Carriage Trade (36 page)
Authors: Stephen Birmingham
Si spit some blood. “You okay, Moe?”
“Yeah, I'm okay. You?”
“I'm okay.”
Moe heaved himself up from the collapsed sofa and the floor. “Shake?” he said and offered his hand.
“Shake. Want a beer, Moe?”
“Beer!
We should be drinking to this deal with champagne,” Moe said.
Even by flashlightâfor the windows of the Van Degan mansion were boarded shut and the electricity had not been turned onâSilas Tarkington could see the potential of the building, and for the first time since Moe had pointed it out to him he began to feel a sense of excitement about the possibilities of his new purchase. The six matched Baccarat chandeliers (though he had not yet learned they were by Baccarat) that hung from the ceiling of the long entrance corridor were thick with dust, but they could be cleaned, and they would stay. The wide double staircase with its carved rosewood railings would have to go, but perhaps the railings and the marble steps could be used elsewhere. In place of the staircase would go a bank of elevators, for the single wire-cage Otis lift that had served the family would hardly suffice.
He flashed his torch up at the high carved-plaster and coffered ceilings and along the linenfold walnut-paneled walls. Most if not all of these interior details could be retained.
What impressed Si most about the mansion was the way, on each of its floors, the large rooms extended out from a central corridor, suggesting, as Moe had said, a series of intimate boutiques, each devoted to a different variety of merchandise. The house had been designed, it suddenly seemed to him, as though the Van Degans and Stanford White had actually had his store in mind.
It was then that he had his most important merchandising idea. Suppose some of these elegant rooms could be leased out to other merchantsâquality merchants, of course. The income from these leased spaces could provide Si with working capital as he developed his store. If his own areas of the store turned out to be successful, he could little by little take over the leased spaces for his own merchandise. He had seen pictures of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, with its row of little shops on either side. Each floor of his store would become a separate Ponte Vecchio. Leasing space would give him income and elbow roomâroom to grow. He decided, on a hunch, not to share this idea with Moe Minskoff.
But all at once, standing in the empty mansion with his flashlight, Si Tarkington could almost see his dreamâthat pipe dream he had dreamed aloud in their prison cell at Hillsdaleâbeginning to come true.
“Well,” she said, when he joined her at a back table of the little restaurant on West 47th Street they had chosen.
“Well,” he said.
“You're looking well, Solly,” she said. “I like the mustache.”
“I'm feeling pretty good, Mama,” he said. “But I'm not Solly anymore.”
“I know that,” she said, “but you'll always be Solly to me. Oh, I know I'm not supposed to call you Solly in front of other people. I'm to call you Mr. Tarkington. It seems wrong, somehow, to have to change your name. But perhaps it's for the best.”
“Yes. And how are you feeling, Mama? Are you feeling well?”
“Oh, I'm feeling pretty well. Except my eyes. The doctor says I'm not to do close work anymore.”
“It's been a long time.”
“Yes.”
“I'm sorry, Mama.”
“Well, it was hard, Solly. I won't say it wasn't hard. It was even harder on your poor papa. He died of a broken heart.”
He nodded, not looking at her. “You never came to see me, Mama,” he said.
“No. Your papa didn't want me to.”
“Yes.”
“Even after he died, I thought I should respect his wishes.”
“Yes. I understand.”
“No, that's not true. I didn't want to go. I didn't think I could bear it, seeing my only son in a place like that.”
He nodded again. “But thank you for helping me, Mama. With the money, I mean.”
“Oh, well,” she said, and let her voice trail off.
They sat in silence for a while, not looking at each other, and Rose Tarcher's fingers toyed with the paper napkin in her lap.
“Mr. Minskoff says you're going to be a big man. He says you're going to be a big success,” she said at last.
“I hope so, Mama. I think so. I'm going to work real hard.”
“Good. It's good you're going to work hard. It's good you're going to be a success. Your papa would have liked that. I wish he could have lived to see that.”
“Yes. So do I.”
“I'd like to live to see it too,” she said. “I'm not getting any younger. I'll be sixty-two my next birthday. I'd like to go to my quiet grave knowing my only son was a success.”
“You will, Mama.”
Another silence.
“How is Grandma Roth?”
“Not too well. Getting older, bless her heart.”
“Give her my love.”
“I will.”
A waiter approached them. “Oh, my goodness,” Rose said. “We haven't even looked at the menu. Can you come back in a few more minutes?”
“The soup of the day is cream of lentil.”
“Thank you.⦠Simma sends her love. I told her I was meeting you today. I hope that's all right. She said to give you her love.”
“Give her my love too, Mama.”
“I will. Oh, my. This is difficult for us, isn't it? It's difficult because there's so much to say. I don't know where to begin.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you know Simma's married now, of course. She has a nice husband. He's an accountant. He makes good money. Oh, and guess what? Simma told me this morning she thinks she's pregnant again. Doesn't know. Just thinks.”
“That's nice.”
“That will make my third grandchild!”
“Yes.”
“That will be something to look forward to.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I'm glad you're going to be a big man,” she said. “That will be something to look forward to, too. I'm glad you're going to be a success. That would have pleased your papa. I talk to your papa every day, you know. I know he doesn't hear me, but I talk to him just the same. I'm going to tell him that tonight, when I get home, that his son is going to be a big man. A big shot, as he would have said.”
“Oh, Mama.” He reached out and seized her hand. “Oh, Mama, I promise never to hurt you again. I promise you, I promise you, never to hurt you again.”
17
He had been giving a lot of thought to the way his mother and fatherâand Grandma Roth before themâhad run their small millinery business and why they had been successful.
The women who bought hats with the Leah Roth label certainly didn't need them. Mrs. Astor hadn't needed all the hats she bought. She bought Leah Roth hats because they were pretty, because they were one-of-a-kind. She bought them, in other words, because of the way they were presented to her,
because of the way they were sold to her
.
The kind of women customers Si Tarkington wanted to attract to his store were women who really didn't need anything at all. They already had more of everything than they would ever really need, and except for certain essentials such as soap and toothpaste they never shopped for necessities. Yet they shopped. Why? Because they enjoyed having attractive merchandise presented to them. They enjoyed being
sold
.
He began making the rounds of the city's smart specialty shops and department stores to see how well other merchants sold their merchandise. At the Small Leather Goods Department in Saks, he stood for twenty minutes waiting for someone to offer to help him. Meanwhile, not a dozen feet away, two saleswomen appeared to be chatting about a movie they had recently seen. He finally walked away. That sort of thing would never happen in
his
store, he decided. In the Better Dresses department at Lord & Taylor, he told the saleswoman that he was interested in buying a sweater set for his wife, only to be curtly told that he was in the wrong department. The woman neglected to mention the table stacked with sweaters right around the corner. That sort of thing would not happen in his store either.
At Bergdorf-Goodman, he was told it was the wrong season for sweater sets. The salesperson failed to suggest an alternative gift for his wife. He telephoned the Gift Department at Bloomingdale's and counted while the phone rang thirty-two times before anyone came to answer it. At Altman's, he asked whether the sweaters he was looking at were cashmere or not. “I don't know,” the saleswoman replied. “Look at the label. If it is, it'll say so.” He began making notes of all these shortcomings of salesmanship.
He decided to pretend to be interested in buying a new car and stopped at a Park Avenue showroom that sold expensive Jaguar automobiles. The salesman appeared indifferent to his interest; when he asked to test-drive a model with a $12,000 price tag, he was told, “That's the showroom model, that ain't no demo.” Si thanked the salesman for his trouble and left, and the salesman didn't even say goodbye.
On his shopping excursions, he was quickly struck by the similarity of the merchandise offered by the different stores. He found the same red-and-white print Clare McCardell shirtwaist dress at Saks, Bloomingdale's, De Pinna, Lord & Taylor, Altman's, Best's, Bonwit's, and Macy's. All were identically on sale, at $59.95, marked down from $79.95. How many red-and-white print Clare McCardell shirtwaist dresses would a woman want to own? Only one, and she would buy it from the store that presented it most attractively and sold it most effectively.
He began making lists.
SALESPEOPLE
1. | Salespeople should be attractive-looking, well-dressed, with good taste in clothes. They should appear to be well-educated, which means well-spoken. Certain foreign accents (esp. French) may be acceptable. No obvious physical deformities. No Negroes. |
2. | Salespeople should be polite, attentive, helpful, cheerful, but not kowtowish. The salesperson who does not have the item a customer is looking for in his or her department should escort the customer to department where item is located. |
3. | If item the customer seeks is not sold in the store, salesperson should suggest an alternative purchase, e.g., “I'm afraid the store doesn't carry that, but before you go let me show you something pretty that just came in.” |
4. | Once customer gives his or her name for charge purchase, salesperson should address customer by name afterward. “Let me have this wrapped for you, Mrs. Jones.⦠Here is your package, Mrs. Jones.” |
5. | Salespeople should record customers' sizes, tastes, and color preferences, etc., etc. |
6. | If a customer has made a purchase in excess of $200, salesperson should write customer a note (handwritten) on store stationery the next day, thanking customer for purchase. |
7. | Good customers (in excess of $1,000 in purchases per year) should receive Christmas cards from salesperson. Also, if ascertainable, birthday and anniversary cards, etc. |
8. | Salespeople should keep track of customers' lives through society pages, etc. “I read about the lovely coming-out party you had for your daughter, Mrs. Jones.” |
9. | Salespeople (without being pestish) should telephone customers periodically with store news or special events. “Some beautiful new coats just came in from Paris, Mrs. Jones, and I immediately thought of you.” |
10. | Salespeople should |
The list continued at some length. Si had already decided that his store would specialize in female designer apparel, so he began to draw up another list.
MERCHANDISE
1. | Manufacturers tend to produce too many pieces of one design. Result: Same dress appears all over town at the same time. |
2. | Tarkington's apparel must be available |
3. | No garment shall remain in store longer than one season. |
4. | For custom couture, Tarkington's should find its own in-house designer. Advertise for him ⦠|
Not long after this item appeared on Si Tarkington's list, the following advertisement ran in the male Help Wanted columns:
Designer Wanted
Small select Manhattan specialty shop looking for young, talented, unknown designer of haute couture. No experience necessary, only distinctive designing flair. Chance for rapid advancement. Bring portfolio. For appointment, call 555-3400.
A stream of applicants followed, and Si set aside several hours of each business day to interview these hopefuls and scrutinize their work. He didn't know what he was looking for, exactly, but was certain he would recognize it when he saw it. He divided the portfolios into two stacks, marked
POSSIBLE
and
NO
.
One day he felt he had found what he wanted in a twenty-two-year-old Pratt graduate named Antonio Delfino. There was something about the young man's fluid, floating designs that seemed to say he understood the female figure.
