Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (9 page)

“While you’re at it, Bert, pick out a good one.”

“Hey, you sure you wore a coat?”

“Now remember, you guys,” Kaplan called out to them, “we start out from here at half past two sharp. But if you should miss us, you’ll have no trouble getting there by just following the map.”

As Safferstein rose, Dr. Muntz called out to him, “You going now, Bill?”

“Well, I – You staying?”

“Sure. Stick around for a while.”

Kaplan approached. “What’s your hurry. Bill? Edie is fixing some sandwiches, we’ll have another cup of coffee and shmoos a little.”

“Well, all right. How does it look?”

“In the bag, I’d say. I figure there’ll be no sweat voting it officially Sunday.”

“Fine.”

“I got a couple of letters from people interested in the vacant store. One is from a paint and wallpaper –”

Safferstein shook his head.

“And there’s a letter from the drugstore about his lease.”

“What about it?” Safferstein asked quickly.

“It seems his lease was expiring, so he wrote to Goralsky for a renewal, the old man agreed and had the forms drawn up. But he died before he got around to signing them.”

Safferstein smiled broadly. “Is that so?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Why don’t you just write Aptaker and tell him I’m taking over and to see me about it.”

Marcus Aptaker turned the key in the lock and then jiggled the knob to make sure the door was locked. “Good night, Ross,” he said, and to his son, “Coming, Arnold?”

“You go ahead, Dad. I got my car here. I’ll be along a little later.”

The rain had stopped but it was misting, and as Akiva drove along the shore road he encountered patches of heavy fog that his headlights could barely penetrate, as he approached the house by the shore he saw that the entire area was dark, not only the houses but the street lights as well, he began to have doubts. Leah might have taken the boy to her parents’ house at the approach of the storm and was there with him now. Or if they had remained, then they could be asleep, and if he rang the bell…

Then he saw her silhouetted in the window, looking out at the turbulent ocean, he parked his car and walked across the street, hoping she would recognize him as he approached.

She opened the door before he could reach for the bell. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “What do you want?”

“I tried to call you a couple of times, but I guess your line is dead. I was worried. You’re right on the water. I thought I’d run out and see if you were all right.”

“The electricity is out,” she said, “and I used up the one candle I had.” She stood aside for him to enter.

He found his way into the living room and sat on the sofa, a moment later he felt it give as she plumped down beside him, her thigh was tight against his, and he thought she had misgauged the distance in the darkness. But she leaned against him, and then she was on top of him, her mouth pressed hard against his.

Later, when they were lying close together on the narrow sofa, she murmured. “It’s been so long.”

“For me too,” he said huskily.

The phone rang, and Chester Kaplan called from across the room. “Take it, will you, al.”

Dr. Muntz picked up the phone and said. “This is the Kaplan residence….Who?.., he’s not here. Just a minute, hold on.” He cupped the instrument and called out to Kaplan. “It’s for Dan Cohen. Was he here tonight? I didn’t see him.” He spoke into the phone again. “No, he didn’t get here. Say, who is this?… Oh, it’s you, John. I thought I recognized your voice. What’s up? … What! … Just a minute.” He raised his head and said. “Hey; pipe down, you guys, will you? I can’t hear.”

The room immediately got quiet, all eyes turned toward him.

“So they called you?… M-hm… M-hm… M-hm.., well, I guess it’s one of those things. I’m sorry you got mixed up in it…. Yeah, bye.”

“Was that John DiFrancesca?” asked Dr. Kantrovitz. “What happened?”

“One of Dan Cohen’s patients died, they couldn’t get hold of Dan, so the service called John, he says it was probably a reaction to medication that Dan ordered and –”

“Who was it?”

“Old man Kestler.”

“Oh my God!” The cry came from Safferstein.

All turned to him. His face was ashen.

“What’s the matter, Billy?” Kaplan asked.

“Maybe it was my fault. I might have switched the pills.”

“What are you talking about?”

He explained how he had volunteered to deliver the prescription to the Kestler house. “So I had these two envelopes, one that Al prescribed for Mona and one for Kestler, maybe the one I gave the cop for Kestler was Mona’s.”

“How about it, Al?” asked Kaplan. “Could what you prescribed for Mona have hurt Kestler?”

“It was penicillin.” Dr. Muntz replied. “If Kestler was sensitive to it –” He broke off as another idea occurred to him. “You gave Kestler’s pills to Mona?”

“No, I came right here because of the storm.”

“So you’ve still got the other one.” Muntz pointed out. “All you have to do is look and see if the pills you still have are Kestler’s or Mona’s.”

“Yeah, that’s right, they’re in my coat pocket.” Safferstein immediately went to the hall closet where Kaplan had hung his coat, the others followed, he picked up a coat and thrust his hand into the pocket. “It’s gone,” he exclaimed in dismay. “The pills are gone.”

“Look in the other pockets.”

“I remember putting them in this pocket.” But he began to search nevertheless, he drew out a pair of gloves and stared blankly at them. “These aren’t mine. Say, this isn’t my coat. Somebody must have switched coats with me.”

Marcus Aptaker stirred uneasily and then came awake, he rubbed his eyes and yawned mightily. His wife, in her bathrobe, was sitting on the rocker, staring out the window.

“What’s the matter? Can’t you get to sleep?”

“It’s a quarter of two,” she said, “and Arnold’s not home yet.”

“So what? He’s a big boy now.”

“But the storm – he may have – according to the broadcast a lot of trees blew down, and some telephone and electric-light poles.”

“Good Lord, why do you want to imagine such things?” But he got out of bed and put on his bathrobe. “Let me make you some hot milk, then you’ll be able to sleep.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “I don’t want any hot milk. I think we ought to call the police.”

He stared at her. “What for?”

“Well, you could ask if –”

“Look, Rose, if he’s been in an accident, if that’s what’s bothering you, believe me, they’d let us know.”

“So where can he be?”

“How do I know? He probably went to visit a friend and they didn’t notice the time passing.”

“Who would he go see? What friends does he have around here?”

“I don’t know, all I know is he was on the phone a couple of times.”

“I think we ought to call the police,” his wife insisted.

“I’m not calling no police. What could I say to them? That it’s almost two o’clock in the morning and my twenty-eight-year-old son isn’t home yet? I’d never hear the end of it. Chances are he had a flat tire or something and he’ll be along pretty soon.”

“So why wouldn’t he have called? He’d know we’d be worried, wondering what might have happened to him in a storm like this.”

“How the hell do I know why he didn’t call? Maybe he didn’t have a dime.”

Grumbling, Marcus Aptaker wandered into the living room and his wife followed after him, he turned on the TV to “The Late Late Show” and stared unseeing at the screen.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” she urged. “You’ve got to get up in the morning.”

“I don’t feel sleepy.” He was as worried as she was but he could not voice his fears lest he increase hers.

At three o’clock, Akiva came home, he was happy, he was euphoric, he was uneasy. “Gee, the house is lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said gaily. “Don’t you folks ever go to bed?”

“Oh, Arnold, we were so worried,” his mother wailed. “Where in hell have you been?” Aptaker demanded, his worry instantly converted to dark anger.

“Didn’t you know we’d be worried?” his mother sobbed. “Where were you?”

“I – I went to see a girl.”

“In Revere, I bet,” his father shouted, he turned to his wife. “One of those floozies he used to hang around with. You wondered who he knew around here, who he could go see. I’ll tell you who. One of those nice girls in Revere you don’t have to know personally, that’s who, he’s religious now. Goes to the synagogue. Won’t eat your food because it isn’t holy enough for him, and he’s home one night and he goes chasing after whores.”

Akiva lost control. “You can’t talk to me that way,” he shouted. “I don’t have to take that from you.”

“As long as you’re under my roof –”

“Then Goddammit, I’ll get out from under your roof,” and he flung out of the room, he was back almost immediately with his suitcase in hand, he tossed the house key they had given him onto the coffee table. “There, I’m getting the hell out of here.” He started for the door.

“Please, Arnold, please.” his mother begged. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Philly. I shouldn’t have come.” He banged the door behind him.

Unbelieving, Mrs. aptaker stared at her husband, who glowered at the floor. “Oh, Mark, you shouldn’t –”

“Let him go. Who needs him?”

“No!” She pulled at the door and ran out onto the porch, she called to him, but he had already backed out of the driveway and was turning into the street.

As Akiva drove through the night, he took on passengers: his mother first, with whom he was contrite. “I knew all along it wouldn’t work, Ma, that’s why I didn’t come back before. Dad is not a bad guy, but our chemistries don’t mix, our vibrations don’t harmonize. It’s not his fault and it’s not my fault; it’s just one of those things.”

Then Reb Mendel, with whom he was inclined to be jocose. “I guess, Rebbe, this is one time the Insight was a bit faulty, a little grease on the telescope lens, perhaps?”

And Leah, with whom he spoke seriously. “It’s probably for the best, dear. I’d be leaving in a few days anyway. Of course, if you were to come down to Philly, and get a job there, or even in Washington, where I could visit on a weekend –”

His reverie was shattered by the unmistakable sound of a policeman’s whistle. Since his car was the only one on the road, he knew it applied to him. Resigned, he slowed down and stopped. In the rearview mirror he watched the policeman dismount from his motorcycle and stroll leisurely toward him, he turned on the overhead light and began to fish through the glove compartment for his registration.

The policeman bent down and glanced inside the car. “Hopping right along there, weren’t you, mister? You going to a fire?”

“Look, officer, I’m driving down to Philly – say, you’re Purvis, aren’t you? Joe Purvis?”

“Yeah, You know me?” The policeman peered at him. “You’re not –”

“Arnold Aptaker.”

“How about that? How are you? What’s with the whiskers?”

“Oh, you know, just thought I’d try it. Saves on razor blades.”

“How about that? You been in town? I didn’t see you around.”

“Just visiting my folks for a couple of days. I live in Philly now. How long you been on the cops? I thought you were a carpenter.”

“I was carpentering till a couple of years ago. Slim pickings during the winter, so I took the police exam. I still do some carpentering when I’m off duty, you know, for old customers.”

“You got a brother, haven’t you?” Akiva asked, anxious to keep the conversation going on friendly lines.

“Caleb? Yeah, he was a year behind us.”

“I remember, he was in my English class. What’s he doing? He on the cops, too?”

“Naw, he’s with the Courier, circulation manager, he writes to all the Crossers who’ve moved away, like to Florida, and asks them to subscribe so they can keep in touch with the town. Does pretty good, too.”

Inspiration came to Akiva. “Say, that’s an idea.” He searched in the glove compartment and found pencil and paper, he scribbled his name and address and handed it to the policeman. From his wallet he drew a five-dollar bill. “Here’s five bucks. Give it to your brother and have him send me the paper.”

“Well, gosh, why don’t you write him yourself and he’ll send you a form. I’m not sure how much it is.”

“So when he sends me five bucks’ worth, he’ll send me a notice to renew. You know how it is, if I have to sit down and write a letter, I won’t get around to it.”

“Well, all right.” The policeman folded the bill inside the address and inserted them into the sweatband of his cap. “Look, next time you come up this way, come see me, and say; take it easy for the next couple of miles, there’s branches down all along the road.”

Rabbi Small heard about Kestler’s death the next day at the morning minyan, although shocked that the man he had visited only the night before had died, he was not too surprised. Kestler had been over eighty and each time he had been to see him, he had seemed weaker and more fragile.

“You going to the funeral, Rabbi?” asked Chester Kaplan. “It’s over in Revere at half past ten, he was a member of Bnai Shalom.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to go. I’ve done some legal work for the Kestlers over the years.”

“It’s a mitzvah to go,” the rabbi observed. Kaplan brightened. “Yeah, that’s right, it is.”

When next he saw the rabbi at the evening minyan he reported on the event. “You should’ve been there, Rabbi, there was quite a crowd. I wouldn’t have thought he was that popular.” Kaplan laughed. “But when I overheard some of the remarks. I figured they had come to make sure he was dead.”

The rabbi raised his eyebrows. “So?”

“You know what he was, don’t you?”

“Small-loans banker?”

“He was a usurer, he lent money on high-risk items, he gave second and third mortgages, chattel loans, that sort of thing. His prime rate of interest was somewhere around twenty-five or thirty percent. But you should have heard the eulogy. This Rabbi Rogin who officiated went on and on about how Kestler had loaned money, ‘not to the financiers or the captains of industry, but to the poor and the humble.’ I suppose he asked the son about his father and then dressed it up.”