FROM A DISTANCE GORLICK’S GREENHOUSE 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.”
“Look at this, Marsha, a real softie.”
“He’s got class,” Marsha mumbled. “Not a slob like you, Irish.” She looked at Mickey and nodded. “I appreciate this kid. I ain’t just a piece of meat.”
“It’s okay. I’ll find another place,” Mickey said.
“This one’s gotta heart,” Marsha said, pointing with her thumb. Her subtle change of attitude seemed puzzling.
“Stop the hearts and flowers and get the hell outa here,” Irish said to the girl.
The girl moved to the bed and bent to get her battered suitcase from under it.
“You should see that big ass move, tumler,” Irish said. The girl, paying little attention, put on a robe.
“You don’t have to go,” Mickey said.
“It’s not my room anyway,” the girl said. “It’s his racket. It’s a scam, kiddo.”
“For that you don’t get your cut,” Irish said, pushing a finger in the girl’s face.
“Does Gorlick know?” Mickey snapped.
“Won’t do no good. He don want no trouble with the help,” Marsha said, her gaze flitting between him and Irish. “Better don rock the boat. Right, Irish?”
When she turned to face Irish again, she looked at him with squinty eyes, her lips tight with anger.
“When the big shots come up this one will be just a little shit,” she said. Irish lifted a fisted hand.
“Ya lookin for it, Marsha,” Irish said.
“Yeah. Like your dick. Tough to find.”
“Fa that I ain’t pimping ya with the help this yeah,” Irish said, sticking a finger in front of her nose. “And if ya try on yaw own I give yaw face an acid bath, you unnerstand?”
“Big talker,” Marsha said, turning to Mickey. “Thanks, tumler.” She winked. “At least someone around here has feelings.”
She scowled at Irish and left the room with her suitcase.
“Lousy little hooer,” Irish said, hitching up his pants with his elbows. “No gratitude. Was me that got her the waitress job in the foist place, was me that woiked out the side action for the help.” Again he flipped up his pants with his elbows. “You like this room, tumler?”
It was, indeed, larger and airier with a window that overlooked the lake.
“This really was my room, Irish?” Mickey asked. “You owe me four bucks.”
“Dues, pal,” Irish muttered. “For that I put ya under my care. Now I give ya the tour. Ya tell the boss, it’s your word against mine. I been here five seasons.”
Mickey decided not to press the point. No sense starting trouble during his very first day.
Irish took him down by the back stairs. On the second floor, he led him through rooms filled with green felt craps tables, card tables with lights hanging overhead and one roulette table.
“They ever been raided here?” Mickey asked.
“Raided? You crazy? In Sullivan County? Cops are on da take here like everywhere, schmuck. Doncha know that da combination runs da city and da whole state? Whereyabeen? They got New Yawk in the palm a dere hands. Nothin happens dey give da goahead. Anyways, Big Al’s troop runs these games.”
“Anastasia?” Mickey said. He had remembered that name from Gorlick’s explanation and his own research. Irish stopped suddenly and inspected his face. He seemed impressed.
“You know Big Al?” Irish asked.
Mickey held up two fingers close together.
“You shittin me?”
Mickey deliberately did not answer, staring instead into Irish’s green eyes.
“Kid Twist and Pittsburgh Phil?”
“You think they’d hire a strange tumler?” Mickey said, his stomach churning with the memory of his father’s beating.
“Jesus. You shoulda said.”
“You think Gorlick wants a problem like last year’s tumler?”
“Jesus. You know about dat?”
“Speaks with a squeak now,” Mickey said.
“Ya don fuck with the troop’s ladies. This shmekel he pops somebody’s quiff. Ya know how that goes down.”
“Believe me, I’ve been warned.”
“You need some pussy?” He tapped his chest with his thumb. “I put Marsha to work.” Irish chuckled. “I suppose you also knows the wops, too. The Dasher? Louis the Wop, Happy Maione?”
“You gotta know the scorecard, kid,” Mickey winked, playing the charade to the hilt.
Irish reeled out the names with a sense of unbridled awe. These were obviously his heroes, whoever they were. Mickey assumed that they were people in the “combination.” Since being hired, he had, of course, done some inquiring, but his neighborhood network was limited.
Most of his friends had been the good boys, the smart boy sissies who had a particular ambition or went to college. They were at the top level of the three-level pyramid. The lowest were boys who hung around the poolrooms, Brownsville bums, many of whom were sure to end up as gangsters. At mid-range were the boys who hung around the corner candy store, of which there was one on almost every Brownsville corner. They were idlers but not bums, not officially, and not pushy or ruthless enough to be gangsters.
Through further research he had embellished upon Gorlick’s explanation. The so-called combination was an alliance of Jewish gangsters from Brownsville and Italian gangsters from Ocean Hill a few blocks away. This was surprising, since he knew that as a Jewish boy he was not welcome in any Italian neighborhood.
Because he went to night school, worked in the store and had a particular ambition, Mickey had little time to mix with the neighborhood boys. He had gone to public school with many of them, but they had inevitably drifted apart. Up until he had confronted those gangsters beating up his father, he had had no connection with nor did he realize the extent of the criminality of Brownsville gangsters.
He had discovered that the Brownsville combination were into loan-sharking, labor union extortion, gambling and prostitution and that many of them hung out around a candy store on Livonia and Saratoga that they called “The Corner,” and that the candy store never closed. The owner was called Midnight Rose and it was here that his father had borrowed the money from the shylocks in the combination.
But the real business of the Brownsville gang was murder. You hired them as hit men. Mostly they did piece work. If someone from the combination needed someone wacked for business reasons, they contracted with the boys who hung around Midnight Rose’s candy store. It was no secret, but so far the so-called reformers like La Guardia, who was now the mayor, and Dewey, who had been picked to clean up the racketeers and was soon to run for New York district attorney, hadn’t been able to lay a glove on them.
But the strangest information he had garnered during the period between being hired by Gorlick and arrival was that most of those who had gone to school with him and stayed in the neighborhood were in awe of these gangsters. In fact, they worshipped them. They were heroes, even role models, defying the law, courageous and, above all, tough. You messed with them at your peril.
Proximity to them was everything for these sycophants. It did not take a genius to know that Irish was one of these and Mickey acted accordingly, larding it on.
“I was just saying to Lepke the other day,” Mickey said, remembering Gorlick having mentioned a man named Lepke. He had remembered later that he had read about a racketeer named Lepke in the newspapers.
“Ya know Lepke good enough to tawk with?”
Mickey looked at Irish and deliberately said nothing.
“And Joey A. Ya know him? And Frank Costello?”
“You know what happens to nosy punks?” Mickey said, with an Edward G. Robinson inflection.
“I ain’t lookin for no trouble,” Irish muttered. He squinted at Mickey and continued the tour. Beyond the gambling casino was another room with a long table.
“For serious troop business,” Irish said.
“Bet your ass,” Mickey replied.
Irish seemed to become reflective as he accompanied Mickey downstairs and through the dining room with large windows overlooking the lake. He pointed to a small stage at one end of the dining room.
“This is where ya do your shtick, tumler. And ya bettah be funny.”
“Maybe I’ll tie a chain around your neck, Irish, and play the organ.”
“Ha ha, tumler.” He grabbed his crotch. “The only organ I play wid is dis one.”
“I’m sure it earns a clap or two from every performance.”
Irish, missing the humor, shrugged and went on with the tour.
“Ya evah know anybody from the Purple Mob in Detroit?”
“You got a long nose for an Irish,” Mickey grunted.
“I’m Benny Markowitz for chrisakes. Irish is only my monicker. Cause I look Irish. People say there was a Mick in the woodpile.”
“No shit,” Mickey said, forcing a chuckle. Along with the rats, he thought.
When they came out into the lobby again, Irish moved closer to Mickey and held him under the arm.
“I hang out at ‘the corner.’ I never seen you there.”
“You testin me, punk?”
“Bet you nevah been on a job?”
“Not my cup a tea. I’m around for laughs mostly.” Mickey had deliberately fallen into Irish’s speech rhythms.
“Yeah, yeah,” Irish said. “You killem wid laughs.”
“Sorta.”
“I been a wheelman on a couple,” Irish said, lowering his voice. “You ask Reles.”
“You got a tongue, Irish,” Mickey said, watching Irish flush red.
“Whatayathink, Dewey’s gonna hear me all a way from Manhattan?”
“A canary’s voice travels far,” Mickey said, remembering an odd line from a gangster movie. He watched Irish squirm.
“You tink dat?” Irish said menacingly. He looked around him furtively, his head swiveling like a bird. Then he moved it in a quick, jerky way, a sign that something momentous and confidential was about to come out of his mouth.
“I been on two contracts,” he whispered. “I seen Pep slice a guy with a pick, a bad number from the baker’s union. Never knew his name. Takes da pick like dis.” Irish demonstrated with an imaginary ice pick, touching Mickey lightly on the chest and neck. “Bing, bing, bing. Ten, twenty times. Pep got pissed cause some blood spurts on his white-on-white shoit. Den we bury da fucker over in Canarsie. Me an Red Alpert. Ya wanna hear da udder?”
“If I gotta,” Mickey mumbled. Irish looked at him for a moment, not certain whether to continue, then probably deciding that it was just the tumler’s way of expressing himself. The fact was that Mickey Fine’s stomach was curdling with fear. Pep’s appearance belied his curiosity. He could have done it to his father without batting an eye. In fact, with a smile.
“A quick hit right in Borough Park in da middle of da day. Brawd daylight. I got da wheel, see, and dis guy Pipkin or Popkin or sumpin comes walkin cross the street. I pull up to da coib and Bugsy gets out with his gat wrapped in newspaper. Pop. Pop. Right in da heart. Back in da car and off befaw da bum hits the ground.”
“Nobody saw?” Mickey asked, repelled and fascinated by the matter of factness of Irish’s rendition. He searched Irish’s face for the slightest sign of regret or remorse or compassion. None were visible.
“Hot car, see. And da gat got no serials. We throwed dat down da sewer and dumped da car in Canarsie.”
“Canarsie again?”
“Who goes to Canarsie? That’s shit country.”
“You are something, Irish,” Mickey said, searching his mind for a reaction. “And I hear good things about you.”
“No shit.”
“I hear the boys talkin. ‘This Irish got a future.’”
“I told ya.”
“A good boy this Irish, they all say,” Mickey embellished.
“Someday they gonna give me jobs like Pep and da Bug. I’m damned good wid da rope, too. And I also know dem gats.”
A tremor of fear shot through Mickey. Some ambition, he thought. My son, the killer.
“People know a good man when they see one,” Mickey muttered.
Irish jabbed a thumb into his chest. “I ain’t stupid neither. Day trust Irish cause Irish knows da score.” He bent his lips close to Mickey’s ear. Mickey felt the breeze of his breath and the smell of it, something faintly sour and milky. “Section tree nine nine, Criminal Code, City of New York. Ya know what dat is?”
Mickey contemplated an answer. No, he decided. This was too esoteric to feign knowledge.
Irish studied Mickey with his bird-alert green eyes. Then he smiled.
“In this State, ya can’t convict on a crime by testimony from an accomplice.” Irish paused, proud of his rendition. “Got it.”
“Oh that,” Mickey said, not willing to surrender completely to Irish’s street knowledge of the law.
“Gotta have what dey call corrobo … corrobor …”
“Corroboration,” Mickey said, glad to have this tiny crust of redemption.
“To connect da guy wid da act.” Irish nodded his head. “See I knows dose tings, dats why dey trust me. Dey know I cut out my tongue first befaw I snitch.”
“Me,” Mickey said. “I’m partial to old age. That’s why a clam lives nearly forever.”
“No shit?”
“One thing a tumler knows in life, it’s human nature.”
Irish studied Mickey again, probably wondering if his remarks should enter his logic system, which was strictly gleaned from the streets, not from books. Irish again raised up his pants with his elbows.
“Wese can help each udder good here. I’m like a jack a all trades. Sometimes I bus tables. Sometimes I wait. Sometimes I drive. I know everting dat goes on here. I know who’s shafting who, who’s shtupping who, who shtups easy, who you keep your hands off. Anyting you want to know, I got.”
Mickey searched his mind for a specific question, seeking to validate the commitment. In this atmosphere, Irish could be quite useful.
“All right, Irish. I got one,” Mickey said. It had been on his mind since the interview with Gorlick. “Who is this Gloria?” He did, after all, partially owe his job to her.
“Gloria with the good gams and bazooms?”
“Sounds like the lady.”
Irish smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of reddish gums over bad, crooked teeth.
“Gloria runs da quiff. Got this part a Sullivan County sewed up. Got maybe ten hooer houses within thirty miles. Also sends out. Case the boys wants some. Dis here is da mob’s turf, all da action, gambling, hooers, the bank, the book, the weed, the whole shmear. Ya know, all the rackets.”
“That part I know,” Mickey lied again. “I just thought Gloria was Gorlick’s girl,” Mickey said.
“Garlic? That lard ass wife a his wouldn’t let him dip the wick in a pickle barrel without her permission.” Irish winked. “If ya sweet on Gloria, cost you five oh and that’s only for an hour.”
“Sounds like you were there, Irish.”
Irish winked and hitched up his pants again.
“I been evywhere.”
The general routine of the tumler was the same in all of the hotels in the Catskills. An essential part of a tumler’s job was to know the guest list in advance so that those designated VIPs were given the kind of treatment accorded to their rank.
Irish was particularly helpful on that score, and on that Friday when the guests began to check in for Decoration Day weekend, Irish ran a bragging commentary on the guests, their wives and girlfriends. He assumed, of course, that Mickey knew them as well and that this display of his knowledge was merely to impress Mickey.
“There’s Charlie Workman and Allie Tannebaum and Plug Shulman, and Bugsy Goldstein and Kid Twist Reles and Pretty Levine and Gangy Cohen and Jack Drucker and Irv Ashkenaz. Thems da important ones. I know da dames, too.”
The names went on and on. Mickey had difficulty remembering, especially the women who, for the most part, were nondescript, especially the wives. There were exceptions, though, flashier types, who Irish usually designated as girl friends under the general heading of coorvas. Occasionally Mickey would interject an “I know” merely to validate his own pretended knowledge, but Irish was an encyclopedia, too concentrated, focused and excited by seeing these “celebrities” file into Gorlick’s Greenhouse.
“Pep ain’t come yet,” Irish said, his eyes darting over the crowd. “Pep’s my Rabbi.”
Mickey shrugged and said nothing.
“He be here. He tole me. Usually stashes a coorva heah for da summer. He’s got ’em evywhere. Dat Pep’s a card. He, Bugsy Goldstein and Kid Twist are da top a da heap.”
“So I hear,” Mickey said, remembering Pep’s brutality. His stomach knotted at the memory.
Gorlick and his fat wife stood by the desk dressed to the nines, hugging and kissing each guest and ordering the help to take the baggage to the guests’ designated rooms. It was a madhouse, noisy and confused, looking more like a staging area for refugees than the lobby of a Catskill hotel.
Considering the reputation of these men for killing and general mayhem, Mickey was surprised by their ordinariness. Collectively, they had the look of a very nondescript tribe, resembling working men and women, more like mechanics and waiters and store clerks on a family outing than the kind of gangsters portrayed in the movies.
The hotel became more frenetic and hectic as the day wore on. Kids began to run wildly through the lobby. Many of the men embraced in the abrazo fashion and peeled off into smaller groups, happy in one another’s company, leaving the details of the check-in to the women.
Then Mickey spotted the other man who had brutalized him and his father in the store and who he had seen again with that Pep monster in the corridor outside of Gorlick’s suite at the Park Central. Mickey moved slightly, trying to make Irish a buffer between him and Reles’s field of vision.
“There’s Reles,” Irish said, poking Mickey in the ribs. “That Kid Twist is one tough bastard.”
“A bastard, that’s for sure,” Mickey said. It was a mistake. Irish shot him a suspicious glance.
“Ain’t ya gonna say hello?” Irish said with a touch of sarcasm. “Ya said ya knowed him.”
“Maybe he should get set first,” Mickey said.
“Ya said ya knowed him good,” Irish pressed. He put his arm on Mickey’s back and pushed him forward. “Anyway you’re the tumler. Go tumel him.”
“Bad to tumel them when they come right off the road,” Mickey told him, trying to be reasonable. “They’re too edgy. They don’t want to be kibbitzed around with.”
“Ya shittin me, tumler?”
“Get off my back, Irish.”
“Now I get it. Ya full of it. Ya been braggin. Ya don know any of dese guys. Right? Ya been shittin me.”
“Go screw yourself, Irish.”
“Ya said you knowed ’em good.” Irish squeezed Mickey’s upper arm. It hurt but Mickey would not give him the satisfaction of knowing this. Then Irish hitched up his pants with his elbows.
“Tell you what, tumler. I’m gonna need like two bucks a week from you for …” Irish scratched his head “… special services. Yeah, that’s rich. Special services. A good deal, too. Hell, I give ya back the for. Ain’t I generous, tumler?”
It wouldn’t end there, Mickey thought. Irish would find ways of abusing him all summer. It was a direct, unabashed challenge. The man had no conscience and, as he had seen with Marsha, could be cruel and quite ruthless.
“You’re a card,” Mickey said. “A real jack off.”
“I ain’t laughin. Ya been trowin me da bullshit, tumler,” Irish said. “We got ways to take care a bullshitters.” Red blotches had erupted on his face. Mickey looked over at Reles.
He was dressed in a brown suit, which looked like the same suit he had worn at the Park Central, scuffed brown shoes and a hat pulled low over his eyes. He wore a shirt buttoned at the collar but with no tie and he needed a shave. He was talking animatedly to his wife who was holding the hand of a small dirty-faced boy.
Despite the domestic scene, the man was as he remembered on that night, eyes glowing agates of hate and the sausage-squat body a container of meanness and cruelty.
“Dey don like punks usin dere name in vain,” Irish said.
Mickey calculated the odds carefully. Chances were that Reles might not even remember him. Besides, he would be out of Irish’s earshot.
“You want me to put in a good word for you, Irish?” Mickey said, trying to build up some measure of the old arrogance.
“Yeah. You an La Guardia.” Irish punched a finger in Mickey’s chest. “Dis summer tumler, ya watch yaw ass, cause Irish is gonna be on it.”
Irish’s words triggered the action. Mickey turned and strode over to Reles. Suspend all fear, he begged himself, but they were hollow words.
“Hi, Mr. Reles. I’m Mickey Fine, the social director.”
“Whadayaknow. The new tumler,” Reles grunted, eyeing him with laser intensity. Mickey thought he saw a level of indifference and he was relieved. So far, so good, he thought, forcing himself not to look back at Irish, although he felt the man staring at his back. “Meet the wife and Heshy.”
Mickey forced a smile and gave the boy a kitcheykoo.
“We’re gonna have fun this summer, Hesh,” Mickey said to the boy, who looked back at him with the same cold, menacing eyes as his father. “Chip off the old block,” Mickey said, forcing his cheerfulness.
“You gonna make it fun ain’t ya, Mick?” Reles said.
“I’m here to make your stay a bowl of cherries,” Mickey said, watching Irish from the corner of his eye. He looked worried, less swagger in his posture.
“Ain’t that the pits,” Reles said, followed by a burst of guttural laughter.
“Maybe you should be the tumler,” Mickey said with good-natured aplomb.
“I tumel on my own turf, right, Helen?”
“My Abie’s a scream,” the woman said. She was squat, over-stuffed, with dyed red hair.
“I got anudder one faw him,” Reles said, looking at Helen. “You know da one.” He tapped an ear.
“Oh no, not that one.”
“Why do farts thmell?” Reles asked.
Mickey threw up his arms. “Ya got me,” he said.
Reles bent over and talked directly into Mickey’s ear.
“Tho deaf people can enjoy them, too.”
Mickey doubled up in faked laughter. He looked at Irish peripherally and gave him a chilly look. Irish seemed further deflated. Still bent over Mickey shot him an Italian “fuck you” gesture, hand slapped over biceps.
At that point, the bellhop came with his cart and began to load up the Releses’ luggage.
“Make sure these people have rooms with adjoining towels,” Mickey said. He put a hand at the side of his mouth and addressed Reles. “There’s a couple of good rooms in this joint. On a clear day you can even see the dresser.”
Both Helen and Abie Reles laughed, then Mrs. Reles and the boy went off with the bellhop while Reles lingered behind. He bent over and whispered in Mickey’s ear.
“You ain’t sore about da udder time, are ya, Mick?”
Mickey felt a sour, cold backwash deep inside of him. He looked toward Irish who seemed forlorn and totally defused. At least he had settled that score.
“Neva feget a face,” Reles said.
“Business is business, Mr. Reles,” Mickey said.
“Pep’s toilet drink diden hurt ya,” Reles said patting Mickey on the back. “Ya look a million.”
“I kept my promise, remember,” Mickey said, trying to keep his knees from trembling. “Next day cash on the barrelhead.”
“Yaw a good kid, Mickey. I don feget nothin like dat.” He bent over and whispered. “Ya take care a Helen and Hesh this summer. Take care good and I take care a ya.”
He put his arm around Mickey and squeezed his shoulder. Notwithstanding the ugly memory of that night in his father’s store, Mickey felt good, somehow vindicated. Stiffening his posture, he strode back to Irish and moved his face close enough to see his pores.
“You ever pull that shit on me again, Irish, I tell them that Mr. Shmekel Irish got too big a mouth. You fashstay?”
Irish flushed a deep reddish purple and his lips trembled.
“I was only kiddin aroun, tumler. Fact is I only been on one job and I nevah seed nothin.”
“Think I don’t know that, asshole?”
Irish fished in his pocket and brought out the four dollars he had taken from Mickey. Grabbing Mickey’s arm, he lifted it and tried to put the four dollars into his hand. Mickey pushed him away.
“Call it a loan, Irish,” Mickey said. “Five for four. You pay a deuce a week all summer then pay me back the rest on the last day.”
“Come on, Mick,” Irish pleaded, forcing a smile, showing large red gums. “That’s even above shylock rates.”
“You got it, Irish,” Mickey said, returning Irish’s smile and putting his arm around his shoulders. “Penalty charges. You and me, Irish. We’re business associates now. Aren’t we?”
“Sure, Mick, anyting you say,” Irish nodded, shrugging his acceptance.
“Get out of line and I’ll tell the boys that they got a canary loose outside the cage.” Mickey chuckled menacingly.
Not bad, he thought. He was getting the hang of the environment.