Funny Boys (8 page)

She cuddled against him as he drove. The very fact that he was still interested in her after her resistance proved that he really cared about her. He stopped the car in front her apartment house. Then he leaned over and gave her another big soul kiss which she responded to with equal fervor.

“You were great, baby,” he said, when they had released each other.

“Am I still going to be your girl, Pep?”

“From here on in you’re my numba one, baby,” Pep said.

“And you still respect me, Pep?”

“You betcha.”

“And from here on in we’ll see each other a lot?”

“A lot, Mutz,” Pep agreed. “Only I ain’t gonna be around next week. I gotta do a job in Buffalo.”

“They keep you pretty busy, Pep,” Mutzie said.

“Yeah,” Pep said chuckling. “I’m in demand cause I’m good. The best.” He shook his head. “Tonight was a doozy.”

Before tonight, she had felt that it would be too nosy of her to ask any further questions about what he did. He had said he was a contractor, but she wasn’t really sure what he meant. Apparently, he was in some sort of business with the men on the corner and with those men she had seen him with in the restaurant. Considering what had happened between them tonight, she decided to ask him to explain it a bit more. After all, if she was his number one girl, surely he would be willing to share these other aspects of his life with her.

“Pep,” she said hesitantly. “What sort of jobs do you do? I mean the kind of work. I know you’re a contractor and I know that Seymour was on the job with you tonight and I …”

He turned toward her and, even in the dark, she could see the sudden fire of anger in his eyes.

“I got a deal faw you, Mutzie,” Pep said. “Simple deal. Nevah, nevah, I mean
nevah
evah ask me what I do. In udder woids, no questions asked. Yaw job now is to be Pep’s goil. Nothin else. Pep’s goil. Got it? Anybody asks you what you know about Pep’s business, all you say is: I’m jes Pep’s goil. No more than that. Got it, Mutzie? You sit quietly and be Pep’s goil. You don listen to nothin and if you listen you don heah. And you don see nothin. Like a filly with blinders runnin around the track. Got it? You wanna use yaw tongue …” he grabbed his crotch, “you save it for this, capish?”

His sudden vehemence frightened her. She had over-stepped. What he did away from her was not her business. No way.

“I promise, Pep,” she said. “Cross my heart. I will never, never ask that question again.”

“That’s my numba one,” Pep said, patting her thigh. He was quiet for a long time, but she could tell he was thinking about something. Suddenly, he stirred and sat upright, startling her. Pushing her an arm’s length from him, he grabbed at the front of her sweater, bunching it in his hand, and put his face close to hers. “Seymour told you sumpin?” Pep snarled. He seemed even angrier than he had been just moments earlier, even angrier than he had appeared at the restaurant when the two men had accosted her.

“Pep. I promised. What did I say?”

“You jes answer. What did that putz brudda ayours say?”

“Nothing. Nothing. He just said he was going on a job with Pep. Is that something terrible?”

“He evah says anyting, you tell me Mutzie. You tell me. You heah?”

Again she was confused. What had she said? Besides, what could Seymour ever say that would warrant such importance. Pep released her and she looked at her sweater.

“You sure fly off the handle fast, Pep.”

“Certain tings make me crazy. Like sweet liddle canaries who can’t keep der lips clamped shut.”

Above all, she didn’t want Seymour to come between them. Not Seymour. She hadn’t much respect for Seymour anyway, and she certainly didn’t want her relationship with Pep to depend on Seymour in any way.

She let Pep cool in silence while she slowly sidled close to him again, then began to caress his face with her hands.

“My pretty boy,” she whispered. She brushed his lips with hers. “If I’m your number one you got to tell me what makes you mad.”

“That’s one thing,” he nodded, but the anger had dissipated and he put an arm around her shoulder.

“You and me is gonna make music, Mutzie,” Pep whispered. “And I got plans for ya.”

“You do?” Mutzie said, assuming the teasing air of the coquette. She tucked her arm through Pep’s.

“You evah been to the mountains, Mutzie?” Pep asked.

“Never,” Mutzie said, trying to keep herself from being overly eager. Her family could never afford the mountains, not even a room at Rockaway for the summer. Of course, she had heard all about those glamorous places in the Catskills, like Grossinger’s, the Concord, the Nevele and Shawanga Lodge, which she had seen advertised in the papers.

“Ever heard of Gorlick’s Greenhouse?”

“Oh yes,” she lied.

“Best in da Catskills. We gotta connection dere. All da boys goes, wives, kids, goilfrens. Real family. It’s a gas. Lotsa action.”

He turned toward her and chucked her lightly on the chin with his fist.

“You be good to Pep and I’ll show you one helluva time this summer. One helluva time.”

“I can’t wait, Pep,” Mutzie said, her heart beating a tattoo of expectation. She squeezed Pep’s muscle and brought his manicured fingers to her lips.

Maybe life could be like the movies, after all, she told herself.

F
ROM A DISTANCE
G
ORLICK’S
G
REENHOUSE LOOKED LIKE
a stretched-out Victorian mansion, complete with porch, cupolas, dormers, and architectural dental work. Most of the Catskills hotels had started as houses, which had been added to as increasing business dictated.

It was situated on a hill about ten miles from Fallsburg surrounded by a wide expanse of grass lawn, which dropped down to a lake with a roped off area for swimming and a dock with a boathouse painted in peppermint stripes. Tied to the dock were rowboats, sailboats and a spit-polished speedboat.

Beyond the hotel were the higher wooded ridges of the Catskills, which were not monumental, but with just enough height to qualify as mountains. The setting was beautiful, tranquil and pristine, hardly a place one would associate with the clientele that Gorlick had trumpeted with such pride.

The hotel was a beehive of activity. Painters were busy putting finishing touches on the white façade and carpenters were repairing the long porch with its line of rocking chairs and lounges. Inside, the lobby was undergoing the last stages of a face-lift. People scurried around frenetically. It was two days
before Decoration Day, the official opening of the season.

Gorlick, cigar in hand, wearing paint-stained slacks and an undershirt, was supervising the hanging of a picture on the staircase landing. It depicted a huge expanse of landscape with high mountains in the background and a herd of cows in the foreground.

“To the left,” Gorlick shouted to the three men on the ladder working the picture, guiding them with his cigar. “No, now to the right. No, left. Shmekels, I’m talking plain English. Right.” He nodded. “Now. Good.” Then he turned and saw Mickey, who had just entered the hotel.

“So the tumler has arrived,” he said, waving his cigar in Mickey’s direction.

“Ketskills before the Yidden?” Mickey said thrusting his chin in the direction of the painting. “Looks more like Switzerland.”

“Who asked you?” Gorlick said. “Montens are montens.”

Gorlick motioned with the crook of his finger to one of the men who had helped hang the picture, a young man with a square face, green eyes and rust colored tight curly hair. He was short with a bantam swagger and lips frozen into a cocky sneer. When he talked, it was from only one side of his mouth as if the other was paralyzed, which wasn’t so, as when he smiled both ends of his mouth rose in unison.

“Hey, Irish. This is Mickey, the tumler. Show him where, okay?”

Irish saluted, turning toward Mickey and lifting his belted pants with his elbows in what, Mickey supposed, was a gesture of toughness. He said nothing and motioned with his head for Mickey to follow him.

Without a word, Irish led the way through the lobby and up four flights of carpeted stairs, a hardship to Mickey who had to carry his suitcase.

“No elevator in this joint?” Mickey asked.

“Only for guests,” Irish sneered.

“There are no guests yet.”

“Garlic wants us to get used to it.”

On the fourth floor, Irish led him through a series of narrow corridors, stopping finally in front of a closed door. He waited for Mickey, who was puffing with the burden of his suitcase, to catch up, then motioned with his head to the door, leaving it for Mickey to open.

The room was no bigger than an oversized closet, with one dormer window that faced the sky and walls that slanted in such a way that one could only stand up straight in its center. Against the wall was a single cot with a stained rolled up mattress. Next to it was an ancient chest of drawers. It was dismal and depressing.

“Cans down the hall,” Irish said, flipping a cigarette one-handed out of a pack of Luckies, then lighting it by scratching the head of a wooden match. “Get the bed stuff from housekeeping.”

Mickey put his suitcase down on the exposed springs of the cot and inspected the room. It didn’t have a closet, although there were two wooden hangers hanging lopsided on a hook. It also smelled of feces.

“Stinks like a toilet here.” Mickey said. As if to counterpoint the observation, a toilet flushed on the other side of a paper-thin partition.

“This was one part of the shithouse,” Irish said.

“I’m gonna talk to Gorlick,” Mickey said, anger beginning to boil inside of him.

“Him? To him you’re free room and board. He’ll say you’re a complainer, ride you like hell. Who needs that?”

“How can I live here?” Mickey said. Another flush sounded in the room. “This is the toilet annex.”

Not that living above the store was the Ritz. He slept on a cot in the living room in their one-bedroom apartment above the store and his parents shared a room with his sister, separated by a curtain. But his mother kept everything neat as a pin and the only untoward smell was on Friday morning when she made gefilte fish and even that wasn’t half bad.

“Don blame me, tumler. Garlic said show you where. So I showed.”

“One night here and I’ll jump,” Mickey said. “Get blood on his nice lawn.”

“So what else is new?”

“The one thing you never do is depress the tumler.”

“I gotta better idear,” Irish said, offering a surly grin. “I think I can get you a better spot.” He lifted his hand. “Not a promise. I said I think.”

“You’re going to talk to Gorlick?”

Irish blew smoke out of his nose and shook his head.

“Cost you a fin.”

“Are you saying I gotta pay?” Mickey said, looking at Irish. “I smell a hustle here?”

“Better to smell a hustle than a toilet,” Irish sneered. He started to swagger out of the room.

“You gotta point,” Mickey called after him.

Irish stopped, turned, and pointed his fingers as if they were a gun. The image of holdup seemed complete.

“Five is steep,” Mickey said. “Will you take three?”

Irish’s contemplation consisted of sucking air through his teeth.

“Four is better,” Irish said holding out his palm. Mickey counted out four bucks.

“One smart tumler,” Irish said, putting the money in his
pocket, then putting his arm on Mickey’s shoulder. “You and me is gonna get along.”

As if to show his camaraderie, he picked up Mickey’s suitcase and carried it down the corridor. He came to another door and opened it abruptly.

A chubby young woman was lying on a bed wearing nothing but panties. She jumped up, her huge breasts swinging, tearing the blanket off the bed and covering herself. Her face showed more anger than embarrassment.

“You getoutahere Irish,” she screeched, as Irish lifted a fisted hand and waved it in her face.

“Shut ya hole, Marsha, or I shut it for you.”

The threat calmed her.

“This is not what I bargained for,” Mickey muttered. Irish threw him a glance of contempt.

“I give it to her as a fava,” Irish said. He turned back to Marsha. “You pack up and getoutahere.”

“You get no more freebees from me, Irish,” Marsha said, miraculously calmed. “It’s ovah between you and me.”

“This is your room in the foist place, tumler,” Irish said.

“Ya lied ta me, Irish,” Marsha said, still snarling. She looked at Mickey. “He give me this room hisself.”

Irish pulled the blanket out of her hands. She made a valiant attempt to cover her big tits with her arms, but to little avail. Irish laughed and grabbed a handful of breast.

“I give it to her cause a these. Aint them knockers sumpin?”

“Gettaway from me you bastard.”

“Just showin off my goods, Marsha.”

The girl was docile now, as of she were cowed into accepting the humiliation.

Mickey was embarrassed and uncomfortable. He felt sorry
for the girl. Their eyes met. She shrugged and turned away.

“This is wrong,” he said. “I don’t want to put her out.”

“Hey tumler, you want the room or not?”

“Not if someone else has to be punished for my comfort.”