Funny Boys by Warren Adler

so dramatically. She had become a woman and won the heart of a powerful man who protected her and showed her a new and exciting world, a long way from the drab, colorless, boring life she had been leading.
    “Just look at this gorgeous sight,” she whispered aloud. She had turned away from the window and looked into the full-length mirror at the new dress Pep had bought her. What men do, men do, she assured herself. They had their reasons. She concluded that Pep was like a soldier in an army that was at war, and in a warsometimes people got hurt, or worse. Like in those war movies about the World War. If you thought of it that way, you knew you had to stop thinking about what happened on the battlefield and act more like the women who stayed at home.
    She turned away from the mirror to look outside again. The beauty of the view soothed the nagging irritation of these dark thoughts. Of course, she had gotten good at pretending that she was walking around with blinders on, with ears stuffed with cotton and a mouth that uttered hardly anything except when she alone was with Pep.
    So far, being Pep’s girl, his numba one as he called her, was like being a celebrity. People said, “That’s Pep’s girl” and looked at her with what she thought was awesome respect. Besides, if anyone, including his associates in the combination, did not show her respect, that person would have hell to pay. She was very careful not to be overly friendly with anyone and to keep to herself. Besides, she had the sensation that the women were keeping her under extra-special surveillance. Pep had a real jealous streak. Actually, she liked that. It made her feel really special, valuable, worth protecting. And he had taught her all those moves to show her gratitude.
    She was, of course, true to her promise. She never again asked him what he did to make his living. She found that she could separate it in her mind. Not that she had to lie to herself. All she had to do was to imagine herself as a thoroughbred horse with blinders running around the track. Over and over again. Round and round. It was nice to be pampered, noticed, admired and showered with perks and presents.
    As her father had said countless times, the world belongs to them that have the gelt and the objective was to get it and not be pushed around. Wasn’t that the real American dream? Wasn’t thatwhat being a go-getter meant? Hadn’t she been a go-getter by transforming herself to look like a Hollywood star?
    Her role was to be Pep’s girl. She was not stupid enough to believe that everything they did was legitimate. Legitimacy, she knew, had lots of gray areas. Prohibition was the law, but drinking went on anyway because people liked to drink; they needed to drink and have fun. In the movies there were lots of people shown drinking and having fun in speakeasies. So what was wrong with that?
    Okay, so there was bookmaking. People loved to play the horses and the numbers. They derived pleasure from that. Somebody had to run these things. Sometimes laws were silly. She had seen with her own eyes cops in uniform getting paid off by the boys on the corner. Everybody knew that the law was a joke.
    And borrowing money when a bank was too stuffy to lend it was okay, too. The people that lent money to people of high risk deserved to be paid high interest rates for that risk. There were other things, too, that made sense if one thought about it carefully. Businesses did need protection against unscrupulous competitors, and sometimes businesses and unions did need middlemen to negotiate things away from public scrutiny. It wasn’t her job to be judge and jury. Besides, she had learned life had trade-offs.
    She could put two and two together. She knew Pep and his friends were what people generally referred to as gangsters. She had seen enough gangster movies to know what that was. But she was able to separate what he did, which she didn’t know for sure, from what he really was, which was the