“Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll just go down for a cup of coffee and then I’ll be back.”
“You sure you’ll be back, Mr. Bogen?” she asked anxiously.
The only thing I was suddenly sure of was that I was going to get as far away from Thirty-fourth Street as my feet, a taxi-cab, and a steamship would carry me.
“Oh, positive. I’m just going to grab a bite downstairs.”
“All right, Mr. Bogen, but please come back because—”
“You bet I will.”
“All right, Mr. Bogen. I’ll tell Mr. Nissem if he calls or comes in that you’ll be right back.”
And if he was sensitive to liars, she’d get herself fired.
“Do that, Miss Blau. Tell him positively to wait for me.”
“I will, Mr. Bogen.”
I hurried back to my office and grabbed Miss Eckveldt.
“Listen,” I said quickly. “Give me a wire on the shipping room telephone. And if anybody calls up and asks for me, especially a guy named Nissem, I’m not in, understand? I’m positively not in to Mr. Nissem. Got that?”
She looked puzzled.
“Yes, but—?”
“I’ll call you up at home tonight and tell you all about it when we both have more time,” I said sarcastically. “Right now just remember that. I’m not in to Mr. Nissem. Understand?”
She dropped the corners of her mouth until they hung down like a mandarin’s mustache. “All right, Mr. Bogen.”
“Now give me a wire in the back,” I said, and hurried out.
Eric was busy with his newspapers again when I came into the shipping room. But I didn’t have time to bawl him out. If he was grooming himself for a job as a radio news commentator, that was his lookout.
“Gimme the phone,” I snapped.
He jumped off the table quickly and shoved the phone at me. He didn’t have to be so scared, either. Starting tomorrow he’d only have to worry about being caught by Yazdabian.
“Mr. Bogen,” he began apologetically, “I was just—”
“Shut up!” I dialed the Montevideo. “Hello, Charlie?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
I was going out of his life without the son of a bitch’s ever having learned to recognize my voice.
“This is Mr. Bogen. Connect me with Miss Mills.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bogen. Miss Mills is not in.”
“What?”
“She just went out a few—”
What the hell was going on here, anyway?
“You must be cockeyed,” I snapped. “Ring her for me.”
“All right, Mr. Bogen. But I saw her—”
If he did, it was the first time.
“You got your eyes in your feet. Ring her for me.”
There was a long pause and then he came back on the wire.
“Sorry, Mr. Bogen, it’s like I told you. She’s not in.”
“Well, what the—?” I stopped, and my hand froze to the receiver. Out in the office, arguing with Miss Eckveldt, I could hear Lenny Nissem’s voice.
“Never mind!” he was bellowing angrily. “Don’t give me any of that brush-off stuff! I’m gonna look for that little four-flushing bastard till I find him! And lemme tell you something, sister. When I get him, I’m gonna—!”
I dropped the phone and grabbed Eric.
“Listen,” I rattled quickly. “If that guy comes in here you don’t know where I am, you haven’t seen me, you don’t know when I’m coming back, I’m not in, you don’t know anything. Understand? I’m not in. You don’t know where or when I’m—”
He looked at me wildly and shook his head with his mouth open.
“Yeah, sure, all right, I—”
I released him and hopped across the floor to the metal partition between the toilet and the freight elevator. Just as I disappeared behind it, I heard Nissem’s loud voice coming through into the shipping room. Behind the partition was a big rubbish can and a pile of old cardboard boxes. I edged in between them and pulled a couple of the cartons around me quietly. There were several holes in the partition near the edges, for nuts and bolts. I put my eye to one of them and looked out on Nissem. His hat was pulled down low and his fat face looked like murder as it worked viciously around the cigar.
“Where’s that son of a bitch Bogen?” He looked all around the room. “Lemme just get my hands on that rotten bastard, I’ll tear his heart out! Come on, where is he?”
Eric shook his head quickly.
“I—I don’t know. He went out and he—he didn’t say where. I don’t know—”
Nissem roamed across the floor with one hand in his coat pocket. I held my breath. I tried to remember where I’d left my hat. Then I felt the sweat on my forehead under the sweatband. I was wearing it.
“The lousy reputation that dirty bastard’s got, I shoulda known betterna trust him. A God damn crook, that’s all he is! I get my hands on him, I’ll shoot him like a dog. Before the cops get him, I’ll murder the louse.” He swung on Eric again. “Where the hell is he?”
Eric’s head looked like a flag in a slow breeze.
“I—I don’t know.”
Nissem swung over to the table with the returns on it. He began to shove them around.
“Ah-hah!” he yelled suddenly. He reached out and grabbed Eric. “You don’t know anything about it, eh? The whole thing, you don’t know from nothing, hah? Well, listen to me, young fellah, you’re—!”
Eric’s lips started to quiver. He clutched at Nissem’s hands where they were holding him by the throat.
“I don’t know anything about it!” he cried. “Honest, I don’t know what—!”
Nissem dragged him over to the shipping table and shoved his nose down among the returns.
“You don’t know anything about it? All of a sudden you got a weak memory? You start shittin’ me kid, you’re gone to jail together with that louse boss of yours. You’re the shipping clerk here, no? You’re the one kept changing the labels on these same God damn returns, sending them out over and over again, didn’t you? Sending them out over and over to good accounts on fake orders? So’s your boss could come and hock the fake charges and shipping receipts by me for heavy dough? You don’t know anything about it, eh?” He flung Eric loose against the table. “Well, we’ll see what you got to say to the district attorney about that. Just a buncha cheap crooks, that’s all, the whole bunch. A buncha crooks, like that, making a monkey outa me, taking me for closea thirty thousand—” He leveled his finger at Eric. When he spoke the spit came shooting out in a fine spray around the cigar and the words. “I catch that stinking bullshit artist boss of yours, boy, I’m gonna shoot him on the spot! Like a dog I’m gonna shoot him. Then I’ll see the district attorney puts him away for twenty years. The bastard. I catch him, I’m gonna take the—”
Just as Eric found his voice, and my heart was dropping down deep for fear of what he would say, Nissem turned on his heel.
“I didn’t—” Eric began weakly.
Nissem stopped and glared at him.
“Phyew!” he snarled. He spat viciously on the floor of the shipping room. “The whole place stinks! Crooks, that’s what you are! The whole bunch. That fancy whoremaster boss of yours, with the smart words and his high class clothes, him I’m gonna shoot like a dog! Like a common ordinary dog! I’ll send you all up for life! Phyew!” He spat again and stalked out.
I let my breath out slowly and sagged against the rubbish can. My face was wet with perspiration. My collar was damp. I took off my hat and wiped the sweatband. Then I noticed that I was still wearing my topcoat, too. I waited until I couldn’t hear Nissem any more. Then I added a minute or so for a safety margin. Finally, I came out from behind the partition. Eric was leaning against the shipping table, looking at the returns, his lips quivering.
“Mr. Bogen” he cried desperately. “I didn’t have nothing to do with—!”
I pulled my fist back.
“Aah, shut up, you little fag!” I snarled. “A cheap
bastard comes in here and talks loud to you, right away you start pissing in your pants?”
He clutched my arm savagely.
“Mr. Bogen!” he cried. “I didn’t have anything to—! Tell him I didn’t know—! Mr. Bogen, I didn’t know what you—!”
I shoved my palm out hard, straight from the shoulder. It caught him in the face. His head snapped back and he fell against the shipping table.
“He’da been here another minute, you’da told him where I was, wouldn’t you, you little bastard? Go on, beat it, before I—!”
He grabbed at me again. This time he was crying.
“Mr. Bogen, please! I didn’t know what I was doing! All I did, I just did what you told me! Tell him I didn’t know what—”
I threw his hand off. When he came at me again I kicked out blindly. He gasped and went down, holding his groin.
“That’s so’s next time you should know enough to keep your trap shut,” I snarled. “You open up to anybody about this, I’ll come back and kick you so hard, you won’t talk again for good, you hear?”
He lay there, hugging his belly with both arms and writhing. I walked out into the office quickly. Miss Eckveldt was sitting with her hands in her lap, staring at the door in fright.
“Mr. Bogen! What—?”
I’d give her a what in a minute. If she didn’t button her lip and do what I told her, she’d get what Eric got.
“Shut up and don’t ask questions,” I snapped. “Get me my apartment at the Montevideo.”
Her slightly wrinkled face twitched with terror.
“But—?”
“You getting me that number?” I yelled. “Don’t you hear English any more? I told you to—!”
I stopped and looked toward the door quickly. I was making too much noise. Maybe Nissem was still out in the hall. Maybe—
“Yes, Mr. Bogen.”
She started to dial the number.
“Never mind that call,” I said in a lower voice. “The hell with it.”
She pulled out the plug. The switchboard began to buzz as I reached for the door. She plugged in to answer it.
“Just a moment,” she said into the mouthpiece. She turned to me. The look of terror on her face sobered me a little. I must have looked like a wild man. “A Mrs. Herman on the phone,” she said, hesitating. “She says—”
That Herman family certainly knew how to pick the right times for showing how popular I was with them.
“I’m not in.” I made an effort to bring my voice down to a normal level. I straightened my coat and fixed” the hat on my head. “I’m not in to anybody. I’m not coming ba—I’ll be back later.”
I hurried out into the hall and pushed the button for the elevator. The cheap little rats I had around me, what chance did I have to—? I looked sharply at the elevator door. Nissem might be coming back. I ran around to the stairway, went down two flights of stairs, and came out on the seventh floor. There I walked to the elevator button and pushed it more calmly.
28.
OUT IN THE STREET I turned up my coat collar and pulled my hat low over my eyes. I hurried to a drug store on Eighth Avenue. With Lenny Nissem running around loose and talking big, Seventh Avenue was suddenly an unappetizing place. I went into a phone booth and called the Montevideo. Mr. Nissem’s temper was a little disturbing, but not too much. As soon as I got onto the boat with Martha and I began to breathe that highly publicized sea air, my health would improve.
“Hello, Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen. Miss Mills come back yet?”
“No, sir. She didn’t—”
That pot was worse than a policeman. She was never around when you wanted her.
“All right, Charlie. But listen. She comes in, you tell her I called and she should wait for me. Tell her I’m coming up there.”
“All right, Mr. Bogen.”
“Don’t forget, now, Charlie. This is important.”
“I won’t forget, Mr. Bogen.”
“So long, then. But tell her, remember. Tell her I’m on my way up.”
“I’ll tell her.”
I took a cab to the Montevideo. As it turned the corner from Central Park West into Seventy-second Street, I saw a tall, heavy-set man pacing around nervously under the marquee. There was something about the way he held his right hand in his coat pocket and the way he was chewing savagely on his cigar that made me duck down quickly below the level of the window.
“Driver! Hey! Keep going!” He turned and looked down at me on the rear seat with a puzzled frown.
“You say something, buddy?”
I waved my hand sharply to show that I wanted him to keep the cab moving.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop here! Keep on going! I want you to—”
“Oh.” He understood and kept the cab moving. As we passed the marquee, Nissem looked up quickly. But I was out of sight and he turned around to continue his pacing. “Where to now?” the driver asked.
“Turn right on Columbus. Stop next the first drugstore you see.”
When I got out, he put his hand on the meter.
“Wait for you?”
I looked up and down the block.
“Yeah, wait for me.”
I was too close to Nissem to do any walking in that neighborhood. And if I had to do any moving, I wanted to be able to do it fast.
“Right, bud.”
I went, into a phone booth and called the Montevideo again.
“Charlie. This is Mr. Bogen. What about Miss Mills? She in? She call?”
“No, sir. She—”
“Oh,” I said slowly. “Well—”
Suddenly this was beginning to look like something more than a last-minute shopping trip for a bottle of nail polish.
“Mr. Bogen?” His voice was suddenly bright with concern. “Is there anything I can—?”
Yeah, he could go scratch his ass with a broken bottle.
“Aah, shut up!”
I hung up and hurried out to the cab.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“You know the Cooke-Martin Travel Agency? Where it is?”
He swung his chin across, his shoulder to look at me.
“The big one, there, on. Broadway? Between Forty-third and—?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
He dipped down to the gear shift as he spoke.
“Sure I know where that is. Why, that’s the biggest—”
I didn’t want a lecture. I wanted transportation.
“Yeah, well, see you can get me there quick. I’m in a hurry.”
“Okay, chief.”
Yeah, chief. To taxi drivers I was chief.
“Wait for me.” I got out of the cab in front of the travel agency. “I won’t be long.”
“Okay,” he said, but he looked at the meter doubtfully.
“Listen,” I snapped, “if you’re scared about the fare, here, the hell with it. You can have it now. I’ll get me another cab when I—”
I dug down, into my pocket for money. From some people I had to take it. But not from taxi drivers.
“Who, me scared?” He grinned quickly and waved his hand. “Say, listen, Mister, one thing about me. I can tell a fare that’s good for it and I can tell a fare that ain’t. To me, Mister, you look like—”
Like a jerk who’d let a tomato with a turned-up nose and an upholstered front make a chump out of him, but who was still smart enough to put his foot down before it was too late.
“Then just wait for me and don’t worry so much. You worry, you lose your hair.”
“Okay, boss.”
I hurried into the agency and looked around for Paul Zlotkin. He wasn’t at his desk. I went up to the switchboard operator.
“Mr. Zlotkin around, Miss? Paul Zlotkin?”
She craned across the switchboard toward the line of desks.
“Isn’t he at his desk?”
“If he were at his desk, would I be—?” I stopped and shook my head. “No, Miss, he’s not at his desk.”
At my age I had to start learning self-control with switchboard operators!
“Well, just a moment, please. I’ll ring upstairs. Who shall I say is—?”
“Mr. Bogen. Mr. Harry Bogen.”
She plugged in and tried several places. Finally, she reached him.
“Mr. Zlotkin? Oh, Mr. Zlotkin. This is Miss Curtis, switchboard downstairs? There’s a Mr. Bogen to see you? All right, Mr. Zlotkin, I’ll tell him.” She pulled out the plug and turned to me. “He’ll be down in a minute. He said would you please take a seat at his desk? He’ll be right with you.”
“Thanks.”
I picked out the desk with the brass plate that said “Paul Zlotkin” and sat down beside it. A couple of minutes later he came quickly across the marble floor, his smile fixed nicely above the mustache and his hand outstretched.
“Hello, Mr. Bogen! Say, I—!”
“Hello, Zlotkin. Listen, I want you to—”
But he started a sentence and he was going to finish it.
“Say, I never expected to see you today!” he said cheerfully. I hadn’t expected to see him, either. “I thought you’d be on that boat already by this time, waiting for her to pull out and—?”
That’s what I was doing, pulling out.
“Well, there’s been a change in my plans, Zlotkin. Coupla business conferences came up and I find I can’t sail today at midnight like I planned. What I was wondering, I was wondering what’s the chances canceling my reservations for tonight and postponing them for, well say the next sailing, if that’s not too soon? Or maybe the one after that? You know what I mean?”
He scowled and went digging for something in his mustache with two fingers.
“Why, sure, Bogen, I guess if that’s what you want. Why I guess we can—”
“All right, then. Do that for me, Zlotkin, will you? I’ll call you up later in the day and tell you what sailing I want you to—”
“But definitely you want me to cancel your reservations for tonight, right?”
“Right.”
He held out his hand.
“All right, Mr. Bogen. Let me have the tickets and I’ll—”
“Oh, hell, Zlotkin. I haven’t got them with me. I left them in—”
He smiled delicately and tipped his head to one side.
What's in It for Me? Page 24
