Free I Can Get It for You Wholesale by Jerome Weidman

twice as many soft chairs and sofas, finish it off with a handful of classy-looking paintings on the walls, and if you can tell the difference between it and the Pulvermacher showroom, then you’re a better man than I am. If the money that that room cost couldn’t pay off the national debt, then I’m Mahatma Gandhi. I took a mental snapshot of the whole place and filed it away for future reference. I’d seen showrooms before, but this one walked away with the onionskin medal. I was learning things.
    A short, fat guy came out of a door in the far end of the room and walked toward me like his ass was made of cake and he was afraid to crack the icing. Except for two things he was such a dead ringer for my ex-boss Schmul of Toney Frocks, Inc. that I was getting all set to spit in his eye. But when I saw the glasses he was wearing with the black ribbon that went around his neck, and the white piping that showed up under the edges of his vest, I knew I was in the presence of a big shot himself. To wear those kind of glasses and white piping under your vest you’ve either got to have a lot of nerve or a lot of dough. And this guy looked like he never even crossed the street against the lights.
    I walked across the showroom to meet him.
    “Mr. Pulvermacher?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “My name is Bogen.”
    “The girl told me.” Ah, well, that eliminated her automatically. I don’t like dames that talk. “What can I do for you?”
    I decided to be a wise guy. Within limits, of course.
    “I’m afraid it’s the other way around, Mr. Pulvermacher,” I said, giving him the old toothpaste grin. Joe Personality. You know. “I’m afraid I’m going to be the one that’s going to do something for you .”
    What did I mean, I was afraid? Well, that’s being a wise guy within limits, isn’t it? So all right.
    “So?” he said.
    Yeah, so , fat boy!
    “Shall we go some place where we can talk?” I said.
    He waved his hands around the room.
    “What’s the matter with here?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “I only thought it would be better if we could go some place where we wouldn’t be interrupted by buyers coming in and—”
    “Don’t worry about buyers,” he said with a grin that must have hurt him, judging from the way it looked. “Since that damn strike began we haven’t been able to move a dress out of the place. Cancellations we’re getting, not orders. Don’t worry about being interrupted by buyers. I haven’t seen one in three days.”
    I’ll bet the buyers weren’t complaining.
    “Well, that’s just what I’m here to talk to you about,” I said.
    “Then you better talk quick, young man,” he said, “because things can’t keep up like this for long. If we don’t get our dresses moved in another couple of days we’ll have to meet the demands of the strikers, that’s all. We can’t afford to have things go on like this.”
    Jesus Christ and the gas company! It looked like I’d just come in under the wire.
    “Oh, you don’t want to do that, do you, Mr. Pulvermacher?”
    He shrugged.
    “Of course we don’t. But what else can we do? We can’t get even with them until the slack season sets in. Right now, we’ve got to move our dresses. We’ve got to fill our orders.”
    “Sure, but you’d rather do it without giving in to the strikers, wouldn’t you? You don’t want them to be able to say they won the strike, do you? And besides, I hear they’re making some pretty high demands in wages and hours and things like that. You don’t want to give in on all that, do you?”
    “What are you doing, cracking jokes, Mr. Bogen?” Look, he remembered my name! “Of course we don’t want to give in to them. But what can we do?”
    “I’ll tell you what to do, Mr. Pulvermacher.” The hell with him. From now on I was going to leave it out. Why couldn’t he get himself a handle that you didn’t have to take a running start for? “That’s what I came up to see you about. I’ve got a way to get your