Читать книгу Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures - Glass Montague - Страница 8

Table of Contents

"Things goes pretty smooth for us lately, Mawruss," Abe Potash remarked, shortly after M. Garfunkel's failure. "I guess we are due for a schlag somewheres, ain't it?"

"Always you got to kick," Morris cried. "If you would only listen to what I got to say oncet in a while, Abe, things would always go smooth."

Abe emitted a raucous laugh.

"Sure, I know," he said, "like this here tenement house proposition you was talking to me about, Mawruss. You ain't content we should have our troubles in the cloak and suit business, Mawruss, you got to go outside yet and find 'em. You got to go into the real estate business too."

"Real-estaters ain't got no such trouble like we got it, Abe," Morris retorted. "There ain't no seasons in real estate, Abe. A tenement house this year is like a tenement house last year, Abe, also the year before. They ain't wearing stripes in tenement houses one year, Abe, and solid colors the next. All you do when you got a tenement house, Abe, is to go round and collect the rents, and when you got a customer for it you don't have to draw no report on him. Spot cash, he pays it, Abe, or else you get a mortgage as security."

"You talk like Scheuer Blumenkrohn, Mawruss, when he comes round here last year and wants to swap it two lots in Ozone Grove, Long Island, for a couple of hundred misses' reefers," Abe replied. "When I speculate, Mawruss, I take a hand at auction pinochle."

"This ain't no speculation, Abe," said Morris. "This is an investment. I seen the house, Abe, six stories and basement stores, and you couldn't get another tenant into it with a shoehorn. It brings in a fine income, Abe."

"Well, if that's the case, Mawruss," Abe rejoined, "why does Harris Rabin want to sell it? Houses ain't like cloaks and suits, Mawruss, you admit it yourself. We sell goods because we don't get no income by keepin' 'em. If we have our store full with cloaks, Mawruss, and they brought in a good income while they was in here, Mawruss, I wouldn't want to sell 'em, Mawruss; I'd want to keep 'em."

"Sure," Morris replied. "But if the income was only four hundred and fifty dollars a month, and next month you got a daughter what was getting married to Alec Goldwasser, drummer for Klinger & Klein, and you got to give Alec a couple of thousand dollars with her, but you don't have no ready cash, then, Abe, you'd sell them cloaks, and so that's why Harris Rabin wants to sell the house."

"I want to tell you something, Mawruss," Abe replied. "Harris Rabin could sell a phonograft to a deef-and-dummy. He could sell moving pictures to a home for the blind, Mawruss. He could also sell anything he wanted to anybody, Mawruss, for you know as well as I do, Mawruss, Harris Rabin is a first-class, A-number-one salesman. And so, if he wants to sell his house so cheap there's lots of real-estaters what know a bargain in houses when they see it. We don't, Mawruss. We ain't real-estaters. We're in the cloak and suit business, and why should Harris Rabin be looking for us to buy his house?"

"He ain't looking for us, Abe," Morris went on. "That's just the point. I was by Harris Rabin's house last night, and I seen no less than three real-estaters there. They all want that house, Abe, and if they want it, why shouldn't we? Ike Magnus makes Harris an offer of forty-eight thousand five hundred while I was sitting there already, but Harris wants forty-nine for it. I bet yer, Abe, we could get it for forty-eight seven-fifty—three thousand cash above the mortgages."

"I suppose, Mawruss, you got three thousand lying loose around your pants' pocket. What?"

"Three thousand to a firm like us is nothing, Abe. I bet yer I could go in and see Feder of the Kosciusko Bank and get it for the asking. We ain't so poor, Abe, but what we can buy a bargain when we see it."

Abe shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, Mawruss, if I got to hear about Harris Rabin's house for the rest of my life, all right. I'm agreeable, Mawruss; only, don't ask me to go to no lawyers' offices nor nothing, Mawruss. There's enough to do in the store, Mawruss, without both of us loafing around lawyers' offices."

A more grudging acquiescence than this would have satisfied Morris, and, without pausing for a cigar, he put on his hat and made straight for Harris Rabin's place of business. The Equinox Clothing Company of which Harris Rabin was president, board of directors and sole stockholder, occupied the third loft of a building on Walker Street. There was no elevator, and as Morris walked upstairs he encountered Ike Magnus at the first landing.

"Hallo, Mawruss!" Ike cried. "Are you buying clothing now? I thought you was in the cloak and suit business."

"Whatever business I'm in, Ike," Morris replied, "I'm in my own business, Ike; and what is somebody else's business ain't my business, Ike. That's the way I feel about it."

He plodded slowly up the next flight, and there stood Samuel Michaelson, another real-estate operator.

"Ah, Mr. Perlmutter!" Samuel exclaimed. "You get around to see the clothing trade once in a while, too. Ain't it?"

"I get around to see all sorts of trade, Mr. Michaelson," Morris rejoined. "I got to get around and hustle to make a living, Mr. Michaelson, because, Mr. Michaelson, I can't make no living by loafing around street corners and buildings, Mr. Michaelson."

"Don't mention it," said Mr. Michaelson as Morris started up the last flight. When he entered the Equinox Clothing Company's office the clang of the bell drowned out the last words of Marks Henochstein's sentence. Mr. Henochstein, another member of the real-estate fraternity, was in intimate conference with Harris Rabin.

"I think we got him going," he was saying. "My wife seen Mrs. Perlmutter at a Kaffeeklatsch yesterday, and she told her I made you an offer of forty-eight four-fifty for the house. Last night when he came around to your place I told him the house ain't no bargain for any one what ain't a real-estater, y'understand, and he gets quite mad about it. Also, I watched him when Ike Magnus tells you he would give forty-eight five for it, and he turned pale. If he——"

At this juncture the doorbell rang and Morris entered.

"No, siree, sir," Harris Rabin bawled. "Forty-nine thousand is my figure, and that ain't forty-eight nine ninety-nine neither."

Here he recognized Morris Perlmutter with an elaborate start and extended his hand in greeting.

"Hallo, Mawruss," he said. "Them real-estaters pester the life out of a feller. 'Tain't no use your hanging around here, Henochstein," he called in sterner tones. "When I make up my mind I make up my mind, and that's all there is to it."

Henochstein turned in crestfallen silence and passed slowly out of the room.

"Them sharks ain't satisfied that you're giving away a house, Mawruss," Harris went on. "They want it you should let 'em have coupons and trading stamps with it."

"How much did he offer you?" Morris asked.

"Forty-eight five-fifty," Harris Rabin replied. "That feller's got a nerve like a horse."

"Oh, I don't know," Morris murmured. "Forty-eight five-fifty is a good price for the house, Harris."

"Is it?" Harris cried. "Well, maybe you think so, but you ain't such a griterion."

Morris was visibly offended at so harsh a rejoinder.

"I know I ain't, Harris," he said. "If I was I wouldn't be here, Harris. I come here like a friend, not like one of them—them—fellers what you talk about. If it wasn't that my Minnie is such a friend to your daughter Miriam I shouldn't bother myself; but, knowing Alec Goldwasser as I do, and being a friend of yours always up to now, Harris, I come to you and say I will give you forty-eight six hundred for the house, and that is my last word."

Harris Rabin laughed aloud.

"Jokes you are making it, Mawruss," he said. "A joke is a joke, but when a feller got all the trouble what I got it, as you know, Mawruss, he got a hard time seeing a joke, Mawruss."

"That ain't no joke, Harris," Morris replied. "That's an offer, and I can sit right down now and make a memorandum if you want it, and pay you fifty dollars as a binder."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mawruss," Harris said. "You raised Henochstein fifty dollars, so I'll come down fifty dollars, and that'll be forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty."

He grew suddenly excited and grabbed Morris by the arm.

"Don't let's waste no time about it," he cried. "What's the use of memorandums? We go right away by Henry D. Feldman and fix up the contract."

"Hold on." Morris said with a stare that blended frigidity and surprise in just the right proportions. "I ain't said nothing about forty-eight nine-fifty. What I said was forty-eight six."

"You don't mean that, Mawruss," Harris replied. "You mean forty-eight nine."

Morris saw that the psychological moment had arrived.

"Look-y here, now, Harris," he said. "Forty-eight six from forty-eight nine is three hundred. Ain't it?"

Harris nodded.

"Then," Morris announced, "we'll split the difference and make it forty-eight seven-fifty."

For one thoughtful moment Harris remained silent, and then he clapped his hand into that of Morris.

"Done!" he cried.

Twenty days elapsed, during which Potash & Perlmutter took title to Harris Rabin's house and paid the balance of the purchase price, moieties of which found their way into the pockets of Magnus, Michaelson and Henochstein. At length, the first of the month arrived and Abe and Morris left the store early so that they might collect the rents of their real property.

"I seen the house, Abe, and you seen the house," Morris said as they turned the corner of the crowded East Side street on which their property fronted, "but you can't tell nothing from looking at a property, Abe. When you get the rents, Abe, that's when you find it out that you got a fine property, Abe."

He led the way up the front stoop of the tenement and knocked at the first door on the left-hand side. There was no response.

"They must be out. Ain't it?" Abe suggested.

Morris faced about and knocked on the opposite door, with a similar lack of response.

"I guess they go out to work and lock up their rooms," Morris explained. "We should have came here after seven o'clock."

They walked to the end of the hall and knocked on the door of one of the two rear apartments.

"Come!" said a female voice.

Morris opened the door and they entered.

"We've come for the rent," he said. "Him and me is the new landlords."

The tenant excused herself while she retired to one of the inner rooms and explored her person for the money. Then she handed Morris ten greasy one-dollar bills.

"What's this?" Morris cried. "I thought the rear rooms were fourteen dollars a month. I saw the receipts made out last month."

The tenant grinned fiendishly.

"Sure you did," she replied. "We've been getting all kinds of receipts. Oncet we got a receipt for eighteen dollars, when dere was some vacancies in de house, but one of de syndicate says he'd get some more of dem 'professional' tenants, because it didn't look so good to a feller what comes snooping around for to buy the house, to see such high rents."

"Syndicate?" Abe murmured. "Professional tenants?"

"Sure," the tenant replied. "Dere was four to de syndicate. Magnus was one. Sumpin about a hen was de other, and den dere was dis here Rabin and a guy called Michaelson."

"And what is this about professional tenants?" Morris croaked.

"Oh, dere was twenty-four families in de house, includin' de housekeeper," the tenant replied. "Eighteen of 'em was professionals, and when de syndicate sold youse de house de professionals moved up to a house on Fourt' Street what de syndicate owns."

Abe pulled his hat over his eyes and thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets.

"S'enough, lady," he said; "I heard enough already."

He turned to Morris.

"Yes, Mawruss," he said bitterly. "You're right. There ain't no seasons in real estate nor in suckers neither, Mawruss. You can catch 'em every day in the year, Mawruss. I'm going home, but if you need an express wagon to carry away them rents, Mawruss, there's a livery stable around the corner."

It was at least a week before Abe could bring himself to address his partner, save in the gruffest monosyllables; but an unusual rush of spring customers brought about a reconciliation, and Abe and Morris forgot their real-estate venture in the reception of out-of-town trade. In the conduct of their business Morris devoted himself to manufacturing and shipping the goods, while Abe attended to the selling end. Twice a year Abe made a long trip to the West or South, with shorter trips down East between times, and he never tired of reminding his partner how overworked he, Abe, was.

"I got my hands full, Mawruss," he said, after he had greeted half a dozen Western customers; "I got enough to do here, Mawruss, without running around the country. We ought to do what other houses does, Mawruss. We ought to get a good salesman. We got three thousand dollars to throw away on real estate, Mawruss; why don't we make an investment like Sammet Brothers made it? Why don't we invest in a crackerjack, A-number-one salesman?"