What's in It for Me?

by Jerome Weidman

“I mean when my mother was here. I’d’ve felt like hell if she found out that you and I were—well, I mean, Martha, it was damn nice of you to keep your hat and coat on and then walk out like you didn’t belong here.”

  “Anything for a pal, Harry.”

  “Thanks, Martha. I appreciate it.”

  “Not that it did much good,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked wise.

  “You think we were really kidding her?”

  I scowled and shook my head curiously.

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Oh, Harry, wake up. She’s your mother, not mine.”

  She looked like the sort of dame that never had a mother.

  “Sure she’s my mother. But what—?”

  She shook her head consolingly.

  “You’re slipping, Bogen,” she said. “You know her all your life. I just meet her for a half hour, maybe a little longer. And already I know more about her than you do.”

  “What do you know more about her than I do?”

  “I know enough after taking one look at her to know we weren’t kidding her for a second. She knows I receive my mail here just the same as you know it.”

  I glared at her.

  “What’d you do, tell her?” I demanded.

  “Nobody has to tell that little old lady anything. Now I know where you get those delusions of grandeur. Where you get the idea you’re the smartest guy in the world, Harry. You think you’re your mother.”

  She had something there.

  “Yeah, well, that’s how life is.” I lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “Where were you all morning? I called you four times.”

  “Twice,” she said. “Charlie told me.”

  “All right, twice. Where were you?”

  “I went out to the hairdressers. How do you like my new hair comb?”

  She turned around slowly in front of me.

  “Terrific,” I said.

  “You like it, Harry?”

  What did she think terrific was, a day of the week?

  “Very much.”

  “I copied it from Gladys Swarthout.”

  “That’s no distinction,” I said. “What you wanna do is get Gladys Swarthout to copy her hair comb from you.”

  “I’ll write her about it immediately.”

  “Thank God you don’t get these ideas about calling people up any more,” I said. “Gladys Swarthout is probably in California now making a picture.”

  “What’s the matter, Harry? Getting fussy about money again? After that big display we put on at the Beaux Arts the other noon, I thought sure the Rockefeller family would be down on your neck begging you not to put them out of business.”

  “They will be,” I said with a grin. “In a little while. I’m winding up my plans now.”

  “Don’t let them wind you up, Harry.”

  I looked at her sharply.

  “What’s that, a crack?”

  “You always have different words for everything, Harry. I call it advice. You call it a crack.”

  “I don’t need advice right now. I could use a little extra cash for a week or so, though.”

  “Try the Morris Plan. I’ll be glad to indorse a note for you, Harry.”

  Under an assumed name, probably.

  “Your generosity touches me right to the heart.”

  She looked surprised.

  “You’ve got one?”

  “Kidding aside, Martha,” I said finally, “I wish you’d do me a favor.”

  “Glad to, Harry. You know that.”

  “It isn’t very much to ask. But it would help me a—”

  “Let me judge the size of it,” she said. “You just ask it.”

  I looked at the ash on my cigarette carefully.

  “Well, Martha, I wish you’d let me take a couple of those bracelets I gave you and let me borrow some money on them for a week or ten days. It wouldn’t be any longer than that. And then you could have them back and on top of it I’ll buy you a new one for interest. How’s that?”

  She looked touchingly sorrowful.

  “Oh, Harry, I’d love another bracelet. But—”

  “But what?”

  “But I’d rather not make it that way,” she said sweetly.

  I shrugged my shoulders casually. It almost killed me, but I did it.

  “Suit yourself, Martha. I don’t really need them. I just thought if you’d care to help me out a little and make yourself something in the bargain, why—”

  “I’ll suit myself,” she said.

  “Oh, by the way,” I said. “While we’re on the subject of those bracelets. This dump here isn’t as safe as you think. Maybe you’d better let me put that jewelry in a safe deposit box for you.”

  “Funny how our opinions of the Montevideo coincide, Harry. I’ve already done that.” I crushed out my cigarette angrily.

  “Either you’re getting smarter,” I snapped, “or you’re getting some damn good advice from somebody.”

  “Maybe both,” she said calmly.

  “Yeah?” I said brilliantly.

  “Yeah,” she repeated nastily. “Of course, there’s still another possibility.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Maybe I’m getting smart from watching you, dear. You’re so brilliant yourself.”

  “How the hell would you know?”

  She shoved the last hairpin into her head.

  “Very simple,” she said with a grin. “You told me.”

  15.

  I DIDN’T GET MUCH rest that night. A heavy session of deep thought, with intermissions spent in calling yourself names, is not exactly the easiest way of felling asleep. But when I got into the office in the morning I felt fresh and full of pep.

  I spent the first five minutes at my desk, rummaging through the drawers for the card. When I found it I put the call through at once.

  “Hello,” I said, reading from the card, “I want to talk to Mr. Guber. Is he in?”

  “Yes, sir,” a girl’s voice said. It was the same girl. I know voices. “Just a moment, please.”

  Then a man’s voice was on the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello. Mr. Guber?”

  “Speaking. Who’s this?”

  “I don’t know if you remember me. But I was in to see you a few days ago about buying a small house somewhere on Long Island—?”

  “Yes, of course. I—”

  It was plain from his voice that he didn’t remember.

  “You know,” I said. “The bungalow-type house without stairs to climb and no playgrounds or schools around to—?”

  “Oh, yes,” he cried. “Mr. Bogen!”

  “That’s right. Listen. Here’s what I want you to do for me, Mr. Guber.”

  “Certainly,” he said briskly. “Just say the word.”

  “I want you to get me complete specifications on as many available properties in that class we spoke about as you can. Draw them up so I can look at them and understand them easily, Mr. Guber. I’m not a real estate man, but I know what I want. You make those specifications clear and I’ll be able to pick from them. Include everything, price and all.”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Bogen. Shall I send them up to you or will you come in and get them?”

  “Well, let’s see. I’ll tell you what. Draw them up and hold them for me. I’ll try to drop in for them, but if I don’t get the chance, you mail them in to me.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Bogen. And your address is?”

  “Nelson Tower, 450 Seventh Avenue. But wait a minute.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I’ll be changing my address in a few days and I won’t be here to—Oh, well, all right. If I don’t come in to get them, you mail them here and they’ll be forwarded. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mr. Bogen. You’ll get those in a few days, sir. And the address is four-five-oh Seventh Avenue.”

  “Right.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bogen. Good-by.”
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  “Good-by.”

  I hung up and took my hat. Miss Vinegard looked at me curiously as I went to the door.

  “You’re changing your address, Mr. Bogen?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m going to be selling out my interest in the resident buying business, Miss Vinegard.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  She twiddled the plugs of the switchboard.

  “Have you any other plans, Mr. Bogen?” she asked casually.

  “Nothing special,” I said. “I may get married and go on a honeymoon.”

  “Oh, you’re kidding, Mr. Bogen!”

  “Say, listen. Funnier things than that have happened. But we’ll go into it a little more deeply some other time. Right now I’ve got an appointment. Keep my messages straight, okay, Miss Vinegard?”

  “Of course. But for goodness’ sakes, Mr. Bogen, call up that Mr. Yazshmaybian or whatever his name is.”

  “Why?”

  “He keeps calling up here regularly and—”

  “All right. I’m going over there to take care of him now.”

  When I came into Yazdabian’s showroom, it was still beautiful and empty. A moment later the curtains at the other end of the room parted and old Droopy Tits was coming toward me with her inquiring look and her nose tilted like an antiaircraft gun in the newsreels.

  “Yes?”

  “Tell Mr. Yazdabian I’m here.”

  Her eyebrows climbed slightly.

  “Whom shall I say is—?”

  “Don’t say whom. Just say Bogen.”

  “But—”

  “Leave out the buts, too, and add the mister. You can tell him Mr. Bogen wants to see him.”

  She turned on her heel like a West Pointer on parade and sailed through the curtains. A few moments later Yazdabian came sailing out, carrying his accent and his beads.

  “Good-morning, Mr. Bogen,” he quavered. “I called your office several times and left word for you to—”

  What did he want, a refund on his nickels?

  “Hello, Mr. Yazdabian.” I was just going to shove out my hand, when I remembered the last time I’d shaken it and I saw the beads. “Sorry about those calls, but I hopped out of town for two days to wind up some final deals and I just got back this morning.”

  “I trust they were successful, Mr. Bogen.”

  “Very.”

  “Then I take it, Mr. Bogen, that you are in a position to continue the discussion started several days ago?”

  “Right.”

  “Shall we go into my private office?”

  “Okay with me.”

  I preceded him into the little hole in the wall and parked myself on the better of the two chairs. He sat down facing me and went to work seriously on the beads.

  “Well, Mr. Bogen,” he said finally, “have you thought over very carefully my offer of several days ago?”

  “As I recall,” I said with a laugh, “there wasn’t much of an offer you made, Mr. Yazdabian. You simply said you had grave doubts about my eligibility as your partner because of, well, because of that small unpleasantness of the Apex Modes bankruptcy.”

  “I think you take my normal caution a little too seriously, Mr. Bogen. I merely mentioned that as one of the facts in the matter, that’s all.”

  “At the time you mentioned it, Mr. Yazdabian, or rather, from the way you mentioned it, it seemed to be an important fact in the matter.”

  “I think we might say, Mr. Bogen, that it has ceased to be an important fact in the matter.”

  “I’d feel a lot better if it not only ceased to be important, but if it ceased to be at all. What do you say, Mr. Yazdabian? Do we drop that point entirely, or don’t we?”

  “All right, Mr. Bogen. We may drop that point entirely.”

  “Good,” I said. “It’s forgotten.”

  “The only thing that remains to be settled, then, would seem to me to be the amount that you are to—”

  “Just a moment, please. Before we go into that, I’d like to discuss another point.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the report I’d drawn from Dun & Bradstreet. “I want to tell you, Mr. Yazdabian, that—”

  He looked across the table at the papers in my hand.

  “What have you there?” he asked curiously.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said casually. “I just dropped off at Dun & Bradstreet before coming to see you, Mr. Yazdabian, and I drew a report on you to—”

  “Where do you—?” he began.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Yazdabian? It seems to me to be a perfectly normal thing for a man to do when he’s thinking of going into—”

  “Of course,” he said, but the quaver in his voice was more pronounced and the beads were getting an awful workout. “It is your privilege.”

  “Well, anyway, I got a copy of your latest report with them, and I notice from your operating figures, Mr. Yazdabian, that—”

  “Figures,” he broke in, “figures sometimes do not reflect what—”

  I looked at him in a pained way.

  “Maybe they don’t. But they’re a lot more reliable than just taking people’s word for things. You’ll agree to that, won’t you, Mr. Yazdabian?”

  “Well, now, of course, there are—”

  “Hell, Mr. Yazdabian, I could come in here and tell you I’m a Morgan partner and next year they’re going to start a presidential boom for me. You’d want to have a little more than just my word for that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “All right, then. And when I’m thinking of buying my way into a going business with a man, I want a little more than his word and the color of his showroom fixtures as recommendations. You follow me?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Well, then,” I continued, rattling the mimeographed report, “according to these figures you’ve got a good potential set-up here. That is, you’re making a profit on every dress you sell. A gross profit. By that I mean, you’re getting more for your garments than you pay to make them. But it’s also pretty clear that you’re not selling enough dresses, Mr. Yazdabian. Your fixed charges, your rent, your office expenses, your light bill, and so on, all those things remain the same whether you sell one dress or ten thousand. Those things remain the same whether your volume is large or small. Now, naturally, if you have a large volume, you are making a profit on a large number of dresses and you have a large amount of money to subtract these fixed charges, such as rent and so on, to subtract these fixed charges from and leave you a net profit. But if your volume is small, you may be making a profit on each dress, as you are making here, Mr. Yazdabian, but these fixed charges, such as rent and so on, are so large that they eat into this gross profit of yours and practically wipe it out. In other words, what you need here is more volume, more sales, since the fixed charges remain the same. In still other words, Mr. Yazdabian, what you need here and what you need here pretty badly, I might add, is a crack salesman. Not an ordinary salesman, Mr. Yazdabian. What you need is someone grade A, top flight, the best. What you need, Mr. Yazdabian, is—”

  He gave me the toothless grin.

  “You,” he said.

  I grinned and nodded my head.

  “Right.”

  He shrugged and bounced the beads gently from one hand to the other.

  “All right, Mr. Bogen. I think we can take a chance on each other. If you will get your twenty thousand dollars and—”

  “Not so fast,” I said. “There’s still another sheet in this report.”

  I twirled the page, and he stopped bouncing the beads.

  “And what’s that?” he asked.

  “I’m looking at the balance sheet, which shows that as of December 31 of last year, your net worth was $11,487.22. The way your sales have been going for the past few months, it’s probably a lot less than that by now, but it’s enough of a definite figure for us to talk on. What have you to say about that $11,000 figure, Mr. Yazdabian?”

  “It doesn’t seem to me to be
of much importance to our discussion.”

  “Then it’s my job to convince you of its importance.” I gave the report a good noisy shaking. If he could rattle beads, I could rattle papers. “Your business, Mr. Yazdabian, would seem to need two things. It would seem to need a salesman to bring you the volume you need. And it would seem to need more capital to help you meet your maturing obligations without borrowing money from the bank. Am I right, Mr. Yazdabian?”

  He nodded.

  “You have stated the case fairly well, Mr. Bogen.”

  “All right, then. Now, I am in a position to provide those two elements for your business, Mr. Yazdabian. As a salesman, well, I won’t say I’m the best in the world. But I’m the best you ever saw or ever will see around here on Seventh Avenue.”

  He smiled in spite of himself.

  “Why not in the world?” he asked.

  “I haven’t seen the rest of the world,” I said promptly.

  He pulled the smile in a little. It was too broad.

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Bogen, that when you see the rest of the world, your opinion will still remain unchanged.”

  That was something to be afraid of, too?

  “I don’t doubt it either, Mr. Yazdabian. But I like to stick to the facts.”

  “All right. The facts. You are the best salesman on Seventh Avenue. And?”

  “And I’m willing to add that capital to your business that you need so badly. But first you’ve got to answer one question for me, Mr. Yazdabian.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Why,” I said calmly, “why should I pay you twenty thousand dollars for a half interest in a business that at best is worth only eleven thousand?”

  He opened his mouth to tell me.

  “Because—”

  “Is it possible, Mr. Yazdabian,” I asked blandly, “that you’re trying to sell me a two-thirds interest in your business, and not a half interest?”

  “It is possible,” he said, “but not in this case, Mr. Bogen. All I am interested in selling you is a one-half interest.”

  “In other words, we are to be equal partners. Right?”

  “Right. But for that half interest, for that equal share in my business, I am asking twenty thousand dollars, Mr. Bogen.”

  “How do you figure that out?”

  “Simple. You pay me twenty thousand dollars for a half interest in my business. Ten thousand of that twenty thousand goes into what will then be our joint business. The remaining ten thousand dollars of your money goes into my pocket as a private profit.”