I Can Get It for You Wholesale (43 page)

“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—”

“Aah, now, Teddy,” I said. “Didn’t I teach you at least that one thing when we were in business together? Didn’t I at least teach you not to keep your nose in the shop all the time, day and night?”

He grinned in a restrained way.

“You taught me,” he said. “You’re the guy that did the teaching. But now I’m the guy that’s in business for myself as a manufacturer, and you’re only a resident buyer.”

“That’s true,” I admitted, “but this’d be a little different, Teddy. We could drop over to
Smile Out Loud
after dinner and take in the show and then I could take you backstage to Martha Mills, or I could even maybe get her to say she’s sick or something and let the understudy take the part for tonight and we could, the three of us, you know, we could go out and have a—”

His eyebrows climbed up to touch the sweatband of his hat.

“You still know Martha Mills?”

I stared at him with fake amazement.

“Know
her?” I cried. “Why, for Christ’s sake, Teddy, where’ve you been all these years? I been
living
with her for three months!”

He sucked in his lower lip and smiled as he shook his head at me pityingly.

“Still one of those kiss and tell boys, eh, Harry?”

“Well, what the hell, Teddy,” I said, shrugging, “a thing like that, hell, when all of Broadway and Seventh Avenue knows it, why should I hide it from you?”

“That’s true,” he said. “By the way, how is Martha?”

“Fine,” I said. “But I tell you what, Teddy, I’ll give you a fine comb and I’ll give you all of Broadway to work on, but you won’t find a better zipper anywhere.”

“Say” he said with a grin, “how about giving me a knockdown to some of these Broadway actresses? For old times’ sake?”

I’d give him a lot more, for old times’ sake.

“What the hell is this, Teddy?” I asked in surprise. “A guy like you, a big manufacturer with models floating all over the place, you mean to tell me you’re not doing any scoring?”

“Oh, hell no, Harry. I’m getting enough to hold the franchise.”

“Well, at least you learned something from the time we were in business together, eh, Teddy?”

He looked indignant at once.

“Say, listen,” he said, “I was scoring on models and better when you were still boffing flat-heel Comics at City College, or wherever the hell it was you went at night when you were a shipping clerk.”

“What you say is true, Teddy. But let me just tell you something. Don’t you underestimate those Comics. When they do something, they do it for the Cause. Maybe they don’t get their lingerie in Bergdorf Goodman, but they give you a good ride.”

He shrugged.

“I’ll still do my jockeying on Seventh Avenue.”

“And Broadway?” I asked with a grin.

“And Broadway,” he said.

“Then what do you say? How about having dinner with me tonight?”

“Do I get an introduction to some of these chorus girls?” he asked. “For old times’ sake, Harry?”

“What do you mean, some of these chorus girls?” I said, pretending to become indignant. “What’s the matter, Teddy, what’s good enough for me isn’t good enough for you?”

He looked puzzled.

“What do you mean, Harry?”

“What’s there to mean? Nothing to it, Teddy. I’ll just give you a couple of slices off my own loaf.”

He opened his mouth in amazement and the yellow teeth, with the inward slope to them, came up for an airing.

“You mean that?”

I grinned at him.

“Of course I mean it. There’s no meter on it. You’re not using up something that wears out and can’t be replaced.”

He rubbed his hand along his sharp, blue-colored jaw and looked at me as though he couldn’t quite believe his ears.

“Well,” he said, “if you—”

“Of course I do,” I said Heartily. “And I’ve got a lot of other nice things you can borrow any time you want them, like my camera or my tennis racquet. What do you say, is it a date for dinner tonight?”

He pulled himself together and slipped back into form again.

“All right, Harry,” he said, “It’s a date.”

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