I Can Get It for You Wholesale Page 19

  Teddy stopped grinning.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What am I going to do with the rest of my day?” I said.

  He stared at me.

  “What do you mean, the rest of your day?”

  “You don’t think a thing like running an office is going to keep me busy all day, do you?” I said. “Of course, I could go sit in the crapper with a newspaper for a couple of hours every day. But I’ll tell you the truth, it would be a waste of time. My bowels move pretty good without coaxing, so I’m in and out in five minutes. And I never read the papers anyway. I just look at the pictures.”

  “You mean you don’t think that’s gonna keep you busy enough?” he asked. His face wrinkled into sharp little regular furrows, like a washboard.

  “That,” I said gently, “is the general idea, Teddy.”

  “Well, then, what do you want—?”

  “Look, Teddy,” I said, “there’s a couple of things we might as well get straightened out right now. You and me and Meyer here are partners in a new dress business. But it’s not just an ordinary dress business. I can see from the way you and Meyer were laying things out, figuring on just one salesman, yourself, that you’ve been thinking this is just an ordinary small dress concern. But that’s where you’re wrong. You don’t think I’d go to the trouble of getting the best factory man in the business and the best salesman in the business just to start another small dress concern, do you?” Who’s a dope? “You don’t think I’d sink a young fortune into a showroom if I thought we were gonna match for cigar store coupons, do you? Oh, no, Teddy. Apex Modes, Inc. is gonna be the house on the street. Forget about Schmul and Toney Frocks and those other schwanzos. We’re stepping right into Pulvermacher’s class. And when we learn all they got to teach there, we’re gonna get promoted. We’re going into the big time, Teddy, and we’ll need a lot more than just one salesman.”

  “All that’s very nice,” he said quickly, before I could continue. “And I’m with you right from the start, Harry. But just remember. I’ve been in this game for a long time. I know it inside out. You can’t just start a million-dollar dress firm just by talking about it.”

  “I know that, Teddy,” I said. Get this Teddy and Harry bull. Just a couple of buddies. “I know it. But you just watch our smoke. I’ve got a couple of tricks up my sleeve that’ll make this market sit up and take notice. You just leave that to me.”

  He sucked in his cheeks like he was getting ready to whistle, but he didn’t. He just looked at the ceiling, and said, “So what about what we were talking about first? About you being office manager and superintendent and it wasn’t enough to keep you busy?”

  I get it! Sarcasm!

  “Here’s my idea,” I said. “I’ll be office manager and superintendent and all the rest of that bullshit. But I’ll be a salesman, too. We’re gonna need an extra one before long, and it might as well be me, instead of us hiring somebody.”

  He laughed a little at that.

  “That just shows how little you know about the dress business,” he said, putting his hand on my arm to pull the punch a little. “You’re no salesman, Harry. You know that.”

  “That’s nothing,” I said, laughing back at him. “You ought to hear what my public school teachers used to say about me and how fast I could learn things. So what if I’m not a salesman, now, so what? Haven’t I got the best salesman on Seventh Avenue for a partner, Teddy? Can’t he teach me?”

  The general idea, gentle reader, was that no pyoick with canary teeth and a snowplow nose was going to bury Harry Bogen of the Bronx Bogens in the back some place, while all the souvenirs and nickel-plated favors were being passed out up front.

  Teddy laughed again.

  “You’re really funny, Harry,” he said. I must have been. I was positively panicking him. “You can’t learn to be a salesman overnight.”

  “So it’ll take me two nights,” I said, hopping off the cutting table to end the interview, but not forgetting to grin up at him in friendly fashion. This politeness was beginning to make my jaws ache. “So it’ll take me two days,” I said again. “So what?”

  21

  AST STUCK HIS HEAD into the office from the showroom and scowled a little.

  “What do you say, Harry?” he said irritably, shoving out his wrist to look at his watch. He was wearing his hat and coat and he had Stampers Arrival Of Buyers in his hand. “It’s ten to nine already.”

  I looked at my own watch.

  “Throw the watch out, Teddy,” I said. “It’s only twenty to nine.” Then, before he could open up again, I said, “All right, all right, all right. I’ll be out in a minute,” and turned back to the girl. He went back into the showroom.

  “All right, then, Miss K,” I said. “I have to go now. I guess I’ve explained everything there is, and you know what we want. If there’s anything you don’t understand, anything you want to know, just ask Miss A here,” I pointed to the bookkeeper, “or wait’ll I get back. But I think you got everything down all right. No?”

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen,” she said, shaking her head so the glasses shivered on her nose.

  “One more thing,” I said, turning back. I like to get these things off my chest while they’re hot. “I’m a pretty easy boss to work for, but there’s one thing I can’t stand. Nothing personal, now, Miss K, and I don’t mean to insult you or anything, but I can’t help it. I’m funny that way.” I pointed to the glasses pinched up on her nose with the long silver chain stretching down and around her neck. “Every time I see a nice young girl, a girl like you, for instance, Miss K, wearing those kind of glasses, I get good and sore.” She blushed and her hand shot up quickly to the glasses. “If you have to wear glasses, get yourself a pair of simple frames. But for God’s sakes, get rid of those things. All right?” I said, and smiled reassuringly. I know it’s a little silly, and maybe in a way it was stupid, too, to risk getting her sore, in case she was merchandise, I mean. But I was telling her the truth. I can’t stand that kind of fake ritz. Every time I see a dame with those things on I feel like putting a couple of extra dents in her profile. “All right?” I repeated, smiling.

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen,” she said, and took the glasses off.

  “Okay, then,” I said, patting her on the head, and then went out into the showroom.

  Teddy was sitting at one of the little tables, smoking a cigarette and looking through Stampers. He jumped up as soon as I came in.

  “Jesus, Harry,” he said, folding up his face like an accordion, “I can’t sit around all day waiting for you. We gotta get over there.”

  “Aah, quit bellyaching, will you? We got a good fifteen minutes yet.”

  “What the hell takes you so long to get out in the mornings?”

  “I gotta paste up my stamp album first,” I said. Go tell him what takes me so long to get out in the mornings! “What do you think, all I do is worry about getting over to the buying offices? Just in case you forgot, just in case it slipped your mind, Teddy, I also happen to be the office manager around here. Remember?” He made a funny face. Or rather, he tried to make it funnier. But it was a waste of time. “When do you think I take care of that, when I’m sleeping?”

  He reached for one of the two large sample cases.

  “All right, Harry, all right. But Jesus, every morning. To-day—”

  “To-day I happened to be hiring another girl to help out in the office,” I said.

  “Don’t you ever do anything else?” he said. “All the time you’re hiring new girls for the office. Or if it’s not that, then you’re firing them. What was the matter with the girl you hired last week?”

  I figured the time wasn’t ripe yet for us really to square off. Although a little shadow boxing like this every day tended to keep me in practice. When the time came, I wanted to be in condition to give him his lumps. So I grinned and winked at him.

  “You know me, Teddy,” I said. “Not that I got any designs on them or anything. If I wanna get put I kn
ow where to go. I don’t like to mess up my own doorstep. But just the same, hell, while I’m hiring somebody I might as well make it pleasant around here. I don’t like to have a bunch of dogs floating around. While I’m at it, I might as well hire something with a well-turned ass and a decently uplifted tit. Am I right or no?”

  He shook his head and that accordion face of his folded up again. Only this time it was a smile. It looked the same as before, but it was a smile. After you knew him a while you got so you could tell the difference.

  “Okay,” he said, picking up one of the sample cases. “Grab hold of that one and let’s go.”

  I picked it up and put it down again.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m getting good and sick and tired of lugging these lousy things. Why can’t we get a boy to carry them for us? What are we, shipping clerks or something?”

  He put down his case and looked at me.

  “That’s a hot one all right,” he said. “You’re the guy that started all those delivery businesses in the neighborhood, you’re the guy that did away with shipping clerks on Seventh Avenue, and now you’re the guy that’s crying!” He started to laugh and shake his head. “Boy, that’s a hot one on you all right, Harry. That’s a hot one. But I guess it’s just too tough. We got no shipping clerks. We got a delivery service. So we have to carry our own sample cases. Boy, that’s good. We got a delivery service to deliver our packages and our orders, but we have to carry our own sample cases. It’s tough, Harry. Boy, is it tough!”

  “It certainly is tough,” I said, laughing with him. “But not on us. Because I got an idea how it won’t be tough on us any more. Maybe it’ll be tough on somebody else, but it’s not gonna be tough on the president and treasurer of Apex Modes, Inc. any more.”

  I turned toward the office, and he said quickly, “Hey, where you going?”

  “Come on,” I said over my shoulder, “I’m gonna make it a little less tough for the both of us.”

  “Holy Christ, Harry,” he said, “it’s late already. We’ll never get there on time, and then it’ll—”

  “We’ll take a cab,” I said. “And anyway, this won’t take a minute.”

  The girls looked up when we came into the office.

  “Take a letter, Miss K,” I said, standing over her. “This goes to the Needle Trades Delivery Service, Inc. Put in that I. N. C. They’re at two-twenty-four West—well, I don’t remember it right now, but it’s in the phone book, or wait, you can dig out one of their bills from the file. You’ll get the address there. All right. Needle Trades Delivery Service, Inc., attention Mr. Maltz. No, leave out that attention business. Just Needle Trades Delivery Service, Inc. Gentlemen. Please be advised that we are discontinuing your service as of the thirty-first of this month. Be good enough to render your final statement as of that date, and oblige. All right, Miss K, get that ready and Mr. Ast’ll sign it when he gets back.”

  Miss A looked up from behind her books.

  “By the way, Mr. Bogen,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “That Mr. Maltz called you again yesterday. He’s been calling you pretty—”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know. Just don’t pay any attention to him. He probably wants to borrow money or something. Any time he calls, just tell him I’m out, that’s all.” I turned to the new girl. “You’ll be at the switchboard most of the time, Miss K, so you just remember that too, will you? If a Mr. Maltz calls, I’m not in.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bogen,” she said.

  “All right, then,” I said. “And remember. Mr. Ast’ll sign that letter when he gets back.”

  “But why me?” Teddy said.

  “Aah, I know this guy Maltz,” I said. “It’ll look better if you sign it. I’m supposed to be in Europe or some place, anyway. How’s it gonna look if when he calls up they tell him I’m out, but the next day he gets a letter signed by me? See what I mean?”

  “Yeah, well, all right. But, hell, Harry, how about our deliveries?”

  “We’re gonna be old-fashioned,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder. “We’re gonna start a back to the land movement or something like that. We’re gonna hire ourselves a couple of old-fashioned shipping clerks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more expensive, isn’t it?”

  “So what? I’d rather pay the few extra dollars a week than tear my arms out schlepping those damn sample cases around.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing,” I said, pushing him toward the sample cases and taking one myself. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. We got less than ten minutes. Come on, Teddy, shake your ankle. We gotta hurry.”

  The cab got us to Thirty-First Street in a few minutes. I paid the driver and we went into the long arcade, past the classy-looking passenger elevators, toward the ones at the far end under the sign SALESMEN WITH SAMPLE CASES WILL USE THESE CARS. Only one car was down on the ground floor, and that was too jammed for us to get in, so we set the cases down and waited for another one. A lot of other salesmen kept coming down the arcade toward us and set their sample cases down to wait for a car. I knew most of them by this time, and Teddy probably knew all of them just as they probably all knew each other, but they did not speak. They just smoked and watched the indicator over the elevator door. They even seemed a little sore at each other. I didn’t blame them. I felt a little sore myself, having to lug those heavy sample cases around. Some of them had boys with them to help with the cases, but most of them carried their own. Well, I thought, Teddy had certainly been right. They could thank me, and I could thank myself, for having to carry those cases. Pretty soon, though, they’d be able to thank me for not having to carry them any more. Well, that’s life. To-day you’re on bottom, to-morrow they’re on top. Nuts.

  I suddenly thought of something.

  “Say, Teddy,” I said in a low voice, “how is it I never see any of Pulvermacher’s salesmen around here? This partner of his, this Kalisch, he’s supposed to be such a holy wonder of a salesman, how come I never see him around here?”

  “Them, they’re different.”

  “What do you mean, different? Don’t they have to sell the same as we do, the same as everybody else does?”

  “Sure, but they’re so big, they make such high-priced stuff, they don’t have to do this.”

  “What do you mean, they don’t have to do this? Everybody comes to see the buyers here, don’t they?”

  He looked disgusted as he watched the hand on the indicator swing around slowly toward zero.

  “Yeah, they come. But they don’t bring any sample cases. They come with a couple of models, the models wear one of their hot numbers each, and that’s all. The rest of their stuff, the buyers come to their showroom. They throw a big opening when they show their new line and all the buyers come. But that’s the high-priced stuff. The twenty-nines and over.”

  “Maybe for the fall line, Teddy, we’ll take a crack at that higher-priced stuff. What do you say?”

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “We’re a sixteen-seventy-five house. Come on,” he said suddenly, reaching for a sample case and moving into the elevator.

  We were jammed together face to face in the crowded car.

  “What’s so crazy about it?” I said. “We got Babushkin. That high-priced stuff is his meat. He was with Pulvermacher for years. And we got the showroom, haven’t we? We got as nice a showroom as Pulvermacher has.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “You’re crazy with the heat.”

  Phooey! He had a breath that an exterminator would have paid to bottle.

  “All right,” I said. “So I’m crazy with the heat.”

  The car stopped and the whole mob rushed out. I followed Teddy up to the wooden railing that divided the long room in half and waited while he scribbled blue slips for the buyers he wanted to see. In a few seconds the salesmen were waving wads of these blue slips and yelling at the office boys on the other side of the railing.

  “Whaddaya say, Tony, take this in to Miss LeBeau,
will you?”

  “Hey, kid. For Miss Smith. Here’s one for Miss Smith.”

  “Mrs. Hopper’s in, ain’t she? Take this in like a good fella, will ya?”

  The hungry mob kept moving and shoving and yelling and waving slips. Every once in a while one of the office boys would come over, take a slip and carry it into one of the dozen doors that stretched along the wall of the room that faced us across the railing. In a few seconds he would come out again, return the slip to the salesman, and take another one. The salesman who received the slip back would scan it quickly. If the box that said “Will see” was checked, he grinned and picked up his sample case and went through the gate in the railing, waving his slip at the guard as a pass. If it was the “Will not see” or the “Call again on—” box that was checked, he scowled and spit on the floor and said, “The bitch,” and began to yell for one of the office boys again. The yelling and the shoving didn’t stop for a minute, and the salesmen grew more excited as the hands of the big clock on the wall crept toward ten. All they had was an hour, from nine to ten, and a lot of them wanted to see as many as eight and ten buyers.

  They fought each other for a place at the rail and swore when they lost an inch, but nobody started punching because the minutes were too precious. Every once in a while one of them would try to shove through the door in the railing. But three or four of the office boys would come together in a wedge and force the intruder back. These office boys were the snottiest little punks you ever saw. They moved their feet like they were stringing pearls, and when they took a slip they acted like they didn’t expect you to forget them in your will.

  I looked at Teddy. He was dividing his time between swearing, lighting cigarettes, and yelling at the office boys.

  “Why don’t you slip one of them a buck?” I said. “Give him a buck and he’ll take it in for you.”

  “Where do you think we get our money, it grows on trees?” He stepped on his cigarette, lit another one, and turned back to his yelling.

  “Gimme that,” I said, grabbing the slip out of his hand. Before he could say anything I wrapped a dollar around it, shoved it into an office boy’s hand and said, “Give that to Miss Bonthron of Jessup Jordan. Bonthron of Jessup Jordan.”