The Hawk nodded vigorously. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I say to him at one point dat he could save himself like a lotta scratch if he bought wholesale. So whad does he tell me? He tells me, ‘No! Wholesale is no good and a store sale is no good.’ Like dere not for him. Why? Because he found out dat whenever he bought someting wholesale or if he got like a bargain somewhere, den de effect didn las long. He had to pay top dollar to get de maximum effect. Also, de more wertless an item is, de better de effect. Like a two-hunnert-dollar piece of decorative glass which stands an does nutting is like wert more den a five-hundred-dollar coat.”
“Incredible . . . incredible,” Big Moishie said, shaking his head.
The Hawk gestured with his hands as though reluctantly having to agree with his partner.
“Anyway, so I go wid de kid to where he’s running. We come ta Walton’s Art Gallery. On de way he picks up a nice speeding ticket. We go inta de gallry. He’s running ta get a special litagraph which he saw dere like de day before. So, anyway, we go inside. He’s running. I’m walking. Right away he rushes to de manager. He’s like shaking, he’s so nervous. ‘Where’s de picture?’ he asks him. He says, ‘I’m jus now showing it to Mrs. Jerkoff.’ De kid goes like apeshit. He runs over ta dis liddle ole lady dats looking at de picture what he wants. ‘I’m buying dat picture, lady,’ he tells her. She says, ‘I wanna buy it.’ She’s a liddle ole dame, maybe seventy years old. He says, ‘I saw it de udder day an it’s mine.’ She says, ‘I saw it first an it’s mine.’
“Now dis perticler picture isn wert a piece a shit but dey boat wan it like it’s gold. It sells fer a hundred an eighty-five an it’s not wert a double sawbuck. But dey wan it. So dey argue back an fort, back an fort. ‘I’m buying it!’ ‘No, I’m buying it!’ ‘No, I’m buying it!’ Back an fort, back an fort. Meanwhile, de owner is watching wid a big smile on his face, like he jus farted in a crowded subway. Finely he tells dem, ‘Look, why don’t you bid fer it.’ Dey boat right away agree. De kid puts in a bid of two bills. She says two an a half. He goes ta tree. She comes back wid tree twenny-five. De kid doesn fuck aroun. Right away he goes ta four bills. De ole dame is starting ta fold. She tinks fer a minute an den makes a counter of four twenny-five. He goes ta four an a half. De ole dame folds. She trows a few anti-Semitic insults an fucks off. De kid peels off four an a half yards, dey wrap de picture which I lug out fer him because he’s so excited he can hardly stand up, an we fuck off.”
Big Moishie dragged on his cigar and stared out across the office, shaking his head slowly and deliberately. “He’s a strange kid,” he said, exhaling a thin stream of cigar smoke.
“Yeah, he’s a strange kid, Moishie, but he’s like a nice kid. Very nice manners. Polite. You know whad I mean?”
Big Moishie nodded. “So how did you leave it?”
“I left it like . . . open,” the Hawk replied.
“So then, what do you intend to do?”
The Hawk shrugged. “I dunno.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I dunno. . . . Like . . . wid reference to what we talked about yesterday, maybe I . . . Ah! I dunno. Like I jus don have de heart ta pressure dis kid. It bodders me ta tell you but like I feel sorry fer him.”
Big Moishie nodded again. “Look, Solly, I don’t have to tell you that I don’t like this Hankleman. I mean, I can’t stand his guts. You know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So if you want to call this deal off, it’s okay with me. We can tell Hankleman that we don’t want his business and let him go fuck himself.”
The Hawk shrugged.
“What? What is it?”
“Ah, I dunno . . .” the Hawk replied, pursing his lips.
“What?” Big Moishie asked again.
“Like I had de idea ta make one last collection,” the Hawk said.
“Yeah, so?”
“So nutting.”
“What d’you mean, so nothing? What is it?”
“It’s nutting. I told you. I feel sorry for dis Kerner kid, especially when I tink what a putz dis Hankleman is. . . . D’ya know dat after he came here an agreed to our conditions about de job, he went right away ta see Kerner an told em dat I was coming ta put em in de hospital?”
“A lousy mooch!” Big Moishie exploded, slamming a huge fist down on the desk top. “Kerner told you that?”
“Yeah.”
“A fucking mooch!” Moishie muttered. “I told you he couldn’t be trusted, eh?”
“You did.”
“I told you! I smelled that mooch out the minute I laid eyes on him. He’s a sniffer,” Moishie Mandelberg said.
“You were right as usual,” the Hawk replied.
“I’d like to shaft that prick. I’d like to shaft him good.”
“I was tinking . . .” Solly began, and then stopped.
“What?”
“I was tinking dat maybe . . . you know . . . wid reference to what we discussed yesterday . . . maybe we should let de kid off de hook for our end. Dat means he only has ta come up wid about eight gees for Hankleman. It’s crazy, I know!” The Hawk raised a hand as though to protest in advance against an imminent criticism from his partner; but Big Moishie said nothing. “I wanted ta make one last collection, but now I don give a shit. I’d radder give dis kid a break. I tink he could use a break de same way like I needed one when I was pissing away my life at de track. . . . You remember, Moishie?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Dis kid’s not a stiff. He’s like legit. I can tell. I know it. Can you imagine, he tells me, ‘Hit me already. I gotta get outa here an make a buy.’”
“Look, Solly, you want to let him off for our end, it’s all right with me. I’m getting sick and tired of that Hankleman. Would you believe that he called the office three times since this morning to find out if you collected yet. Do you believe it?”
The Hawk shook his head. “I wish he owed somebody. I would pay dem ta let me collect on him.”
“If he owed, I would take over the collection,” Big Moishie said.
The Hawk chuckled. “So, it’s okay wid you den?”
“It’s fine with me.”
“Okay, I’ll call de kid an tell em what we decided. We’re doing someting good here, Moishie. We’re doing someting very good.”
Big Moishie nodded whimsically.
“You’ll see. He’ll come up wid Hankleman’s end. He’ll come troo.”
Solly reached for the phone and dialed Artie Kerner’s number.
Chapter Eighteen
“Well, Mr. Kerner, to tell you the truth, I’m very surprised that the goon believed you,” Dr. Lehman said.
“He’s not a goon,” Kerner replied quickly.
“Well, you call him what you want but I’m still surprised.”
“I was surprised too.”
“Yes, I’m sure you were,” the doctor said. “It’s possible that you might have met a decent person, eh, Kerner?”
“Yes, he’s a nice man.”
“And that makes you feel better?”
“Yes. He could have bashed my face in, which was what I expected him to do. But he didn’t. He really believed me.”
“Maybe he was just conning you, Mr. Kerner. Maybe he showed you some sympathy, figuring it would make you more inclined to sell some of your possessions and pay him the money you owe.”
“No,” Kerner said emphatically. “I explained my situation to him. He knows that if I sell anything I immediately have to go out and buy three times as much. He understood that very well.”
“Of course he understands that. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t conning you.”
“There’s no reason for him to con me when he could just as easily put me in the hospital.”
“Putting you in the hospital wouldn’t get him his money, would it?” Dr. Lehman said with a smirk.
“He’s not a con man!” Kerner said angrily. “He came across as an exceptionally nice person to me.”
“Okay.
Relax, Mr. Kerner. Don’t get excited. You seem to have some strange attraction for this man but don’t let it get out of control. Another outburst like that and I may have to calm you down with a good rainstorm,” Dr. Lehman said, pointing at the control panel on his desk.
“Look, I don’t have any strange attraction, as you put it, for this Mr. Weisskopf. I just think he’s a nice man.”
“Well, I just think you may be trusting him a bit too much. Don’t misunderstand me; I believe in trusting, but one has to use discretion. In any case, I’m glad it made you feel better . . . however . . . you don’t really look better. In fact, you seem somewhat depressed . . . and you’re holding your nuts again.”
“I’m not!” Kerner half-shouted, quickly shifting his hands so that they rested on his knees.
“Kerner, Kerner,” the doctor sighed. “I told you in our last session that I know a ball-holder when I see one.”
Kerner shrugged, lowered his head slightly, and said nothing.
“So what is it, Mr. Kerner?”
Kerner looked up for a moment and then quickly lowered his head again.
“Kerner, I’m going to count to five and if you don’t start talking by then, you get the wind and the rain; and in case you’re wondering, I can also make snow.”
“I’m going to talk. I’m just finding it difficult again.”
“Look, I’m not interested in your problems, Kerner. I just want to know what’s on your mind. Now, I’m going to start counting.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going to talk.”
“So talk.”
“Okay. Don’t rush me.”
“Talk!” Dr. Lehman yelled, springing up from his seat.
“Okay, okay. I’m talking.”
Dr. Lehman slammed a hand against his forehead.
“Here, look, I’m starting right now,” Kerner said. “Here I go. Okay. Let’s see. . . . Okay. It has to do with something that happened after I left here yesterday. I felt a lot better after that session. I felt hopeful, especially because I realized the connection between the start of my craziness and the fact that Estelle Bercowitz . . . left me. Then also, you asked me, if you recall, at the end of the session, how my buying sickness had affected my sex life and I said that I hadn’t given it much thought. Do you remember that, Doctor?”
“No,” Dr. Lehman replied.
“But you asked me that question just yesterday.”
“So I forgot; but I’ll take your word for it. Now go on,” Dr. Lehman said, leaping down from his seat which had been rising slowly for the last minute or so.
“Well, like I said, after the session ended I felt better; you know . . . hopeful. I really believed that you were going to help me beat this thing.” Kerner paused for a moment as he watched Dr. Lehman move across the room towards the little hut and enter it.
“Keep talking, Mr. Kerner. I’m listening,” he said from inside.
Kerner turned to face the hut. He felt a bit foolish now talking to someone he couldn’t see.
“Just talk to the walls,” Dr. Lehman chortled from inside.
“Fuck you,” Kerner muttered under his breath.
“Did you say something, Kerner?”
“I was just clearing my throat,” Kerner replied quickly.
“Is it all clear now?”
“Yes.”
“So continue, please.”
Kerner could hear shuffling sounds coming from inside the hut.
“Well, when I left here, like I said, I felt better, and as I was on my way down to Walton’s Art Gallery . . .”
“To where?”
“To Walton’s Art Gallery.”
“What were you going there for?”
“To buy something.”
“I thought you said you felt better.”
“Yes, I did, but not that much better.”
“All right, so you were on your way to Walton’s.”
“Yes. And while I was running along the street . . .”
“Running! Why were you running?”
“To get there before they closed.”
“I see. All right, go on.”
“While I was running, I began to think about what you had asked me at the end of that session—you know, about how my buying habit affected my sex life—and I realized that it had affected it very much. I had answered you, if you recall, that I hadn’t given very much thought to sex lately, but while I was on my way to Walton’s, it hit me very clearly that I had been in a kind of daze regarding sex since the start of my buying addiction. As soon as I realized this, I started to feel a bit . . . uh . . . horny.”
Kerner paused, waiting for some comment from Dr. Lehman. The shuffling noises continued inside the hut.
“Don’t stop, Mr. Kerner,” the doctor said, still hidden from view. “I’m listening.”
“Well, anyway, after I had made my buy, I decided to find someone to share this suddenly revived feeling with.”
“You mean someone to take it out on.”
“Well, whatever,” Kerner replied in an aggravated tone.
Suddenly Kerner went rigid in his seat as Dr. Lehman came out of the hut wearing a red Speedo swim suit.
“Keep talking, Mr. Kerner. I’m just going to take a little dip in my pond to cool off.”
The doctor approached the edge of the pond and suddenly flung himself racing style into the water. Kerner watched dumbfounded as the psychiatrist did a fast butterfly across the pond. Dr. Lehman stood up, wiped the water from his face and pulled himself up into a sitting position on the stone rim of the pool.
“It’s deeper than you thought, eh?” he asked.
Kerner nodded, gape mouthed.
“Next year I may rent the apartment directly below so I can make the pool about ten or twelve feet deeper. Then I’ll be able to set up a diving board and I’ll also be able to do some scuba diving. Pretty good, eh?”
Kerner nodded dazedly.
“Anyways, keep talking, Mr. Kerner.”
Kerner tried to recollect where he had left off, feeling a sudden dissociative flash such as had occurred on his first visit to the doctor’s office.
“So I picked up a girl.”
“A girl?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, like ten or eleven years old?”
“Of course not! I’m not a pervert!” Kerner said angrily.
“That’s a matter of opinion; but in any case, what I meant was, be specific when you talk. You meant to say, you picked up a woman, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Kerner replied. “She was probably about thirty. . . . So she came back to my . . .”
“Hold it! Hold it!”
Kerner looked up at the doctor who was now jogging around the pond.
“How exactly did you pick her up? What was your technique?”
“I don’t see the importance of that.”
“It’s not important. I’m just curious.”
“Well, I used my standard method,” Kerner replied.
“Yes?” Dr. Lehman said, now running in place next to the hut.
“I just walked up to her and asked her if she felt like fucking.”
The doctor stopped running. “And she said yes?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Kerner, you make me sick,” the doctor said, disappearing into the little hut.
“Look, it’s a good technique. It saves a lot of talk and I’ve had a lot of success with it.”
“Okay, so you took her home. Get to the good part already,” the doctor said angrily.
“Well, we were in the bed and . . .”
“What did she look like?”
“Very nice.”
“I don’t mean very nice. I mean, give me some details.”
“Like what?”
“You know what I mean,” the doctor shouted from inside the hut.
“Well, she had a big pair of tits.”
“Yes?”
“And a beautiful ass.”
“Yes?”
“And a beautiful face.”
“All right, continue.”
“Well, anyway . . .” Kerner began, and then hesitated.
“Go on.”
“This is very hard for me,” Kerner replied.
“It will be even harder if a thunderstorm should descend on you. I have a set of controls in here as well, Mr. Kerner.”
“Okay. I couldn’t get it up!” Kerner shouted.
“Aha!” the doctor yelled, bursting out of the hut, naked and clutching a towel. “You see! We’ve come full circle, haven’t we? If you remember, I suggested in our first session that you had a problem getting it up, but you lied and said you didn’t.”
“I didn’t lie,” Kerner protested. “At that time I didn’t have this particular problem,” he said vehemently.
“Well, in any event, you have it now, and it’s just another part of the overall syndrome. Now tell me exactly what happened.”
“Nothing happened. I was completely impotent. The only way I could have gotten it in was to have stuffed it in like a piece of soft putty. It wouldn’t get hard.”
“I can make mine hard in sixty seconds flat,” the doctor said matter-of-factly.
Kerner ignored the remark.
The doctor went back inside the hut. A moment later music began emanating from the various speakers located all about the room. Kerner recognized the song as “Ba Mir Bist du Shane,” sung by the Andrews Sisters.
“Go on with your story, Mr. Kerner,” the doctor called from inside. “What did you do next?”
“Well, finally I told her that I had to go to the bathroom. I went in there and tried to . . . well, you know . . . to fantasize about some particularly erotic situation. I mean, I was terrified. That was the first time in my life that I was completely impotent and what was worse was that the girl was the type I had always found the most stimulating. I racked my brain to try and visualize one girl from all my experiences over the years who had been especially good. I’d had hundreds of girls, but as I tried to picture just one of them in my mind, I found I couldn’t. I couldn’t distinguish one face or one body from another. They were all one huge mass of . . . of flesh.
“Then finally I remembered back to when I was about fourteen or so and. . . . There’s no sense in me telling you the rest, it’s not really important.”
The Last Collection Page 12
