Part 40 (1/2)
”No, I didn't, Mr. Belz,” Rudnik said. ”I didn't say nothing about a roof at all. Why, I ain't even seen the Home, Mr. Belz. Could you expect me I should leave my money to a Home without I should see it even?”
”My worries if you seen it _oder_ not!” Belz retorted. ”The thing is, Rudnik, before we would extend for you the mortgage you must got to make not a will but a deed which you deed the house to the Bella Hirshkind Home, keeping for yourself all the income from the house for your life, because otherwise if a man makes a will he could always make another will, _aber_ once you give a deed it is fixed _und fertig_.”
This ultimatum was the result of a conference between Belz and his counsel the previous evening, and he had timed its announcement to the moment when he deemed his victim to be sufficiently intimidated.
Nevertheless, the shock of its disclosure spurred the drooping Rudnik to a fresh outburst.
”What!” he shouted. ”I should drive myself out of my house for a lot of widders!”
”_Koos.h.!.+_” Schindelberger bellowed. ”They ain't all widders. Two of 'em is old maids, Rudnik, and even if they would be all widders you must got to do as Mr. Belz says, otherwise you would drive yourself out of your house anyway. Because in these times not only you couldn't raise no new second mortgage on the house, but if Lesengeld and Belz forecloses on you the house would hardly bring in auction the amount of the first mortgage even.”
Rudnik sat back in his chair and plucked at his scant gray beard. He recognized the force of Schindelberger's argument and deemed it the part of discretion to temporize with his mortgagees.
”Why didn't you told me there is a couple old maids up there?” he said to Schindelberger. ”Old maids is horses of another colour; so come on, Mr. Schindelberger, do me the favour and go up with me so I could anyhow see the Home first.”
He slid out of his chair and smiled at Schindelberger, who stared frigidly in return.
”You got a big idee of yourself, Rudnik, I must say,” he commented.
”What do you think, I ain't got nothing better to do as escort you up to the Bella Hirshkind Home?”
”Rudnik is right, Schindelberger,” Lesengeld said; ”you should ought to show him the Home before he leaves his house to it.”
”I would show him nothing,” Schindelberger cried. ”Here is my card to give to the superintendent, and all he is got to do is to go up on the subway from the bridge. Get off at Bronix Park and take a Mount Vernon car to Ammerman Avenue. Then you walk six blocks east and follow the New Haven tracks toward the trestle. The Home is the first house you come to. You couldn't miss it.”
Rudnik took the card and started for the door, while Belz nodded sadly at his partner.
”And you are kicking I am cranky yesterday morning,” he said. ”In the daytime is all right going up there, but in the night, Lesengeld, a bloodhound could get twisted. Every time I go up there I think wonder I get back home at all.”
”I bet yer,” Lesengeld said. ”The other evening I seen a fillum by the name Lawst in the Jungle, and----”
”Excuse me, gentlemen,” Schindelberger interrupted, ”I got a little business to attend to by my office, and if it's all the same to you I would come here with Rudnik to-morrow morning ten o'clock.”
”By the name Lawst in the Jungle,” Lesengeld repeated with an admonitory glare at Schindelberger, ”which a young feller gets ate up with a tiger already; and I says to Mrs. Lesengeld: 'Mommer,' I says, 'people could say all they want to how fine it is to live in the country,' I says, 'give me New York City every time,' I says to my wife.”
Harris Rudnik had been encouraged to misogyny by cross eyes and a pockmarked complexion. Nevertheless, he was neither so confirmed in his hatred of the s.e.x nor so discouraged by his physical deformities as to neglect shaving himself and changing into a clean collar and his Sabbath blacks before he began his journey to the Bella Hirshkind Home.
Thus when he alighted from the Mount Vernon car at Ammerman Avenue he presented, at least from the rear, so spruce an appearance as to attract the notice of no less a person than Miss Blooma Duckman herself.
Miss Duckman was returning from an errand on which she had been dispatched by the superintendent of the Home, for of all the inmates she was not only the youngest but the spryest, and although she was at least half a block behind Harris when she first caught sight of him, she had no difficulty in overtaking him before he reached the railroad track.
”Excuse me,” she said as he hesitated at the side of the track, ”are you maybe looking for the Bella Hirshkind Home?”
Harris started and blushed, but at length his misogyny a.s.serted itself and he turned a beetling frown on Miss Duckman.
”What d'ye mean, am I looking for the Bella Hirshkind Home?” he said.
”Do you suppose I come up here all the way from Brooklyn Bridge to watch the trains go by?”
”I thought maybe you didn't know the way,” Miss Duckman suggested. ”You go along that there path and it's the first house you are coming to.”
She pointed to the path skirting the railroad track, and Harris began to perspire as he found himself surrendering to an impulse of politeness toward this very young old lady. He conquered it immediately, however, and cleared his throat raspingly.