The Return of Marvin Palaver Page 5

  “Jaysis — ”

  I don’t know why he had to refer to that renegade Jew so early in the morning, except maybe he was a little too worried, even for my good. I stayed out of Ruthy’s range but kept watching Abbie very carefully. Ruthy was now tying his tie for him, finally a person with a little sensitivity, while he was sighing at the ceiling.

  “I’ve got to be at the junk yard at seven in the morning.”

  “Junk yard?” said Ruthy like somebody had maybe broken wind. “You didn’t mention that yesterday.”

  “I know. It occurred to me, uh, just this morning.”

  “The affairs of the Fat Man again?”

  “I’m his executor, Ruthy.”

  “Why you? Why not his son?”

  “His son-the-doctor? They don’t even live on the same planet, Ruthy One’s a doctor in Beverly Hills, the other’s a junk dealer on the East River.”

  “So after you’re done rushing around without shoes and missing the count when making coffee, then who gets the money?”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t such a hot business man.”

  I’m a patient man, a forgiving man, but to hear such a thing I got so excited, I almost couldn’t control myself from indignation. Moses coming down from the mountain, he must have felt this way seeing those idiots dancing around and talking nonsense. In the face of that, to do nothing except to tear up a few documents, that’s a pretty kindly way of handling indignation.

  I thought I was controlling myself pretty good too when Ruthy all of a sudden she slaps at the air behind her and then whirls around so fast I barely had time to get behind the wall paper and into the plaster.

  “What?” said Abbie.

  “I don’t know Some kind of heavy sensation — ” and then she kept staring at the wall paper at the far side of the kitchen. “Damn,” she said. “Do you see some kind of a tremendous grease spot on the wall over there?”

  “No,” said Abbie. “What do you mean, something heavy?”

  “Forget it,” and she rubbed the back of her neck where I must have been getting too close in all the excitement. “About the estate,” she went on like a lawyer. “Since there’s no money, then who gets the debts?”

  “I do. I’m his heir.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” and Ruthy started to bristle. “No wonder you’re so nervous. Of course, from the legal standpoint, and I hope you won’t make a move without consulting me or some licensed lawyer….”

  “Not to worry, not to worry. I think it’ll be alright, once I’ve figured out the irregularities.”

  “Abbie, are you now telling me that he wasn’t just a lousy business man, but that he was a crooked business man?”

  “Not really,” (thank you, Abbie dear), “just book keeping holes. Money spent and I don’t know on what, that sort of thing. I might just find the right records this morning. No more shop talk, okay?”

  “I’ll make us a fresh pot of coffee,” said Ruthy, and by putting in that little domestic nicety, finally, she got Abbie a little calmer, and me too. Abbie was following the track laid down in the dream, so I got out of there, to start worrying about Schlosser.

  Chapter 9

  The Return of Marvin Palaver

  At seven o’clock in the morning, this time of year, it looks like four o’clock in the afternoon, winter time. When this kind of light hangs over a junk yard where all the old iron smells wet from the morning dew, that is not a very pretty place to be, for most people. But it is to me. Or aside from the beauty, the sight of all that weight, all those giant possessions, it can give you a lot of excitement from greed. That’s what Schlosser had, the greedy feeling.

  He sat on the stoop outside my trailer. He had a key to my place, but he sat on the stoop, feet together like somebody cold, hands in the pockets of his lumber jacket, and he looked kind of sad.

  Maybe that was because the red coat was the only color in sight, or maybe because there was nobody else in that view of black dirt, grey iron, and that high sky over everything. That’s not the friendliest sky, over Brooklyn.

  I got into his head just for a moment and found it was as clear as it ever got. The plan for the bill of lading and then for the talk with Sid, all of that was there, simple enough. Aside from that, the mood in there was the same as in the rest of the morning.

  I put a thought in his head, something he should like, saying that everything will be alright and he should go and have a cup of coffee. He got up and let himself into the trailer. He went to the refrigerator. No, I said, a cup of coffee.

  He ran water from the faucet into the electric pot, plugged it in, put instant coffee powder into a mug, and sat down to wait. He was methodical like a bachelor, which is what Schlosser was.

  When Schlosser was at the end of his cup, Abbie’s little compact came crunching down the lane and then stopped by the trailer. This was it.

  Abbie came in and stamped his feet, like there was snow outside.

  “Hi, Schlosser,” he said, and slammed the door.

  “Hi, Mister Palaver.”

  “Call me Abbie, is okay. So,” and he put his briefcase on my desk, rubbed his hands, and looked around. “Let’s see now, which is the drawer with the Special Orders?” (Alright, Schlosser, get it right. The fanagle starts now.)

  “The what?”

  I was dying, if that was possible, with all the complicated refinements of business hanging on the workings of a potz called Schlosser.

  Abbie said, “I’m looking for a thing called — watchamacallit, filed under special orders, or orders special, the thing when you deliver.”

  So now my Abbie wasn’t such a genius either, but at least he was fishing around in his pockets to find the key

  “The bill of lading,” said Schlosser clear as a bell. “I’m here for the same thing.”

  “Of course, bill of lading,” and Abbie unlocked the file. When he pulled the drawer open he suddenly stopped. “What did you say?”

  “Bill of lading.”

  “No. The other thing.”

  “I’m waiting for it. I need it.”

  (Careful, Schlosser. Get it right, sweetheart.)

  Abbie turned and leaned with one arm on the open file.

  “Let me get this straight. I’m here to get a bill of lading so I can figure out a missing transaction on the books, and you’re here to take that self-same document off my hands? Just to throw some light on this coincidence, how come?”

  “What coincidence?”

  “Uh, never mind. Let me ask you this. Why are you here?”

  “To get the bill….”

  “I know that, of course. My question is, why do you want it?”

  “So I can collect from Sid Minsk for delivering what he’s got on that bill of lading that’s been on this yard, not Sid’s, Marve’s, because of that.”

  (Schlosser darling, enough already!)

  “You mean you were finished?” said Abbie.

  “What you asked.”

  And so, this incredible thing inside Schlosser’s head was actually doing me some good. It was keeping Abbie in the dark.

  “Right,” said Abbie. He turned away to start scrabbling through the file, like a man in search of a lost mind.

  Then he found it.

  “Hah!” he yelled.

  And how did he know this was the bill he needed? Not because of the items listed for delivery, which was carbon steel, nothing like it. Because Abbie was a bookkeeper. He was happy because the bill balanced up some kind of tilt on his green record sheets.

  “Fifty thousand dollars,” he said to the paper. “So that’s where you went!” Abbie peered at the document. “It went for what?”

  “Transportation,” said Schlosser.

  This time Abbie was doing the part of the dummy. He said what again.

  “What it cost to bring it here,” said Schlosser. He knew this because he was the foreman, but the way he stood there and waited, he looked like a schoolbo
y again. “Can I have the paper now, please?”

  “Just a minute,” and Abbie walked back and forth, looking at the papers. “Coogan Transportation was the carrier, and they picked it up from something — what’s this?”

  “Tri-State. They’re in Newark. That’s across the Hudson.”

  “I know where Newark is. I want to know who Tri-State is.”

  “Can I have my paper now, please?”

  “What is this with you and the paper? You wanna go home and show it to your Mommie? I haven’t even graded it yet!” and then Abbie shook his head and groaned. “What the hell am I talking about. I’m sorry, Schlosser.”

  “That’s alright. What were you talking about?”

  “Just a minute,” and he started pacing again. “Eight thousand to Coogan, which leaves forty two thousand unaccounted for. You know what goes on here, Schlosser?”

  “No sir.”

  “Who’s Tri-State?”

  “A broker. What they do is….”

  “I know what a broker does. What I don’t know — Wait a minute. Don’t they buy salvage at auctions?”

  (Schlosser dear, start acting dumb, just act natural, sweetheart; or I’ll kill you.)

  “Yessir.”

  “So maybe the missing forty two thousand went for the stuff that Marve got from Tri-State. Which was, let’s see here, two hundred tons of steel plate?” He looked at Schlosser for help. “You know anything about this?”

  “Yessir.”

  (You want me to kill you, Schlosser dear, or are you going to say No Sir?)

  “No, Sir.”

  Abbie looked at the ceiling, which also was no help. “Please don’t say anything for a minute, Schlosser, but just listen. I’m no expert in junk….”

  “Yessir.”

  “… but it seems to me that forty two thousand dollars for two hundred tons of anything is too little, is so cheap it’s practically illegal!”

  “Could I have my paper now?”

  “Carbon steel? He paid that for carbon steel? Schlosser, where is that precious stuff?”

  “Right out there, on the line, delivered. And it goes to Sid at eight o’clock in the morning. So I’ve got to have the paper now.”

  “Hold it. There’s got to be a contract of sale someplace. This bill makes no reference to who gets all this.”

  “Sid gets all this, and Sid’s got the contract, the same day when dear Marve fell down dead, is what Sid told me. If you lean down a ways this way, you can see the shack on Lot 41 where all this happened, the way Sid….”

  “Schlosser, please. Take the damn paper, and tell Sid I’ll be over shortly.” He handed the bill of lading over and folded his hands in front of his face. Behind that, he was smiling. “Lucky break,” he was mumbling. “That’ll clear up my books, once I check out this Tri-State crap,” and he pulled files from the drawer.

  Schlosser left the trailer with the bill of lading in his hand, with three thousand dollars on his mind, and with my gratitude licking him all over for being such a good boy and not too smart with the questions and answers.

  Any minute now, it would be over. Any minute now it would be worth all the work, all the tzurres, plus the fact that I actually died for all this.

  So before I went over to Sidney’s shack to attend the last rites and happy conclusions of this marvelous deal I was closing, I drifted around like a balloon enjoying itself, because it wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet Abbie, with papers all over my desk, was being an accountant. In the past that had always worried me, but not now. It was late in the game, pretty late, except for me. And then Abbie got on the phone.

  “Ruthy? — Fine. I mean, sort of. Listen sweet, I’d like you to do me a favor. — No, you stay right there, it’s on my desk. — Yes. Sort of a new development came up here, maybe even a problem. — You want to help me or you want to talk about Uncle Marve? — Good. On my desk, on the left, the estate folder called Odds — Yes. Inside that, under Questionables — That’s what I said. I got papers in there where he kept dailies, transactions let’s call them, things on the backs of envelopes, on the bottom of bills, see if you can find any jottings of forty thousand or forty two thousand dollars for something or other. — I don’t know, maybe together with a name Mac. — That’s all I found here, Mac, could be an abbreviation. — Could be, I have my suspicions. He bought two hundred tons of steel and I can’t figure where he bought it, how much he paid for it, except it traces through a shipper or trucker called Mac and he may have worked for Tri-State Transport which either does transporting or is a broker. — Wait. Now I have a question for you: Remember that profiteering thing you were talking about before the Grand Jury? — Right. Wasn’t Tri-State one of the dozen or so indicted? — Do that. Ask one of your teachers who might be involved as…. Right. There were government auctions. — Thanks, Ruthy Call me back.”

  I floated out of the window Abbie was into old things, not important anymore. It was eight o’clock, time for Sidney.

  Sidney had a hundred ways in which he could give you a headache. Today, where he sat in his crummy office, he had way one hundred and one. He had a jacket on which changed color every time he moved, like a pigeon breast it flowed and flimmered in the light, except on Mister Sidney Brummel it did not look so good. His crummy gold chains, even they looked better.

  Sidney sat like that, shimmering, when Schlosser came in very excited. He stopped in front of Sidney’s desk and had to control himself while he waited.

  Sidney is the kind of rotten person who does not look up when somebody steps close to his desk, no hello, please sit down, please wait a minute, nothing. He pretended that he was very busy.

  I thought, mazel tov, let him have his little games before the sky falls in and comes such a potch in punim his head should fall off. But let him have his games, I’m a very generous person when I’m winning.

  “Mister Minsk?”

  This from a man built like a giant stuffed sausage, from a man about to bring the Cup of Gracie but not gloating at all. Well, who says you can have everything?

  “Didn’t I say eight o’clock you should be here, Schlosser?” Sidney didn’t even look up, such rotten manners.

  “When you hear what I got to tell you, Sid, you won’t mind the ten minutes.”

  Now Sid looked up, trying very hard to make a face he didn’t have, like a captain of industry yet.

  “You moved the girders like I said and you want overtime, is that it?”

  “Forget the overtime,” said Schlosser.

  This was such a shock to Sidney, right away the captain of industry face fell off and left a blank of surprise, or maybe the look by a chicken what’s never laid an egg before, but here it is, the eggs rolling along right there between his feet. I myself was a little shocked also. No point going overboard, was my thinking.

  Next, it goes without saying, Sid got suspicious.

  “You got any more surprises? Something else you should tell me?”

  “That’s right,” and Schlosser grinned right past both ears.

  “Gevalt, what is it?” but not mean anymore, just plain worried.

  “I got you this,” and Schlosser threw the bill of lading on the desk. “I went way the hell and gone outa my way and got the drivers to deliver last night, I mean, all night we worked those loads in four hours, and here it is, take a look.” Schlosser pointed out the window, down Lane One where the steel plate was waiting.

  For a minute there I didn’t recognize Sidney at all, he looked happy! He showed a kind of a sweet smile, I didn’t know he had it in him. He also jumped up and down a little and slapped his hands like he was doing a dance. He even slapped Schlosser on the shoulder. Not that any of this lasted very long.

  Sid ran out of the shack, looked down to the end where the steel was piled up next to the gate, then ran to the bungalow where he had a girl do the books and the telephone and where the foreman kept records. He told the girl to call Coogan’s for transportation, then to call the customer to expect the st
uff in one day, and then he got the foreman to chase up a loading crew so they could get that stuff out in a hurry.

  All through this excitement Schlosser showed a lot of constraint. He waited and waited, and not until Sid got back into his chair did Schlosser come to the point of his meeting.

  “Could I have my money now, please?”

  “What the hell you talking about? You said you didn’t want overtime, so what is this? You working for me, you better not turn out a welcher.”

  “My three thousand,” said Schlosser. “Finders fee and stuff, the way Marve promised.”

  “Marve was going to pay you three thousand? Then why ask me?” and Sid laughed once, very mean.

  “Mister Minsk — ” Schlosser didn’t quite know how to go on, he was that confused. Maybe he was even hurt by the meanness.

  “Maybe something else you want?” and Sid looked like he liked what he was doing. “Maybe a new hard hat painted gold, like these?” and he flipped his gold chains around with a finger.

  “I want my money,” said Schlosser. I could hear he was getting stubborn.

  “Money? What money?”

  “The way it says on the contract you got with Marve. You said so last night. ”

  “I did? You got that in writing.”

  “You’ve got it in writing or you wouldn’t have the steel out there.”

  From the far end of Lot #2, my own lot, the first Coogan truck could be heard.

  “Go out there and help them load,” said Sidney. “Tell Herbie I said you should take the number two crane. And shake a leg, Schlosser.”

  “I want my money” Just like that, getting ugly

  I was beginning to see that this contract business might just ruin everything, because nobody had any copies except Sidney himself. And for that matter, what had that ganef done with the copies he had slipped under the blotter?

  I looked. I went very close, nose down to the blotter, and looked, and mazel tov, I could see them by the edge of the paper between the desk top and the blotter where Sidney had not bothered to take them away!

  Naturally, right away my heart sunk away, or whatever was sinking there in my present condition, because in that very condition, how was I going to pull the contracts out from there?