New York Echoes (26 page)

"You have wops in a kosher hotel?"
Mickey asked innocently.

 Gorlick bent forward and glared at
him. His cigary breath was not pleasant.

"Nobody tells a wop joke in
front Albert Anastasia?"

"Albert who?"

 "Mr. Anastasia is a very important
man,"  Gorlick said. He scratched his head.

"I get it. A celebrity. What is he? A
bandleader. An actor? A ballplayer?"

 Gorlick's eyes narrowed and his thick lips
seemed to grow narrower with pressure. He looked toward Gloria who shrugged.

"Goomba goes crazy when anyone makes fun of
wops. Even Mussaolini. In a kosher hotel, a tumler says the word guinea or wop
or make Italian jokes Anastasia has a shit conniption.” Gloria explained.

  “And who gets the blame?” Gorlick shrugged and
pressed a thumb to his chest. “Yours truly.”

“They get real mad, they play with matches, “
Gloria said, lowering her voice.

“Burn me down, like they did to Shechters.” 

“With the Jewish boys, it's different,” Gloria
said. “They like the bad boy rep cause people think Jews are you know
mollycoddles, Mamas boys, fraidy cats. Like they been kicked around because
they didn't fight back.”

Gorlick glanced toward Gloria and raised his
eyes to the ceiling.

"You're from Brownsville and I suppose you
never heard of Kid Twist or Pittsburgh Phil?"  Gorlick asked.

"An old vaudeville act, right?"

"It's no act, Mickey," Gorlick said
ominously. "You just seen em come outa here."

"Those ones," Mickey said. "Bad
actors both of them."

"Jesus," Gorlick said.

"You never heard of Abie "Kid
Twist" Reles and Pittburgh Phil Strauss. The guy they call Pep. Where you
been? In China? They got reps a mile wide."

"Reles? Strauss? Kid Twist? Pep?”

His memory kicked in and a felt his stomach turn
to a block of ice.

“You okay boychick?” Gorlick said.

“He's like a white sheet,” Gloria said.

Reles and Strauss!  Kid Twist and Pep. Those two
who he had just come out of here. He wiped a film of icy sweat from his
forehead. It took him a moment to recover.

The image of his father's battered face surfaced
in his mind. They had come into his father's store one night. Mickey was
upstairs. Luckily his mother was playing cards at a friend's house.

 It had all happened so quickly, Mickey had
heard muffled sounds and ran downstairs to the store. His father lay on the
floor writhing in pain, his face bloody and bruised. Reles, Kid Twist, the
short one was standing over his father with what looked like a piece of pipe
wrapped in newspaper. The other man, Strauss,  Pep, started to move to
intercept Mickey who was heading for Reles.

"No please," his father had shouted.
"Mickey please. Leave us alone."

"Leave you alone?" Mickey said dumbfounded,
stopped in his tracks. "They're trying to kill you."

"Kill him. Whatayou crazy," Reles
said, shooting Mickey a glance with feverish agate eyes and a twisted grin.
"Shmeckel knows  da score." He looked at his father on the floor.

"Dis is business, kid," Strauss said.

"I owe them money," Mickey's father
croaked.

"Nothin poisonal boychick," Reles
said. "You borrow money from Roth's bank, ya pay on time." He looked
down at Mickey's father, then swung the newspaper-coated pipe, hitting him on
the shoulder. His father screeched in pain.

"I promise," his father whimpered.
"Please go way now."

"Hey looka dis," Strauss said
suddenly, holding up a woman's pink satin panties. "Dis is really
pretty." He stuffed it in a side pocket. Then he picked up the box from
which it had come. "I'll take em all. Ya want some for your hooers
Abie?"

Reles looked up and laughed.

"I got no hooers Pep. Youse da guy wid da
hooers. I got my Helen.”

“I forgot Abie,” Pep sneered. “Lucky you.”

“Put em on my tab,” Pep said to the older man.

"You can't take that," Mickey had
cried.”That's salable merchandise.”

"Mickey please," his father cried. He
was trying to shimmy up one of the display counters to stand upright. Mickey
ran over to help.

"Dese are not fun times fa us, Fine,"
Reles said. “Pay up and save yourself da tsoris.” 

"I promise."

"Not nice, Fine. Passing bum checks. A
shanda."

“I thought it was covered,” his father said.

His father had finally managed to stand upright,
although unsteadily. Blood was gushing from his nose. His shirt was heavily
sprinkled with it.

Reles pointed the end of the pipe to his
father's chest. Then he nodded toward Strauss.

Mickey felt himself grabbed in a hammerlock from
behind. He struggled but to little avail, Strauss pressed a hard bony knee into
his spine, doubling him over.

"Ya got any scratch to pay off Daddy's
markers  schmuck."

"Please. Don't hurt Mickey please. He had
nothing to do with this," his father pleaded. Then he heard a cry of pain.
Lifting his head, he saw his father sprawled on the floor again. He started to
crawl on his belly toward Mickey. Reles stepped on his fingers and his father
screamed in pain.

"I asked ya nice," Pep said to the
helpless Mickey. "I don like to repeat."

"It's not his fault," his father
pleaded weakly.

"Whose talkin to you putz?" Reles
said, kicking his father in the ribs. Then he turned to Mickey. "Pep asked
you nice. Even a downpayment shows good fate."

"I give him da toilet, right Abie?"
Strauss said.

"Got a can?"Reles asked his father,
who lay on the floor watching Mickey. Blood and tears were running down his
cheeks. Reles walked behind a counter to the one dressing room. Beside it was a
door. He opened it.

"Fat ladies take a pea heah," Reles
said, as Mickey was manhandled  and forced to his knees on the floor in front
of the toilet.

"Now we goin to play submarine, kid."

"How much?" Mickey gasped.

“Whats da number?” Pep asked.

"I feget, Pep," Reles said. He dipped
into a side pocket and brought out a notebook which he opened, searching for a
name with spatulate fingers.

"We need tree hunert," Reles said.
"But we take a downpayment. Say fifty."

"I'll go to the bank tomorrow," Mickey
said. Actually he had three hundred and fiftty saved in his account just in
case he needed it for law school in the fall. Or to Hollywood.

"Ya got nuthin in the house?" Pep
asked.

"Please. Leave my boy alone," Mickey's
father shouted. He had managed to lift himself off the floor and was standing
looking into the cubicle using the walls for support.

"Again he don answer Abie," Strauss
said. Mickey felt Strauss grab him by the hair and begin to force his head
down.

Mickey's father made an attempt to step forward
into the cubicle, but Reles pulled him out by the back of his belt and hit him
solidly on the underside of his knees. The man screamed and fell to the floor
writhing in pain.

"Bastards," Mickey screamed. But he
could barely get the word out as Strauss forced his head into the toilet and
pulled the overhead chain. Water and noise swirled around him as Strauss
emersed his entire head in the toilet bowl. Mickey struggled but Strauss held
him fast. He felt as if his lungs would burst.

Then suddenly Strauss pulled his head out and
Mickey approaching hysteria, took deep gasps of breath. Mickey's father,
writhing on the floor, began to sob hysterically.

"I got about forty in the house,"
Mickey blurted through his gasps.

"See what a nice boy ya got, Fine."
Reles laughed. “Fine pays a fine.”

"And tomorrow I'll see you get
everything."

"Evyting?" Pep asked.

"Whatever my father owes."

"Dis is one fine kid Fine. You oughta be
proud."

"I like dis Fine," Strauss chuckled.
"Knows da score."

"Whats ya name kid?" Reles asked.

"Mickey."

"Mickey. Hey dats fine," Reles roared.

"Like Mickey Finn," Strauss said
giggling. For a moment he relaxed his grip on Mickey's hair. "You tink he
needs one more reminda. I kinda like dis shit."

"Maybe on maw fa good luck," Reles
said.

"Down da hatch, kid," Mickey heard
Strauss say. Then came the pounding water and soon he was gasping for breath.
Strauss pulled him up again.

"You get da drift? " Reles said.

Mickey nodded. Pep still held him in a vice like
grip.

"Next time we keep ya down dere," Pep
said.

Mickey nodded. There was no point in resisting.
He saw his father reaching out an arm in his direction. Strauss pulled Mickey
to his feet.

"Fawty now, right?" Reles said.

Mickey nodded. Strauss walked him upstairs, to
the little chest next to the cot where he slept. Opening a drawer, Mickey took
four tens from under his underwear and gave it to Strauss.

"Your lucky, kid. I'm da easy one. That
Abie's an animal."

They came downstairs into the store. His father
was slumped on a wooden chair, his eyes glazed, his face bloody..

"And tomorra da whole marker, right?"
Reles said.

"Ya don play round wid Abie," Strauss
said.

"I swear," Mickey said. "I swear.
Only go now."

"We tank you for da hospitality."
Reles said.

"And I tank you for the panties." Pep
held up the box.

"Dey gonna be more awf than on," Reles
said laughing.

Later that night, after his father's wounds had
been attended to, he had confessed what he had done. He had borrowed money from
"the bank" in the candy store on Saratoga and Livonia under the
"El". A man, the son of the owner, got approval for $300 for ten
weeks with a payback of sixty a week.

"I gave them post-dated checks. They're
"Shylocks". I knew it. What could I do? I can't get goods, we can't
sell anything."

"Papa thats double interest."

"I needed it. What bank would give it to
me.”

His father started to cry.

"You should have told me, Papa."

As promised, Mickey paid off the loan the next
day. Odd, he thought, how he couldn't remember the men right away as if he had
blanked out the whole experience

"Sure," Mickey told Gorlick soberly.
"I think I know who you mean."

"You think?," Gorlick said. "They
enforce things. But don't ask.”"

"Like Shylocking?"

"Like everything," Gorlick shrugged.
“I told you, don't ask. Never. Its not your business. Not mine neither. I run a
hotel.”

"It bothers you?" Gloria asked Mickey.

Mickey thought about that for a moment.

"Not me," he said, almost choking on
the thought. He needed this job. "Live and let live."

Gorlick tapped his temple again.

"So use your tuchas." Gorlick, having
made his point, stuck his cigar in his mouth and nodded. "Remember the
rules. We got here a very special clientele.

“Explain about the combination Solly.”

Mickey must have looked puzzled.

“You never heard of the combination?"
Gorlick asked.

Mickey shrugged and looked helplessly toward
Gloria who shook her head in a kind of flouncy disgust. He knew all he wanted
to know about these men.

"Brownsville and Ocean Hill,” Gorlick
explained. “The sheenies and the wops. These are the boys that run the show.”

A hotel for gangsters and their families, Mickey
realized at last. A cold chill ran up his spine.

“Combination. Get it. We got Jewish customers and
Italian visitors. They come to Gorlicks to meet. So no wop jokes.. Never eva.”

“Jew jokes are mostly okay,” Gloria said. “Jews
like to laugh at themselves.”

“I got lots of those,” Mickey said. “Like “Don't
give up. Moses was also a basket case.”

“Yeah,” Gorlick chuckled.

“How about: We got a sign over the urinal. Says
the future of the Jewish people is in your hands.”

Gloria giggled.

“Save that for weekdays. The girls love schmeckel
jokes”

“But talk only Fine. Talk only. “

“Got it. We swat flies at Gorlicks. We don't
unbutton them.”

“No fly jokes, Fine. We got horse flies in
August.” Gorlick turned to Gloria.“You think he understands the
emmis.”

Gloria looked him over as if he were a prized
race horse.

“Believe me, I got it,” Mickey said. “Their
business is their business and my business is funny.”

“It''s inspiring, right Solly? The
combination.”
             “Yeah,” Gorlick said  through a smoke cloud. “an American success
story, the way these boys do business and love each other. Catolic and Jew.
They come to Gorlick's for the relaxation and the action and this is where the
Jew boys put their families for the summer. The wops have their own places, but
they come here to meet. The wops like the kosher coozeen."

"So no wop jokes," Mickey reiterated,
groping to get back into a tumler mood. After all, his father had healed, the
money had been paid back. Even his father had agreed, despite the brutal methods
used, that this was business. "I went with open eyes," he told
Mickey. "So who is the real criminal? Them or me?"

"It's a respectable Jewish place, strictly
kosher.  We gotta lot of goyem help."  Gorlick went on. “We got shiksa
waitresses and maids . You'll hear things Fine. You know what I mean. Bad Jew
stuff.”

“Don't listen,” Gloria said. “It's expected.”

“Mostly they know better,” Gorlick said. “If
not…if the boys hear…” He made a slashing motion across his neck.

Mickey nodded, his stomach fluttering.  

"And no gangster jokes," Gloria said.
"Especially not in fronta the girls. They are very sensitive about this
subject."