What's in It for Me? (30 page)

I waited and then he was back on the line.

“Her wire is busy, Mr. Bogen. Will you—?”

“I'll wait.”

Thirty thousand bucks was
God
damn good.

“Mr. Bogen?”

“Yes, Charlie?”

“She's still busy, Mr. Bogen.”

“All right. I'll wait.”

With thirty thousand bucks you could boff the right people; you could spit in the right eyes; you could kick the right asses; you could—

“Mr. Bogen?”

“Yes?”

“Here's Miss Mills now, Mr. Bogen.”

“All right.” Pause. “Hello, Martha?”

“Yes, Harry. Sorry to keep you—”

She was never on time. She was always sorry.

“Who the hell was on that damned wire so long? I been holding it for—”

“Just the laundry, Harry.”

Whenever I wanted to talk to her, she was busy getting cleaned.

“Listen, kid. It's time to get started.”

“You mean the—?”

“Right.”

“Oh, Harry! When? When?”

“Two or three days at the most.”

“Oh, Harry!”

There was a remarkable lack of originality in her comments.

“So what do you say you meet me right now down at the travel agency? It'll take me as long to get there from where I am as it'll take you to get there from the house. Meet me inside.”

“I'm halfway through the door already, Harry!”

On her ear would be the way I'd like to see it done.

“Swell, Martha. We'll get the boat tickets and maybe we'll have time to buy some more luggage if we need it.”

“I'm on my way.”

“So long, kid.”

And after you boffed the right people and spit into the right eyes and kicked the right behinds, after you did all that, what could you do with your thirty thousand bucks? You could stick it up your poop, that's what you could do.

“Good-by, dear,” she said.

I certainly was paying a nice fancy price for the right to be called dear. I hung up slowly and looked at myself in the glass of the telephone booth door. What the hell
did
I want, anyway?

I
STRAIGHTENED UP FROM
the trunk and stretched to take the dull pain out of the small of my back.

“I don't know about Hollywood. By the time we reach there I may need some more clothes, according to what I hear they wear out there. But I know damn well I got enough for Europe. How about you, Martha?”

She came up from behind her own trunks with a blank scowl and a “What say?”

The only way to hold her attention was to mention money in every sentence.

“I said you think you have enough clothes?”

At once it was plain from her face that she was positive she didn't have enough.

“Well,” she said slowly, “there are a
few
things. But oh, well. I can either get them on the way to the boat or just let it go.”

Yeah, she'd let it go. Like I'd let Yazdabian send me out on the road while she was horsing around with Teddy Ast.

“Okay, then. Suit yourself, Martha. But let's not miss the boat because you needed another bottle of nail polish.”

“Don't worry, Harry. This is one boat I'm not missing.”

Everybody was always telling me not to worry. If I didn't do it, who was there to do it for me? I walked into the bedroom and closed the door halfway. When I was sure she was hidden behind the trunks again, I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser, shoved aside the shirts and pajamas, and took out the small metal box. I opened it and counted the money once more. A little over twenty-seven thousand in large bills. I started to put it into my pocket. But it was too bulky and I didn't want to start carrying it around too early in the day. There was plenty of time just before the boat sailed. And anyway, twenty-seven thousand was an odd figure. I liked round numbers. I put the money back in the box, replaced the box under the pajamas and shirts, and came out into the living room.

“Say, Martha. Do me a favor, will you?”

She came up from behind the trunks again.

“What, Harry?”

“Call up my place and ask if Mr. Yazdabian got back yet.”

She looked at me curiously.

“Why don't you call yourself, Harry?”

My life was a merry-go-round. When I wasn't answering questions, people were asking them of me.

“He's supposed to be coming in from the road today. I don't want him to tie me up all day and night answering dopey questions about what happened while he was away and all that junk. I don't want to miss that boat, either. You call. If he's in, the hell with it, just hang up. If he's not in, I'll hop down to get some of my papers that I left in my desk.”

She shrugged and walked to the telephone.

“All right, Harry. If you say so.”

For five trunks full of clothes she was paying me back. She was making a phone call for me. Her idea of an even exchange.

“Thanks.”

I gave her the number and she dialed it.

“Hello? Hrant Yazdabian, Inc.? Is Mr. Yazdabian in? Well, this is a friend of his. I heard he was coming back to town today. Oh. I see. Well, in that case, never mind.” She hung up and turned to me. “Some sour-voiced girl on the wire, there, and—”

“Yeah. That's Miss Eckveldt. She looks like wall paper and she's sore at the world. What did she say?”

“Said they got a telegram from Yazdabian this morning. He's held up in Chicago. Won't be in for another two or three days.”

Enough time for me to make a round figure out of an odd number.

“All right, then,” I said, taking my hat. “I'll tell you what you do, Martha. You finish your packing. And go through my stuff, too, like a good kid, will you, and see if I left out anything? I'll go downtown and wind up the few things I have to do. Then I'll be back for you, we'll have lunch, and taxi down to the boat. Okay?”

“Okay.” She smiled quickly and held out her arms. “How about a kiss, huh?”

She was getting awfully grateful suddenly.

“Why not?” I kissed her, but she must have had her mind on the packing. From the way it tasted, it would take an awful lot of them to flavor a cup of coffee. “So long, kid.”

“So long, Harry.”

As soon as I walked into the office Miss Eckveldt started hovering around me with her list of telephone messages and the wire from Yazdabian. I glanced at the wire and handed it back to her.

“All right. The calls can wait. I'll take care of them later.”

“But Mr. Bogen—I”

I gave her the steely glance.

“I said later.”

I walked out into the back. Eric was tearing labels from a batch of new returns and blotting out the old shipping instructions with his black crayon. It looked like you could even teach a night college student something.

“When did these come in?”

“This morning, Mr. Bogen.” He shrugged quickly. “I don't know what it's all about, these damn returns coming back and forth. But you told me to tear off the old labels when they come in, so I'm—”

He wasn't supposed to know what it was all about.

“That's right, Eric. Clean them all up quickly and I'll give you a fresh bunch of labels.”

I made a new set from the names and addresses in the accounts receivable ledger and helped him paste them on while he wrote the charges and shipping receipts and called for the man from Railway Express. When the receipts were all signed and ready, I took them and hurried over to Lenny Nissem's office.

“Oh, Mr. Bogen!” Miss Blau cried flutteringly when she saw me. “You missed Mr. Nissem by a minute.”

What was she so excited about?

“Aah, nuts. Where'd he go, you know?”

“I don't know,” she said nervously, “but he was looking for you, Mr. Bogen.”

I was looking for him, too.

“Do you know if he's coming back soon?”

“I don't know—” she began, then corrected herself quickly and hung a smile over her jittery face. “Why don't you sit down and wait for him, Mr. Bogen? I'm sure he'll be—”

It was worth waiting to turn twenty-seven thousand into thirty thousand. But I didn't like the way she was acting.

“Well, I'll tell you. I'll just go down for a cup of coffee and then I'll be back.”

“You sure you'll be back, Mr. Bogen?” she asked anxiously.

The only thing I was suddenly sure of was that I was going to get as far away from Thirty-fourth Street as my feet, a taxi-cab, and a steamship would carry me.

“Oh, positive. I'm just going to grab a bite downstairs.”

“All right, Mr. Bogen, but please come back because—”

“You bet I will.”

“All right, Mr. Bogen. I'll tell Mr. Nissem if he calls or comes in that you'll be right back.”

And if he was sensitive to liars, she'd get herself fired.

“Do that, Miss Blau. Tell him positively to wait for me.”

“I will, Mr. Bogen.”

I hurried back to my office and grabbed Miss Eckveldt.

“Listen,” I said quickly. “Give me a wire on the shipping room telephone. And if anybody calls up and asks for me, especially a guy named Nissem, I'm not in, understand? I'm positively not in to Mr. Nissem. Got that?”

She looked puzzled.

“Yes, but—?”

“I'll call you up at home tonight and tell you all about it when we both have more time,” I said sarcastically. “Right now just remember that. I'm not in to Mr. Nissem. Understand?”

She dropped the corners of her mouth until they hung down like a mandarin's mustache. “All right, Mr. Bogen.”

“Now give me a wire in the back,” I said, and hurried out.

Eric was busy with his newspapers again when I came into the shipping room. But I didn't have time to bawl him out. If he was grooming himself for a job as a radio news commentator, that was his lookout.

“Gimme the phone,” I snapped.

He jumped off the table quickly and shoved the phone at me. He didn't have to be so scared, either. Starting tomorrow he'd only have to worry about being caught by Yazdabian.

“Mr. Bogen,” he began apologetically, “I was just—”

“Shut up!” I dialed the Montevideo. “Hello, Charlie?”

“Yes. Who's this?”

I was going out of his life without the son of a bitch's ever having learned to recognize my voice.

“This is Mr. Bogen. Connect me with Miss Mills.”

“Sorry, Mr. Bogen. Miss Mills is not in.”

“What?”

“She just went out a few—”

What the hell was going on here, anyway?

“You must be cockeyed,” I snapped. “Ring her for me.”

“All right, Mr. Bogen. But I saw her—”

If he did, it was the first time.

“You got your eyes in your feet. Ring her for me.”

There was a long pause and then he came back on the wire.

“Sorry, Mr. Bogen, it's like I told you. She's not in.”

“Well, what the—?” I stopped, and my hand froze to the receiver. Out in the office, arguing with Miss Eckveldt, I could hear Lenny Nissem's voice.

“Never mind!” he was bellowing angrily. “Don't give me any of that brush-off stuff! I'm gonna look for that little four-flushing bastard till I find him! And lemme tell you something, sister. When I get him, I'm gonna—!”

I dropped the phone and grabbed Eric.

“Listen,” I rattled quickly. “If that guy comes in here you don't know where I am, you haven't seen me, you don't know when I'm coming back, I'm not in, you don't know anything. Understand? I'm not in. You don't know where or when I'm—”

He looked at me wildly and shook his head with his mouth open.

“Yeah, sure, all right, I—”

I released him and hopped across the floor to the metal partition between the toilet and the freight elevator. Just as I disappeared behind it, I heard Nissem's loud voice coming through into the shipping room. Behind the partition was a big rubbish can and a pile of old cardboard boxes. I edged in between them and pulled a couple of the cartons around me quietly. There were several holes in the partition near the edges, for nuts and bolts. I put my eye to one of them and looked out on Nissem. His hat was pulled down low and his fat face looked like murder as it worked viciously around the cigar.

“Where's that son of a bitch Bogen?” He looked all around the room. “Lemme just get my hands on that rotten bastard, I'll tear his heart out! Come on, where is he?”

Eric shook his head quickly.

“I—I don't know. He went out and he—he didn't say where. I don't know—”

Nissem roamed across the floor with one hand in his coat pocket. I held my breath. I tried to remember where I'd left my hat. Then I felt the sweat on my forehead under the sweatband. I was wearing it.

“The lousy reputation that dirty bastard's got, I shoulda known betterna trust him. A God damn crook, that's all he is! I get my hands on him, I'll shoot him like a dog. Before the cops get him, I'll murder the louse.” He swung on Eric again. “Where the hell is he?”

Eric's head looked like a flag in a slow breeze.

“I—I don't know.”

Nissem swung over to the table with the returns on it. He began to shove them around.

“Ah-hah!” he yelled suddenly. He reached out and grabbed Eric. “You don't know anything about it, eh? The whole thing, you don't know from nothing, hah? Well, listen to me, young fellah, you're—!”

Eric's lips started to quiver. He clutched at Nissem's hands where they were holding him by the throat.

“I don't know anything about it!” he cried. “Honest, I don't know what—!”

Nissem dragged him over to the shipping table and shoved his nose down among the returns.

“You don't know anything about it? All of a sudden you got a weak memory? You start shittin' me kid, you're gone to jail together with that louse boss of yours. You're the shipping clerk here, no? You're the one kept changing the labels on these same God damn returns, sending them out over and over again, didn't you? Sending them out over and over to good accounts on fake orders? So's your boss could come and hock the fake charges and shipping receipts by me for heavy dough? You don't know anything about it, eh?” He flung Eric loose against the table. “Well, we'll see what you got to say to the district attorney about that. Just a buncha cheap crooks, that's all, the whole bunch. A buncha crooks, like that, making a monkey outa me, taking me for closea thirty thousand—” He leveled his finger at Eric. When he spoke the spit came shooting out in a fine spray around the cigar and the words. “I catch that stinking bullshit artist boss of yours, boy, I'm gonna shoot him on the spot! Like a dog I'm gonna shoot him. Then I'll see the district attorney puts him away for twenty years. The bastard. I catch him, I'm gonna take the—”