What's in It for Me?

by Jerome Weidman

  “Aah, well, now, Mr. Bogen, you know. We can’t cancel passage unless you let us have—”

  I got up, scowling.

  “Gotta have the tickets, eh?”

  He nodded in a series of circling loops.

  “Yes, we must.”

  “Well, all right, then. I’ll get them down here today and—”

  “Before five-thirty, please, Mr. Bogen, will you see to that? You see, we close at that hour and we want to have enough time to—”

  I looked at the clock on the wall above him. It was one-thirty.

  “I’ll have them here before five-thirty, Zlotkin.”

  He smiled and got up,

  “All right, then, Mr. Bogen, we’ll—”

  I reached down and picked up the phone on his desk.

  “While I’m here, Zlotkin, mind if I use your phone?”

  “Notta tall.”

  He said it with all the grace of a warden, jealous of his record, welcoming to his prison a criminal with a long list of escapes to his credit.

  “Thanks.” I sat down again and called the Montevideo. “Hello, Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen?”

  His damn voice was getting to be the most familiar thing in my life.

  “Miss Mills. She—?”

  “No.”

  I hung up without another word and got out of the chair.

  “All right, Zlotkin. I’ll have those tickets here by before five-thirty.”

  He nodded quickly.

  “That’ll make it so much easier for us. Thanks, Mr. Bogen.”

  I hurried out to the taxi. The driver’s worried face cleared at once.

  “Gee, Mister, that was some—”

  “Never mind what it was some of. Get me up to the Montevideo again.”

  “You mean that Seventy-second Street place we—?”

  “That’s right, that’s right. And this time, drive past quick. Don’t stop. Just drive past.”

  “I got it,” he said; then, “Say, what are you trying to do, duck somebody?”

  A new rule in the Bogen textbook on maneuvers: never keep a taxi driver for more than one ride.

  “No, I’m just a visiting architect. I like the front of the house. I make a point to drive past at least twice every day I’m in town.”

  He shut up at once and hunched forward over the wheel. That left me with nothing to do but toy with my thoughts. It wasn’t a pleasant way to pass the time and I was almost glad when we turned into Seventy-second Street. Nissem was still pacing around in front of the door. He certainly went to a lot of trouble for not even a lousy thirty thousand bucks.

  “Keep going,” I warned the driver. I buried my head deep in a corner of the cab. “Past the house.”

  “Where to now?”

  “Western Union. There’s a Western Union somewhere around here?”

  “One on Columbus Avenue, just around the—”

  “Take me there.”

  He stopped the cab in front of the telegraph office and I got out.

  “Wait for you?”

  “You might as well. You got an investment in me by this time.”

  He grinned uncertainly.

  “Yeah.”

  The next thing he’d be asking for was a down payment.

  “Be out in a minute.”

  “Right.”

  I went in and wrote a telegram to Martha at the Montevideo. I didn’t know where the hell she was bouncing that chest of hers at the moment, but one thing was sure: she’d be back at the apartment in time to sail. I wrote:

  STEAMSHIP TICKETS ARE IN TOP DRAWER OF DESK IN LIVING ROOM. TAKE DOWN TO ZLOTKIN OF TRAVEL AGENCY BEFORE FIVE O’CLOCK. SAILING BEING POSTPONED TWO DAYS. VERY IMPORTANT. IN BOTTOM DRAWER OF MY DRESSER, UNDER BLUE SILK PAJAMAS, YOU WILL FIND SMALL LOCKED METAL BOX. TAKE METAL BOX AND NEW STEAMSHIP TICKETS THAT ZLOTKIN GIVES YOU AND TAKE TRAIN TO PHILADELPHIA. MEET ME AT BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HOTEL. I WILL BE REGISTERED AS HAROLD BOARDMAN. LEAVE ALL LUGGAGE IN APARTMENT. WILL WIRE SUPERINTENDENT FROM PHILADELPHIA WHEN TO FORWARD IT TO BOAT FOR OUR SAILING. WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING WHEN I SEE YOU TONIGHT IN PHILADELPHIA. IMPORTANT. REMEMBER BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PHILADELPHIA HAROLD BOARDMAN TONIGHT. HARRY.

  Before handing the telegram to the girl for sending, I went into the phone booth and made another call to the Montevideo. She was still out. The next time I got hold of her I’d skin her alive and tack her to the wall so she’d stay put for a change. She did more running around than Eleanor Roosevelt after recovering from a sprained ankle.

  “Straight telegram?” the girl asked when I handed her the blank.

  “Yes.”

  She counted the words and I paid for it.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “The party it’s going to isn’t home now, Miss. The boy’ll leave it at the switchboard downstairs, won’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. We always do that unless you give us specific instructions to the contrary, sir?”

  “No, no, that’s all right. I want it to be left at the switchboard downstairs.”

  “It will be left there, sir.”

  I went out and climbed into the cab again.

  “All right, big boy. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to drive me past the Montevideo once more, and then, when you get to Seventy-second and Columbus, you park on the corner. I want to watch out for—”

  He looked at me with a puzzled scowl.

  “Park on the corner?”

  “Yeah, park on the corner. What difference does it make to you? You keep your meter running and I’ll—”

  He shrugged and started the cab.

  “Okay with me, buddy.”

  Thank God something had finally worked out that day. A taxi driver agreed that something I said was okay with him.

  “Get going, then.”

  He drove past the Montevideo, with Nissem still pacing up and down like a guy in a blizzard trying to keep warm, and then we parked on the corner. From the rear window of the cab I could watch the front entrance to the building without being seen myself. I didn’t have to watch very long. A few moments after we parked on the corner, a cab drove up in front of the door. Two people got out, and my forehead tightened in a scowl and I sat up very straight on the back seat. One was Murray Herman and the other was his mother!

  There was so much excitement in their movements that I could feel it way down at the corner. They started to hurry across the sidewalk into the building. Nissem grabbed Murray’s arm as he passed and spoke to him. Murray shrugged quickly and shook him off. Mrs. Herman disappeared into the doorway and Murray followed. I tried to figure out what the two of them were doing at the Montevideo at two o’clock in the afternoon, when Murray was supposed to be in his office and when Mrs. Herman was supposed to be up on Honeywell Aveune taking care of my mother.

  Before I got the answer, I saw them come out again. They were supporting someone between them. It must have been a hard job because they were having trouble with their burden. It sagged between them. As they struggled into their cab, they came into my line of vision clearly. My heart stopped. Between them, Mrs. Herman and Murray were supporting my mother!

  “Hey!” I cried to the driver. “Hey, get—!”

  He turned, startled, and stared at me.

  “What?”

  “Get after that!”

  I was poking my hand toward the cab in which Mrs. Herman and Murray and my mother were driving away from the Montevideo.

  “You want something?” the driver asked curiously. “You want me to—?”

  “Yeah!” I managed to get out, finally. “I want you to—!”

  I stopped. The cab disappeared around the corner into Central Park West. Another one was drawing up in front of the Montevideo. Nissem turned toward it. He seemed to recognize someone inside and ran forward to open the door. Martha stepped out and looked at him with a frown. Nissem started to talk to her. Before she could reply, somebody else stepped out of the cab. And if I didn’t drop dead then and there, it
was only because the shock of seeing my mother a minute before had been so great that even this was an anti-climax. The guy who stepped out after her was Teddy Ast!

  I wasted another precious ten seconds watching. When Nissem finished talking to Martha, she shrugged and shook her head. Then Nissem spoke to Teddy Ast. He shrugged and shook his head. Teddy Ast said something to Martha, then stepped back into the cab and drove away. Lenny Nissem followed Martha into the Montevideo, still talking heatedly. That was all I could afford to waste, ten seconds. But even that was too much.

  “Driver,” I barked, “get me back to that Western Union office! Hurry up! Get me there in—!”

  “Western Union? The place we—?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” I leaned forward and shoved his shoulder. “The place we were before! Come on! Come on! Come on. This is—!”

  “Okay, buddy, okay,” he said angrily. “I’m—”

  The cab started with a lurch that threw me back on the seat. A few moments later, I hopped out in front of the telegraph office before the wheels were against the curb. I ran in and spoke to the girl who had taken my money.

  “Listen, Miss. That telegram I gave you to send a little while ago. You know the one. To the Montevideo. You didn’t send that yet, did you? You didn’t—?”

  She smiled cheerfully.

  “Oh, yes, sir. That went out some time ago. It was—”

  “There’s no way of—?” I stopped. If it went out, it went out.

  “No,” I said with a scowl, “I guess there isn’t.”

  Her cheerful smile took on a curious note.

  “Why, is there anything wrong, sir?”

  No, not much. I’d simply tied my neck to a busy section of railroad track and wet the knots thoroughly to make sure that nobody could untie them in time.

  “Yeah,” I said dryly as I ran out. “Your service is too God damn efficient.”

  When I reached the cab, the driver looked at me with a touch of fright in his eyes.

  “What’s up now, Mister?”

  We had been together long enough to be calling each other by our first names.

  “I don’t know myself.”

  I stood with my hand on the taxi door and thought. It wasn’t such good thinking, but it was fast. Considering the state of my mind, any kind of thinking was an accomplishment.

  “Say, Mister. Why don’t—?”

  “I don’t know why I don’t. You wait for me.”

  I ran back into the telegraph office, went into a phone booth, and called the Montevideo.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen. Connect me with Miss Mills.”

  If he told me now that she wasn’t in, I’d walk up there, Nissem or no Nissem, and shred his collarbone!

  “Just a moment, Mr. Bogen.”

  That was all I could spare.

  “Hello?”

  It was Martha’s voice. I hunched myself around the mouthpiece.

  “Listen, Martha. This is Harry. But don’t use my name on the phone if you’re not alone, understand? If you’re not alone, now, if someone’s with you, call me, call me, call me Isabel. All right?”

  “Why, hello, Isabel,” she said cheerfully. “How are you?”

  That meant Nissem was with her. It couldn’t be anybody else. I had seen Teddy Ast drive away in the taxi.

  “Good girl, Martha. You get my—?”

  “Yes, Isabel,” she said with a laugh, “I got your telegram. Awfully nice of you to send it just before I’m sailing. Thanks, dear. I will.”

  For being in that taxi with Teddy Ast a few minutes before, I would knock her teeth in later. Right now I had to hope and pray she’d heard of the word loyalty at least once in her checkered career.

  “Nice going, Martha. You understood what I said in the telegram? You followed everything?’

  “Yes, of course, Isabel. It was a little bit of a surprise, but—”

  “I can explain all that when I see you, kid. Just don’t pay any attention to that guy Nissem, will you? He’s fulla bull no matter what he says and he’s gonna tell you a lot of phony stuff. He’s all wacked up. Don’t pay any attention to him and get rid of him as soon as you can. He’s got nothing on you. You don’t know him and you don’t owe him any explanations. You don’t even have to be polite to him. Tell him to go to hell and get out.”

  “Of course, Isabel. I’ll be glad to.”

  “So you understand everything in the telegram, Martha?”

  “Perfectly, Isabel.”

  “That’s swell, kid. Then I’ll see you at the Ben Franklin in Philly tonight. You got any idea what train you’ll make?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Isabel. The first chance I get. Just a moment, Isabel.” Her voice swung away from the phone, but I could hear it talking to somebody in the room. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Nissem,” she said coldly, “but this is my home. It seems to me I have a perfect right to answer my own phone when a friend calls. If you’re in a hurry, you can leave now.” She came back on the wire very brightly. “Where were we, Isabel? Oh, yes. I said I didn’t know which one, but the first one I could make.”

  She’d made everything else in her time. Why not a train?

  “All right, kid. I’ll rush out there as soon as I can. I’d take a train right now, but I have to get up to the Bronx first. My mother isn’t feeling so good and I want to see her before I leave.”

  “You’re going up there first, Isabel?” she asked quickly.

  “Yes, I’m—”

  I stopped. I shouldn’t have said that. Not ten minutes after I’d seen her get out of a cab with Teddy Ast, anyway.

  “You’re what, Isabel?”

  “I changed my mind, Martha. I’m not going up to the Bronx. I’m going right to Philly now.”

  “Oh. But Isabel! Your mother! If she isn’t feeling well, you should—!”

  One thing I wanted to know quickly: where the hell was I keeping my brains these days? In hock?

  “I know, Martha, but I can’t help myself.” The next thing I said only because I had to. But the way it made me feel, I didn’t care if I never saw a mirror again. “I’d much rather be with you, kid,” I said.

  Why didn’t I go ahead and spill the whole works down the sewer? Why didn’t I tell her I was boiling because I’d seen her with Teddy Ast again, but I had to say nice things because she had me where the hair is short? While I was shooting off my mouth like that, I might as well go the limit.

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Isabel! Really, I don’t know how to repay you.”

  For what she owed me, neither did I.

  “You can, Martha.” There was too much eagerness in my voice. I stepped it down a little. “Meet me at the Ben Franklin tonight like I’m asking you, and you’ll be—”

  She laughed delicately.

  “All right, dear. Of course I will.”

  She was all right. She’d probably gone to see Ast to say good-by to him. He’d probably called her up and she couldn’t avoid it, that’s all.

  “Atta girl, Martha. See you in Philly tonight.”

  “All right, darling.”

  It was the first time she’d ever called me that.

  “Don’t forget the tickets and don’t forget the black box in my dresser. The bottom drawer. Under the blue pajamas.”

  “Of course not, Isabel. I won’t forget.”

  It wasn’t her memory I was afraid of.

  “So long, Martha.”

  She was all right. I talked a little tough to her and she got sore, once in a while, that’s all. But underneath I knew she respected me. She had to. We were built the same way.

  “Good-by, Isabel,” she said.

  29.

  WHEN I CAME OUT INTO the street again the taxi driver looked obstinate.

  “Listen, Mister, I’ve been—”

  “All right, all right. How much I owe you up to now?”

  He looked at the meter.

  “Four-forty, and I’m not—”

 
; I pulled out my wallet and shoved a five dollar bill at him.

  “Here, here, here, don’t cry.”

  He took the money and looked sheepish.

  “Sorry, Mister. I didn’t mean anything. I just—”

  “I know, I know. You just wanted your money. You can tell a fare that’s good for it by just looking at—”

  “Aw, hell, now, Mister, that—”

  I climbed in and shut him off by slamming the door.

  “You got your money. You’re all paid up now and you got a tip too. Now you don’t have to do any more talking. Now I’m a new fare. Now all you have to do is drive where I tell you. You wanna drive or you wanna talk? You wanna talk, so I’ll just get the hell out of here and get me a new cab that don’t—”

  He pushed down the flag on the meter and turned it up again.

  “All right, Mister. Where to?”

  I gave him the Honeywell Avenue address.

  “The best way to get there quick is up through the park to a Hundred and Tenth. Then straight up Lenox to the bridge and across to the Concourse. Then you go up the Concourse to Tremont and turn right for—”

  The cab started with a lurch.

  “That’s all right, Mister. I know the Bronx.”

  “I bet you do. But don’t go showing me the sights. Just get me there as quick as—”

  “I’ll get you there quick.”

  I settled back for a moment and then thought of something. I pulled out my wallet and looked through it.

  “Hey!” I yelled suddenly. “Stop the cab!”

  He jammed on the brakes and I was lifted forward on the seat.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I had eight dollars in my wallet. And after I found out what was wrong in the Bronx I still had to get to Philadelphia.

  “Take me down to the—No, wait.”

  The bank was out. It was after three o’clock.

  “What’s the matter, Mister?”

  “I changed my mind. Take me to the subway station. Ninety-sixth and Broadway.”

  His lip twisted slightly.

  “Oh, so now you’re—?”

  “That’s right,” I snapped. “I’m getting cheap. Just get me to the subway station.”

  I broke a dollar to pay him and hurried downstairs to catch an express. That left me with seven dollars and some change. It was close. But all right, for a few more hours, till I got to Philadelphia and met Martha, it wouldn’t kill me. Other guys worked closer than that for longer periods of time.