What's in It for Me?

by Jerome Weidman

  “I don’t know anything,” he said.

  “All right, then, I’ll teach you something. I’ll—”

  “I took a couple of your lessons when we were in Apex Modes together, Harry,” he said. “I had enough. Now come on and spit out what you want. I’ve got a business to take care of and dresses to sell. What do you want?”

  It would have been simpler, at that, just to tell him what I wanted and have him hand it over. But, of course, he was too short-sighted for that. He had to put up a fight.

  “Well, what the hell do you think you’re doing now?” I demanded. “I’m a resident buyer. I’ve got clients. And you’re a manufacturer with dresses to sell. How much brains does it take to figure out the answer to that, Teddy?”

  He took a cigarette from his mouth and cocked his head slightly to let the smoke pass his eye.

  “You may be a buyer, Harry,” he said slowly, “but I’m not interested in selling you.”

  His interests were among the more minor of my worries.

  “No?” I said.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Then what are you gonna do with those velvets you’ve got collecting moths on your racks? What are you gonna do, put them in a tank with vinegar and preserve them?”

  His head straightened up and the skin around his eyes furrowed quickly.

  “Still the world’s smartest guy, eh, Harry?”

  “Oh, I manage to keep my eyes and ears open.”

  “Look out somebody doesn’t come up from behind you one of these days and shove an umbrella up your ass.”

  Martha Mills & Theodore Ast, Business Counselors. Free advice on how to remain dumb the rest of your life.

  “Nobody’s shoving anything up my ass, Teddy.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But remember this, Harry. With guys like you, once they get it up there, they won’t be satisfied. They’re gonna make sure they open it, too.”

  I grinned at him.

  “I guess you’d like that little job, wouldn’t you, Teddy?”

  He grinned back at me.

  “I wouldn’t send anybody any bills for the time I’d waste doing it,” he said. “You can be sure of that.”

  “I’ll give you something to be surer about,” I said. “Just get the whole idea out of your head.”

  “I’d like to get you out of it at the same time.”

  “Aw, now, listen, Teddy, let’s not start that. I’m still talking about those velvets of yours that you got on the racks.”

  “What do you know about my velvets?” he snapped.

  I sent him a delicately sarcastic smile.

  “Enough to know that I’m the only guy on Seventh Avenue who’s even mentioned them in four months without laughing out loud. And enough to know that unless you move them and move them quick, your financial statement at the end of the year is gonna look like a pot of Jell-o in a wind storm.”

  “Where did you find out about—?” he began.

  “You may recall that I wasn’t exactly a sap when we were partners a year ago,” I said. “Now I’m a year older and I’m a year smarter. Now I know everything.”

  He blinked his bright little eyes.

  “What do you want with those velvets?” he asked.

  “I want to buy them,” I said. “I told you that’s my business now.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s how the world is. Yeah, full of dopes. You can’t go picking your customers.” He laughed again. “A guy wants to buy your velvets, you’ve gotta sell them.”

  I laughed and slapped his shoulder.

  “That’s more like it, Teddy. Tell you what I’ll do. Suppose I drop up tomorrow and pick out what I want, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, “here’s my card.”

  “Oh, by the way, Teddy,” I said. “How about having dinner with me tonight? We could—”

  He looked suspicious at once.

  “I don’t know, Harry. I don’t think I can make it. I’m kinda busy and—”

  “Aah, now, Teddy,” I said. “Didn’t I teach you at least that one thing when we were in business together? Didn’t I at least teach you not to keep your nose in the shop all the time, day and night?”

  He grinned in a restrained way.

  “You taught me,” he said. “You’re the guy that did the teaching. But now I’m the guy that’s in business for myself as a manufacturer, and you’re only a resident buyer.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted, “but this’d be a little different, Teddy. We could drop over to Smile Out Loud after dinner and take in the show and then I could take you backstage to Martha Mills, or I could even maybe get her to say she’s sick or something and let the understudy take the part for tonight and we could, the three of us, you know, we could go out and have a—”

  His eyebrows climbed up to touch the sweatband of his hat.

  “You still know Martha Mills?”

  I stared at him with fake amazement.

  “Know her?” I cried. “Why, for Christ’s sake, Teddy, where’ve you been all these years? I been living with her for three months!”

  He sucked in his lower lip and smiled as he shook his head at me pityingly.

  “Still one of those kiss and tell boys, eh, Harry?”

  “Well, what the hell, Teddy,” I said, shrugging, “a thing like that, hell, when all of Broadway and Seventh Avenue knows it, why should I hide it from you?”

  “That’s true,” he said. “By the way, how is Martha?”

  “Fine,” I said. “But I tell you what, Teddy, I’ll give you a fine comb and I’ll give you all of Broadway to work on, but you won’t find a better zipper anywhere.”

  “Say” he said with a grin, “how about giving me a knockdown to some of these Broadway actresses? For old times’ sake?”

  I’d give him a lot more, for old times’ sake.

  “What the hell is this, Teddy?” I asked in surprise. “A guy like you, a big manufacturer with models floating all over the place, you mean to tell me you’re not doing any scoring?”

  “Oh, hell no, Harry. I’m getting enough to hold the franchise.”

  “Well, at least you learned something from the time we were in business together, eh, Teddy?”

  He looked indignant at once.

  “Say, listen,” he said, “I was scoring on models and better when you were still boffing flat-heel Comics at City College, or wherever the hell it was you went at night when you were a shipping clerk.”

  “What you say is true, Teddy. But let me just tell you something. Don’t you underestimate those Comics. When they do something, they do it for the Cause. Maybe they don’t get their lingerie in Bergdorf Goodman, but they give you a good ride.”

  He shrugged.

  “I’ll still do my jockeying on Seventh Avenue.”

  “And Broadway?” I asked with a grin.

  “And Broadway,” he said.

  “Then what do you say? How about having dinner with me tonight?”

  “Do I get an introduction to some of these chorus girls?” he asked. “For old times’ sake, Harry?”

  “What do you mean, some of these chorus girls?” I said, pretending to become indignant. “What’s the matter, Teddy, what’s good enough for me isn’t good enough for you?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean, Harry?”

  “What’s there to mean? Nothing to it, Teddy. I’ll just give you a couple of slices off my own loaf.”

  He opened his mouth in amazement and the yellow teeth, with the inward slope to them, came up for an airing.

  “You mean that?”

  I grinned at him.

  “Of course I mean it. There’s no meter on it. You’re not using up something that wears out and can’t be replaced.”

  He rubbed his hand along his sharp, blue-colored jaw and looked at me as though he couldn’t quite believe his ears.

  “Well,” he said, “if you—”

  “Of course I do,” I said Heartily. “And I’ve got a lo
t of other nice things you can borrow any time you want them, like my camera or my tennis racquet. What do you say, is it a date for dinner tonight?”

  He pulled himself together and slipped back into form again.

  “All right, Harry,” he said, “It’s a date.”

  4.

  TEDDY AST, THE BLASÉ man of the world! The date was for seven o’clock, but when I got there at five to seven, he was already pacing around on a dime and his cigarette was going like a signal flare.

  “Hello, there, Teddy,” I said. “Hope I’m not late?”

  He knew I wasn’t, but he glanced at his wrist watch.

  “No, you’re early, Harry. Where’s—?”

  What did he expect me to do, carry her piggyback?

  “She’s probably waiting inside now,” I said. “I reserved a table and then I spoke to her on the phone. She didn’t know yet if she’d have to take the performance or not, so that’s why we’re having dinner so early. Hope you don’t mind, Teddy.”

  “Oh, no,” he said at once. “I’m good and hungry.”

  “Lets get started, then.”

  I slipped my arm through his and guided him into the restaurant. When we stopped in the cloakroom to leave our hats and coats, I spoke to the girl.

  “Is Miss Martha Mills here yet?” I asked.

  She smiled at once.

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen,” she said. “She went in a few minutes ago.”

  I played the little scene with a stiff dose of nonchalance and it wasn’t lost on Teddy.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We walked across the small foyer to the main dining room and stood in the doorway for a moment surveying the scene. I saw her at once, because I knew the table they always reserved for me, but I wanted Teddy to pick her out for himself. It was amazing what a difference a shower and a comb plus a compact and some clothes could make in her looks. It put just enough of a cover of distance and class over the fundamental fastness of her appearance to make her look twice as desirable. She was a born showman and she knew what her best props were and the best way to display them. The place wasn’t exactly a monastery, but the way she drew on her cigarette and let the smoke come out through the slight pout in her lips and the way she kept that front show window of hers on correct display at all times, there were plenty of guys in the immediate vicinity who were letting their plates of sixty-five cent soup grow cold.

  “There she is!” Teddy said suddenly. “That is, I think it’s—”

  “That’s right,” I said. “That’s Martha.”

  A tall handsome guy with smooth black hair and a movie profile was standing over the table, talking to her. There was something familiar about the cut of his jib and the way he smiled, with all his teeth showing, that made me feel certain I’d seen him many times before. But I couldn’t seem to remember who he was. Then Teddy spoke in an excited voice.

  “Say!” he said. “That’s Doodoo Whitmarsh she’s talking to, isn’t it? The society guy?”

  And in a moment, of course, I knew I’d seen that face. It was a stock shot on every society page and rotogravure section in the country. The background always varied, but the profile remained the same.

  “Yeah,” I said carelessly, “that’s Doodoo, all right. Martha’s pretty friendly with that whole crowd.”

  “Boy!” Teddy said involuntarily. “She certainly is a—!”

  He caught himself and stopped. He wasn’t dropping any compliments in my lap unless he got paid for them.

  “Yeah, Teddy,” I said softly. “And I’m only a resident buyer.”

  I disregarded the quick look he shot at me and took his arm. We crossed the dining room to the table and stopped behind Whitmarsh.

  “The play itself was adequate,” Martha was saying in a voice that dripped boredom like a leaking faucet. “A bit on the stiffish side structurally, I thought, but with enough bite and power to carry it. My only feeling of discomfort came from the fact that it didn’t have enough, enough, you know, enough élan.”

  “Quate,” said Whitmarsh, and his voice sounded the way his pictures in the papers looked: like a brand-new razor blade, fresh from its waxed paper wrapping.

  “I was a bit surprised at the Guild,” she said. “Doing a play without the polish that we’ve grown to expect from them as custom’ry.”

  Whitmarsh laughed and the sound of it made me blink my eyes at her in a new way.

  “We oll do thet once in a while, don’t wih?” he said.

  They both laughed and then she saw me behind Whitmarsh. The smile left her face and she leaned forward to whisper something quickly. He nodded at once and walked away, holding his shoulders as though he had a coat hanger in his jacket. He didn’t look back once as he went. I liked that about him. Then Martha glanced up at us quickly. A little flutter of the eyelids under the brim of the hat. A slight spreading out of the full red lips until the even white teeth were visible in a smile. It was so obviously rehearsed that it was a laugh, but that didn’t detract from its effectiveness. It set Teddy back on his rump so hard that you could almost hear the bump.

  “Hello, there, Martha,” I said cheerfully. “Waiting long?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Just a few moments, that’s all.”

  Well, one thing was clear. She was wearing the Oxford accent that day. Not that it made a hell of a lot of difference one way or the other. If I knew Teddy Ast at all, he didn’t know a world-famous university from a type of shoe. But it might help a little because he was the kind of wack who thought that if a girl spoke with a broad “a” that made her a better lay.

  “Swell,” I said. “I got here as quick as I could, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting. Martha, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, you probably remember him, Teddy Ast. You two ought to remember each other, I think. But anyway. Mr. Ast, Miss Mills.”

  “How do you do?” she said, and she trained the smile full on the promising young dress manufacturer who cut velvets when all of Seventh Avenue was making chiffons.

  “That was Doodoo Whitmarsh, wasn’t it?” I asked her in a low voice while Teddy wrestled with his napkin.

  “Yeah,” she said in an off-hand way. “He was passing the table and he stopped for a minute.”

  “What was all this élan business?”

  She shrugged and spoke out of the corner of heir mouth.

  “God knows,” she said. “Some day I guess I’ll have to look the word up and find out what it means. All I know now is that it goes over big with the polo crowd.”

  I looked at her with a feeling of respect that almost equaled the opinion I had of myself. It was really a shame to waste her on a heel like Teddy Ast, even temporarily. God damn it, I felt proud of her!

  “Baby,” I said, “you’ve got something that—”

  She fidgeted in her chair to settle herself more comfortably at the table. That was the only thing that saved me from handing her the compliment she had earned.

  “You know,” she said to Teddy, “I seem to remember you from somewhere, Mr. Ast, but I’m not quite sure where it—?”

  He grinned proudly.

  “Sure,” he said, “you remember me from when Harry and I were partners. Apex Modes. That was the two of us, Miss Mills.”

  Not for very long, it wasn’t.

  “Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Ast,” she said. “How could I forget!”

  “Oh, well,” Teddy laughed, “you know how it is, Miss Mills. I guess if you meet Clark Gable, you meet Robert Taylor, you meet Ronald Colman, or someone like that, you remember him. But a guy like me, hell, why should you remember me?”

  His logic was invincible.

  “Don’t start getting so modest, Teddy,” I broke in. I turned to Martha. “To look at him, you’d think he was one of these here blushing violets or something. You wouldn’t think he’s one of the biggest dress manufacturers on Seventh Avenue.”

  “How nice!” Martha said.

  “Aw, I think Harry’s exaggerating a little, Miss Mills,” said Tedd
y. “I’m not exactly one of the biggest—”

  “Are you in business all by yourself, Mr. Ast?” Martha asked.

  “Yep,” he said proudly. “Bachelor all the way around, business life and private life.”

  “Teddy leads a very interesting existence,” I said with a smile. “He keeps his addresses in an accounts receivable ledger in his office. This high. There’s a special clerk in his office does absolutely nothing else but keep track of his women for him. You must remind him to tell you about it some time, Martha. But what do you say we get started on the food first?”

  After the waiter took the order, Teddy made a flank movement and returned to the attack. It was like bringing a brilliant lawyer with you to help convince an income tax examiner to disallow some more of your deductions.

  “I saw you in that show Smile Out Loud, Miss Mills,” he said. “I’m going to see it again, too. I thought you were terrific.”

  “Oh, well,” Martha said with her version of a modest smile, “I don’t really get much of a chance to show what I can do in a show like that, Mr. Ast.” Personally, I thought she gave a pretty good exhibition. “But in a musical picture, the sort of stuff they do in Hollywood, I could—”

  “You’re going to Hollywood?” he asked quickly.

  “Oh, well,” she said with a smile, “not while the show is running, of course, but—”

  “Martha here,” I broke in, “she’s afraid of long train rides, Teddy.”

  She pouted and pushed my hand on the table.

  “I am not,” she said. “And don’t you start getting so smart, Mr. Bogen! Right now there’s a gentleman of some importance at the table. You and your sissy business! While Mr. Ast is—”

  Teddy put all his will power behind the effort to hide the smile of satisfaction he got out of that remark.

  “Oh, I think you’re much too hard on Harry,” he said. “There are plenty of resident buyers and they make a damn nice living, Miss Mills.”

  She took the hint and smiled on me forgivingly.

  “Harry is all right,” she said.

  Harry would have been glad to testify to that effect in person. But I was busy trying to catch her eye to give her the exit cue.