learn that even if money does grow on trees, there are times when the season is bad and the harvest is weak.”

“Well, you can—” she began angrily, but stopped before the crack passed her lips. She took another stab at the pals-in-time-of-need bull. “If you got back into the swing again, Harry, you'd be a new man. I'm sure of it, Harry.”

“Thanks for the advice, Martha. You don't know how much I appreciate it.”

I grinned as I threw the string around the bundle of books and papers and drew it taut. She seemed to notice it for the first time.

“What's all this piling and wrapping and tying? What are you going to do?”

“Don't worry about me so much,” I said. “I've got a couple of irons in the fire.”

The pals-together attitude collapsed with a bang.

“Look out you don't put the fire out,” she snapped.

“That's another thing you don't have to worry about. I manage to keep hot.”

I reached for the bundle of books on the dresser. She followed me with her eyes.

“What are you doing, Harry?”

I hesitated for a moment. Then I figured what the hell. She might as well know.

“You're right about that three months of loafing, Martha. Women aren't enough of a career for any man. So what chance does one woman stand?” I took a card from my pocket and tossed it into her lap. “From now on I'm going to be busy during the day. If you want to reach me, you can get me at that number. At night, of course, I'll still be right over there.” I pointed to the empty bed. “For the time being, anyway.”

She picked up the card.

“Certain Service, Inc.,” she read. “Resident Buyers.” She looked up at me curiously. “What's that?”

“That's me. I'm taking myself out of storage and moving into my new office now.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

“Harry!” she said. “What—?”

“I'm in a hurry now. I've got work to do.” I opened the door. “Maybe, if I'm in a good mood, I'll pick you up at the theatre after the performance tonight and explain it to you.”

I
GOT OUT ON
the eighteenth floor of the loft building and walked down the hall looking for the right place. When I found it, I stopped for a moment to compare the name on the door with the name on the list in my order book. Koenig & Probst, Inc., Misses' Dresses. It was the right place. I pushed through the swinging doors and went into the showroom. I walked into one of the empty booths and sat down. I put my leather order book on the table and pushed my hat to the back of my head. Then I lit a cigarette and waited.

In a few minutes a guy came over.

“Yes, sir?” he said. “What can I—?”

“I'd like to see Mr. Koenig.”

The smile set a little and the eyebrows cracked in the middle like pup tents.

“Well, I—” he began. “I don't know if—”

I took out a card and dropped it on the table in front of him.

“It's very important,” I said. “I must see Mr. Koenig personally.”

“Certain Service,” he said as he picked up the card. “Well, I'll tell Mr. Koenig you're here, Mr.—?”

“Just show him the card,” I said. “He'll see me.”

“All right,” he said. “I'll tell him.”

“I'll be waiting right here,” I said.

I caught the tail end of his dirty look as he disappeared around the partition of the booth, carrying my card. A few moments later the card came around the partition again. This time the man attached to it looked all right. He was a little shorter and a lot fatter and twice as sloppily dressed and he didn't have any waves in his hair because he was bald.

“Mr. Koenig?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, looking at the card in his hand, “but—?”

I grinned and held out my hand.

“Bogen's the name,” I said. “Bogen of Certain Service.”

“How do you do, Mr. Bogen,” he said, still hesitating. “But, uh, Mr. Pepper. Mr. Pepper is the one I—I mean. I usually—”

“Mr. Pepper is in Florida,” I said. “I bought him out a coupla days ago and he left right away. I took over his whole list of clients and I'm doing the buying for them now.” I spread the grin out a little. “You're talking to Certain Service now, Mr. Koenig.”

“Oh!” he said, waving his hand and smiling with relief. “Like that it's different. I mean, like that it's all right.” He laughed quickly. That was in case I should happen to be sensitive. “You know, my salesman, he hands me the card, I see it's Certain Service, I come out and I expect to find Mr. Pepper, like I all the time find him. But instead Mr. Pepper, I come out and I find—”

“Bogen,” I said. “Harry Bogen.”

Without being too vain about it, it wasn't a bad change. I'd seen Pepper two or three times.

“I find Mr. Bogen!” he said. He laughed again. “Lemme tell you, you know, it's a sort of a surprise.”

“I guess it is a little hasty,” I said. “But Mr. Pepper decided to sell out in such a hurry, I didn't have time to send out announcement cards.

“Of course,” he said. “I understand, Mr.—”

“Bogen,” I said. “Harry Bogen.”

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “Mr. Bogen. I got such a bad memory for names. Mr. Bogen. Don't worry, I won't forget it any—” He stopped and squinted at me. “Say,” he said, “that name sounds a little familiar to me. I don't know why, but—”

“I used to be in the dress business myself,” I said. “There must be plenty of Bogens around.”

“Maybe that's how I remember it,” he said. He trained the smile directly on me. “Well, Mr. Bogen, what can we do for you today?”

“Well, I'm a buyer, Mr. Koenig. So I guess you can sell me some dresses. I got clients from Buffalo to Los Angeles laying in their stores with their tongues out, waiting for Koenig & Probst numbers. What do you say we get started?”

“Fine.” He clapped his hands and yelled, “Sam!”

“Yes, Mr. Koenig?”

“The line,” Koenig said. “Bring out the rack with the late numbers and let Mr.—”

“Bogen,” I said.

“Let Mr. Bogen see the line so he can—”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said.

He disappeared behind the partition and Koenig turned to me.

“How's business, Mr. Koenig?” I asked.

“Don't ask,” he said.

“Lousy, eh?”

“If it gets any worse,” he said, “I'll maybe go into your business.”

Once I got started, there wouldn't be room for two.

“I could wish worse things on you,” I said.

Sam reappeared, trundling the rack with the sample dresses.

“All right,” Koenig said. “Now take them off one at a time, Sam, and let Mr. Bogen see what—”

“That's all right, Mr. Koenig,” I said. “He doesn't have to bother. Just leave them on the rack like that.”

“You don't want to—?” Koenig began.

“No,” I said. “I can look at them the way they are.”

Koenig motioned with his hand to Sam and he disappeared again.

“Say,” Koenig said, “this is the first time I ever had a buyer who didn't want to—”

I pulled out the empty chair from under the small table and motioned to it with my hand.

“Sit down, Mr. Koenig.”

He did.

“Let me ask you, Mr. Bogen,” he said curiously, “what are you—?”

“Let me ask you, Mr. Koenig,” I said. I opened my order book and shuffled the pages. “See those orders?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, but—”

“Today,” I said, “I'm in the market for roughly a thousand dresses. I can use that many to fill my orders. And the class of clientele I got, I can use your stuff almost exclusively, Mr. Koenig. Ten-seventy-five stuff.”

His eyes began to bulge slightly.

“But—?”

I held up my hand and he stopped.

“I'm interested in your stuff,” I said, “but I'm not interested in your price. Frankly, Mr. Koenig, I'm looking for a job lot of a thousand dresses. Can you sell them to me?”

He scowled and stroked the corners of his mouth.

“Why should I sell you job lots,” he said finally, “when my stuff is new goods, new styles, new—?”

“For two reasons,” I said. “Because you need money in a hurry pretty badly and because you've sold job lots to other people this week.”

He started to get out of his chair angrily.

“How do you—?”

I put my hand on his arm and settled him back gently.

“What do you think this is, Mr. Koenig?” I asked, “Minsk? This is Seventh Avenue, Mr. Koenig. You blow your nose here in 498, they hear it over on Broadway. I don't hold it against you. Other people been tight for cash before. Hell, when I was in business for myself, plenty of times I let stuff go at a sacrifice.” I snapped my leather notebook shut. “What do you say? You interested in cleaning a thousand dresses off the racks in one blow?”

He looked at me from under his eyebrows.

“Where'd you hear it, where?” he demanded. “Who told you we—?”

I shrugged and started to get up.

He pushed me back into my chair.

“A thousand dresses,” he said, “for cash?”

“Spot cash,” I said emphatically. “As soon as I get the shipping receipts from you that they went out to my clients, you get my check.”

“All right,” he said. “What are you paying for them?”

“That's a question to ask, isn't it?” I said. “You know I'm not gonna pay a nickel more than the others paid.”

He became excited at once.

“Hey, now, wait a minute!” he said. “Just because I let one guy get away with—!”

“It was three guys,” I said calmly, “in two days. And they didn't buy no more 'n a hundred and fifty to two hundred garments each. I'm buying a thousand. If anything, I ought to get them for less than five bucks each.”

“Less than five each?” he cried; “Say, do you realize those garments cost me—?”

I shrugged.

“We're not talking what they cost you, Mr. Koenig. Sure they cost you. But you need dough now and you need it bad. So you're taking less than they cost you. You're taking five bucks a piece.”

“All right,” he said finally.

Not yet, it wasn't.

“One more thing,” I said. “I'll give you the list of orders, with the quantity for each client,” I said in a low voice. “But I want you to bill the dresses out to them at nine-seventy-five each.”