The Whispering Master

Chapter Seven

Johnny tapped the thin pad of check blanks on the counter. “Now, let me get this straight,” he said to the teller. “These checks cost me ten cents apiece, whether I write them for fifty cents or fifty dollars...”

The teller shook his head. “You’ve started a Ten-Plan account with this bank; that means you don’t need any minimum balance in the bank but naturally your checks will only be honored to the extent of your deposit... In other words, you’ve got five dollars in our bank. We’ll honor your checks up to a total of five dollars, whether it’s in one check or in ten...”

“Okay,” said Johnny.

The teller looked after him, a worried frown creasing his forehead. That was the trouble with this Ten-Plan business — you got undesirable people to open checking accounts.

On Seventh Avenue, Johnny walked a block and a half and entered a haberdashery. He tried on a few hats and finally decided on one for $4.95. When it came to paying for the hat, he searched his pockets and exclaimed, “Doggone, I forgot to bring some money with me. But how about a check...?” He pulled out his pad of Ten-plan checks.

The clerk shrugged. “For the amount of the purchase.”

Johnny nodded and wrote out a check for $4.95 and left the store wearing the hat. In the same block he went into a music shop and bought a harmonica for $4.50. The man who ran the store fingered Johnny’s check and finally picked up the phone. “Mind?”

Johnny shook his head.

The music shop man called the bank, found that Johnny’s account would stand a four-fifty check. Johnny left the store with the harmonica, annoyed. He couldn’t stand another phone call to the bank.

He walked over to Eighth Avenue and entered a shop that had three gold balls hanging over the door. Uncle Ben, a very youthful Uncle Ben, grunted when he saw Johnny.

“You want the suit back?”

“Well, not yet,” said Johnny. “As a matter of fact, I need a little more money.” He took the fedora off his head. “Brand new.”

“You wore it, it’s secondhand... fifty cents.”

“Cut it out,” Johnny cried. “I just paid nine-fifty for it a couple of days ago.”

“And the price tag inside says four-ninety-five. I’ll allow you seventy-five cents — no more.”

Johnny brought out the harmonica. It was still in the box. “What about this?”

“Say,” exclaimed Uncle Ben. “Are you shoplifting?”

Johnny glowered. “How much?”

“Same’s the hat — six bits.”

“Uncle Ben,” said Johnny sadly, “I’ve got a watch in a hock shop in Duluth, Minnesota, a genuine diamond ring in a little spot in Pocatello, Idaho, an overcoat in Kansas City, snowshoes in Tucson, Arizona—”

“It’s a tough world,” sympathized Uncle Ben.

“It’s guys like you that make it tough. What I’m saying is, I’m a man who’s had experience with pawnbrokers. I know to a nickel what they should give on any object. But goddamit, you’re the tightest, stingiest Uncle of all the uncles I’ve ever met in this great, big country of ours.”

“Would I be in this business if I wasn’t tight?” Uncle Ben exclaimed. “Somebody’s got to run hock shops and there’s gotta be some compensation, ain’t there? I’ll give you two bucks, not a red penny more.”

“Make it three,” Johnny pleaded.

Uncle Ben ran up No Sale on the cash register and took out two dollars and fifty cents.

Johnny carried the two dollars and fifty cents to his bank and deposited it along with the forty cents that he still had left. That gave him a balance of $7.90.

A jewelry store on Sixth Avenue received his patronage next. He emerged with a “shoful” wrist watch that had cost him $7.00, reduced from $9.95. The jeweler had not called the bank. In the same block he bought an overnight traveling bag — genuine leatherette, for $7.75. They, too, did not call the bank. That enabled Johnny to essay into another jewelry store and dicker for a plain band wedding ring. The jeweler reached for the phone and Johnny exploded.

“What kind of a crummy joint is this?” he cried. “Don’t even trust a man for a cheap wedding ring. Here—” He thrust the purchase back at the jeweler — “keep your ring.” In high dudgeon he stalked out of the store.

But he couldn’t chance it; the jeweler might call up the bank for spite. He took the suitcases and wrist watch to a pawnshop on Eighth Avenue — two blocks from Uncle Ben’s. He realized $4.30 on them, which he took to his bank, giving him a balance now of $12.20.

And he still had six checks.

In the next two hours he increased his deposits to $94.00 and had bought his second book of Ten-Plan checks — using up every teller in the bank, as he thought it good policy not to repeat on the tellers.

It was now one o’clock and Johnny stopped in at the Automat and had a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. With a stub of a pencil he figured out his financial status, or predicament, if you want to call it that.

He had $94.00 in the bank, and checks outstanding for $296.00. That meant he had to deposit $202.00 in the bank the following morning — if he wanted to remain out of jail. He had sixteen dollars in cash in his pocket... and $296.00 worth of merchandise in various pawnshops, which could be redeemed for $106.00 including interest. He could make it, with four dollars left over.

He sorted out his pawn tickets and, leaving the restaurant, engaged a taxicab. He rode in it to the various pawnshops, retrieved all of his pledged merchandise, then went to 59th Street and Columbus Circle and pledged the entire lot in another pawnshop for a total of $92.00. He paid off the taxicab from the four dollars he had had left before and going to his bank, withdrew all of his money but two dollars. The teller who gave him the money counted it three times and still seemed hesitant about giving it to him, but finally did.

Johnny left the bank with $184.00 in his pocket, and crossed over to Lexington Avenue, where he opened a new Ten-Plan checking account, depositing $175.00. With this substantial amount he found it no trouble at all, within a half hour, to buy three wrist watches for $150.00, $125.00 and $125.00 respectively and in none of the three jewelry stores did they call up his bank. It’s only when you’re down in the five dollar and ten dollar stores that they distrust you.

He pawned the three watches on Lexington Avenue for a total of $130.00, returned to his second bank and withdrew $150.00 from his account and got in just before three o’clock to a bank on Fifth Avenue, where he started a straight checking account and deposited $250.00, receiving a deposit book.

With thirty dollars cash still in his pocket, he took a taxi-cab across town and redeeming Sam’s suit from Uncle Ben’s, returned to the Forty-fifth Street Hotel.