Free Funny Boys by Warren Adler Page A

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