She stopped and walked out and we could hear her hurrying down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Nice woman, isn’t she, Ma?”
“She’s the only friend I got.”
I gave her a quick glance and then changed the subject.
“Let’s see your leg, Ma.”
She pulled up the blankets and showed me a small bruise just above the knee of her right leg.
“From a small thing like that—a nothing!—a doctor has the nerve to tell me I gotta stay in bed six weeks!”
“Oh, well, Ma, what can you do? The doctor says it, you have to listen to him, that’s all.”
“I’ll listen to him,” she said grimly. “I’ll give him a—” She stopped and turned on her elbow to look at me more closely. “How is everything going downtown?”
“Swell, Ma. Best it’s been in a long time.”
“How does it feel to have a smart person for a partner for a change?”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“Did I ever say he was smart?”
She shrugged innocently.
“It sounded like your voice on the telephone, Hershie. I couldn’t make a mistake because it’s not exactly by me here in the house like Grand Central the information desk telephone, you know what I mean? I get one call a week, maybe, and it’s you, so I think I should be smart enough to recognize your voice, no?”
“Is this a time to start getting sarcastic, Ma?”
“Sarcastic? Hershie! That’s a way to talk? How could an old woman like me, I’m laying in bed with a sick leg, how could I be sarcastic?”
I laughed and shook my head at her.
“Okay, Ma. You win.”
“Also something! To win from you, Hershie, it’s like you should win from the ocean a promise it’ll stop tomorrow from being wet!”
“Ma, let’s get back to what we were talking about.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Hershie. I asked you a plain little question. How you like to have for a change a smart partner?”
“It’s not bad now.”
“Why?”
What good would his smartness do him while he was in the Middle West and I was in New York?
“I broke him in a little, Ma.”
“You mean you made him a little less smart? Like you are, Hershie?”
“All right, Ma, all right,” I laughed. “But on Seventh Avenue we call that taking a guy down a peg.”
“Don’t be so quick, Hershie, all the time to take people down. And put better a little money in the bank.”
“I’m doing that, too, Ma. In fact, you know what I’m going to do?”
She shook her head.
“Even the Above One doesn’t know what you’re going to do, Hershie. So how should a poor old woman like me know?”
“Let’s keep God out of this, Ma. But you remember what I told you about I was gonna buy a little house in Long Island?”
She looked at me with interest.
“I remember, you said something, I don’t know what it—”
“Well, Ma, I’m working on that proposition seriously. By the time you’re all rested up and through with this bum leg of yours, you’ll be ready to move into a swanky little house in Long Beach, maybe, and—”
“What do I need a house for?”
“Well, first of all, from the way you been flopping all over the stairs around here, hell, you can’t be trusted on steps any more. So I just have to go out and buy a house of my own, one without steps. And secondly, Ma, I’ve all of a sudden become crazy about the sea air. I want a place where I can sit and smell the ocean. That’s two of the best reasons I ever heard for buying a house in Long Beach.”
“The first reason, I don’t believe, Hershie,” she said quietly. “But the second one—”
The doorbell rang and I jumped up.
“It must be Doctor Silverman,” she said.
I hurried out to open the door and Mrs. Herman, who had begun to come down the hall from the kitchen, went back. I held the door wide and a tall, heavy-set man with a mustache and a small black satchel came in,
“Doctor Silverman?”
“Yes,” he said. “You must be Mr. Bogen?”
“That’s right.”
“Glad to know you, sir.”
We shook hands and I led him into the bedroom. I watched him examine mother’s leg while she insulted him calmly and steadily and dismissed his remarks with the simple statement that since she had never heard of such things, they couldn’t possibly be true.
“I’ll tell you, Doctor,” I said finally, “maybe you’d better explain to me what happened. I don’t know any more about medicine than my mother does, but at least I’m willing to listen.”
“You’re willing to listen, Hershie?” She shook her head. “It only goes to show you, Doctor Silverman, a first time there must be for everything.”
He laughed and I joined him.
“My mother likes to have her little joke.”
“So I see, Mr. Bogen. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s all quite simple. I suppose you’re aware of the fact that your mother has varicose veins? It’s quite apparent from the condition of her legs that she’s had them for some years, and—”
“Yes, I know.”
“And while it’s not a serious condition, Mr. Bogen, occasionally it does lead to complications, such as now. Your mother has what we call an embolus. In plain English, it’s nothing more than a blood clot on the vein where she fell and bruised herself.”
“How serious is it, Doctor?”
“It’s not serious at all. Simply needs complete rest and quiet so that the clot may harden sufficiently to become a permanent part of the vein structure.”
Here he looked at mother. She stirred restlessly and looked back at him.
“Six weeks in bed!” she said. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”
“You heard what the doctor said,” I said sternly.
“Usually, I would suggest a hospital,” the doctor said. “But if you have someone in the house, a maid or someone like that, to see that the patient doesn’t—”
Mother sat up in bed quickly.
“Hospital!” she cried. “For this a hospital? I should hear once more from somebody hospital, Hershie, and I’ll take you and the doctor both, I’ll—”
The doctor laughed professionally and pushed her back against the pillows.
“Well, I guess it’s the maid, then, Mr. Bogen.”
“Right, Doctor. I’ll see about it at once and—”
The telephone rang out in the foyer.
I got up and grinned at the doctor.
“There’s the telephone ringing, Hershie.”
“My mother doesn’t miss a trick. Notice how she knows when the telephone rings?” She made a threatening gesture and I ducked. “Excuse me, Doctor.” Of course.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Harry?”
It was Martha’s voice.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “What—?”
“Well, thank God I finally reached you. I’ve been telephoning all over town. I called you at—”
“What’s the matter?” I said irritably. “What do you—?”
“I’m here in Saks. And I ran out of money. And I wanted to take this dress with me. And I—”
“Well, hell, where’s the calamity in that? Send it C.O.D., that’s all. You don’t have to—”
“But Harry, I wanted to take it with me, and—!”
“It isn’t going to kill you if you send it C.O.D.,” I snapped. “I can’t be—”
“It’s not a question of killing me,” she said coldly. “I want it today, that’s all. It seems to me—”
She was in one of her long-winded moods.
“You’ll tell me what seems to you some other time. Right now I’m in—”
“Right now I’m in Saks! And if I can’t ask you a simple little favor like coming down to meet me and helping me pay for a couple of cheap rags that—”
&nb
sp; To her the tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum were cheap rags, too.
“All right, all right, all right. Where are you? Saks?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at my watch.
“All right. Give me an hour and I’ll be down there to—”
“An hour! You expect me to sit here for an hour and—?”
“Well, my God,” I yelled, “this is the Bronx I’m in! It takes a little time to—”
“You and that Bronx! Every time I look for you, you’re in the Bronx! What am I supposed to do while you’re spending an hour coming down from the Bronx?”
I could make a wonderful suggestion, but she wouldn’t do it.
“Buy yourself a pack of cards and play solitaire.”
“Don’t get funny, Harry.”
As funny as I felt then, Jack Benny would have loved me to be his closest competitor.
“All right. I’ll tell you what. Go out and have lunch and then come back. By that time I’ll be there.”
“Oh, well, all right.”
“What floor you on?”
“Ill be on the third floor, front. There’s a little lounge there, with chairs and a—”
“Third floor front. I got it. I’ll be there as soon as I can get down.”
“All right, Harry, but please step on it and—”
“I said I’d be there as soon as I could get down,” I snapped, and hung up.
I walked into the bedroom and looked at the doctor. I couldn’t look at my mother. She was doing too much looking herself. And the way she did it was enough to—
“If you’re leaving, Mr. Bogen,” the doctor said, getting up, “I guess I might as well go, too. You understand what has to be done here, and there’s absolutely nothing else that’s necessary.” He put on his hat and coat and turned to mother as he picked up his bag. “Remember, now, he said, smiling, “no dancing and no night clubs. Six weeks rest on your back, Mrs. Bogen.”
“All right, Doctor,” she said quietly.
I walked out with him into the hall.
“Will you do me a favor, Doctor?” I said in a low voice.
“Of course, Mr. Bogen, if I can.”
I took out five tens and held them toward him.
“I’m going to try to get up here as often as I can, Doctor. But in case we miss each other, this fifty is in advance. I want you to drop in here regularly, once a day, to look at her and—”
“Oh, Mr. Bogen,” he protested, “that’s not necessary. There’s nothing I can do but tell her again she should rest and—”
“All right,” I said, still holding the money out to him. “Then tell it to her once a day regularly. I want you to drop in every day and see how she’s doing.”
He shrugged and pocketed the money.
“If you insist, Mr. Bogen.”
“And if I run behind on my payments or something like that, just call me up or send me a bill and I’ll mail you a check. But please drop in at least once a day till the condition is cleared up. All right?”
“All right, Mr. Bogen.”
We shook hands and he left. Just as I was walking into the bedroom, Mrs. Herman started coming down the hall with a tray. I took it from her and carried it into the bedroom. I set it on the chair next to the bed.
“Here, Mom, you eat here. Mrs. Herman and I, well have a snack in the kitchen.”
She reached for the coffee cup without a word. I took Mrs. Herman by the arm and led her into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Herman, I have to rush downtown now. I got a call from my, from my office and I—”
“You’re not going to eat what I—?”
“I’m sorry,” I said gently, “but I’ve got to run downtown. I’m sorry you went to the trouble, but I—”
“Oh, it’s, it’s nothing, Mr. Bogen. It isn’t such a wonderful I lunch, anyway. It’s just a little bad coffee with a—”
It was getting so that I couldn’t even wash my hands or lace my shoes without hurting somebody’s feelings.
“It looks like a swell lunch, Mrs. Herman. I appreciate your making it and I’m sorry I can’t eat it, but I just have to rush downtown and I have no time to—”
“I understand, Mr. Bogen.”
“This is what I wanted to talk to you about.” I took out a hundred dollars and put it on the table in front of her. “I want to ask a very big favor of you, Mrs. Herman. I’m very busy downtown and I haven’t got the chance to do the things for my mother that I’d like to do. The doctor said she needs a maid. She probably needs a lot of things around the house that only, well, only another woman like my mother would understand. A woman like you, Mrs. Herman. Would I be asking too much, Mrs. Herman, if I asked you to sort of, well, to sort of look after her for me, to hire the maid and sort of supervise the house until she gets back on her feet again? I’d be willing to pay you for your—”
She looked hurt at once and I was sorry I’d said it. I didn’t seem to know how to talk to these people any more.
“Mr. Bogen! You don’t have to—!”
“I don’t mean that,” I said quickly. “I mean, what I mean is, if you’d take this money to pay for the maid. To pay for the other things in the house and stuff like that. To pay for things you have to buy, I mean.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s different.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Herman. You don’t know how much I appreciate what you’re—”
She laughed quickly.
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Bogen. My Murray told me what you told him you’d do when he went in business for himself. For a friend of my Murray’s I’m glad I got the chance to be a little helpful.”
She took the money and put it into a small black purse in her apron.
“Fine, I said, getting up. “And if there’s anything else you need for the house, anything at all, you just let me know. I’ll be up regularly and I’ll give you some more money whenever you need it.”
“For the time being I got plenty. More than plenty. A hundred dollars in the Bronx, Mr. Bogen, a hundred dollars is a lot.”
“Then I’ll go in and say good-by to my mother.”
I picked up my hat and coat in the hall and put them on. Then I walked into the bedroom. She was lying back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling.
“You’re going, Hershie?”
I didn’t like the sound of her voice.
“Yeah, Ma. I’ve got a business appointment.”
“Business?”
“Yeah, Ma.”
“Well,” she said quietly, “business is business.”
“You be a good girl, Ma. And do what the doctor said. Just don’t do anything.”
“That’s easy for me already,” she said, still looking at the ceiling. “I’ve been doing that for a long time.”
My customary brilliance at repartee wasn’t doing me much good now. Bright remarks couldn’t wipe out the realization that things had come to a point where I couldn’t even sit down and talk to my own mother when I wanted to.
“Don’t take it so hard, Ma,” I said with fake cheerfulness, “I’ll be back later in the day. You know what I’m gonna do?”
“What?”
“You just wait and I’ll come back tonight and make up a dish of pancakes for both of us. I’ll cook them myself, Ma. How’s that?”
She looked at the ceiling with great care.
“I’ll wait,” she said.
23.
IN THE TAXI GOING downtown I put the finishing touches to the plan. The time had come to act. I tapped on the glass in front of me and got the driver’s ear.
“You want me?” he asked without turning.
“Yeah. I changed my mind. Don’t take me to Saks. Take me direct to 550 Seventh Avenue.”
I figured the hell with her. I had her in a position now where I could make her do a little waiting once in a while.
“Where’s that, Mister? Thirty-seventh?”
“No, Thirty-ninth.”
“Okay, Mister.”
It was ten after one when I walked into the showroom. I dropped my hat and coat on a couch and went into the office. Miss Eckveldt should have been surprised to see me, but she didn’t take her nose out of her books.
“Anything for me, Miss Eckveldt?”
“Miss Haggerty of Dixon-Dowell called. She said it wasn’t very important. She’ll call tomorrow morning.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“Miss Mills called and—”
“I got that call. Anything else?”
“That’s all.”
I walked out into the back and looked the stock over carefully. I made an accurate list of the big numbers and the quantities and tabulated the amount in dollars and cents roughly. It was enough.
I walked back into the office and hunted through the safe until I found the accounts receivable ledger. I took it out into the showroom and skimmed the pages quickly, jotting down the names and addresses of as many good accounts as I could find west of Chicago, preferably on the Coast. Then I took the ledger back into the office, replaced it in the safe, and went out into the showroom again. It was the only place where you could have a little privacy. I settled down with a pad and order blanks and the two lists I had made up: the first, dresses on the racks in the back; the second, names and addresses of good accounts that were far away. Working quickly, without interruptions, the whole thing took me twenty minutes. By that time I had written up enough fake orders to total a little over five thousand dollars. I folded the lists of names and dress numbers carefully and put them in my pocket. The batch of fake orders I took into the back with me and went up to the shipping clerk.
“Here you are, Eric,” I said briskly, “here’s a stack of new orders I want out right away.”
“Yes, Mr. Bogen.” He turned to take the orders. Then he felt the thickness of the batch and he glanced at me quickly.
“What—?” He shuffled through them and looked up again with a grin. “Holy smoke, Mr. Bogen, this is pretty good, huh?”
I smiled and shrugged. Even when I was in a hurry I didn’t mind pausing long enough to pick up a little praise.
“It’s not bad. I spent the morning at the buying offices and I promised immediate shipment on these things. Step on it, Eric.”
“You bet,” he said carefully. “Hell, Mr. Bogen, I haven’t had a batch of orders to ship like this for a long time.”
What's in It for Me? Page 19