What's in It for Me? (7 page)

“Fine. No kidding, I didn't even turn over once, I'll bet. You sleep good, Ma?”

She smiled quickly.

“Very good.” She looked ten years younger than she had looked the night before. “The Bronx isn't so fancy. But it's quiet. At night, I mean.”

From the way my nostrils were twitching, it had other advantages, too.

“What is that stuff, Ma? It smells like—”

“Sit down and see,” she said, as she placed a smoking plate on the table.

I took one look and let out a yelp.

“Bacon and scrambled eggs! With fried onions!”

“Stop hollering and eat while it's hot,” she said, beaming. “The neighbors'll think I'm choking you instead of feeding you.”

I had enough sense to keep quiet until I finished the first helping.

“You know, Ma,” I began, “I had—”

“Don't talk with your mouth full.”

I swallowed quickly and watched her refill the plate.

“You know, Ma, I've tried ordering this stuff in every damn restaurant in town. And you know what it tastes like when you get it?”

“What do they know in restaurants?” she said contemptuously. “All they know is to charge prices.”

I laughed as she set the second helping before me and I attacked it more leisurely.

I took out my bill clip and slipped a twenty out from under the gold cross bar.

I held, the bill out to her, but she pushed my hand away.

“Don't be a dope, Hershie. I didn't mean anything. I have enough to—”

That's just what I intended to stop being, a dope.

“You're not going to have enough from now on, Ma,” I said quietly. “From now on I'm starting to come home regularly.”

“But Hershie, honest, I have enough what you give me now to—”

“Never mind,” I said. “I want you to have more than enough.”

I'd been neglecting the wrong people.

“Only if you promise to come and eat what I make with it,” she said.

“Don't worry, Ma. I'll eat it.”

“I'm not worrying. I'm waiting for a promise.”

“I promise,” I said.

She took the bill and put it into her small black purse. Then she bent down and kissed me quickly. “What should I make you tonight?” she asked.

“It's up to you,” I said, getting up. “You make it. I eat it.”

She smiled at me. That was another thing I'd been missing. It was the only really friendly smile anyone ever turned on me. I didn't feel like I was being charged for it. I could just stand there and let it warm me all over without feeling that it was going to cost me money.

“From now on,” she said, “let's only do what's right.” It was right for me to get back to something I had almost cut myself off from, but that didn't mean I had to go burying myself up to the neck in the Bronx again.

“Then good-by, Mom,” I said, kissing her. “See you tonight.” She held me for a moment in the doorway. It was something to know that there was one person in the world who thought of you and worried about you for yourself alone, good or bad, and not for what you could do in the way of footing bills.

“Good-by, Hershie,” she said finally. “Remember tonight.”

“I'll remember, Mom.”

In the street, before turning the corner into 180th Street on my way to the subway, I remembered another thing. I turned back and looked toward the house. She was leaning out of the window, resting her elbows on the small pillow. I waved at her. She smiled and threw me a kiss and waved back. I felt at home again.

Going down to the office in the subway was no bargain, but the pushing and shoving of the crowd helped sober me up a little. By the time I got out at Thirty-fourth Street I had picked up all the loose ends where I had dropped them the night before, and I was ready for action again. “Morning, Miss Vinegard,” I said as I came in. She looked up hastily, and I could see she was sore at herself. I had caught her unawares. “Good morning, Mr. Bogen,” she said.

She made a quick stab at the smile, but of course, it was too involved a process to be done in haste.

When the last census was taken, there were eight resident buyers sharing desk space in that one large room in the Nelson Tower. They also shared Miss Vinegard. Or rather, they shared her services as stenographer and switchboard operator. But I had met the type before and it was my suspicion that she was dying to be appreciated for her extra-curricular talents. She was in a spot, though, because resident buyers are like lawyers: they marry young and stay that way. For Miss Vinegard it was like getting on a ski train and landing in Miami. She had all the equipment and she was willing as hell, but there just wasn't any snow. I can only imagine how black her thoughts were when Pepper sold me his list of clients and his three square feet of desk space, but forty-eight hours after my handsome and officially unattached squash took the place of his in that office, Miss Vinegard blossomed out like a peeled banana. She changed the shade of her lipstick, and the style of her haircomb; she switched to another counter in the five and ten for her perfume; she started to wear uplifts that made it almost dangerous to get too close to her, and she memorized the sound of my step coming down the hall so that when I opened the office door in the morning she had a special smile all ready just for me. I could tell from the pattern that she worked her face and teeth into that this smile was no small thing for her, but I'm a pretty cool customer, with both feet on the ground, so I didn't let it go to my head. But as soon as I found out what it meant to have eight chiselers fighting and conniving to dictate letters to one stenographer at the same time, and, worse than that, when I found out what Miss Vinegard could do to a telephone message if she didn't like you, I decided to make the most of my advantage over the other palookas.

When I got out of the elevator in the morning I usually went banging down the corridor like Tom Mix wearing two pairs of spurs so that she couldn't possibly miss me and would have plenty of time to wind herself up into the fancy smile. But this morning. I had so many things on my mind that I forgot all about my place in Miss Vinegard's heart. I came down the hall quietly, so that when I opened the door Miss Vinegard was caught unprepared and she didn't get a chance to smile at me that morning. She just looked at me. That was no bargain, either.

“Anything special for me, Miss Vinegard?” I asked.

“No calls, Mr. Bogen,” she said. “But I arranged your mail on your desk for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

“That's all right, Mr. Bogen,” she said. “I don't mind.”

I stepped over to my desk and started to go through my mail. The correspondence I put in a tray. The orders I slipped into my leather notebook.

Then I got out the phone book and shuffled through the pages until I found the real estate office I was looking for. I called out the number to Miss Vinegard and picked up the phone.

“Hello,” I said. “This the Irving Baltuch Associates?”

“Yes, sir,” a girl's voice said.

“Connect me with somebody that can give me some information, will you?”

“Just a moment, sir.”

“Hello?”

A man's voice.

“Hello,” I said. “Listen, I'd like to get some information about—”

“Yes, sir!” the voice said cheerfully

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said. “I'm not buying yet. I'm just asking questions. We got that straight?”

“Of course, sir. That's what we're here for, just to answer questions.”

I laughed.

“How do you pay the rent?” I asked. “In questions?”

“Well, we manage, sir. We answer enough questions and sooner or later one or two people like our answers so much, they buy.”

“All right,” I said. “But I'm just asking.”

“Ask away, sir. By the way, whom am I talking to?”

“A possible customer.”

Another chuckle.

“I mean, sir, what name?”

“That comes later,” I said. “First the information.”

“All right, sir.”

“I'm interested in buying a little house somewhere on Long Island,” I said. “I don't know where, exactly. Long Beach or some place like that, where the air is healthy and there's plenty of sunshine. It doesn't have to be Long Beach, just some place where it's healthy and restful and quiet. I'm not interested in playgrounds for children or schools or anything like that. The less children the better. I want a place where an old—a middle-aged lady can take it easy and get plenty of fresh air and sunlight and—”

“How big a place would you want, sir?”

“I don't know. Yacht basins and stables for polo ponies I don't need. What do you suggest?”

“Well, now, for how many people, sir?”

“Two.”

“Well—”

“Another thing,” I added. “Something without stairs to climb, too. A small house where you don't have to wear out your legs running up and down.”

“I've got it, sir. What you want is a bungalow type house.”

“None of that tissue-paper wall stuff, though,” I said. “I want something where you don't have to wear fur coats in the kitchen in the winter time.”

There was a short admiring laugh on the wire.

“You're a tough customer, all right, Mr.—?”

How did he know I was a customer?

“Bogen,” I said, “E, n.”

Now he could know.

“Mr. Bogen. Nobody puts anything over on you, do they, Mr. Bogen?”

Why make a question of it?

“They try,” I said. “But—” I saw the clock on the wall above Miss Vinegard's head. It was nine-thirty. “Well, listen, I'm in a hurry. I'm just asking questions today to get a rough idea on price. Offhand, what would a thing like that cost?”

I could almost see him pursing his lips like a trombone player.

“We-ell, Mr. Bogen, I'll—”

“Offhand,” I said.

“Well, I should say, offhand, that a house and a lot like that, say a good brick bungalow-type house, with maybe five rooms and a garage in back, oil burner and all the rest, situated somewhere on a nice quiet residential street, no factories, no filling stations, no shops, somewhere in a nice quiet town like—”

I'd hate to pay for it by the word.

“Cash,” I said briskly. “Don't give me any of this rigmarole about mortgages and finance companies and interest and all that tripe. Spot cash. How much?”

There was no room for chuckles in the voice. It was loaded down with surprise.

“Cash?” he said.

“Yeah, you know. Money. Bills. Greenbacks. Silver. Coins. Cush. Kale. Mazuma. Gelt. You know what I mean? Cash.”

“Well, Mr. Bogen, I should say about—”

“Not about. Accurate.”

“About eight or ten thousand dollars,” he said. “Maybe twelve. But it would be—”

“All right,” I said, “thanks.”

“Won't you—?” he began.

“No,” I said, “I won't. Not today. I'll be in next week and let you sell me a couple, though.”

“Mr. Bogen,” he cried, “if that's too much I can—!”

“It's not too much,” I said. “It's just that I'm too busy right now.”

“May I send you my—?”

“No,” I said, “you may not. Don't get so excited, Baltuch Associates, Incorporated. When I'm ready I'll let you know.”

“You won't—?”

“No, I won't,” I said. “I'll let you know.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Good-by, Mr. Bogen.”

“Good-by.”

I hung up and slipped the leather notebook full of orders under my arm. I was ready for the day's work.

“So long, Miss Vinegard,” I said as I passed the switchboard. “I'll be back later.”

“So long, Mr. Bogen,” she said.

As soon as I got out into the street I headed directly for the Lefcourt-Normandie Building. The clock over the doorway said a quarter to ten. I went in and looked up the name on the directory in the lobby and then got into the elevator. When I got out on the right floor I didn't have any trouble finding the door because Teddy Ast had his name plastered all over the hall with arrows pointing the way.

There was a little waiting room just inside the door, with an “Information” window in one wall.

“Mr. Ast, please,” I said.

“I'm sorry, sir, he's not in yet.”

“What time does he usually get in?”

“About nine-thirty,” she said. “But he's a little late this morning, I don't really know why.”

“All right, Miss. I'll wait for him.”

I started to push my way through the doors that led to the showroom, but she called to me excitedly.

“Don't go in there, please!” she said. “You'll have to wait for Mr. Ast out here!”

She pointed to the two straight-backed chairs in the tiny waiting room.

“I'll wait in the showroom,” I said.

“I'm sorry, sir,” she said coldly, “but I have strict instructions from Mr. Ast to have all people wait in the—”

I grinned at her.

“It's all right, sister,” I said kindly as I sat down in one of the soft showroom chairs. “Mr. Ast and I are very old friends.”

That sent her hopping back into her cage and I had time to examine the showroom. At five minutes to ten there was a commotion out in the little waiting room, the girl's voice whispered excitedly, and then the doors swung open and Teddy came in like a tennis ball going out of bounds.

“Hello, there, Teddy,” I said with a grin.

He stopped short and tossed his hat and coat onto one of the couches.

“What the hell you doing here so early?” he asked.

“What's so early about it?” I said. “It's ten o'clock.”

He glanced at his wrist watch quickly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Damned if it isn't. Well.” He stood there for a moment, gathering his wits. “I'll tell you what, Harry. Just give me a few minutes to get myself organized around here, and I'll be right with you. Okay?”