“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 tsouris. This schmuck’s schmuck gave me tsouris.”
“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. 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 a 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. But be careful on smut. There are kids around.”
“Stinky little brats,” Gloria piped. “Course they think they’re all Little Lord Fauntleroys 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 Mussolini. In a kosher hotel, a tumler says the word guinea or wop or makes 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, mama’s 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 he 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 he had just seen 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 had been 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, the short one, was standing over his father with what looked like a piece of pipe wrapped in newspaper. The other man, Strauss, 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. “Shmekel 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. “Ya 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 pair of women’s pink satin panties. “Dis is real 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 faw yaw hooers, Abie?”
Reles looked up and laughed.
“I got no hooers, Pep. Youse da guy wid da hooers. I got my Helen.”
“I fawgot, Abie,” Pep sneered. “Lucky you.”
“Put ’em on my tab,” Pep said to the older man.
“You can’t take that,” Mickey 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 faw us, Fine,” Reles said. “Pay up and save yourself da tsouris.”
“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 down payment shows good fate.”
“I give him da toilet, right, Abie?” Strauss said.
“Got a can?” Reles asked Mickey’s 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 he opened, searching for a name with spatulate fingers.
“We need tree hunert,” Reles said. “But we take a down payment. Say fifty.”
“I’ll go to the bank tomorrow,” Mickey said. Actually he had three hundred fifty saved in his account just in case he needed it for law school in the fall. Or to go 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 once more 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. Ya 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 one 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 viselike 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.
“You’re 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 faw da hospitality,” Reles said.
“And I tank you for the panties.” Pep held up the box.
“Dey gonna be more awf dan 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 $60 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, that’s 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. It’s 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.”