Free Funny Boys by Warren Adler

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 daysbefore 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.