What's in It for Me?

by Jerome Weidman

  He stepped on the brake and brought the cab to a halt on Seventh Avenue, near Fifty-seventh Street.

  “What’s the—?” he began.

  “The lady wants to alight,” I said calmly.

  She got out and slammed the door without a word. I watched her walk away and then leaned back on the seat.

  “Where to now?” the driver asked.

  I thought for a moment.

  “You know where Honeywell Avenue is?” I asked.

  “It’s in the Bronx, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the Bronx. See if you can get me there without going by way of Chicago.”

  The cab started and I settled back to congratulate myself. It looked like I was getting rid of my bad investments at precisely the right time. Suddenly I sat up straight on the leather seat. Everything was all right except for one thing. I didn’t give a good God damn where she went. But wherever it was, one thing was sure: her next stop wasn’t going to be that little heel wise-guy Ast. He wasn’t going to have that on me.

  “Driver!”

  He turned around.

  “Yeah?”

  “Take me to the Montevideo. Central Park West and Seventy-second Street.”

  He looked disappointed.

  “Not the Bronx?”

  “No, not the Bronx.”

  He squeezed his lips together and started the cab. A couple of minutes later it occurred to me that if I had to make a horse’s ass out myself, the least I could do was postpone it until the next day.

  “Driver!” He turned around and scowled.

  “What’s the matter now?” he demanded.

  “The hell with that Seventy-second Street address. Take me up to Honeywell Avenue.”

  His face twisted into a look of disgust.

  “Gee whizz, Mister, why don’t you make up your mind?”

  “What’s the matter?” I snapped. “You getting sensitive or something? You don’t like the way I keep changing my mind, I’ll get somebody that does.”

  “All right, all right,” he said in a complaining voice. “I didn’t mean nothing. I was just thinking it—”

  “Then shut up and get me to Honeywell Avenue.”

  I’d been going around telling so many people she was in the hospital, maybe I’d better go up and take a look at her.

  “Okay,” he said.

  But two or three blocks further on it occurred to me to glance at my watch. Ten minutes to twelve. That meant I’d get to the Bronx close to one o’clock in the morning. A nice picnic that would be, waking her up and starting explanations.

  “Hey driver!” I yelled.

  This time he looked a little frightened when he turned around. I grinned at him reassuringly.

  “The whole deal’s off,” I said.

  He began to look desperate.

  “What’sa matter now?”

  I wished I knew.

  “You know where the Hotel New Bedford is?”

  “What are you doing, testing my memory or something? Sure I know where it is.”

  “All right, take me to the New Bedford. And listen.”

  “Yeah?”

  I grinned at him again.

  “Don’t stop or go any other place than the New Bedford no matter what I say after this. Just don’t pay any attention to me. Understand?”

  He nodded with a look of determination.

  “The next stop, buddy,” he said grimly, “is the New Bedford.”

  10.

  TEDDY WAS IN THE showroom with his bookkeeper and a couple of salesmen when I came in the next morning, but he got rid of them at once. He knew I didn’t like mobs.

  “Hi, kid,” I said cheerfully, “how’s the boy?”

  “I’m all right,” he began. “But how’s—?”

  “Fine.” I said. “Everything’s fine.” I peeled off my coat and leered at him wisely. “Well, Teddy, did you get in?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” I said with a wink. “Yesterday afternoon, when I arranged things for you the coast should be clear? When you came up the Montevideo just when I was leaving to go to the—?”

  “Oh, that!” he said, looking a little embarrassed. “Why, we just went out to a matinee and—”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said dryly. “She’s crazy about the theatre. Next time take her to the opera. She thinks she’s Caruso.”

  He glared at me and lit a cigarette to hide it. Then he picked up the Daily News Record and opened it to the Amusements page.

  “Here’s a little item,” he said. “You see this yet?”

  He pointed to a small box under the Kelcey Allen review. “Smile Out Loud,” it said, “the saucy musical that has been running along merrily for more than ten months at the Rector will close in six weeks, it was announced yesterday by A. Allen Samrock, business manager, thus rounding out a full successful year on Broadway.”

  “No,” I said carelessly, “I didn’t see it. I been getting into some awful habits lately, Teddy. I been reading the Times every morning before the Daily News Record. Some dope, eh, Teddy?”

  “Oh, the Times is all right,” he said.

  “Well,” I said briskly, “what do you say we get started? Those orders I spoke to you about on the phone yesterday.”

  I placed my notebook on the table and sat down.

  “All right,” Teddy said. The enthusiasm in his voice would have done justice to a play reviewer. “Oh, by the way, Harry. Martha called you here a little while ago.”

  I glanced at him in surprise.

  “Here?”

  What was he looking so flustered about? A lot of people got telephone calls.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “She said she called your office and they said you’d left but they said you were coming here first thing today, so she called you here and—”

  “And you just happened to take the call, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Well, thanks Teddy. I certainly appreciate it.”

  “She left a message,” he said, “you should call her back at the apartment.”

  “Okay,” I said indifferently, without looking up. “Thanks. Come on, Teddy, let’s get started on these orders.”

  “Aren’t you going to call her back?”

  “Teddy,” I said, looking up and shaking my head at him, “didn’t I ever teach you how to handle women? You gotta remind me some day I should give you a coupla lessons.”

  “Well,” he said, “I just thought—”

  “All this red hot jumping through the hoop every time they snap their fingers, Teddy, hell, that don’t get you anywheres. They think you’re a dope or something. Pots like Martha Mills, Teddy, they can always wait. But money can’t. So let’s get started on these orders.”

  As he wheeled the rack of dresses in front of me and I jotted down the numbers of the ones I wanted, I glanced at the open copy of the Daily News Record again. Closing in six weeks. That was enough time. She wouldn’t be grabbing her satchels and running. She’d wait.

  “You want this number, Harry? It’s an odd shade of green, but it’s got this bias flare to the skirt and it—”

  I looked up quickly.

  “Yeah, well, all right. It looks okay. What’s the number?”

  “Eleven ten.”

  “Eleven ten,” I said as I jotted it down. “I got enough greens, Teddy. Now something in blue and a coupla more beige, maybe. Peoria, here, wants beige.”

  “How many more you want?” Teddy asked.

  “I could use one more evening gown,” I said. “Blue taffeta, it says, with a high neckline in front. What the hell they’re gonna do with that in Altoona, don’t ask me. I just buy it for them.”

  He shuffled through the dresses on the rack and held one up.

  “How’s this?”

  I glanced at it.

  “It stinks, but I’ll take it. Number?”

  “Eleven forty-two. By you it stinks, eh? I sold—”

  �
��Eleven forty-two,” I repeated as I marked it on the order. “All right, Teddy. You’ll tell me how many you sold some other time. Charge them all out three bucks higher.”

  “Listen, Harry,” he said slowly, “I don’t know if I’m gonna keep on jacking your charges like that.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. Didn’t I have enough problems already?

  “What’s the matter now? You been getting religion all of a sudden? We gotta go into that all over again?”

  He kept fussing with the dresses as he talked.

  “No, it ain’t that. It’s just that—”

  What the hell was this, anyway? I had to go around coaxing him?

  “Listen, Teddy,” I said in a hard voice. “Just don’t start getting so moral on me all of a sudden. I know you from the old days. Try and remember that it’s to your advantage to keep jacking up these charges for me.”

  He furrowed his nose at me like a collapsible telescope.

  “To my advantage? Where the hell you ever figure that out?”

  “You don’t think I’m going to stay in the resident buying racket for commissions only, do you?” I stood up and lit a cigarette. “If I don’t get enough guys like you to work with me on jacking up charges, why, I’ll just have to go back into the dress business. And you wouldn’t want me for a competitor, would you?”

  He let out the first healthy laugh of the day.

  “Go on,” he said. “Who do you think you’re kidding? After that fancy bust you pulled six months ago, a fat chance you’ve got to get a nickel’s worth of credit for going in the dress business. After Apex Modes, Harry, you’re marked lousy with every credit man and every commission house in the business, and you know it.”

  The things I knew would surprise him.

  “I can’t get back into the dress business, eh?”

  Even as I said it I was seeing the answer to all my problems.

  “Damn right, you can’t.”

  I shrugged. To my list of unfinished business I would now have to add an item called “The Education of Theodore Ast.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But don’t let the fact that you’re right for a change go to your head, Teddy. A flash in the pan like that is liable to happen to anybody. But let’s get back to what we were talking about. This batch of charges you’ll jack up in the regular way. You know why, don’t you?”

  He turned back to the rack of dresses.

  “Well, all right,” he said. “This batch, okay. But I’m not saying for the future I’ll—”

  “The future, Teddy,” I said gently, “I always let take care of itself.”

  That wasn’t strictly true. I always prodded it a little and gave it a couple of hints.

  “Well—” he began.

  I put on my hat and walked to the door.

  “I have to rush now, Teddy. I’ve got some more orders to fill. But if there’s anything you want, anything I can do for you, why, just don’t be bashful and—”

  “All right,” he said sullenly.

  It was one facial expression that added nothing to his appearance.

  “By the way,” I said, “when I see Martha. I’ll give her your regards.”

  Her tastes ran more to jewelry.

  “All right,” he said.

  Pretty soon he’d be getting his conversation down to signs and grunts.

  “So long, Teddy.”

  “So long.”

  I took a taxi up to the Montevideo.

  “Mr. Bogen!” Charlie said as I came into the lobby.

  “Yes?”

  “Your mother called about an hour ago.”

  I gave him the old steely glance as he handed the slip to me.

  “I didn’t put the call through,” he said hastily.

  “All right,” I said. “Keep up the good work.”

  I put the slip into my pocket and went up in the elevator. I had my key, but I didn’t use it. I rang the bell good and long, and who should open the door for me? Little Martha, the girl who knew her way around but had a strange preference for dress manufacturers over resident buyers.

  “Hello, Harry,” she said.

  She was wearing a baby-faced look of contrition.

  “Hello, Martha,” I said casually.

  I walked into the living room, dropped my hat and coat on a chair, and sat down on the couch deliberately, like I was fitting my ass into a groove. I pulled out a cigarette, but before I could reach for a match, she struck one and rushed over to hold the light for me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Harry.”

  “Yeah?”

  She came over and pecked at my cheek suddenly. Then she plumped down in my lap and put her arms around me. I unhooked them promptly.

  “Martha,” I said, “I just had this suit pressed. You’re going to take the crease out of these pants in no time. Sit over there.”

  I pointed to the chair facing the couch.

  “Where did you go last night? after we—after I—”

  “I went to look up some friends I’d been neglecting for a long time,” I said. “People who like me because I’m such wonderful company that they don’t mind putting me up for the night. They don’t get tough with me or yell at me or walk out on me in taxicabs.”

  “I’m sorry, Harry,” she said. “I guess I was a little hasty,”

  “Among other things,” I agreed, “you were very hasty.”

  “Well, I—”

  “You were rude, too.” I said. “Very rude.”

  “I’m sorry, Harry,” she said in a low voice. “I wasn’t myself last night.”

  “No, you weren’t,” I said. “But today you are, eh?”

  She smiled brightly.

  “Yes. I feel much better today, and I’m sorry I acted the way I did last night. Now aren’t you going to forgive me?”

  “I should forgive you? What’s there to forgive? What am I, a judge or something? This is a free country. You said yourself last night nobody owned you.”

  “I said I’m sorry, Harry.”

  “I heard you,” I said. “And I’m not exactly a dope when I say I believe you, too.” She began to smile gently. “In fact, I knew you’d be sorry the minute I opened the paper this morning and saw that they’d finally decided to close up that louse opera you been horsing around in for the last ten months.”

  “Is that so?” she snapped, jumping up. “Well, I don’t have to stand this from you. I’ve got plenty of friends, the same as you have. I don’t have to—”

  “If it’s Teddy Ast you’re referring to,” I said airily, “or if you’re suggesting that he’s one of your friends, why go right ahead, Martha. But if you want to take my advice, you won’t go around making such bad investments.”

  “Why not?” she sneered. “Mr. Ast happens to own his own successful business, while you’re nothing more than a cheap little—”

  I guess I was nuts. But when she dropped the air of fake gentility and stripped down to what she really was, a tough little businessman with a single commodity to sell, I not only liked her, I almost admired her.

  “Mr. Ast won’t own it for long,” I said with a grin.

  She stopped short and scowled at me.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m going back into the dress business again,” I said. “And I’m going to make life good and miserable for him with a little of my brand of competition.”

  She let the scowl simmer down to a puzzled look.

  “But how can—?”

  “And if you recall anything at all about my ability in that direction,” I continued breezily, “you’ll concede right here and now that Teddy might just as well kiss the business good-by this minute.”

  “But how can you get back into the dress business?” she asked. “How about the credit men?”

  Next to a man in uniform, I guess women go for a guy with a line. I was no Western Union boy, but I could talk.

  “Come on, kid. Come over here to papa.” I held out my arms for
givingly and grinned at her. “The hell with the credit men.”

  11.

  I LEANED ON THE counter in the advertising department of the Daily News Record and worked on the ad. I knew what I wanted to say, but careful wording was important. This business of trying to swing people by means of the written word was all right for Shakespeare, but not for me. What I liked to do was meet them face to face and give them a chance to hear me talk. Finally, I settled for this:

  SALESMAN: Excellent following, with capital to invest in going concern making better-priced dresses. Address by mail only. Box 33T.

  “Okay,” I said to the clerk. “I guess this is all right.”

  “That’ll be three-seventy-five,” the clerk said. “Unless you want it put in a larger box with a border?”

  I looked at him curiously.

  “What’ll it cost if I want it put in a larger box with a border?”

  “Oh, well, there’s really no limit,” he said. “Depends on how much space you want.” He laughed. “We could even sell you a full page with just those words in it, if you wanted.”

  It wasn’t a half-bad idea.

  “Yeah?” I said. “What would that cost?”

  He laughed again.

  “Oh, I was only kidding you, sir. You wouldn’t want to spend a few hundred dollars on—”

  “How do you know I wouldn’t? What’ll it cost?”

  He stopped laughing and watched me in a funny way as he turned the pages of a rate book.

  “That would be five hundred and fifty dollars, sir,” he said finally. “But I’m sure you—”

  “I’ll take it,” I snapped. “Put it somewhere up front, with a nice heavy—”

  He opened his mouth in amazement.

  “A full page, sir?”

  “Yeah, a full page. See that it gets a nice heavy border and center the words clearly in the middle of the page, with plenty of white space all around.”

  “Yes, sir!” he said briskly and began to play around with a pad of printed sheets. “Will you want that in for one day only, or will you—?”

  I guess he was working on a commission basis.

  “One day is enough,” I said. “If they don’t see it that way, the hell with them.”

  “Will you sign this contract, please?”

  I dashed off my name with a flourish and tossed the pad back at him.