Having Red Monahan working as the doorman turned out to be a very good idea, better than Young Mr. Sam would have believed when he first thought of it.
Red started out by telling people, “Bedroom suites are in the front of the third floor. Take the elevator and when you get up there ask for Mrs. Lipshutz.” Or “Wall-to-wall carpeting is in the back of the store. Ask for Mr. Callahan.”
The next step was to have the salespeople waiting downstairs near the door. Red would march the customer over to Mrs. Lipshutz or whoever and introduce her with a naughty little wink: “Mrs. Lipshutz is our bedroom expert.”
And when somebody came in sore because the Credit Department hadn’t credited their account, or because the leg had come off a kitchen chair, or something, Red would be the soul of sympathy and calm them down.
And he kept the undesirables out. There were a lot of drunks around South Street, particularly on Friday nights, when the store was open until nine P.M. and he discouraged them from coming in the store. And he kept the religious loonies from bothering the customers too. The ones who just wanted to pass out their literature were bad enough, but the ones who just about demanded money to plant trees in Israel, or save souls for Jesus in the Congo, or to buy tickets for the Annual Picnic of the 3rd Abyssinian Baptist Church, things like that, had been, pre-Red the Doorman, a real pain in the ass.
Now Red either discouraged them before they got through the doors, or got rid of the really determined ones with a couple of bucks from a roll of singles he got, as needed, from petty cash.
Abu Ben Mohammed, when Red Monahan greeted him at the door, told him he wanted to see about some wall-to-wall carpet.
“You saw the ad in the paper, I guess?” Red asked.
“Huh?”
“We’re having a special sale,” Red explained. “Twenty-five percent off everything we have in stock, plus free pad and installation.”
“No kidding?”
“Absolutely,” Red said. “You picked the right day to get yourself some carpet.”
He guided Abu Ben Mohammed over to where Phil Katz, who was Old Mr. Sam
’s nephew, was sitting with the other salespeople on the tufted blue velvet couch and matching armchairs that a sign advertised as “Today’s Special! Three-Piece Suite! $99 Down! No Payment Until March!”
“Mr. Katz,” Red began, which caused Phil Katz to break off his conversation with Mr. Callahan in midsentence and get to his feet with a smile in place.
“Mr. Katz,” Red went on, “this is Mr.—I didn’t catch your name?”
“I didn’t tell you,” Abu Ben Mohammed replied.
“This gentleman,” Red Monahan went on, “is interested in some wall-to-wall carpeting.”
“Well, this is your day,” Mr. Katz said, “we’re running a special sale. Why don’t we ride up to the carpet department and let me show you what we have?”
Mr. Katz thought he might have a live one. He had, of course, noticed that Abu Ben Mohammed was wearing what he thought of as African clothes. Over a purple turtleneck sweater and baggy black trousers, Abu Ben Mohammed was wearing a brightly colored dashiki. Perched on the back of his head was sort of a black yarmulke, neatly and rather brightly embroidered in a yellow and green pattern. He was also wearing a trench coat over his shoulders. Maybe they didn’t have overcoats in North Africa, Mr. Katz thought, or maybe this guy just didn’t have an African coat to handle the chill of January in Philadelphia.
What was important was that he was into the African thing, and the Africans were deep into carpets. They put them two and three deep on the floors, and sometimes they even upholstered their walls with them.
What was just about as important was that he had come into the store today. The furniture business just about died after Christmas; it was Phil Katz’s personal opinion that the store was just pissing money down the toilet with their advertisements in the Philadelphia Daily News for “After Christmas” and “New Year’s” sales. People had spent their money (or used up their credit, which was the same thing) buying Christmas presents. They had no money to do anything but start paying the bills they had run up for Christmas.
But there were exceptions to every rule, and this guy in the dashiki just might be one of them. Mr. Katz had heard that the blacks who had become Muslims had to stop drinking and smoking and gambling, which meant this guy might just have the money to cover the floors of his apartment with carpet.
He led Abu Ben Mohammed to the elevator, slid the door shut, and took him up to the third floor.
Five minutes after Abu Ben Mohammed entered the store, a man subsequently identified as Hector Carlos Estivez, twenty-four, five feet nine inches tall, and weighing 140 pounds, and again with no distinguishing marks or features, came in.
He told Red Monahan that he wanted to look at a washer-drier combination, and was turned over by Red to Mrs. Emily Watkins, who was forty-eight, and had worked for fifteen years in the Credit Department of Goldblatt & Sons before deciding, three years before, that she could make more money on the floor, on a small salary plus commission, than she could at her desk. She had asked Young Mr. Sam for a chance to try, and to his surprise, she had done very well, probably, he had finally decided, because women did most of the buying of washers and driers and other appliances, and probably trusted another woman more than they would a man.
Mrs. Watkins led Mr. Estivez up the stairs to the second floor, and then to the rear of the building, where the washer-driers were on display. She was not nearly as enthusiastic about her chances to make a sale to her potential customer as Mr, Katz had been about his. She had been in the credit business a long time, and had a feel for who would have credit and who wouldn’t. Mr. Estivez did not strike her as the kind of man who held a steady job. But on the other hand, he might have hit his number or something and might have the cash.
In a similar manner, over the next twenty minutes, seven more potential customers pushed open the door from South Street into Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., were greeted by Red Monahan and turned over to a member of the sales force.
One of them, the third to come in the store, was a woman. She was later identified as Doris M. (Mrs. Harold) Martin, fifty-two, of East Hagert Street in Kensington. She had come in to look at carpet for her upstairs corridor and bedrooms after having seen the Goldblatt & Sons advertisement in that day’s Daily News. Red Monahan introduced Mrs. Martin to Mrs. Irene Dougherty, who took her by elevator to the third floor.
The other six people to come in were all men. Two of them wore clothing suggesting they were either Muslims or at least had some connection with an African culture. All of them were, according to the race codification then in use by the Philadelphia Police Department, Negroid. Two of them, however, had such pale skin pigmentation that there was some question whether they were “really colored” or “maybe Puerto Rican or Mexican, or something like that.”