Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home (15 page)

“But I’ve arranged with the other men in the deal to meet them at the house. You could have let me know earlier.”

“I didn’t expect her until tomorrow, Mr. Paff. I just got a call from New York, from the airport. Look, you don’t need me there anyway. You can get the key from –”

“Don’t tell me to go to see that son of a bitch Begg again. He’ll tell me he can’t get away from his two-bit store and that he can’t let me have the key because I might steal the furniture. Furniture! I’ve seen better at the Morgan Memorial. I’ll drive up with a truck and load it with his goddam ratty furniture.”

The other chuckled. “Begg is an old Yankee, all right. But look, how would it be if I left the key in Lynn?”

“Happens I’ve got to check something at the Lynn alley.”

“Well, that’s fine then. You know the drugstore on the corner where my building is? I’ll leave the key there, and you can pick it up.”

“Well. I guess that’s all right. You just be sure that there’s no slipup. Give them my name and tell them what I look like so there won’t be any question when I come in for it.”

“Nothing to worry about, Mr. Paff. And you look over the property as long as you like. Just be sure you turn out the lights and lock the door when you leave.”

At the Lynn alley the manager greeted him with, “Your wife just called. Mr. Paff, and said for you to call a Mr. Kermit Arons.”

Arons was remorseful. “Gee, Meyer, you’ll never guess what I went and did. After I made this appointment with you for tonight I forgot all about my sister-in-law’s wedding anniversary. She’s throwing a big shindig, and if I don’t go to it, well, I might just as well start discussing visitation rights to the children with my lawyer. So for tonight, I’m afraid you’ll have to count me out.”

“But we’ve got to act fast on this thing, Kerm. We can’t futz around.”

“So act. What do I know about buildings, anyway? If you guys say it’s all right, then it’s all right with me. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

As soon as he hung up, the manager bore down on him. “Look. Mr. Paff, Moose is late again. I called his house, and he wasn’t home. I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Well, why don’t you go out and grab a bite. I’ll cover for you, and I’ll get somebody for tonight. Frank over at the Maiden Alley said he could work any night except Friday.”

“Well, what if Moose comes in?”

“If he comes in while I’m here. I’ll fire him. And if he doesn’t show up. I’ll tell him tomorrow he’s through. Look, don’t take too long; I’ve got an appointment.”

“Sure, Mr. Paff, I’ll just get a hamburger and a cup of coffee. Say, I know a young fellow who if you hire him. I know he’d be reliable and –”

“We’ll talk about it. You go and eat now.”

He started for the door, but Paff called after him. “Say, have the cops been in again since –”

“Oh, don’t worry about them, Mr. Paff. I know how to handle them.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you. Lay off. Don’t rile them. Understand?”

“Oh, sure, Mr. Paff.”

“Don’t act flip. Just cooperate.”

While the other was gone, the phone rang. It was Dr. Edelstein. “Meyer? Your wife gave me this number, and said I might catch you here. I just got a call, and I got to go clear down to Lawrence for a consultation.”

“But, Doc, Kermit Arons can’t make it. He got to go to his sister-in-law’s anniversary party, and now you –”

“It’s a man’s life, Meyer.”

Parked under the streetlamp opposite Hillson House, Meyer Paff decided that he would wait just five more minutes for Irving Kallen and then leave. It was easier to get money out of his friends than work, he reflected bitterly. He was not merely annoyed; he was physically uncomfortable. Because of the rain he had to keep the car window up, and it was hot and sticky inside. He could have gone into the house – he had the key – but he remembered what Begg had said about vandals having broken in there on occasion, and he did not want to go in alone. Besides, half-hidden behind its overgrown hedge, the house now looked dark and forbidding. And the thunder and lightning didn’t help things any.

He glanced at his watch and saw that he had been there almost half an hour. He looked uncertainly down the road and. seeing no car approaching, turned on the ignition and drove off.

“No ma’am, you notify the electric company. But I can tell you there’s no need to call them either. They know about it. The power is out in all that part of town. The storm knocked out the substation.”

Sergeant Hanks turned to Patrolman Smith, who had unbuttoned his tunic and was relaxing with a cup of coffee. “Boy, what a night! Must be a hundred people calling the electric company and then calling us when they can’t get them.”

Smith smiled sympathetically, but the sergeant was back at the phone again. “Barnard’s Crossing Police Department, Sergeant Hanks speaking… Yes, Mr. Begg… Oh yes, that’s one of the houses the cruising car checks regular… No sir, nothing was called in… You say it was lit up?… That’s funny – all power in that part of town is out. You don’t have lights, do you?… Oh, before… No, sir, I was not talking to my girl and not to my wife either… Well, I’m sorry about that, but people been calling in almost constantly for the last hour or so about the lights… Yes sir. I’ll have the cruising car check….”

He wheeled around in his swivel chair. “Son of a bitch!”

“Begg? No two opinions on him,” said the patrolman. “Did I ever tell you about the time he –”

“I better call the cruising car,” the sergeant interrupted. “It would be just like him to keep tabs on the time. Hear me. Bob?… Hanks… When did you pass Tarlow’s Point?… Uh-huh… Well, take a run down there, will you? Old man Begg claims he saw a light there… No, just before the transformer blew… Okay.”

They drove three in the front seat. Didi between the two boys. Stu turned the wipers to high speed to take care of the rain lashing against the windshield. “I sure don’t envy that Jenkins riding a motorcycle in this kind of weather.”

“Oh, he can always duck in someplace until it lets up.” said Jacobs.

They parked in front of Hillson House, and Stu dug a flashlight out of the glove compartment and snapped on the beam.

“Hey:” said Jacobs, “the door is open.”

“Maybe Moose woke up and just walked out.” said Stu hopefully.

“Could be, but we better take a look around. Here, let me have the flash.” Bill mounted the stairs with Stu behind him. He pushed open the front door and cast the light around the room. Then he led the way down the hall to the study, where they had left Moose. He stopped at the threshold and focused the beam on the couch. What looked like a giant cocoon in silvery white plastic was resting on top of it.

Stu giggled nervously. “Geez, you sure wrapped him good. What did you put it over his head for?”

But Jacobs was already at the couch. “We didn’t leave him like that. Help me!”

The figure was completely encased in the sheet, the top flap of which had been folded over the head and tucked tightly into the folds enwrapping the body.

Jacobs yanked at the flap frantically and then, with Stu’s help, pulled the rest of the sheet from the body. The face was curiously white. Jacobs felt the forehead and cheeks. They were cold. He handed the flashlight to Stu and began to rub the hands of the figure on the couch. Then he dropped them in distaste.

“What’s the matter?” Stu whispered. “I think he’s dead.”

He thrust his hand underneath the shirt to see if he could feel a heartbeat.

“You can’t tell that way.” said Stu. “You got to hold something like a mirror up to his lips.”

“I haven’t got a mirror.” said Bill savagely. “Put the lens of the flash to his mouth.”

Stu offered the flashlight, but Bill said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They started to walk out and then broke into a run. They clattered down the steps and then raced to the car. Stu pulled the car door open while Bill ran around the front to the other side.

“Where’s Moose?” asked Didi as she moved over to let Stu get behind the wheel.

“Never mind.” He turned on the ignition, but before he could shift to DRIVE a car zoomed toward them, veered over, and came to a stop immediately in front, its headlights on high beam shining in their eyes. Stu’s door was pulled open by a policeman with a gun in his hand. “Hold it.” he commanded. “Now come out, all of you.”

Harvey Kanter, Ben Gorfinkle’s brother-in-law, was ten years his senior. Although in private he was radical, atheistic, and irreverent, in public, as the managing editor of the Lynn Times-Herald, he was Republican, conservative, and a staunch defender of the status quo. He wrote editorials supporting book censorship, prayers in the schools, law and order in the cities, and attacked student rioting, the coddling of criminals, and the hippie movement. He was a tall, rangy man, with a shock of iron-gray hair brushed back impatiently. Everything about him was impatient. He was nervous, fidgety; he could not sit still; he either got up and paced the floor, or if he remained seated, he would slide forward to rest on the end of his spine or pull a leg under him or slouch around if the chair permitted it so that his head was on one arm and his legs on the other.

His attitude toward Gorfinkle tended to be mocking and derisive, and his wife, Edith, was also apt to be somewhat patronizing to her younger sister. Mrs. Gorfinkle. Nevertheless, the Gorfinkles came to dinner when they were invited, partly as a matter of habit and partly because in a perverse kind of way Ben Gorfinkle enjoyed the discussions.

After dinner the two men lounged into the living room while the women cleared the table and proceeded to wash the dishes. Kanter bit off the end of a cigar, and as he held a match to the end he said, “I heard your rabbi the other day. Did I tell you?”

“No.” said Gorfinkle cautiously. “When was that?”

“About a week ago. He was the speaker at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, save the mark.”

“I didn’t think you went to those.”

“Hell, the paper has to be represented, and I drew the short straw. Your man wasn’t bad.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Oh, the usual – the place of the temple in the modern world. Seems to me I’ve heard a dozen priests and ministers and such godly folk at one affair or another in the last six months, and all they talk about is the place of the church, or in this case the synagogue, in the modern world. I figure if they talk about it so much, it’s because it ain’t so, but your guy seemed to make some sense.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, the point of his talk, as I remember it. was that the modern civilized world was finally coming around to the positions that the synagogue had been preaching for a couple of thousand years or more – social justice, civil rights, rights of women, importance of learning. His idea was that finally, after nearly two thousand years, the Jewish religion was coming into style.”

“That’s very interesting.” said Gorfinkle. “I had a long talk with him – just before I came here, as a matter of fact. And it was about somewhat the same subject, but he took what I thought was the opposite point of view in his discussion with me. I guess there are some people who can take either side of the discussion, depending on how it suits them,” he added.

“He didn’t strike me as that type of man.” said Kanter quietly. “What happened?”

“Well, you know, as in any organization, we have two parties – mine and what you might call the opposition, which is headed by Meyer Paff. You know him.”

“Yeah. I know him.”

“Well, we want the temple to get active in various movements that are current – like civil rights, for one. Paff s bunch want to keep it a place where – you know – you just come to pray on the High Holidays or on Friday nights. And I found out that the rabbi was carrying on some pretty active propaganda for the Paff group. So I had it out with him.”

“And how did it end?”

“I told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t going to stand for it and that the group that I represented – and we’re a clear majority – weren’t going to stand for it.” He leaned forward in his chair. “You see, what he was doing was talking to the kids – telling them that we were in the wrong. He’s kind of popular with the kids, and he was planning to use them to influence their parents.”

“How did he take it?”

“Oh, he got on his high horse and said no one was going to tell him what to say, that he was the rabbi and he would decide what was proper for him to say and what wasn’t.”

“So?”

Gorfinkle was pleasantly conscious that he had captured his brother-in-law’s interest and that, for once, what he was about to say would startle him out of his customary superciliousness. He smiled. “So I told him that I’d had a meeting with a majority of the board prior to our little talk and that we had decided that if he refused to go along, at the next meeting a motion would be offered – and passed – calling for his resignation.”

“You fired him?”

He pursed his lips and canted his head to one side. “Just about.”

“Nothing personal, of course.”

“I flatter myself that I handled it pretty well.” said Gorfinkle with a smirk.

Kanter got up from his chair and strode across the room. He turned and glared down his long nose at his brother-in- law. “By God, you nice respectable people can blunder into a situation and foul it up to make the angels weep. You get elected president, and before you have a chance to warm your arse on the chair you start firing people.”

“An organization can’t go in two directions at the same time.” Gorfinkle protested. “If we’re going to make any progress –”

“Progress? Why the hell do you have to make progress? Do you think everything has a balance sheet that has to be matched against the balance of the previous year to show you’re going ahead? What the hell kind of progress does an institution that has lasted a couple of thousand years have to make?”

“If it’s to be a living institution –”

“It’s got to hop aboard the bandwagon, is that it? Civil rights, slum clearance, job opportunities – they’re all in style now and respectable, so all the bleeding-heart liberals and social democrats try to get in on the act. Faugh! You guys make me sick. When did you get to be so goddam liberal? How many blacks have you hired at Hexatronics?”