What's in It for Me? (3 page)

He stared at me in amazement.

“You pay five,” he cried, “and I should—!”

“Not so loud.”

“You pay five,” he repeated in a low hiss, “and I should bill them out to your customers for nine-seventy-five? You want me to—” He stopped and narrowed his eyes. “What do I get out of it?” he demanded. “What's in a thing like this for me?”

“Ah extra half a buck a piece per dress,” I said promptly. “You bill them out for me at nine-seventy-five and you can have five and a half for each one instead of five bucks.”

He bit his lip and went on from there for further nourishment to his fingernails.

“I don't know,” he said slowly, “it ain't honest.”

“That's a way to talk?” I demanded. “Look, Mr. Koenig. My client gets a stock ten-seventy-five garment for nine-seventy-five. If he bought that dress in the open market, if I went out and bought it in the open market for him, he'd have to pay ten-seventy-five. That's what I'm authorized to buy them for my clients. But I'm smart. I'm not just an ordinary dope of a resident buyer. I look out for my client's interests. I get him the same dress that his competitor pays ten-seventy-five for, for nine-seventy-five. For a service like that, don't you think I'm entitled to make something extra for myself besides the regular lousy little commission my clients pay me?”

“Yeah, but hell, Mr. Bogen,” he said slightly horrified, “you're not entitled to make four-seventy-five on each dress!”

“Who says I'm making four-seventy-five on each dress?” I demanded. “You're getting a half buck out of that. All I'm making is four and a quarter on each dress.”

“Hell,” he said slowly, “suppose it wasn't a job lot? My God, you could go into a regular manufacturer and buy a ten-seventy-five dress and tell your client you paid fifteen-seventy-five for it! It's the same thing. One is just as—”

I stared at him in amazement. The fourteen carat ideas you can sometimes get from the most unlikely places were enough to sit you on your bottom with a thud. But I recovered quickly. Recovering quickly is one of the choice items in my repertoire.

“I'll tell you what,” I said briskly. “I'll make that an extra buck per dress for you. Six bucks each for the thousand if you bill them out for me at nine-seventy-five each. What do you say?”

So I'd only make $3,750.00 on the deal instead of $4,250.00. It was only a difference of $500.00. And I owed him something for putting me on the trail of a bigger take, even if he didn't know it.

“Nothing doing,” he said firmly. “You should make three-seventy-five on each dress and I should make only a dollar? And I'm gonna do all the work yet, making out the charges, shipping, and all the rest?”

I eyed him carefully.

“What's on your mind?” I asked.

He slapped the table sharply.

“I bill them out for nine-seventy-five and you wanted I should take five apiece for them,” he said. “All right, I'll tell you what. We split the difference on the four-seventy-five, you half and me half, and it's a deal.”

It was my turn to go into the lip-chewing act. But I supplemented the performance with a pencil. On the back page of my order book I did some figuring. Half of four-seventy-five was two-thirty-seven. That meant on a thousand dresses I would be making about $2,370.00. It wasn't as good as $3,750.00, but it was still good pay for a day's work. I dropped the pencil and looked at him.

“For a dollar extra per dress,” I sneered, “it wasn't honest. But for two-thirty-seven extra per dress, it's honest, hah?”

“Was it my idea, Mr. Bogen?” he asked. “From you I learned it, didn't I? And anyway,” he added, “for a young man like you, Mr. Bogen, I think it's enough for one day if you make only twenty-three or twenty-four hundred dollars.”

“Maybe you're right,” I said, getting up. “Is it a deal?”

“It's a deal,” he said.

I handed him the sheaf of orders.

“The addresses of my clients and the quantity of dresses for each store is in this stack,” I said. “Send the shipping receipts up to my office tomorrow morning, and I'll give your boy my check for—”

“For seventy-three hundred and eighty dollars,” he said promptly.

I grinned at him and shook my head.

“With a brain like yours, Mr. Koenig, it's a wonder to me you should ever find yourself in a tight spot for money and you should have to let job lots of dresses go at a sacrifice.”

He aped my grin and swung it back to me.

“You don't look like such a jerk to me either, Mr. Bogen,” he said.

We both laughed.

“The smartest of us get caught once in a while, eh?” I said.

“Even the smartest,” he agreed.

“That calls for some kind of gesture,” I said. I grinned at him again as I took out the cigar he had given me and handed it back. “Try this,” I said, “I hear they're made up special.”

“Thanks,” he said, slipping it into his breast pocket without cracking a smile. “I'll smoke it after dinner.”

I
DIDN'T SEE HIM
go into the restaurant, but I could tell by the clock above the door that he should be coming out in a few minutes.

Keeping track of Seventh Avenue characters was like seeing the animals in the zoo at feeding time. All you had to do was know their habits and you could predict exactly where they'd be at any hour of the day. From twelve-thirty to one they were on the sidewalk in front of Schrafft's, telling each other how good business was or how bad it was going to be. From one o'clock to two they were inside, buying lunches for buyers and telling them how good they were and how bad other buyers were. From two to two-thirty, depending on how early or late they had started, they came shooting out through the revolving door, waving good-by to each other and rushing off down the street so they could get back to their showrooms in a hurry and start the same process all over again.

Promptly at two o'clock I took up my post on the sidewalk and began to sun myself. I didn't get into any conversations, but I got a few quick double looks and was responsible for several “Don't look now, but” huddles. I grinned to myself and pulled my coat down a little in front.

It was ten after two when the revolving door spilled him out into the street. If it had been any other kind of door, I might have missed him because he was so short and thin that two people standing on either side of him could blot him out completely. Then the crowd parted and he came bouncing along jauntily toward me. I dropped my cigarette and fell into step beside him.

“Hello, Teddy,” I said.

He stopped and stared and his hard little face squeezed up tight until the long nose stuck out over his thin lips like a toothpick from a cocktail olive.

“Well, Jesus Christ,” he said, “if it isn't the boy wonder.”

“The same,” I admitted. “A little older, and maybe a little smarter, but the same.”

“Maybe?” he said. “What do you mean, maybe? You must be slipping, Bogen. Any time you go around saying you got any doubts about the fact that you're getting smarter, you're slipping, boy.”

I grinned at him and took his arm.

“Sure, I'm slipping,” I said, “up.”

He freed his arm and we began to walk up Broadway together.

“Well,” he said, “so far I've only got your word for that.”

Before long, he'd have a lot more.

“The hell with me,” I said. “Let's talk about you, Teddy. How're you doing? What's with you?”

“Can the crap, Harry,” he said. “You didn't come looking for me to find out about my health. I know you from the old days. What do you want?”

“Honestly, Teddy,” I said, “that's a hell of a way to talk. Can't a guy look up his old partner and ask him how things are going with him without being right away accused of—?”

“All right,” he said in a bored voice, “if it's going to make you any happier, Harry, I'm doing very well. I'm in business for myself and it's terrific. My health is wonderful, too. In fact, since I left you, Harry, everything has been fine. Until a minute ago, anyway. Now you satisfied?”

“Perfectly,” I said. “Maybe you don't believe me, Teddy, but—”

“I don't,” he said.

I laughed and pushed his shoulder gently.

“Still the same Teddy, eh?” I said. “Still worried the whole world is out to get you.”

“Nobody is going to get me, Harry,” he said. “Being your partner for a few months was a wonderful education. Now I know everything. Nobody's going to get me.”

“No reason why they should,” I said. “And even though you stopped me from saying it before, Teddy, I want to say it now. I'm damn glad to hear that you're in business for yourself and that things are going all right. I mean that, Teddy. Honestly, I do.”

“You have no idea how you move me,” he said calmly. “I'm just all cut up inside with gratitude. And what, if I'm not sticking my nose into affairs that I guess belong more properly in the hands of the police department; what, Harry, are you doing to keep body and soul together?”

I laughed and spread my arms wide.

“Well, Teddy,” I said, “do I look like I'm starving?”

“No,” he admitted, “you don't look like you're starving. You look like you been striking up friendship with the night watchmen in banks. Who're you screwing? What's your racket now, Bogen?”

“I'm a resident buyer now,” I said, taking out my card case and handing him one.

He glanced at the card and tossed it into the gutter deliberately.

“Oh,” he said with a sneer, “one of those whores, eh?”

“Don't be so sarcastic about whores,” I said. “They serve their purpose.”

“Maybe they do,” he said, “but that's still no reason to be seen standing on the street talking to them.”

“It isn't going to hurt you to be seen talking to me, Teddy,” I said with a touch of hardness in my voice. “You know that.”

“I don't know anything,” he said.

“All right, then, I'll teach you something. I'll—”

“I took a couple of your lessons when we were in Apex Modes together, Harry,” he said. “I had enough. Now come on and spit out what you want. I've got a business to take care of and dresses to sell. What do you want?”

It would have been simpler, at that, just to tell him what I wanted and have him hand it over. But, of course, he was too short-sighted for that. He had to put up a fight.

“Well, what the hell do you think you're doing now?” I demanded. “I'm a resident buyer. I've got clients. And you're a manufacturer with dresses to sell. How much brains does it take to figure out the answer to that, Teddy?”

He took a cigarette from his mouth and cocked his head slightly to let the smoke pass his eye.

“You may be a buyer, Harry,” he said slowly, “but I'm not interested in selling you.”

His interests were among the more minor of my worries.

“No?” I said.

“No,” he replied.

“Then what are you gonna do with those velvets you've got collecting moths on your racks? What are you gonna do, put them in a tank with vinegar and preserve them?”

His head straightened up and the skin around his eyes furrowed quickly.

“Still the world's smartest guy, eh, Harry?”

“Oh, I manage to keep my eyes and ears open.”

“Look out somebody doesn't come up from behind you one of these days and shove an umbrella up your ass.”

Martha Mills & Theodore Ast, Business Counselors. Free advice on how to remain dumb the rest of your life.

“Nobody's shoving anything up my ass, Teddy.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But remember this, Harry. With guys like you, once they get it up there, they won't be satisfied. They're gonna make sure they open it, too.”

I grinned at him.

“I guess you'd like that little job, wouldn't you, Teddy?”

He grinned back at me.

“I wouldn't send anybody any bills for the time I'd waste doing it,” he said. “You can be sure of that.”

“I'll give you something to be surer about,” I said. “Just get the whole idea out of your head.”

“I'd like to get you out of it at the same time.”

“Aw, now, listen, Teddy, let's not start that. I'm still talking about those velvets of yours that you got on the racks.”

“What do you know about my velvets?” he snapped.

I sent him a delicately sarcastic smile.

“Enough to know that I'm the only guy on Seventh Avenue who's even mentioned them in four months without laughing out loud. And enough to know that unless you move them and move them quick, your financial statement at the end of the year is gonna look like a pot of Jell-o in a wind storm.”

“Where did you find out about—?” he began.

“You may recall that I wasn't exactly a sap when we were partners a year ago,” I said. “Now I'm a year older and I'm a year smarter. Now
I
know everything.”

He blinked his bright little eyes.

“What do you want with those velvets?” he asked.

“I want to buy them,” I said. “I told you that's my business now.”

“Well,” he said, “that's how the world is. Yeah, full of dopes. You can't go picking your customers.” He laughed again. “A guy wants to buy your velvets, you've gotta sell them.”

I laughed and slapped his shoulder.

“That's more like it, Teddy. Tell you what I'll do. Suppose I drop up tomorrow and pick out what I want, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, “here's my card.”

“Oh, by the way, Teddy,” I said. “How about having dinner with me tonight? We could—”

He looked suspicious at once.

“I don't know, Harry. I don't think I can make it. I'm kinda busy and—”