What's in It for Me? (31 page)

Just as Eric found his voice, and my heart was dropping down deep for fear of what he would say, Nissem turned on his heel.

“I didn't—” Eric began weakly.

Nissem stopped and glared at him.

“Phyew!” he snarled. He spat viciously on the floor of the shipping room. “The whole place stinks! Crooks, that's what you are! The whole bunch. That fancy whoremaster boss of yours, with the smart words and his high class clothes, him I'm gonna shoot like a dog! Like a common ordinary dog! I'll send you all up for life! Phyew!” He spat again and stalked out.

I let my breath out slowly and sagged against the rubbish can. My face was wet with perspiration. My collar was damp. I took off my hat and wiped the sweatband. Then I noticed that I was still wearing my topcoat, too. I waited until I couldn't hear Nissem any more. Then I added a minute or so for a safety margin. Finally, I came out from behind the partition. Eric was leaning against the shipping table, looking at the returns, his lips quivering.

“Mr. Bogen” he cried desperately. “I didn't have nothing to do with—!”

I pulled my fist back.

“Aah, shut up, you little fag!” I snarled. “A cheap bastard comes in here and talks loud to you, right away you start pissing in your pants?”

He clutched my arm savagely.

“Mr. Bogen!” he cried. “I didn't have anything to—! Tell him I didn't know—! Mr. Bogen, I didn't know what you—!”

I shoved my palm out hard, straight from the shoulder. It caught him in the face. His head snapped back and he fell against the shipping table.

“He'da been here another minute, you'da told him where I was, wouldn't you, you little bastard? Go on, beat it, before I—!”

He grabbed at me again. This time he was crying.

“Mr. Bogen, please! I didn't know what I was doing! All I did, I just did what you told me! Tell him I didn't know what—”

I threw his hand off. When he came at me again I kicked out blindly. He gasped and went down, holding his groin.

“That's so's next time you should know enough to keep your trap shut,” I snarled. “You open up to anybody about this, I'll come back and kick you so hard, you won't talk again for good, you hear?”

He lay there, hugging his belly with both arms and writhing. I walked out into the office quickly. Miss Eckveldt was sitting with her hands in her lap, staring at the door in fright.

“Mr. Bogen! What—?”

I'd give her a what in a minute. If she didn't button her lip and do what I told her, she'd get what Eric got.

“Shut up and don't ask questions,” I snapped. “Get me my apartment at the Montevideo.”

Her slightly wrinkled face twitched with terror.

“But—?”

“You getting me that number?” I yelled. “Don't you hear English any more? I told you to—!”

I stopped and looked toward the door quickly. I was making too much noise. Maybe Nissem was still out in the hall. Maybe—

“Yes, Mr. Bogen.”

She started to dial the number.

“Never mind that call,” I said in a lower voice. “The hell with it.”

She pulled out the plug. The switchboard began to buzz as I reached for the door. She plugged in to answer it.

“Just a moment,” she said into the mouthpiece. She turned to me. The look of terror on her face sobered me a little. I must have looked like a wild man. “A Mrs. Herman on the phone,” she said, hesitating. “She says—”

That Herman family certainly knew how to pick the right times for showing how popular I was with them.

“I'm not in.” I made an effort to bring my voice down to a normal level. I straightened my coat and fixed” the hat on my head. “I'm not in to anybody. I'm not coming ba—I'll be back later.”

I hurried out into the hall and pushed the button for the elevator. The cheap little rats I had around me, what chance did I have to—? I looked sharply at the elevator door. Nissem might be coming back. I ran around to the stairway, went down two flights of stairs, and came out on the seventh floor. There I walked to the elevator button and pushed it more calmly.

O
UT IN THE STREET I
turned up my coat collar and pulled my hat low over my eyes. I hurried to a drug store on Eighth Avenue. With Lenny Nissem running around loose and talking big, Seventh Avenue was suddenly an unappetizing place. I went into a phone booth and called the Montevideo. Mr. Nissem's temper was a little disturbing, but not too much. As soon as I got onto the boat with Martha and I began to breathe that highly publicized sea air, my health would improve.

“Hello, Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen. Miss Mills come back yet?”

“No, sir. She didn't—”

That pot was worse than a policeman. She was never around when you wanted her.

“All right, Charlie. But listen. She comes in, you tell her I called and she should wait for me. Tell her I'm coming up there.”

“All right, Mr. Bogen.”

“Don't forget, now, Charlie. This is important.”

“I won't forget, Mr. Bogen.”

“So long, then. But tell her, remember. Tell her I'm on my way up.”

“I'll tell her.”

I took a cab to the Montevideo. As it turned the corner from Central Park West into Seventy-second Street, I saw a tall, heavy-set man pacing around nervously under the marquee. There was something about the way he held his right hand in his coat pocket and the way he was chewing savagely on his cigar that made me duck down quickly below the level of the window.

“Driver! Hey! Keep going!” He turned and looked down at me on the rear seat with a puzzled frown.

“You say something, buddy?”

I waved my hand sharply to show that I wanted him to keep the cab moving.

“Don't stop! Don't stop here! Keep on going! I want you to—”

“Oh.” He understood and kept the cab moving. As we passed the marquee, Nissem looked up quickly. But I was out of sight and he turned around to continue his pacing. “Where to now?” the driver asked.

“Turn right on Columbus. Stop next the first drugstore you see.”

When I got out, he put his hand on the meter.

“Wait for you?”

I looked up and down the block.

“Yeah, wait for me.”

I was too close to Nissem to do any walking in that neighborhood. And if I had to do any moving, I wanted to be able to do it fast.

“Right, bud.”

I went, into a phone booth and called the Montevideo again.

“Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen. What about Miss Mills? She in? She call?”

“No, sir. She—”

“Oh,” I said slowly. “Well—”

Suddenly this was beginning to look like something more than a last-minute shopping trip for a bottle of nail polish.

“Mr. Bogen?” His voice was suddenly bright with concern. “Is there anything I can—?”

Yeah, he could go scratch his ass with a broken bottle.

“Aah, shut up!”

I hung up and hurried out to the cab.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“You know the Cooke-Martin Travel Agency? Where it is?”

He swung his chin across, his shoulder to look at me.

“The big one, there, on. Broadway? Between Forty-third and—?”

“Yeah, that's the one.”

He dipped down to the gear shift as he spoke.

“Sure I know where that is. Why, that's the biggest—”

I didn't want a lecture. I wanted transportation.

“Yeah, well, see you can get me there quick. I'm in a hurry.”

“Okay, chief.”

Yeah, chief. To taxi drivers I was chief.

“Wait for me.” I got out of the cab in front of the travel agency. “I won't be long.”

“Okay,” he said, but he looked at the meter doubtfully.

“Listen,” I snapped, “if you're scared about the fare, here, the hell with it. You can have it now. I'll get me another cab when I—”

I dug down, into my pocket for money. From some people I had to take it. But not from taxi drivers.

“Who, me scared?” He grinned quickly and waved his hand. “Say, listen, Mister, one thing about me. I can tell a fare that's good for it and I can tell a fare that ain't. To me, Mister, you look like—”

Like a jerk who'd let a tomato with a turned-up nose and an upholstered front make a chump out of him, but who was still smart enough to put his foot down before it was too late.

“Then just wait for me and don't worry so much. You worry, you lose your hair.”

“Okay, boss.”

I hurried into the agency and looked around for Paul Zlotkin. He wasn't at his desk. I went up to the switchboard operator.

“Mr. Zlotkin around, Miss? Paul Zlotkin?”

She craned across the switchboard toward the line of desks.

“Isn't he at his desk?”

“If he were at his desk, would I be—?” I stopped and shook my head. “No, Miss, he's not at his desk.”

At my age I had to start learning self-control with switchboard operators!

“Well, just a moment, please. I'll ring upstairs. Who shall I say is—?”

“Mr. Bogen. Mr. Harry Bogen.”

She plugged in and tried several places. Finally, she reached him.

“Mr. Zlotkin? Oh, Mr. Zlotkin. This is Miss Curtis, switchboard downstairs? There's a Mr. Bogen to see you? All right, Mr. Zlotkin, I'll tell him.” She pulled out the plug and turned to me. “He'll be down in a minute. He said would you please take a seat at his desk? He'll be right with you.”

“Thanks.”

I picked out the desk with the brass plate that said “Paul Zlotkin” and sat down beside it. A couple of minutes later he came quickly across the marble floor, his smile fixed nicely above the mustache and his hand outstretched.

“Hello, Mr. Bogen! Say, I—!”

“Hello, Zlotkin. Listen, I want you to—”

But he started a sentence and he was going to finish it.

“Say, I never expected to see
you
today!” he said cheerfully. I hadn't expected to see him, either. “I thought you'd be on that boat already by this time, waiting for her to pull out and—?”

That's what I was doing, pulling out.

“Well, there's been a change in my plans, Zlotkin. Coupla business conferences came up and I find I can't sail today at midnight like I planned. What I was wondering, I was wondering what's the chances canceling my reservations for tonight and postponing them for, well say the next sailing, if that's not too soon? Or maybe the one after that? You know what I mean?”

He scowled and went digging for something in his mustache with two fingers.

“Why, sure, Bogen, I guess if that's what you want. Why I guess we can—”

“All right, then. Do that for me, Zlotkin, will you? I'll call you up later in the day and tell you what sailing I want you to—”

“But definitely you want me to cancel your reservations for tonight, right?”

“Right.”

He held out his hand.

“All right, Mr. Bogen. Let me have the tickets and I'll—”

“Oh, hell, Zlotkin. I haven't got them with me. I left them in—”

He smiled delicately and tipped his head to one side.

“Aah, well, now, Mr. Bogen, you know. We can't cancel passage unless you let us have—”

I got up, scowling.

“Gotta have the tickets, eh?”

He nodded in a series of circling loops.

“Yes, we must.”

“Well, all right, then. I'll get them down here today and—”

“Before five-thirty, please, Mr. Bogen, will you see to that? You see, we close at that hour and we want to have enough time to—”

I looked at the clock on the wall above him. It was one-thirty.

“I'll have them here before five-thirty, Zlotkin.”

He smiled and got up,

“All right, then, Mr. Bogen, we'll—”

I reached down and picked up the phone on his desk.

“While I'm here, Zlotkin, mind if I use your phone?”

“Notta tall.”

He said it with all the grace of a warden, jealous of his record, welcoming to his prison a criminal with a long list of escapes to his credit.

“Thanks.” I sat down again and called the Montevideo. “Hello, Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen.”

“Yes, Mr. Bogen?”

His damn voice was getting to be the most familiar thing in my life.

“Miss Mills. She—?”

“No.”

I hung up without another word and got out of the chair.

“All right, Zlotkin. I'll have those tickets here by before five-thirty.”

He nodded quickly.

“That'll make it so much easier for us. Thanks, Mr. Bogen.”

I hurried out to the taxi. The driver's worried face cleared at once.

“Gee, Mister, that was some—”

“Never mind what it was some of. Get me up to the Montevideo again.”

“You mean that Seventy-second Street place we—?”

“That's right, that's right. And this time, drive past quick. Don't stop. Just drive past.”

“I got it,” he said; then, “Say, what are you trying to do, duck somebody?”

A new rule in the Bogen textbook on maneuvers: never keep a taxi driver for more than one ride.

“No, I'm just a visiting architect. I like the front of the house. I make a point to drive past at least twice every day I'm in town.”

He shut up at once and hunched forward over the wheel. That left me with nothing to do but toy with my thoughts. It wasn't a pleasant way to pass the time and I was almost glad when we turned into Seventy-second Street. Nissem was still pacing around in front of the door. He certainly went to a lot of trouble for not even a lousy thirty thousand bucks.

“Keep going,” I warned the driver. I buried my head deep in a corner of the cab. “Past the house.”

“Where to now?”

“Western Union. There's a Western Union somewhere around here?”