I Can Get It for You Wholesale (24 page)

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 know 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.”

“Okay,” the kid said and moved across the room.

“What the hell do you think we are?” Teddy said. “Millionaires?”

“Aah, what’s a buck?”

“What do you mean, what’s a buck? You’re all the time throwing money around like—”

“Aah, nuts,” I said, “Stop worrying about it.”

When the kid came back Teddy took the slip, looked at it quickly, and turned to me.

“See? What’d I tell you?”

I took the slip. The “Will not see” box was checked.

“All right,” I said, throwing up my hand, “You do this your own way.”

I lit a cigarette and sat down on the sample case. Let him keep on yelling his head off if he wanted to. I wasn’t even listening to him. There was nothing more he could teach me. I had my own ideas of how to sell dresses. This was the last time anybody was going to find me down here tearing my arms and lungs out and begging some baloney to let me come in and see her for a minute. If a midget brain like Pulvermacher didn’t have to do it, then I didn’t have to do it either.

At ten o’clock the gong rang. The salesmen tried to get one last slip in, but from the way the office boys quit you’d think it was a fire alarm. In another couple of minutes the buyers began to come out, dressed for the street, carrying their order books, swinging their cans, and shaking their heads at the salesmen that hung around them like flies.

“What do you say, Miss Rhinelander, just give me a minute?” Sorry, sorry. “You coming up to see our line, Miss Crowley? We got a couple numbers—” Not to-day, sorry. “Aw, Miss T, be a good scout. Lemme just show you—” Sorry, sorry. “Just a second, Miss Rhinelander. Can’t I see you just a second?” Sorry, sorry.

I didn’t know exactly what they were sorry about, or for whom. But one thing was sure, they weren’t being sorry for me. Because I was just watching them and laughing.

When the private elevator closed on them and carried them down, the salesmen went back to their sample cases and the elevators reserved for them.

Teddy was quiet until we reached the street. Then when I hailed a cab, he said quickly, “Don’t you ever believe in walking?”

“Not when I can ride,” I said.

“Where do you think all this money’s coming from, anyway?” he said.

“Aw, climb in and stop crying so much,” I said, shoving in the sample cases.

He went in after me and the cab started.

“Did you see any buyers?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

He gave me a dirty look and I grinned back at him.

“I don’t see Pulvermacher breaking his ass chasing down to these lousy buying offices with dresses,” I said.

He lit a cigarette and whistled when he blew out the smoke.

“And what’s good enough for Pulvermacher is good enough for me,” I added.

“Aah, you’re crazy.”

“So I’m crazy,” I said. “But I still—”

He turned around to face me.

“Listen, Harry, forget all that dopey stuff about making a higher-priced line. Just try to get ready a little earlier in the mornings, so we shouldn’t have to throw money out on cabs. That’s all. Stop worrying about Pulvermacher and his line. Worry a little more about ours.”

Well, it’s nice to have a guy around to pick your worries for you. But if I didn’t have any greater need for Teddy Ast than that, maybe it would be better if we kissed each other good-bye.