by Warren Adler
"Plenty is the word for it. It's turned me into a vegetarian."
Gorlick grunted another chuckle, then turned his eyes back to the paper.
"What kind of courses you taking?"
"General," Mickey said. "If things don't work out, maybe, as a last resort, I'll become a shyster." Despite the joke it was a bone of contention between him and his parents. To them a tumler was not a proper career path, although they often laughed at his jokes. “I get a kick out of making people laugh,” he told them. You can still be a lawyer and make people laugh. It was a never ending complaint.
"A shyster." Gorlick nodded. "At Gorlick's a shyster would have a field day." He turned and winked at Gloria who smiled thinly.
"That's if show business doesn't pan out," Mickey said, reluctant to reveal his secret yearnings for comedy stardom.
"A putz business," Gorlick said.
"Maybe he wants to be a movie star," Gloria interjected. "The Jewish Tom Mix and his faithful horse Moishey." She laughed heartily, her big tits shaking.
He felt a sudden tinge of resentment, wondering if they were taking his ambition seriously. That part was not a joke.
"What we are seeking here," Gorlick said. "is a special kind of tumler for "Gorlick's Greenhouse", a classy boy, a diplomat, an organizer, a social director with "tum" ya know whatimean?"
"Also funny Solly," Gloria said.
"Goes without saying. Sure funny. It also helps if you can sing a little."
Mickey nodded. He had a fair voice. "And a good dancer. A refined talker. Ya know what I mean, a smart classy funny boy who can keep the guests happy."
"They liked me at Blumenkranz," Mickey said. He was at somewhat of a disadvantage over that. He had been set for the season at Blumenkranz, another Catskill hotel, then Mrs. Blumenkranz hired her brother's son for the job. With ten days until Decoration Day when the Catskill hotels traditionally opened, he was in no bargaining position. It was Blumenkranz who had recommended him to Gorlick who had apparently had some disagreement with the tumler he had hired then fired.
"Blumenkranz," Gorlick sneered, "A pig sty cockeninyam operation. We're not like the other hotels. We're special. We got a special clientele." He took a deep drag on his cigar and looked at Gloria. "Small but eleganty. One fifty guests max on weekends. A showplace. Great coozeen. Kosher but goormay. We don't even have to advertise. All woid of mouth. In the middle of the week we got the wives, the kids, the girlfriends. Weekends when the boys come up we expect you to put on a show, sometimes we hire a specialty act, and we got a three-piece band all week. I say sometimes, because mostly the boys want action."
"Action?"
"Big time action. Poker. Crap tables. Slots."
"Is that legal?" Mickey asked, instantly regretting his hasty response. Bluemkranz and Grossingers had been straight places. But Sullivan County, which covered the Catskills, was considered wide open for gambling in some of the hotels. He had played slot machines at hotels near Lock Sheldrake.
“Legal shmegal. Not my business.”
Mickey shrugged, watching Gorlick use his big cigar as if it were a baton.
"....it's the weekdays I worry about, especially when it rains. When the boys come, ya know, they inject a happier prospect if you get my meaning. But in the weekdays the girls get bored with the machines and not all are not into cards. You gotta tumel them, keep them happy. They get bored, moody, start to complain about the coozeen. On the weekends they tell the boys and we got tsooris." Gorlick raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if he needed validation from a higher source.
"Tell him about last years Solly," Gloria piped. She extracted a compact from her bag and began to fix her makeup.
"A schmuck. Not bad on a stage. A good dancer. A schmoozer. He could tell a lotta jokes. A genius at Simon Sez. But on the floor, he was not a diplomat. Worse, he was a shmuck with a schmuck, if you get my drift." He looked toward Gloria who peeked out from behind her compact and giggled.
"I love it Solly."
"In the right place, at the right time, a young schmuck with a schmuck is a valuable asset. At the wrong place at the wrong time it's tsooris. This shmuck's shmuck gave me tsorris."
"One thing I know is my place, Mr. Gorlick," Mickey said seriously, calculating that the matter was a serious issue with Gorlick.
"It's your schmuck that's got to know its place," Gorlick said, looking down at the paper on the coffee table. "Mickey."
"No question," Mickey said. He was remembering Blumenkranz's. On weeknights the women were barracudas. To some, he hadn't been averse, but he knew it was tricky business. "I know how to draw a "Fine" line." The pun sailed right over Gorlick's head.
"Last year's social director is still in the hospital," Gloria said from behind her compact. "It's a miracle they let him live."
"I won't even tell you what they did to him," Gorlick said. "But you can imagine."
"Jesus," Mickey said, feeling the sudden chill as he envisioned what they might have done.
“We gotta cure, tumler,” Gloria said, winking. “Only it costs.”
Gorlick looked at Gloria and shook his head.
“Hey Solly. What about our two minute special?” Gloria giggled.
"Now funny. Show me funny," Gorlick said, flicking an ash into the ashtray on the coffee table.
But the stab of fear had dampened Mickey's enthusiasm. He was also confused. He thought he had been funny, showing them his funny attitude and his ability to integrate funny patter into the conversation.
"Tumler shtick," Gorlick prodded.
"I've got a terrific file. One liners and routines. Lots of blackouts." Mickey said. But when they didn't react, he cleared his throat and stood up.
"Now take my boss. He's the biggest man in who owes who. If he can't take it with him--he'll send his creditors. He gives me plenty of exercise. When he gives me a check I have to race him to the bank."
Gloria giggled.
"Boss jokes are okay," Gorlick said.
"Except for garlic. He hates to be called Garlic," Gloria interjected. Gorlick nodded.
"That would be in bad taste," Mickey said, searching Gorlick's eyes for a glint of acknowledgement. He found none.
"Jokes on wives are okay. Shvartzers. Pollack jokes. And be careful on smut. There are kids around.”
“Stinky little brats,” Gloria piped. “Course they think they’re all Little Lord Fantelroys and Shirley Temples.”
“And that’s the way you treat them. Make nice, nice, nice,” Gorlick said.
“And be careful with the ladies. They like dirty but not in front of the men. The boys get edgy think you’re try to…you know…heat up the frying pan. With the men everything goes. They love smut, smuttier the better. But the biggest no no of all. Hear my woids.” Gorlick put a fat finger in front of Mickey’s nose. “Absolutely no wop jokes. You put that one in your tuchas."Gorlick tapped his temple. “Get in the habit, just in case.”
"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 d
a 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.
