I Can Get It for You Wholesale (38 page)

He shook his worried face up and down.

“So don’t worry about it so much,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Just remember those two things. If they ask about the personal account in the Manufacturers, we used the cash to pay bills and payroll. They ask you anything else, you just don’t know, that’s all. Tell them to ask me. Understand?”

“I understand, Harry.”

“All right,” I said, “let’s go.”

I helped him up and unlocked the door. The custodian was standing in the showroom arguing with Golig.

“It’s all right, there,” I said, walking toward him and moving Babushkin along with me.

“What the hell is
he
?” the custodian said, shaking his head toward Golig, “one of your partners, too?”

“No,” I said, “he’s my lawyer. He’s all right. Let him in.”

Golig walked toward me, and I put my hand on Babushkin’s shoulder once more.

“So you got that straight, Meyer,” I said, “haven’t you?”

“Yeah, Harry,” he said, shaking his head. “Okay.”

“Fine.” I turned to Golig. “Come into my private office, Golig,” I said.

F
ROM MY SEAT BETWEEN
Babushkin and Golig at one side of the medium-sized room, I looked around. A long table stretched down the middle, with chairs all around it. And at the far end, at a desk set at right angles to the table, his back to the windows, a heavy-set, good-looking
goy
, with gray-streaked hair, was bent over, writing busily.

“Is that the Referee?” I asked Golig in a whisper.

“That’s him,” Golig said. “John E. James in person.”

“He looks like a
putt
to me.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t kid yourself, Harry. He’s as smart as they come. Just don’t get wise. Answer all questions respectfully, understand?”

I nodded and continued my inspection. The man who sat at the end of the table, to the left of the Referee, was a stenographer. I could tell that by the pens and ruled paper and bell-shaped ink bottle he was laying out. But the little guy who sat facing him across the table, the one that looked like Ben Turpin, had me stopped.

“Who’s Handsome Dan?” I asked Golig.

“That’s Josh Siegel. He’s the attorney for the petitioning creditors.”

“You mean he’s going to examine?”

Golig nodded.

I began to feel a little better. I had expected a courtroom, with a judge and a jury and what not. Instead, we were in this single room, on the eighteenth floor of an ordinary office building on Pine Street, surrounded by as choice an assortment of heels as you could find anywhere. I felt so relieved, that when I caught McKee’s eye, where he sat among other creditors across the room from me, I even smiled at him. He didn’t smile back.

At about ten o’clock the Referee stopped writing and looked up.

“What matter is this?” he asked.

“Apex Modes, Inc.” the stenographer said. “Twenty-one-A examination.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

Golig picked up his brief case and moved over to the table, facing Siegel. He spread his papers and sat back.

“Mr. Harry Bogen,” Siegel called.

I got up and walked to the chair at the head of the table, to the right of the Referee, facing the stenographer.

“Raise your right hand,” the Referee said. I did. “Do you swear to tell the truth in the matter of”—he glanced down at the papers in front of him—“in the matter of Apex Modes, Inc.?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Proceed,” the Referee said.

I sat down.

“What is your full name, Mr. Bogen?” Siegel asked.

I told him. I didn’t like his snotty voice right from the start. But I remembered what Golig had said. I answered respectfully.

“You are an officer of Apex Modes, Inc.?”

“Yes.”

“What office do you hold?”

“President.”

“You were in constant touch with all the affairs of the business, were you not?”

“I don’t quite understand what—”

“I mean, Mr. Bogen, you knew just what was going on all the time, didn’t you?”

“I suppose so,” I said with a shrug.

“What do you mean, you suppose so? Don’t you know?”

“Well, to such a general question, it’s a little hard to give a positive—”

“Well, all right,” he said, waving his hand. “Let’s put it this way, Mr. Bogen. What particular functions, I mean, what were your special duties, Mr. Bogen, in the business?”

“I was the salesman.”

“You were the salesman. Were you a salesman exclusively? Did you have any other duties?”

“Oh, I sort of watched over things generally, you know.”

“You mean, Mr. Bogen, do you not, that you were sort of the financial man, you—”

Golig jumped up.

“I object, Your Honor. The witness has made no such statement. I object to Mr. Siegel’s—”

“Sustained,” the Referee said in a bored voice. I looked at him quickly, but he seemed to have his eyes closed.

“All right,” Siegel said, rubbing his mustache. “I’ll with-draw that. Mr. Bogen, who took care of the finances of the business?”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Don’t you know what the word finances means?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I caught Golig’s eye, so I shut up.

“Sure,” I said, “but if you’ll be more specific, I’ll—”

“Well, who arranged for loans from the bank? Who arranged for lines of credit with the various silk houses? Who—?”

“Oh, I did all that.”

“You did.” He turned to his papers and looked at them for a moment. “What was Mr. Babushkin’s status in the firm? I mean, what were his duties—?”

“I object, Your Honor,” Golig said, getting up. “It is not for this witness to say what Mr. Babushkin—”

“Mr. Referee,” Siegel said, interrupting him, “this man was the president of the firm. He ought to know what his partner—”

“Overruled,” the Referee said in his slow voice. “The witness will answer the question.”

Siegel looked at me and I said, “Will you repeat the question, please?”

He waved at the stenographer.

“Read the question to the witness.”

“What was Mr. Babushkin’s status in the firm?” the stenographer read. “I mean, what were his duties?”

“Answer the question, Mr. Bogen,” Siegel said.

“He was the factory man,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“He was the factory man. He took care of the factory. He did the designing, the styling, he supervised the cutters, the contractors, all that stuff.”

“Did he have anything at all to do with the finances of the Company?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“What do you mean, not to your knowledge? Don’t you know?”

“Well, I—”

“I object, Your Honor,” Golig said.

“All right, all right,” Siegel said before the Referee could speak. “I’ll withdraw that.” He turned back to me. “Then I take it that so far as you know, Mr. Babushkin had nothing whatsoever to do with the finances of the Company?”

“That’s right.”

He questioned me for an hour, about the business and how it was run. Plenty of times I was taking careful aim to see if I could spit right into his eye from where I was sitting, but I remembered Golig’s advice and answered respectfully. In a way, I was even enjoying it a little, the way I could control the whole room by what I said. If I answered in a certain way, I could keep the room quiet, but if I wanted to play a little dumb, or answer in another way, I could get them all excited. I began to understand why lawyers have such big cans. They get flattened out from jumping up and down on them to make objections.

Finally, at about eleven-thirty, Siegel picked up a batch of checks from among his papers on the table, and turned to me.

“Mr. Bogen,” he said, “I show you now a series of—” Then he stopped. “Never mind that,” he said to the stenographer. “I withdraw the question.” He turned back to me. “That’s all, Mr. Bogen.”

“Any questions?” the Referee said, turning to Golig.

“No questions,” Golig said.

I got up and walked back to my seat against the wall.

“Mr. Meyer Babushkin,” Siegel called.

Babushkin got up and walked to the witness chair like a guy who has lost a bet and is on his way to kiss somebody’s behind in Macy’s front window on a busy Saturday at noon.

Siegel put him through the paces, the same as he had done to me. The only difference was that from Babushkin he got more respectful answers. Because Babushkin probably didn’t even know how to be disrespectful if he wanted to. And even if he did know, right then he was so scared that he never could have remembered how.

Suddenly Siegel turned back to the table, picked up the same batch of checks he had started to show me, and waved them under Babushkin’s nose.

“Did you have a personal bank account, Mr. Babushkin? I mean an account other than the firm bank account?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What bank was that account in?”

“The Manufacturers.”

“Have you still got that account there?”

“I think so. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Golig jumped up.

“I object, Your Honor, to Mr. Siegel’s browbeating the witness. He has answered the question. He said he didn’t know. He’s never gone through bankruptcy before, and for all he knows, he thinks his personal bank account was seized along with the other assets of the firm. How should he—?”

“Mr. Referee!” Siegel shouted. “I object to my learned adversary leading the witness and putting words in his mouth. If he has any objections, let him state them in the approved lawyer-like way. I ask Your Honor to instruct Mr. Golig to refrain from cleverly putting answers into the mouth of the witness by means of long-winded objections. Let him—”

“That’s enough, gentlemen,” the Referee said quietly. “We’ll have no colloquy between attorneys. If there are any objections to be made, make them in the customary manner. Proceed.”

“Read the last question,” Siegel said to the stenographer.

“Question: Have you still got that account there? Answer: I think so. I don’t know. Question: What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well, Mr. Babushkin,” Siegel said, “what do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I thought maybe, I thought maybe they, they took it away from me, like they took, you know, like they took everything else.”

Siegel gave Golig a dirty look. Golig smiled at him.

“When did you start this personal account of yours, Mr. Babushkin?”

“About two, three months ago. I don’t know.”

“Would it refresh your recollection if I were to show you a transcript of your account with the bank?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“I am reading, if it please the court, from a transcript of the account of Meyer Babushkin with the Manufacturers Banking Company, furnished by the said Manufacturers Banking Company, and indicating that—”

“I object, Your Honor,” Golig cried. “I object to Mr. Siegel’s reading from any papers that have not been introduced into evidence.”

“All right,” Siegel said. “I offer the transcript in evidence.”

“And I object on the ground that it is incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, and not binding on the parties.”

“Let me see it,” the Referee said. Siegel handed it to him. He looked at it for a moment, then handed it back. “Objection overruled,” he said. “Mark it in evidence.”

“Exception,” Golig said and sat down.

The stenographer marked it and handed it back to Siegel.

“I am reading, Mr. Babushkin, from Trustee’s Exhibit One of this date. The first entry on this transcript is a deposit of one thousand dollars and it is dated May fourteenth of this year. Is that the date on which this account was started, Mr. Babushkin?”

“I guess so.”

“Don’t you know?”

“If it says so, it’s so.”

Siegel put down the transcript and picked up the batch of checks.

“If Your Honor please,” he said, “I have here in my hand, and wish to offer in evidence, a series of thirty-one checks, all drawn by Meyer Babushkin on his account in the Manufacturers Banking Company, to the order of Cash, all endorsed by Mr. Babushkin on the back, all running in consecutive numerical order from number one to number thirty-one, indicating that they were taken from the same checkbook, each check drawn in the round sums of five hundred, one thousand, or fifteen hundred dollars, and the entire group of thirty-one checks aggregating a total of thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars. I offer this group of checks in evidence as one exhibit.”

“Same objection,” Golig repeated.

“I offer them subject to connection, if Your Honor please,” Siegel said.

“Same objection,” Golig repeated.

“Same ruling,” the Referee said.

“Exception,” Golig said.

Besides Siegel there were two other people in that room who knew what his next move was going to be. They were Golig and myself. And I had told Golig.

Siegel picked up a second batch of checks and said, “I now offer in evidence, if Your Honor please, a
second
group of thirty-one checks, drawn on the
corporation
bank account of Apex Modes, Inc. to the order of Meyer Babushkin, each one endorsed by Meyer Babushkin, and deposited by him in his
personal
bank account in the Manufacturers Banking Company. These checks are drawn in identical amounts with those in Trustee’s Exhibit Two of this date, and total, similarly, an aggregate of thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars. I offer this
second
group of checks in evidence as one exhibit.”

“Same objection,” Golig said.

“Same ruling,” the Referee said. “I’ll take it subject to connection.”

“Exception,” Golig said.

After the stenographer finished marking the checks in evidence, the Referee stood up.

“We will adjourn until two o’clock,” he said, and walked out.

Golig and I grabbed Babushkin and hustled him out to a restaurant. He said he wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t allow myself to be influenced by that. When I’m hungry, I eat.

“Remember, Meyer,” we told him before we went back, “he hasn’t got a thing on us. He thinks he has, but he hasn’t. He’s gonna ask you a lot of questions about what you did with the cash you got after you deposited the corporation checks in your personal account, but you just remember what we told you. You used it to pay bills, to pay labor, and things like that. Understand?”