What's in It for Me?

by Jerome Weidman

  “What’s that, Harry?”

  “Simply this, kid: you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  She glanced at me curiously.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because even if I do commit suicide,” I said, grinning at her sarcastically, “you’ll still have enough clothes to be able to go to the funeral in style.”

  26.

  “MR. BOGEN.”

  I finished hanging up my coat and turned to Miss Eckveldt.

  “Yes?”

  She read from the pad next to the switchboard.

  “Two calls this morning, Mr. Bogen.”

  If she didn’t get that slight sneer out of her voice when she pronounced the word mister, I’d start hanging my coat some other place.

  “Who from?”

  “One from a Mr. Herman and one from a Mr. Nissem.”

  I looked at her quickly.

  “When did—? All right. Get me Mr. Herman.”

  She dialed the number. I picked up the phone on the desk at the other end of the room.

  “We got a wire from Mr. Yazdabian this morning. He’ll be—”

  “Why do you bother telling me those things at all?” I snapped. “He’s only my partner.”

  The sour look on her face tightened a little.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bogen.” Not by the sound of her voice she wasn’t. “I thought you’d want your telephone messages first.”

  “Where’s the wire? What does he say?”

  She got up and started to come toward me with a telegram.

  “He says he’ll be back in ten days.”

  I took the telegram from her and glanced at it. Ten days was right. That gave me just enough time to—Suddenly the front door buzzer sounded. Miss Eckveldt went out to see who it was. A moment later she was back in the office.

  “Mr. Bogen.”

  “Yes?” I crumpled the telegram and shoved it into my pocket. “What is it?”

  “There’s a Mr. Herman out in the showroom to see you.”

  I looked at her and then at the telephone in my hand.

  “He is? But I’m just calling him! I’m just—All right.” I put the receiver on its hook and got up. “I’ll go out to see him.”

  First he called and left messages. Then he barged in. The bastard was beginning to haunt me.

  “Hello, Harry.” He came forward across the “showroom to shake hands with me. “How are you?”

  My health was good but my time was limited.

  “I’m swell, Murray. What’s on your—?”

  “I’ll tell you why I came in, Harry.”

  “Do that. I got your call. I was just trying to get you on the phone.”

  “I called you before I started downtown. Then I figured I’d better drop in on you before I went to my office.”

  Some people took cold showers to start the day right. He came in to see me. I guess he found it more exhilarating.

  “All right,” I said. “You figured you’d better drop in on me. What about, though?”

  He glanced down at his hat and ran his tongue around the edges of his lips. He seemed embarrassed about something.

  “Well, Ruthie and I were down your house last night, Harry, sort of visiting your mother, and we—”

  “That’s damn nice of you, Murray,” I said quickly. “I’ve been kind of busy myself and I didn’t get the—How is Ruthie?”

  “She’s swell. We were—”

  “I’m’ glad you took her to see my mother. They always liked each other and—”

  “Well, listen, Harry, here’s what I wanted to tell you. I guess it’s none of my business, but my mother told me I ought to, well, she thought it’d be a good idea if I called you up, maybe, or dropped in to see you, and—”

  I scowled at him.

  “What’s the matter, Murray? Anything wrong up there?”

  “No, not exactly. Nothing’s wrong, Harry, but—”

  “Your mother isn’t running short of money, is she?”

  If she was, they were eating goldfish.

  “Oh, no, Harry. Nothing like that. She’s got plenty. In fact, she said you were sending up too much.”

  “Listen, it’s for my mother, isn’t it? Can’t be too much.”

  He laughed awkwardly. That wasn’t for my humor. That was for my promise to throw him business when he went in for himself.

  “I guess it can’t. But seriously, Harry, the thing my mother wanted me to call you about was, well, maybe it’s nothing and maybe it isn’t. It’s just that your mother is getting kind of nervous, Harry. On account of your not showing up there so much, I think. And my mother wanted me to call you so you’d come up and sort of quiet her down. That’s why I called this morning and that’s why I’m here. You know, it’s nothing probably, but—”

  Yazdabian coming back in ten days, and I had to start quieting down nerves!

  “How does she feel, Murray?”

  “Oh, she’s swell, Harry. No kidding. You know how she is. Full of pep and sore because the doctor says she still has to stay in bed. When Ruthie and I were there last night, Doctor Silverman came in, and you know what she told him?”

  He started to laugh. I grinned, too.

  “I know. She probably told him if he don’t stop giving her that baloney about she has to stay in bed, she’d pop him with something one of these days and put him in bed himself. Right?”

  He laughed again and I looked at him sharply. I didn’t like the sound of that laugh.

  “Not exactly, but almost. No kidding, it was a laugh. The only thing is, Harry, she’s worried about you.”

  What the hell was the matter with him? He talked as though he were adding a column of figures mentally at the same time.

  “She doesn’t have to worry about me.”

  I did enough of that for myself.

  “I guess she doesn’t, Harry. But you know how mothers are. She’s worried anyway, and it’s making her nervous.”

  That’s what prosperity does. Before I was making dough, when we were living on fifteen bucks a week, she never even heard of nerves.

  “Well, all right, Murray. If I get the chance I’ll—”

  “Maybe, if you can’t make it, Harry, the least you could do is call her up? My mother’s there and she could answer the phone and—”

  This guy was going to walk into a neat left hook one of these days. He was giving me suggestions about how to get in touch with my own mother!

  “Say, listen district attorney!” I said suddenly. There was more nastiness in my voice than I had intended to put into it, but I couldn’t help myself. He’d gotten under my skin. “You don’t have to draw any maps for me. I know what to do about my own mother.”

  He looked up at me quickly and I could see his jaw set in a series of little hard ridges.

  “I’m not so sure about that anymore,” he snapped.

  What was he getting—tough?

  “What the hellya mean by that?” I demanded angrily.

  “You know damn well what I mean.” He squeezed his hat nervously and spoke in a low, uneven voice. “I guess you think I’m just some kind of a poor sap that—”

  “Stop guessing,” I said sarcastically. “I gave up thinking about that a long time ago. I know just exactly the kind of a poor sap you are. You don’t have to go into any further explanations about it.”

  I turned on my heel and started to walk away. He, reached out and grabbed my shoulder and swung me around to face him.

  “You listen to me, Bogen,” he said through his teeth. “I may be a poor sap by your standards, but—”

  I shook off his hand and straightened the sleeve of my coat. What the hell had gotten into this guy all of a sudden?

  “Those are the only kind of standards I’m interested in, Herman. My own.”

  “Then maybe it’s about time somebody told you something about different standards, Bogen. The kind of standards other people live by.”

  He stepped between me and the door to the office
. He stood there with his legs apart and his jaw thrust forward. He wasn’t as nervous as he had been when he started. I looked him over quickly. He was bigger than I was. And anyway, only a chump settles things with his fists. I put my hands on my hips and looked at him with a leer.

  “Why don’t you hire yourself a hall? Or get yourself a soapbox or a pulpit or something?” I put an extra shot of sarcasm into the grin. “While you’re doing all this uplift work, Herman, just remember one thing: you’re talking to the guy that promised to throw you business when you go in for yourself.”

  He made a quick motion with his hand, as though he were wiping a blackboard, and his lips drew away from his teeth.

  “I don’t want that kind of business, Bogen. I’m sorry I ever asked for it. You can keep it.”

  I laughed in his face.

  “You seem to have changed your mind about that a little since we discussed it last, don’t you?”

  “That’s because I’ve learned a couple of things about you, Bogen, since that night.”

  “Why don’t you save them?” I said. “You get enough of them together, I’ll give you permission to write my authorized biography.”

  “You think there’ll be a decent, self-respecting person that’ll want to read it?” he asked quietly.

  “Listen, you!” I said in an ugly voice as I moved forward. “Just because you got a night school diploma and a half-ass job with the district attorney’s office, you can’t come in here and—”

  He put his hand out against my chest and shoved me back.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Bogen. I’m not here in any official capacity. I’m here because of your mother and because of Ruthie, and that’s all.”

  “You keep them out of this, you hear?”

  His face twisted slightly.

  “I wish I could,” he said.

  “What the hellya mean?”

  “I’ll tell you what I mean. I’ve done a little checking up since I saw you last, Bogen. I’ve gone into the records on that bankruptcy case of yours. And if nobody else knows how you railroaded that last partner of yours to jail, at least I do.”

  I grinned at him and lit a cigarette.

  “Well, you know what you can do with that information, Herman. You can shove it right up. That case is closed and you know it.”

  He shook his head and his face took on a look of disgust.

  “I told you I’m not here in any official capacity, Bogen. If you want to send an innocent man to jail for something you did, that’s your business.”

  I blew smoke in his face until he blinked.

  “Then why the hell don’t you let it remain my business and keep your God damn nose out of it?”

  “I told you why. I’m thinking of Ruthie and I’m thinking of your mother.”

  This bastard covered a lot of territory, all right.

  “What’ve they got to do with this?”

  “Plenty,” he said. “How do you think it makes them feel to know that you’re up to your neck in some damn swindle all the time? You know what Ruthie thinks about you. You know what your mother thinks about you. Don’t you think they’re worrying now, scared you’re cooking up some new kind of filthy mess that’ll make people—”

  I slammed the cigarette down on the rug.

  “What kind of mess? What the hell are you talking about? Who says I’m cooking up any kind of a—?”

  He waved me back.

  “Don’t get so scared, Bogen. I’m not checking up on you. I don’t want to know anything about the sewers you play around in. All I’m thinking about is that poor old lady you call your mother and the girl I’m going to marry, a girl that still thinks you’re—”

  “For God’s sakes,” I yelled at him, “how many times do I have to ask you: what the hell have they got to do with all this? What the hell are you talking about, anyway? Who asked you to come in here today and make speeches? If you don’t like me or the way I do things, go on and beat it. Who needs you? Don’t hang around me. Don’t come and tell me what—”

  “Pull your head out of the sand, Bogen,” he said quietly. “It’s about time you took a good square look at what’s going on around you. You’re always thinking about yourself. You don’t care what the rest of the world thinks, just so long as you get yours. Don’t you think there’s enough trouble in the world without you adding to it? I don’t give a damn what people think about you. I don’t suppose you do, either. But what about us? What about your mother? What about Ruthie? What about the rest of us?”

  Why, the dirty little son of a bitch!

  “Listen, Herman.” I came up close to him and poked the front of his coat with my forefinger as I spoke. “You’ve made yourself pretty clear about what you think of me and I guess you know pretty damn accurately what I think of you. You think I’m a heel. You think I’m a crook. You think I’m the sort of guy that would send an innocent man to jail. Okay. If that’s what you think, go ahead and keep on thinking. Your opinion of me I treat just like I’d treat a tub of urine or a hill of manure: I hold my nose and I don’t pay any attention to it.”

  “I know damn well you don’t,” he said. “That’s just the—”

  “Just a minute, there, just a minute,” I said. “This happens to be my office. Just in case you forgot. I think in my own office I got a right to do a little talking myself.”

  “Talking can’t justify the things you do, Bogen. Talking can t—”

  “I’m not trying to justify anything,” I snapped. “Especially not to a sliver-brain like you. I just want to make one or two things clear, that’s all. I’ve seen too many guys I grew up with and went to school with. Guys like you, Herman, they go to school and they study their eyes out for years and then they get married and they rot their lives away on a lousy thirty or forty dollar a week job in the post office or some lawyer’s office or the d. a.’s office or something like that. They struggle along without clothes and without furniture and without vacations, and if their wife gets sick or if they have a baby, they’re sunk. Well, that’s not gonna happen to me.”

  He shook his head at me slowly.

  “You bet that won’t happen to you, Bogen. Worse things than that’ll happen to you.”

  I laughed at him grimly.

  “Yeah?” I said. “I’ll take my chances on that. I know what I want and by God I’m gonna get it, too.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, Bogen, that you don’t always get want you want in this world?”

  This jerked-up bastard didn’t belong in the d. a.’s office. He belonged with Billy Sunday.

  “Maybe I won’t get it. But God damn it, I’m not gonna sit around and take it on the chin. At least I’ll make a fight for it.”

  “I don’t think it’s worth it, Bogen,” he said quietly.

  “You don’t, eh?” I looked at him insolently. “How do you know? What’ve you got to measure by? What’ve you got that’s so hot? A lousy little forty a week job in the d. a.’s office? If it is forty?”

  His face flushed and his lips came together until his mouth was a slit. “I’ve got my self-respect,” he said in a low voice.

  I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

  “Self-respect! Hah! Take that down to the butcher, Herman, and see how many bills you can pay with it.”

  “There are other things in this world besides bills,” he said.

  “We won’t go into that,” I said. I took his arm and steered him to the door. “What you need, Herman, is a little exercise for your brain. I’d like to give it to you, but I’m too busy. You’ve wasted too much of my time as is.”

  He stood at the door, twisting his hat and looking at me pityingly.

  “You’re pretty cocksure about yourself, aren’t you?” he said. “Your pretty certain you’re right, aren’t you?”

  I grinned at him slowly.

  “You’re maybe a lawyer,” I said. “You know something about the rules of evidence and that junk. Well, until I see the evidence presented to the contrary,
I’m gonna keep on thinking I’m right.”

  He put on his hat and adjusted his coat.

  “It’s going to be too late then, Bogen.”

  I spread the grin out wide and opened the door for him.

  “I told you about that, too,” I said. “I’m taking my chances.”

  He bit his lip and went out. I watched the door swing back and forth for a moment. Then I pulled the crumpled telegram out of my pocket and walked back into the office.

  “Miss Eckveldt,” I said, “get my mother on the—” I stopped and shook my head at her. “No, never mind. That other call. That Mr. Nissem. He leave his number?”

  She glanced at the pad beside the switchboard.

  “Yes, he did. It’s—”

  “Get him for me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She started to dial the number. I stood up suddenly and jammed the telegram back into my pocket.

  “The hell with that call, Miss Eckveldt. Never mind.”

  I walked out into the back. Eric was sitting on the shipping table, reading the paper. On the floor, surrounding him like a hastily thrown up barricade, was a pile of returned packages.

  “Hey!”

  He looked up quickly.

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen?”

  “That’s what they teach you in City U.? To read the paper on the boss’ time and to let the work lay around?

  His face became sullen.

  “You told me yourself not to open any returns, Mr. Bogen. I cleaned up all my other work and there’s nothing but—”

  That’s what they learn in night college. To get fat asses from laziness and to avoid responsibility for it by diplomacy.

  “I didn’t hear myself saying anything about you can’t tear off labels and clean up the oustide of the packages, did I?” I swung up one of the smaller bundles and dropped it on the shipping table. “What the hell are you, one of these strict constructionists? I told you not to open returns. I didn’t say anything else.” As I spoke I ripped off the old label from the package and crossed out the shipping numerals with the black crayon. “Do that to all these packages. The same as I just did. I’ll be back in a little while with a new set of labels.”

  He looked at me in amazement.

  “You don’t want me to open them, Mr. Bogen? You just want me to tear off the old labels?”