Seventh Avenue by Norman Bogner Page B

can’t tell me stories. I invented the game. How do you think I married my wife? How do you think I became an . . .”
    “Unsuccessful jobber? First you had to be an unsuccessful shipping clerk.”
    “Is he always a million laughs? My dear boy, I love you. I can’t help not loving you because I can see in your heart that you’re a crook of the first order. And because we’re both crooks, we’re gonna make it. Now first of all, put away the phony bankroll. What’ve you got under the fifty, toilet paper?”
    “No, singles.” Jay smiled, and for the first time felt genuinely at ease.
    “I’ll give you a hundred dollars’ credit, and you pay me promptly on the tenth or I put it out for collection, capisce?”
    “Make it two hundred,” Jay insisted.
    “Doesn’t this boy know when he’s on to a good thing, my dear?”
    “Leave Rhoda out of it. I’ll split the difference with you - a hundred and fifty.”
    “Split the difference? Now he’s doing me favors. People go bankrupt from such favors. A hundred and a quarter and that’s it.”
    “We’ll get rich together,” Jay countered.
    “I can’t live on promises. Take a hundred and thirty-five in assorted sizes, and colors.”
    “Black and navy only. And we want sixteens to forty-fours.”
    “What’s wrong with the colors?”
    “Nothing, except that we can’t sell them. And we’ll buy only winter goods.”
    “It’s a heat wave. What’s the matter with you? We have an Indian summer that lasts till the end of October every year.”
    “It’ll turn cold. I’m getting married, so we’re bound to have snow.”
    “Rhoda, my child, tell him about the weather man.”
    “He’s right, Jay.”
    “I’m taking the risk. If I’m right I want first priority on reorders and you’ll get an order for five hundred dollars, provided you guarantee delivery.”
    “I think you ought to listen to me ‘cause you’re going wrong on sizes and colors.”
    “I think you don’t know Borough Park,” Jay said sharply. “The women we deal with buy dresses for three occasions: weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.” He picked at the dresses. “Kelly green, red, powder blue, beige, you can’t wear for more than a season.”
    “Then what about sizes? We don’t sell furniture covers.”
    “A slim flat-chested woman has never been seen in Borough Park. All our customers are double-breasted Mrs. Americas who’ve had a few kids and eat potatoes all year round to prevent colds, and they’ve got plenty of hanging bits. When I go into the corset business, I’ll buy small sizes. But now, sixteen to forty-four. Big sizes you can make smaller, small dresses you can only use as dish rags.”
    “The man knows what he wants.”
    Jay and Rhoda spent the next hour selecting dresses; when they had finished, they had ninety-six dresses that came to one hundred and thirty-eight dollars, which Jay believed they could turn over with a hundred percent profit in two weeks. By this time, Marty himself was persuaded that Jay would be as good as his word.
    “You’re three bucks over the limit,” Marty said as he helped Jay fold the dresses.
    “I’m an inexperienced buyer.”
    “Chop a dress off then.”
    “Chop your head off first, and that’s a fact. I want ninety-six garments, not an odd lot. Remind me to buy you a drink the next time I’m in town.” Jay signed the bill, extended his hand to Marty, and pinched him affectionately on the cheek. “Stick with me and you’ll be wearing a diamond ring on your pipik.”
    “Gotta love him, don’t you? But one word in your ear: the last guy that hung me up, got his head split open. Still in the hospital.”
    On the way down in the elevator, Rhoda turned fearfully to Jay.
    “Think he meant it?”
    “He’s a bullshitter. Likes to talk. But a nice guy.”
    “What if we can’t pay?”
    “No such word as can’t. Won’t maybe, but not can’t. Before I went up there, you didn’t think we’d get dresses. Now that we’ve got