I Can Get It for You Wholesale (25 page)

“Just answer me one question,” I said. “What the hell are you crying about? So what if it costs us a couple of bucks in cabs? So what? We’re making dough, aren’t we?”

I
WAS SIGNING CHECKS
in my private office when I remembered something. I picked up the receiver and said, “Get me Listokens and Tsitsarnes.” Then, “Hello, L. and T.?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Listokens, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Oh, hello, Listokens. This is Bogen of Apex Modes.”

“Yeah, Bogen.”

“How’s that silver fox collar coming along, Listokens?”

“What silver fox col—? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. I got a man working on it now, Bogen.”

“Well, you don’t sound so enthusiastic about it. Don’t tell me you forgot all about it. Because if you did, I’ll—”

“No, no, Bogen. I didn’t. It just sort of slipped my mind for a moment. It’s in work now.”

“Well, just don’t forget it. I want that by Monday during the day or Tuesday night at the latest, understand?”

“You’ll have it, Bogen, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worrying,” I said. “But if I don’t get it on time, then
you
better start worrying. Because Apex’ll never buy another inch of fur from you, understand?”

“Just don’t worry about it, Bogen. You’ll get it.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

Babushkin shoved his worried-looking face around the door.

“You busy, Harry?”

It was nice of him to knock before he came in. In a dress house with three models it was a good idea. But Babushkin didn’t do it because it was a good idea. He did it because he was scared he might see something he’d heard about, but had never seen. Or maybe he was a gentleman. He had the first requirement. He was dumb enough.

“Come on in, Meyer,” I said, “what’s on your mind?”

He stood in the middle of the room and rubbed his nose.

“Nothing special, Harry,” he said. “I just thought maybe, you know, if you weren’t busy—”

“Sit down,” I said, waving toward the couch, “take a load off your feet.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the chair that faced me across the desk. “I’ll, uh, I’ll sit here.”

“What do you know?” I said, lighting a cigarette and leaning back in my chair.

He shifted around in the chair and rubbed his nose a little harder. Well, the wear and tear would never hurt it. He had the kind that was built to last.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Harry,” he said slowly. “It’s nothing
special
, you know—”

Maybe I did, at that. But I just sat back innocently and blew smoke at him. It was his move.

“Teddy told me to come in and speak to you,” he said suddenly.

Poor Teddy. It must be tough to be so tongue-tied that you have to pick a spokesman like Meyer Babushkin. Or maybe guys like Teddy were only tongue-tied when they had to speak to guys like me.

“What’s the matter with Teddy?” I asked innocently. “He seemed all right when I saw him less than an hour ago.”

“Well, I don’t know, Harry. He told me to—Well, told me to come in and talk to you.”

Now I was beginning to get it. I didn’t understand at first. Teddy had told him to come in and talk to me! See?

“What about?” I said, leaning over to drop my ash carefully into the huge jade ash tray on my desk.

Babushkin stopped rubbing his nose and began to pick it, scowling at the floor as he worked.

“Use your thumb, Meyer,” I said. “You’ll get more.”

“What?” he said, looking up suddenly.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, Harry, he told me to come in and see you.”

“Well, here I am,” I said, spreading my arms wide. “Take a good look at me.”

“He said I should come in and talk to you,” he said again.

“What about?” I repeated.

I knew what was coming. I figured I might as well be calm about it.

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

“About the money we’re spending,” he said quickly. “He said you’re spending too much money.”

“He did?” I said, throwing my eyebrows up to the ceiling. “Teddy said that?”

“Yeah. He said I should come in and talk to you. He said he spoke to you already a few times, but it didn’t do any good. He said I should come in and talk to you.”

I
knew
I was on the right track. Teddy had told him to come in and talk to me!

“Well, Meyer,” I said, “I’m sure Teddy wouldn’t say a thing like that if he couldn’t back it up, would he? He must’ve been more specific, wasn’t he, Meyer?”

“Yeah, well, yeah, he was.”

“That’s fine,” I said, leaning back and lighting another cigarette. I do an awful lot of leaning back and lighting of cigarettes. “Let’s hear what he had to say. Where am I spending too much money? Be specific. Where am I throwing money around like water? He said that, didn’t he? That I was throwing money around like water? Or maybe he said I was spending it like a drunken sailor? Which? But let it go. Let’s skip that. Just tell me where he said I was spending too much money.”

I was handling him delicately. No loud-mouthed denials or objections. With morons like Meyer Babushkin you always take it easy, draw them out, reason with them, try to make what you say sound logical. The mailed fist in the velvet glove.

“Well, he said you were, well, you were spending too much money.”

“Maybe you better turn that record over, Meyer,” I said.

“What?”

“I said in what ways did Teddy tell you to tell me I was spending too much money?” Fooled him that time. I didn’t lean back nor did I light a fresh cigarette. I still had the one I lit before.

“We-ell, he said you were spending too much on presents for buyers.”

“Aw, come now, Meyer. You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Well, he showed me bills. He showed me bills from that French place, I don’t know the name, you know the one I mean, he showed me the bills for the boxes of candy and honest, Harry, gee whiz, that’s a lot of money for candy. Honest, Harry, it’s a
lot
.”

“But that’s nothing new in the dress business, is it, Meyer? Why, even Teddy himself sends presents to the buyers. You have to. They expect it.”

“Yeah, but he sends them flowers and little things like that. Flowers don’t cost so much.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Meyer,” I said earnestly, leaning across the desk to make it sound convincing. “Flowers cost less, but you don’t get anything for your money. Flowers die. And then what’ve the buyers got? Nothing. And when the flowers are dead, they don’t remember you. You send them something substantial, like a box of candy, something practical, something they can at least eat, and they appreciate it. At least it lasts longer. And the longer it lasts, the longer they remember you. See what I mean?”

“Yeah, well, I know, Harry. But he said other things, too.”

“Yeah, what? Tell me what?”

He scratched his head. I debated with myself whether I should warn him against splinters, but I decided against it. After all, it was his head.

“We-ell,” he said, “the pocketbooks, the theatre tickets, the—oh, you know, Harry, all those things.”

“Oh, well,
that
,” I said, leaning back and waving my hand. “That’s only more of the same thing. I’m telling you, Meyer, this business of sending flowers and things like that is the bull. Just because that’s what most every salesman in the business does, doesn’t mean it’s the best, does it? I mean, I leave it to you as an intelligent person, Meyer.” That was one hell of a place to leave it. “You’ve got to do these things right or don’t do them at all. All the money spent on things like flowers is just so much money wasted. These buyers aren’t any of these dainty dames, you know. For these horse-faced pots, you should excuse the expression, Meyer, for these tough broads, flowers is like—like—I don’t know, like sending a machine-gun to a baby. You have to give them something practical, something they can use. Then they remember you, and they come up and buy your dresses. See what I mean?” He nodded and squirmed around in his seat and sucked his lower lip. I tell you, he had a regular bag of tricks.

“Well, it’s not that so much, either, Harry. It’s—it’s—”

“It’s what, Meyer?”

“It’s this business of, well,
you
know, this charge account you got with that, you know what Teddy calls it, the call joint. The charge account you got there. That costs a fortune, doesn’t it?”

What the hell was he blushing about? Didn’t he know the facts of life? He was married, but with guys like him that didn’t mean a thing.

“Oh, well,” I said, smiling at him. “That’s just a little of my own ideas.”

“Yeah, but the way Teddy says, it costs a lot of money, doesn’t it?”

“So what?” I shoved some papers around on my desk, picked one out, and wagged it in front of his nose. “Here’s an order we got this morning from Bentcher of Finck and Swathmore. How do we come to sell Finck and Swathmore? Bentcher’s had his steady houses for years, hasn’t he, and a new firm never even had a smell in for an order from him. So how come all of a sudden he throws business like this to Apex Modes?” I slapped the order a few times. “Because our line is hot, which it is? Or because Teddy Ast, our star salesman, wears Pat Caruso clothes? Oh, no, Meyer. We got this order because last night I got Mr. Bentcher of Finck and Swathmore fixed up with one of the neatest numbers in that call joint of mine. That’s why we got an order from Finck and Swathmore, and as long as we got our account with that call joint, you can bet your boots Bentcher will be buying from us.”

Babushkin was blushing like a schoolgirl. I reached over and patted his hand.

“Don’t worry, Meyer. I know what I’m doing. Maybe I haven’t been in the dress business as long as you or Teddy. But I know a couple of things about selling. With men buyers, you get them put and you can sell them the Brooklyn Bridge. And with woman buyers—” I rolled my eyes like Groucho Marx and lit a cigarette—“With women buyers, Meyer,
I
do all the yentzing. At least
there
you can’t say it’s too expensive. That’s one thing about me, Meyer, I never yet sent a buyer a bill for slipping her the business.”

I figured he was through, but I always like to do these things right. I like to add the parsley to the fish and the paper ruffles to the drumstick.

“Is there anything else Teddy told you to tell me was too expensive?” I asked gently.

He was so flustered he could hardly talk. Christ, maybe
he
was hard up and I ought to take
him
out and get him laid? But no, I wanted him to keep his mind in the factory.

“Anything else, Meyer?” I asked again.

“Well, he, Teddy, he said something about the, about the models. He said—”

“Yeah? What about the models?”

“He said all the other houses they pay fifteen a week for models, and we, we pay thirty. Thirty dollars, Harry, you know, that’s a lot of money for a model.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “It all depends how you look at those things and what you expect from them. There are models and models, you know, Meyer. Me, I like the kind that if you put it up to them, they don’t drop dead from the shock. You know what I mean, Meyer? And that kind you don’t get for fifteen bucks a week. They could make that by themselves, free-lancing, just working a couple of nights a week. See what I mean, Meyer?”

Meyer saw all right, but he didn’t say so. He was still too flustered to pick his words right.

“There’s another thing yet, too, Harry,” he said finally, examining the grain of the desk. Well, it would stand inspection. The furnishings of that little private office cost plenty.

“Yeah, what?”

“The new line. Teddy says you’re—I mean, he said you were a little, well, you know, maybe a little foolish about going into that expensive stuff. He said we’re a lower-priced house, and to go into that expensive stuff is—”

“Listen, Meyer,” I said confidentially, “you want me to tell you a little secret?”

He just looked at me.

“This is between me and you, Meyer,” I said, leaning toward him and smiling. “You want to know what?”

“What?”

“Just between me and you, Meyer,” I said, “I think Teddy Ast is a big
schvantz
.”

His eyes blinked a little.

“That’s just between the two of us,” I said, then more briskly, “I don’t know what he’s hollering about. We’re each of us, all three of us, we’re making more money than we ever made before. Isn’t that so?” He nodded. “And besides that, we’ve each got a cut-in on the profits. So what the hell is he hollering about, will you tell me?”

He didn’t answer. I got up and walked over to his chair and put my arm on his shoulder.

“You just listen to me, Meyer,” I said, “and we’ll be all right. You just take care of the styling and see that the contractors don’t walk away with the place. Leave the rest to me. You’re making more money than you ever made and you’re your own boss. So stop hollering and stop listening to Teddy Ast and his squawking. Just get going on that fall line, and if Teddy shoots off his mouth, just send him to me. By the way, how
is
the line coming along?”

For once his face took on a little life.

“It’s great, Harry,” he said. “Just wait till you see it.”

“That’s fine,” I said, patting his shoulder to end the interview, or monologue, or whatever you want to call it.

He hesitated a moment, and the smile on his face faded into a worried frown. Or rather, excuse me, he began to look normal again.

“There’s only one thing, Harry,” he said.

“Yeah, what?”

“We’re a, well, you know, we’re a lower-priced house,” he said. “How’re we gonna get the buyers, the market, you know, how’re we gonna get them to know we’re switching to the higher—?”

“My dear Meyer,” I said, grinning at him. I’d better watch out. Here I was in the dress business only a couple of months and already I was beginning to talk like Phil the Fag. “Don’t you bother that cute little head of yours about
that
.”

“Yeah, Harry, but how—?”

“Just leave that to me,” I said, patting myself on the chest. “The scheme I got for presenting our new line, Meyer, is gonna knock Seventh Avenue’s eye out.”