Funny Boys (19 page)

“You’re a little snot-nose like your stinking father,” she hissed. The boy looked at her with hatred.

“I tell my mudder and fadder on you, coorva.”

She let go of him and hurried down the back stairs. Now that was dumb, she told herself.

When she arrived in the lobby the dining room had just opened and the breakfast smells of freshly baked bread and cake wafted through the air. She knew where Mickey would be at this hour. He would be conducting the obligatory pre-breakfast Simon Sez routine on the lawn to those intrepid early risers who enjoyed the bracing morning air.

Owing to the threatening weather, there were only ten people in the group when she arrived and Mickey was just getting started. It would be fatal, she knew, to show or accept any sign of confidentiality between them. Mickey’s face brightened when he saw her slip into the back row.

“Simon Sez do this,” Mickey said raising his arms skyward. The group followed. The object of the game was to ape the leaders actions only when he said “Simon Sez.” Mickey watched her, his eyes locking into hers. Help me, she said with her eyes, hoping he would understand her plea.

“Simon Sez hands on hips,” Mickey said. The group followed. “Simon Sez hands on heads. Simon Sez hands on shoulders. And straight out.”

“You, you, you,” Mickey said, pointing to three people who had moved to the wrong command. Mutzie had hesitated, then executed the correct action.

The group fell away by half, then by a quarter more. Then there were only three players left. She was concentrating, determined to stay until the end. Those disqualified from the game meandered toward the dining room, perhaps thinking
that they had done their healthful daily dozen for the day.

“Simon Sez do this,” Mickey said. “Do this.” She moved slightly but he did not cite her as disqualified. Had he sensed her plea? She wasn’t sure. “Simon Sez do this.” He did a jumping windmill maneuver. “And this.” He did a scissors maneuver which eliminated everyone but Mutzie. A good omen, she decided, as she moved toward the lake.

“Winner and new champion,” he said. Those who remained as spectators applauded and he went over to give her the traditional winner’s hug.

“Got to see you privately,” she whispered.

“The boathouse,” he replied.

She moved toward the boathouse and Mickey followed at a distance.

When she got to the boathouse, which was deserted at this hour, she quickly ducked through the door and stood waiting for him on one of the planks that served as the storage dock for the sailboats.

“I got troubles, Mickey,” Mutzie whispered.

“I know,” he nodded.

“No, you don’t,” she responded, thinking that he couldn’t possibly know the extent of her problems. Suddenly, she felt afflicted by the idea that she was taking advantage of what she sensed were his feelings for her.

“That was me last night on the porch. I heard. I knew what was happening.”

Suddenly, she was ashamed. She looked into his eyes, saw their devotion and it frightened her.

“I can’t be here any more, Mickey. I don’t know where to turn. I need help.”

“Try me,” Mickey said.

“I have no right to get you involved.”

“I already am, Mutzie,” he said, his eyes searching her face.

“You don’t know what they can do,”

“Yes, I do,” he said. It puzzled her. “Trust me. Let me help.”

She hesitated, wondering how much he really knew and how much she needed to tell him.

“I have to get away from him,” she said. The words came out like a confession.

“I could never understand how you got involved with that man in the first place,” Mickey said. He spoke the words gently, but they still came out as a rebuke. “He’s …” He seemed to stop short as if he were waiting to complete the sentence.

“I know what he is, Mickey,” Mutzie sighed. “And I know what he can do to me.” Images of her potential fate filled her mind, increasing the trembling. She saw her face and body puckered with acid burns. She saw herself moving slowly on crutches, her legs broken and useless. She saw herself garroted, flung into a lake, her legs encased in cement. Then she saw herself with her throat cut, the blood soaking her clothes, her eyes open in a fixed death stare.

“What is it?” Mickey said.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She was petrified with her own fear.

“I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed, leaning against him, feeling herself enveloped in his arms. “He wants to …” She swallowed with difficulty, then suddenly the words rushed out and she told him about Pep’s plans for her, about Gloria. It was a full confession and it calmed her, although it did not fully chase away her fear.

“I’d rather die than have that happen to me,” Mutzie said. “And I feel ashamed and disgraced.”

“You aren’t in my eyes, Mutzie,” Mickey said.

“I don’t even know if it’s possible to hide from them. I’m sure I can’t go home. That’s the first place they’ll look. So where could I go? Who can I trust? I’m just a sad, dumb, gullible girl.” She thought suddenly of her fantasy life, her making herself over to look like Jean Harlow. Did Jean Harlow confront such horror in real life? She doubted that.

“But why would they want to harm you?” Mickey asked.

“Pep said he would, said that he had done it to other girls who didn’t do what he said.”

“Maybe he was just scaring you,” Mickey said.

“Well, he certainly succeeded. Besides, you don’t know them like I do. They do harm people, Mickey. They really do.”

“I know,” Mickey sighed. He paused, looked deeply into her eyes and patted her hair. “But please, Mutzie. Be strong. We’ll find a way …” His voice trailed off.

“A way?” she asked eagerly, finding a ray of hope in his words.

“To get them,” Mickey said. His tentative look belittled his pose of determination.

“Get them?” Mutzie said. “That’s impossible. They control things. They have politicians and cops on their payroll. Nobody gets them. Except maybe …” She paused. “Each other.”

“They worry about certain things,” Mickey said. He nodded as if agreeing with some idea that had just occurred to him. “Yes. Certain things.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Not
what
but who.”

“Who?”

“A third party who corroborates a crime,” he said, his voice lowering an octave, as if someone in the empty boathouse might hear. He explained it to her.

“You mean a witness,” she offered, still not understanding what he was talking about. The idea sent a chill through her. They had talked in front of her, described crimes. Some had even criticized her being around. But Pep had vouched for her. It occurred to her suddenly that they might think she knew too much. “Oh my God,” she cried, putting a hand over her mouth.

“What is it?”

“I heard things.”

“What things?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t remember. But if they think I can, then I’m in deeper trouble than I thought. Pep would have to …”

“Please, Mutzie. We have to think things out,” Mickey said. He looked at her but said nothing. She could tell he was trying to come up with a plan, a course of action. She felt a sense of hopelessness and guilt, guilt that she had gotten Mickey involved. After a long silence, he nodded his head in the affirmative as if an idea had occurred to him. For a moment she surrendered to optimism.

“We’re going to witness a killing. You and I,” Mickey said.

“What are you talking about?”

“A killing. I overhead them. They are going to kill a man by the name of Gage Monday night.”

“Gagie? Him? He runs Sullivan County for them. Not Gagie. I know him.”

Suddenly the idea of death, of killing, took on an even more sinister aspect, underlining her fear. They were going to kill a man who they considered a friend. If they could do that without a qualm, then surely they could do the same to a her without giving it a second thought.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Mickey told her. “I remember what they said.
Swan Lake. Bernstein’s Apple Orchard. I know where they’re going to dump the body. Monday. Tomorrow night.” He paused and she felt his gaze biting into her. “We’re gonna watch it.”

She felt a bubble of hysteria start somewhere deep inside of her. She seemed to track it in her mind as it grew and spread and burst into a kind of joyous laughter.

“Are you crazy, Mickey?”

“All tumlers are crazy,” he said.

“You think they’ll let us walk around if we tell the police that we saw them do that?” She hoped that he would interpret it as ridicule.

“They’ll have to protect us, won’t they?” Mickey said. He didn’t seem particularly sure on that point.

“I told you. They own the police,” Mutzie said.

“Maybe not all of them,” Mickey shrugged.

She watched him for a long moment.

“This is a tumler’s joke, right?” she said.

“I gotta believe there are some good people out there, Mutzie,” Mickey said.

“Worse yet.” She looked to the far end of the boathouse as if talking to someone. “Is this one an idealist or just a cooney lemel, an idiot?”

“That I can answer someday,” Mickey shot back. She could tell it was a tumler line. “Not like the question that can never be answered with a yes.”

“Like what?” she asked, playing her role.

“Are you asleep?”

“Not so funny,” she said. “But funnier than your suggestion.”

“You came to me for help,” Mickey said. “So that’s my help. This way maybe you’ve got a chance. Otherwise, if they’re as powerful as you say they are, you’ll spend your life running. That’s a life?”

Of course, from her point of view, there was some logic in his argument. But from when she looked at it from his point of view, there was no logic in it at all. He would be jeopardizing his life for a perfect stranger. It was unfair and foolhardy. Maybe, of all the alternatives for her, the best would be go back to Pep, become one of Gloria’s girls. What difference did it make? Her dignity had all but been destroyed, her dreams and illusions exploded, her body corrupted. In a few short months she had taken a roller coaster ride from elation to despair. Her mother was right. She should have married Henry, lived a safe, normal, conventional life. Her eyes filled with tears and Mickey embraced her.

“I’m not going to let you do this, Mickey,” she said when she had calmed down.

“You got a better idea?”

“I’m going back.”

She extricated herself from his arms and started to move along the indoor dock to the boathouse entrance.

“You want to throw your life away,” Mickey shouted. “Okay by me.”

“It’s not your business,” she said, turning to face him. He had not come after her, but stood instead beside one of the sailboats listing slightly in the lake’s gentle swell.

“It is now,” he called. “You came to me.”

“It was a mistake,” she cried back at him.

“Not for me,” Mickey said. “I’m doing this for me.”

“That’s because you’re stupid. A strange girl … a gun moll, that’s what I am. Let’s call a spade a spade. She bats her eyes at you and suddenly you’re a regular Romeo. Well, I’m no Juliet.”

“Let me be the judge,” he said.

His response was oddly comforting.

“You’re a schmo. Not a Romeo.”

He laughed. “A regular rhymer. You want my job. The first girl tumler in the Catskills.”

“Believe me, they see you with me, you won’t have your job long anyway.”

Yet she knew that her actions belied her intentions. He was right. It was no life. She would rather die than follow such a path. She started to move again, then stopped and called back to him. They traded glances for a long moment.

“You would be wasting your time with me,” she said.

“So,” he replied. “It’s my funeral.”

“For once you’re right, tumler,” she said, moving toward him again. Hers, too, she thought.

“P
UTZVATIG
,” M
ICKEY TOLD HIMSELF AS HE LOOKED INTO
one of the lobby mirrors on his way to the dining room. The derisive Yiddish expression brought on a broad clownish smile and a rumbling hysterical giggle. Of course it was crazy, he thought, but then again, wasn’t it a noble act? There were few enough acts of nobility in the world. Were’nt there?

Noble shmoble, he told himself. It was love and he was being an exhibitionist, a show-off, offering this grand gesture to impress the woman he loved by saving her from a life of white slavery.

“Love can kill,” he whispered to his image in the mirror. “Not only that. You don’t look so good.”

Yet he continued to linger in front of the mirror as if he were searching for something beyond his visible image, trying to mine heroic nuggets beneath the crust of himself, searching for a grail even more powerful and significant than love to justify his actions. Perhaps it was also revenge for what these animals had done to his father. Or maybe it was the very idea of these gangsters, their insult toward all Jews, toward all decent, law-abiding people who played according to the rules.

Who was he kidding? It was love, mysterious, illogical. Why
her? How come? The only answer that made sense didn’t really make sense to the brain, only to the heart, which could not think. For love people do stupid things and this was one of them.