Abe and Mawruss Part 43

"Tell your man," Morris continued, "if he does take this old man to Steuermann I myself will pay him twenty-five dollars."

Once more he faced the _Rav_, who had sunk again into the chair.

"Will it bring back your son to you if _Tzwee_ Kovalenko dies?" he asked.

The old man plucked at his beard.

"He was my son, my only son," he said; "my _Kaddish_. A good son he was."

Mrs. Levin, still at her dishwashing, raised her head and snorted impatiently.

"Yow--a good son!" she commented in English, "A dirty, lowlife b.u.m he was. If it wouldn't be that he _ganvered_ a couple bottles wine from a store he wouldn't of been in the police office at all. He brought it on himself, mister--believe me."

Morris nodded.

"What is _vorbei_ is _vorbei_," he said. "Tell your man he should bring his uncle to Steuermann and I would pay him sure twenty-five dollars cash."

He bowed to the _Rav_ and with a final "_Sholom alaicham!_" pa.s.sed downstairs to the street.

As he waited at the corner for a west-bound car he thought he discerned a familiar figure in the shadow of the house he had just quitted. He walked slowly up the block and Harkavy stole out of the bas.e.m.e.nt area and slunk hurriedly past him.

"Harkavy!" Morris called, but the a.s.sistant cutter only hastened his steps and it seemed to Morris that a sound like a sob was borne backward.

"What is the trouble, Harkavy?" Morris cried; but in response Harkavy broke into a run, and with a mystified shake of his head Morris commenced his tedious journey uptown.

When Morris, in company with his partner, entered the showroom at eight o'clock the following morning he had already enumerated to Abe the events of the preceding evening, not omitting his encounter with Harkavy.

"I bet yer he would be waiting for us, Mawruss," Abe said; "and if I ain't mistaken here he is now."

Their visitor, however, proved to be a stranger, who bore only a slight resemblance to their former cutter.

"Mr. Perlmutter," he said--"ain't it?"

"My name is Mr. Perlmutter," Morris said. "What do you want from us?"

For answer the visitor drew from his pocket a card and handed it to Morris.

"Me, I am Pincus Levin, and you are leaving this by my wife last night,"

he said; "so I am coming to tell you I am agreeable to take Mr. Levin to Steuermann's place."

"All right," Morris replied. "You can go ahead."

Pincus Levin shuffled his feet uneasily, but made no attempt to depart.

"Well?" Morris cried.

"Sure, I know," Pincus said; "but if I would take uncle, Mr. Levin, to Steuermann, y' understand and then, maybe--I am only saying, Mr.

Perlmutter, you might forget the other part--ain't it?"

"You mean you want your twenty-five dollars in advance?" Morris asked.

"Why not?" Pincus replied. "If I wouldn't took Mr. Levin to-day yet to this here Steuermann's office, Mr. Perlmutter, you could stop the check----"

Abe shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"An idee!" he cried. "You ain't never seen this feller before, Mawruss--ain't it?"

Morris admitted it.

"Well, then, what's the use talking?" Abe continued. "How do we know he's this here Levin's nephew?"

"Why, Mr. Potash," Levin cried, "I ain't no crook! I got the old man in a coffee house round the corner right now."

"Bring him up here then," Abe said, "and we'll give you your money."

Pincus Levin nodded and shuffled off toward the back stairs, while Abe turned and gazed after him.

"I couldn't make it out at all, Mawruss," he said. "The more I look at that feller, Mawruss, the more he makes me think of this here----"

"Good morning, Mr. Potash!" a familiar voice interrupted. It was Harkavy.

"h.e.l.lo there!" Morris cried cheerfully. "I thought you would be here."

Hakavy smiled sadly. His face was white and drawn and his shoes and trousers were covered with mud as though he had walked the streets all night.

"I am keeping my word anyhow," he said; "but I am only coming to tell you I got to go to Chicago."

"Why must you got to go?" Abe insisted.

"Well, there's certain reasons, Mr. Potash," Harkavy replied. "There's certain--rea----"

He struggled to control his speech as his eyes rested on the rear stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a shudder and a gasp, he fell heavily to the floor.

"_Oi gewoldt!_" Abe exclaimed. He rushed to the office for a gla.s.s of water, but even before he had reached the cooler he stopped suddenly. A great wailing cry came from the showroom and when he ran back with the water a bearded old man lay prostrate across Harkavy's body.

Only Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, kept a clear head during the confusion that followed. She despatched Nathan, the shipping clerk, for a doctor and directed her frightened employers to loosen the shirt-bands of the unconscious men.

"Some whiskey!" Morris shouted--and one of the cutters produced it bashfully from his hip-pocket.

"Never try to force whiskey on a fainting person," Miss Cohen cried. "It might get into their lungs and suffocate 'em."

"I wasn't going to," Morris said hastily, as he took a yeoman's pull at the bottle. "I am feeling faint myself."

"_Mir auch_," Abe said, taking the bottle from his partner's grasp.

After a refreshing draught he pa.s.sed it on to Pincus, who returned it empty to the crestfallen cutter just as a physician dashed out of the elevator.

"What caused this trouble?" he asked Abe as he knelt down by the side of Harkavy.