I didn’t like the idea of Mother’s footsteps having gone back to the kitchen alone. I wanted to see that girl again and talk to her. But I couldn’t until I got rid of Babushkin.
“So don’t worry about it, Meyer,” I said, talking quickly. “We’re as good as in right now.”
He waved that worried face of his up and down in front of me a few times. It was the best thing he did.
“So what do you say, Meyer?” I said, getting up and coming toward him. “Are we in this thing together?”
He nodded slowly, but that didn’t mean anything to me any more. For all I knew he might have been saying no.
“I think so,” he said, and I was surprised that his voice didn’t break. “Just give me a little more time to think it over, give me a chance I should talk it over with my wife, and I’ll let you know,” he said.
Suddenly I had an idea. Maybe I ought to meet his wife. I wanted to hurry this along a little. If he couldn’t make up his mind, she’d make it up for him soon enough. And if he could talk her into marrying him, I could talk her into anything.
“I’ll tell you what, Meyer,” I began, and stopped. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t go around looking for trouble. She might not be as dumb as he was. And anyway, I didn’t want to spend any more time with him just then. I wanted to get back into that kitchen.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said, giving him his hat and walking him toward the door. “You think it over and I’ll get in touch with you in a couple of days.” It was better not to get him nervous by trying to clinch it right then and there. Besides which, it was faster, too. “Okay, Meyer?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding a little. “I guess that’ll be best.”
“Good night, then,” I said.
“Good night,” he said.
I closed the door behind him and hurried toward the kitchen.
14
MOTHER WAS ALONE IN the kitchen, darning socks, when I got there.
“Hello, Mom,” I said, “where’s your company?”
“What do you mean, where’s my company?” she said. “What are you, anxious or afraid? Take a look at the clock.”
I did. It was a quarter to eleven.
“Holy smoke,” I said, “was I in there that long?”
“Well,” she said with a shrug, “you wasn’t out here, so you must’ve been in there, no?”
“What happened to Ruthie?”
“She went home. What do you think happened to her? To sit here and wait for you to get finished with the business in there, a person could have a hemorrhage, God forbid. The girl has to go to work to-morrow. She can’t sit around a half a night with an old woman like me while you’re inside with those high-class friends of yours.”
“What’s the matter with my friends?” I said.
“Nothing is the matter with your friends,” she said. “Did I say something was the matter with your friends? Only tell me, Heshie,” she said, cocking her head to one side, “is that gonna be your new partner, the one you were telling me about?”
“That’s one of them,” I said. “What do you think of him?”
“He’s all right, I suppose,” she said, biting off the thread from a freshly darned sock. “He’s your partner, not mine.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, sitting down at the table with her and grinning, “let’s have it. What do you think of him?”
“Of course, it’s none of my business—” she began.
“I know,” I said, “but since when does that stop you?”
She flicked a sock at me and I ducked.
“Well, to me,” she said, “if you really want to know—”
“Yeah, I want to know.”
“To me,” she said, “he looks like a high-class dope.”
“Good,” I said, slapping the table. “That’s all I wanted to hear. Now I’m positive I’m going into business with him.”
“What’s the matter?” she said. “Can’t you find any smart people in this world, you gotta go around picking out such schlemiels like that—?”
“I don’t need smart people,” I said. “I’m smart enough for three. But dopes, the right kind of dopes, they’re hard to find.”
“Remember only one thing, Heshie,” she said. “To be entirely smart is to be half a fool.”
“Yeah, I know, Ma,” I said. “Papa used to tell me that, too.”
“Well Papa was right, Heshie.”
“Let’s not go into that now, Ma,” I said. “Let’s stick to my dope of a partner, Meyer Babushkin.”
“I don’t know why a person with a little smartness in him should even want to talk about a dumbbell like that. Let’s talk better about smart people. How do you like Ruthie?”
“Not Ruthie, Ma,” I said, raising my hand with the thumb and forefinger forming a circle, “Betty, Ma. She doesn’t want to be called Ruthie. She wants to be called Betty.”
“All right, so it’s Betty. Betty, Ruthie, what’s something the difference? How do you like her, that’s the question?”
“How should I know how I like her?” I said with a shrug. “Before I even got a chance to take a good look at her, she ran away home.”
“Well, she didn’t run away to Europe. You know where she lives. I got the telephone number. Maybe you don’t want to call from here,” she said slyly. “You want to take a good look at her, you want to see what she looks like, so you take a nickel, you go into the drugstore, you call her up, and then you go over to her house on Fox Street and you take a look at her. Is that so hard to do?”
It wouldn’t be hard. It would be crazy.
“It’s not hard,” I said, “but it takes too much time. I’m too busy. I can’t bother with those things.”
“What’s the matter, the whole world business fell all of a sudden on your head? One night a week to call up a nice girl like that you haven’t got?”
I wouldn’t even spend a whole night on the right kind of girl. So what chance did a nice girl have?
“It’s not that, Ma,” I said. “I’m planning a new business, too, you know. I’ve got to see my partners. I’ve got to arrange for capital. You know, Ma, all that—”
“Who says that by calling up Ruthie—?”
“Betty,” I interrupted, smiling.
“All right—Betty. Who says that by calling up Ruthie you’ll be wasting time?”
Nobody had to say it. I could tell by looking at her.
“I didn’t say I’d be wasting time, Ma,” I said. “She’s a nice girl and all that, and I got nothing against her.”
Not yet, anyway.
“You got something against her!” Mother cried, shaking her head from side to side. “She’ll gain ten pounds when I tell her that my Heshie said he’s got nothing against her! Since when, Heshie, since when you think you’re yourself Count Itufski’s son? He’s got nothing against her!”
I laughed and lit a cigarette.
“All right, all right, Ma,” I said, “I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that I can’t spare the time now. I have to look after my new business, that’s all.”
“All right,” Mother said. “Now that you’re so smart, and you talked so much, so I’ll tell you something. It wouldn’t hurt you or that new business of yours if you should go out with Ruthie Rivkin. Now what do you think of that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Mother said with exaggerated casualness. “Only Mrs. Rivkin told me that the boy that marries her Ruthie, that boy gets ten thousand dollars to go in business with, that’s all.”
He ought to get a medal, too.
“Stop kidding me, Ma,” I said. “No grocer on Fox Street is giving away ten thousand dollars with a daughter.”
“So maybe you know better than the whole world,” she said. “But I’m telling you one thing. The boy that marries Ruthie—”
“Betty,” I said.
“All right—Betty. The boy who marries Ruthie Rivkin, he gets ten thousand d
ollars to go in business. Now what do you think of that?”
She’d never forgive me, if I told her.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “Is she so hard to get rid of?”
“What do you mean, hard to get rid of? You saw her, didn’t you?”
“Well, I sort of did get a quick look at her before she breezed out of here,” I admitted.
“Never mind,” Mother said, “don’t get so smart. If you didn’t see her for long enough, it was your own fault, you were so busy with that big lemon of yours, that Babushkin. But you saw her. And you know there’s plenty boys they would thank God seven days a week for the rest of their lives if they could only get a nice girl like that even without ten thousand dollars. And with ten thousand dollars, don’t worry, there’s plenty boys in the Bronx, so smart like you any day, Heshalle, that they figure it’s worth while they should spend a couple nights a week in the parlor there by the Rivkins on Fox Street.”
She probably had a younger sister that was a knockout.
“Then how come nobody grabbed her off yet?” I said.
“What’s the matter? She looks like a cripple to you, maybe? She’s got a glass eye? One leg is by her shorter than the other? She’s a good-looking girl, dope. She’s particular, too, you dope, you!”
“Ma, please,” I said, “don’t call me a dope.”
“Why not?” she said. “Maybe you’re something better?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But don’t call me a dope.”
“If you had any sense in that head of yours—that head that you think is the smartest one the Above One ever made—instead of wasting your time on lemishkes like Meyer Babushkin, you’d make a try for that ten thousand dollars, and you could go into business the way you want to and you wouldn’t need any stupid partners they should get in the way of your feet when you walk.”
“I don’t need Babushkin for his money only, Ma,” I said. “I need him because he’s a designer, a factory man. Don’t you understand that?”
“Anything you understand,” she said acidly, “you can be sure I understand, too. Don’t think the whole world smartness settled all of a sudden in your head, Heshie. What do you think, it’s going to hurt that business of yours if you have an extra ten thousand dollars in it?”
“Of course not, Ma. Ten thousand dollars—”
“—Is ten thousand dollars,” she finished. “And it isn’t every day in the week a young boy your age gets a chance to put his hands on so much money and at the same time get a nice girl like that Ruthie—”
I started to correct her again, but stopped. I liked the idea of Mother’s not being able to talk of her in any way but as Ruthie.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Mother said, leaning across the table to poke her finger with the thimble on it at me. “She likes you.”
“Yeah, she likes me,” I said. “What did you do, show her a picture of me? She hardly even saw me. How do you know she likes me?”
That was one to stop the presses for. Harry Bogen reaching for a compliment!
“She told me,” Mother said.
“Yeah, she told you! When?”
“After supper, when I was teaching her how to make blintzes,” she said.
“Oh, boy, Ma,” I said, grinning suddenly and shaking my head, “if I told you before, I’ll tell you again—would you make a marriage broker! Oh, boy!”
“Never mind with that talk,” she said. “I’m not a marriage broker. But for my own son, I want he should get a nice girl. Is there anything wrong in that?”
“Not if she’s got ten thousand dollars, too,” I said, “there isn’t.”
“So what do you say, Heshie?”
“Well, all right,” I said, “give me her phone number. For you, Ma, I’ll do it.”
She grinned at me.
“You should live so, you little tramp, you,” she said, the grin turning into a laugh. “For me you’ll do it!”
15
I WAS SITTING THERE, looking at the phone on my desk. When I finally made up my mind to put the call through I glanced at the clock. It was six-thirty. That meant Miss Marmelstein was gone and I’d have to go out to the switchboard to dial the number myself. I opened the door from my private office and walked out into the large room. She was still sitting behind the switchboard, toying with the plugs and staring at her hands. She looked up as I came into the room.
“Why, what are you doing here so late?” I said. “You don’t have to stick around as late as all this, Miss Marmelstein, you know.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Bogen,” she said eagerly. “I haven’t got anything special to do to-night, anyway.”
My heart bled for her.
“Did you want something, Mr. Bogen?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Get me Intervale 9-929—no, never mind. Forget it.”
I turned on my heel and went back into my private office. For another moment I stood at my desk, hesitating. Then I said, “The hell with it,” and reached for my hat.
“I’m going up to Toney Frocks for a few minutes, Miss Marmelstein,” I said to her on the way out. “If anybody calls me, and it’s important, you can probably reach me there for the next quarter of an hour or so. Otherwise, don’t bother. You can close up any time you want to. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Bogen,” she said lingeringly.
I didn’t even turn back. She couldn’t kid me. I wasn’t that good.
When I reached Toney Frocks the girl at the information window was fixing her hat in her pocket mirror which she had propped up against her switchboard.
“I’d like to see Mr. Ast,” I said, “Teddy Ast.”
“Mr. Ast is gone,” she said without looking up. “Any message?”
“No,” I said, “no message. What time does he usually get in in the morning, do you know?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, “but he won’t be in to-morrow morning—”
“Why not?”
“He went away for the week end. He won’t be back till Monday.”
“Oh!” I said, and stood there, hesitating. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was sorry or not. The evening was free now, and there was no excuse for not making the call. “Where did Mr. Ast go for the week end, do you know?”
“Totem Manor,” she said; then, “say—!”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’m a friend of his.”
I went back to the elevator, pushed the button, and got in. I was watching the lights at the top of the car that winked on and off to indicate the floor we were passing. When the light for “18” went on I made up my mind. “Okay,” I said to myself and put my hand in my pocket for a nickel.
I went into a phone booth in Liggett’s and dialed Intervale 9-9294. A woman’s voice got on the wire.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” I said, “is this Intervale 9-9294?”
“Yes.”
“Is Ruthie home?”
“You mean Betty, no?”
I guess whoever she was, she had her orders.
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s right. Is she home?”
“No, she’s not home yet. But I expect her any minute. Maybe you wanna leave a message?”
“We-ell, I don’t know. I’ll tell you, who’s this talking?”
“This is her mother.”
“Oh, well, I’ll call again. Never mind.”
“You sure you don’t want to—? Oh, hello, hello?”
“Yes?”
“Here she is now, she just came in this minute. Hold the wire, please.”
Well, here I go, I thought. After a few moments of silence another voice got on the wire. I recognized it immediately.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” I said. Damn it, I should have cleared my throat. “Who’s this, Betty?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“This is Harry Bogen. Remember me?”
“Why, of course,” she said with a laugh. “What ever made you think I wouldn’t?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You know how those things are.”
I guess she had me hypnotized all right. I couldn’t even make the properly sarcastic comebacks that her remarks really earned for her. And the hell of it was that I didn’t think it was the ten thousand dollars Mother said they were passing out to the guy that carried her to the altar, either.
“Oh, I don’t forget people as easily as all that,” she said.
“That’s where you’ve got it over most girls, then,” I said.
“Oh, I think you’re too critical of girls in general,” she said.
“I don’t think I am,” I said. “Not of girls in general anyway.”
The next step was epigrams. God, how do I get into these things?
“Well—” she began, and paused.
That was better. At least we were back on safe ground again.
“Look,” I said, “I didn’t call so we could have a long discussion about girls in general. I like to be more specific than that.”
She laughed and I was glad I was at the other end of the phone to hear it.
“All right,” she said, “be more specific.”
“Well, what are you doing to-night?” I asked.
“Oh—I don’t know. Nothing special, I guess. Why?”
I’m the inquiring photographer, and I’m conducting a poll to discover how many girls—aah, nuts.
“Then suppose we do it together,” I said. “What do you say?”
“All right,” she said.
“Fine,” I said. “Now, where would you like to go?”
“Oh—I don’t care. Any place at all that you say. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
If she didn’t come from Fox Street and Mama hadn’t introduced her to me and there wasn’t something about her face and voice that warned you all over in spite of the fact that your common sense told you at a glance that she wasn’t pretty—if it wasn’t for all that, I’d know where to take her all right. But like this I was stopped.
I Can Get It for You Wholesale Page 13