Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out

by Harry Kemelman

  She heard Molly answer the phone but could not hear what She said, of course. She lay in bed debating whether to put on the light and read for a while, or try to go back to sleep, or maybe even get up and go downstairs for a cup of tea. Before she could come to a decision, she heard footsteps on the stairs, slow, careful footsteps, and then the door of her bedroom quietly opened. She pretended to be asleep. The door closed and the footsteps retreated down the stairs. A little later, she heard the sound of an automobile starting up, seemingly right below her window. Mystified, she got out of bed, went to the window and cautiously drew back the curtain just in time to see Molly’s coupe ease down the driveway.

  Where could She be going? Had something happened to Herbert? Had the call come from the temple? But what could happen to him in the temple?

  Mrs. Mandell snicked on her bed lamp and looked at her watch. It was a little after half past eight. Gathering a kimono around her, she went downstairs. The lights in the living room were still on, and she padded about in her mules, looking at the papers on the desk where She had been typing. It occurred to her that She might have gone to mail something. But why now? The next collection would not be made until tomorrow morning. And it couldn’t be to buy something, like cigarettes or a magazine at the drugstore. All the stores were closed by this time. Besides, her leaving must have something to do with the phone call She had received. Some friends must have called her and—could it have been a man friend? Was She taking advantage of Herbert’s being at the temple to meet a lover?

  Mrs. Mandell felt faint at the idea and thought she had better get back to her own room to take a pill, to lie down if necessary. The more she thought about it, the stronger grew the probability of her daughter-in-law’s unfaithfulness. Curiously, it had not been one of the scenarios that she had fantasized as a means of ending the marriage, because—because in her mind it would make her son look ridiculous. But now she thought about it because she had to. What should she do? How should she proceed? Of course, if Herbert came home first, that would take care of it. On her return, he would confront her and demand an explanation. But what if She got back first?

  She heard a car turn into the quiet street. Her breast filled with a great hope that it might be her son. But a glance at the clock showed that it was a little after nine, too early for him to be coming home from the temple. It must be She returning.

  Gripping the handrail, she hurriedly mounted the stairs and got back into bed. A few minutes later the car pulled into the driveway, and shortly after she again heard footsteps on the stairs and then the door of her room being eased open. Again she pretended to be asleep, breathing deeply and stertorously until she heard the door pulled to and footsteps retreating down the stairs.

  20

  In an effort to increase the attendance, Henry Maltzman had suggested to the temple Brotherhood that they actively sponsor the Friday evening services.

  “What do you mean, sponsor?” asked Howard Jonas, the president of the Brotherhood.

  “You know, sponsor. Get behind the idea and push. Drum up attendance. Decorate the pulpit. Make arrangements for the collation afterward.”

  “But that’s what the Sisterhood does.”

  “Yeah, so why shouldn’t the Brotherhood take a crack at it for a change? It will spark things up, the competition.”

  “You mean, at the collation, the men would pour the tea? For the women? ‘One lump or two, Mrs. Feldman?’ Cummon! That’s a woman’s job, Henry.”

  But Maltzman was persuasive, and they finally agreed to do it one Friday in the month, the other Fridays continuing under the supervision of the women. So this night found Herb Mandell, as chairman of the Brotherhood Committee for the affair, standing at the front door of the temple with Howard Jonas, greeting congregants as they arrived. For this, the first such service, they had sent out cards to all the members. More, they had gone through the Barnard’s Crossing phone directory and sent cards of invitation to any whose names suggested they might be Jewish. “So if we make a mistake and send a card to a Gentile and he takes us up on it and comes, what harm will it do? It’s like ecumenical.”

  Mandell took his responsibilities seriously. Whenever there was a lull, he would leave his post at the door to dash down to the vestry to see how the arrangements for the collation were going. Since he was the lead tenor in the Brotherhood barbershop quartet, which was to join the cantor in front of the Ark to lead in the singing of the En Kelohaynu at the end of the service, he was also concerned about a slight hoarseness he had developed that afternoon. So each time he went down to the vestry, he would use the opportunity to dodge into the men’s room to examine his throat in the mirror above the washbowl for signs of redness. Then he would shake some salt from a small packet he had brought from home into a paper cup of warm water and gargle for a few seconds.

  On the podium two pairs of thronelike chairs, upholstered in rich red velvet, were set on either side of the Ark. The two on the left were reserved for the rabbi and the president of the congregation, while those on the right were customarily occupied by the vice-president and the cantor. At quarter past eight, fifteen minutes before the services were scheduled to begin, only three of the chairs were occupied. Henry Maltzman had not as yet arrived.

  “I wonder where he is,” Howard Jonas mused. “It doesn’t look right that he shouldn’t be here.”

  “He’ll probably be along a little later,” said Herb Mandell. “He was late last week, too.”

  “Did he take his seat next to the Ark?”

  “Oh no. He slid into a seat in one of the back rows.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Jonas. “Frankly, I’m pissed off. It was his idea in the first place, and he rammed it down our throats. So the least he could do is be here and see how it was going. I suppose it’s a business matter that came up, and I’d be the first to admit that your business comes first. But where he’s president of the congregation, it seems to me that’s like a commitment. Not that I’m criticizing, you understand.”

  “Oh sure.” Mandell turned to greet an arrival. “Hello, Mr. Kalb. Glad you could make it…. No, take any seat at all.”

  Jonas nudged him. “Say, Herb, what’s your arrangement with Maltzman? You know, about announcing that this is sponsored by the Brotherhood.”

  “Well, just before we begin the service, he’s supposed to say that he is calling on me for a few words. Then I go up and explain that the Brotherhood is sponsoring the service, and I’d like to welcome everybody.”

  “Then I think you better go up and take that seat beside the rabbi right now, Herb, because if Henry doesn’t get here on time, the chances are the rabbi will just start the regular service.”

  “You think it’s all right?”

  “Sure. I’ll hold the fort here by myself.”

  Diffidently, Herb Mandell walked down the aisle and mounted the steps to the podium. To the rabbi’s questioning look, he responded in a whisper, “Howard thought I ought to come up now seeing as Henry Maltzman might not get here in time.”

  “Of course,” said the rabbi and held out his hand to wish him the traditional Gut Shabbos. “And how is your mother, Mr. Mandell?”

  “Oh, she’s fine. Well, I mean, she’s no different.”

  “She seemed to be in good spirits when I saw her yesterday,” said the rabbi.

  “Oh, well, that’s during the day. It’s in the evening when her asthma seems to act up. Then she gets sort of tired and drowsy. I think maybe it’s from the pills she takes. She has to go to bed right after dinner. If she sleeps through the night, that’s fine. But sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night, and she’s like disoriented. She can’t catch her breath, and she can’t find her medicine. It’s kind of frightening.”

  “Is that so? And yet she always seems pretty good when I come to visit her.”

  “Well, it’s during the day, and she’s expecting you, so she gets herself up for it. But we never leave her alone at night. And by the way, Rabbi, don’t thi
nk we don’t appreciate it, your coming to visit her regularly.”

  The rabbi smiled. “That’s all right. I have her on my list of regulars.” He nodded toward the clock at the rear of the sanctuary. “You planning to say a few words, Mr. Mandell?”

  “Oh sure.” With some trepidation, although outwardly resolute, Herb Mandell advanced to the lectern in front of the podium. He waited a moment for the buzz of conversation to stop and then began the little speech he had written and carefully memorized. “As chairman of the committee, I want to welcome you in the name of the temple Brotherhood.” He hoped that those who were here for the first time would enjoy the service and draw spiritual strength and comfort from it. Further he hoped that they would make a habit of it and come every Friday night. Quite at ease now, he even ventured a mild joke not in his prepared text, saying he hoped they would not think it was male chauvinism of the Brotherhood sponsoring only one service for every three that were sponsored by the Sisterhood. “It isn’t that we think we can do the same in one that they do in three. It’s just that we’re new at it, and we want to learn from them.” No one laughed, but he thought he detected a smile or two. Anyway, they wouldn’t be likely to laugh right in the sanctuary, would they?

  He ended by announcing, “The cantor will now chant the prayer, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob.”

  Sitting there on the podium, in full view of the congregation, he felt the responsibility of demonstrating deep interest in the proceedings, so during the chanting he followed the text in the prayerbook, his finger moving along the line as if to make sure that the cantor did not skip a word. From his vantage point he was able to note such interesting phenomena as that Mr. Liston had a facial tic, that Mrs. Eisner whispered almost continuously to the women on either side of her, and that Mrs. Porush was dozing. But he still managed to preserve his air of great attention. Later, when the rabbi got up to give his sermon, Herb made a point of nodding every now and then in agreement or appreciation.

  Just as the rabbi was bringing his sermon to a close Henry Maltzman arrived, looked around guiltily, and then, an uneasy smile on his face, slid into a seat in the rear. From the podium Herb Mandell frowned in disapproval. He decided that he agreed with Howard Jonas that it wasn’t right for the president of the congregation to come late to the service. And so late! It was quarter past nine and the service would be over in a few minutes. He found himself watching Maltzman and once their eyes locked. It seemed to him that the president nodded slightly and smiled approvingly? derisively? He could not be sure.

  Afterward, in the vestry at the collation, he saw Maltzman several times, moving about among the congregation. Although Maltzman waved to him, he made no effort to approach him to congratulate him, as Mandell thought he might. In fact, it almost seemed as though he were trying to avoid him.

  Nevertheless, it had been an exhilarating evening for Herb Mandell. When he got home, his first words were, “I wish you could have been there, Molly. Everything went off just right.”

  “Oh Herb, I’m so glad for you.”

  “I’m sorry you had to stay home with Mother. Maybe we should have tried to get that woman Mrs. Slotnick recommended.”

  “That’s silly. You’d have to pay her nurse’s rates.”

  “Yeah. Did Mother give you any trouble?”

  “She slept like a baby. And I didn’t mind staying home. I had that report to do for the bank.”

  “How’d you make out?”

  “Oh, I finished it,” she said, motioning toward the desk.

  21

  Saturday morning, Gore stopped off at Molly’s house before going to Jordon’s. When she admitted him, he asked eagerly. “What did he say when you gave it to him?”

  “I didn’t give it to him,” said Molly. “I didn’t see him. The house was dark when I got there.”

  “Why, what time was it?”

  “A little after I spoke to you. That was around half past eight.”

  “He must have gone out. What did you do with the report?”

  “I didn’t want to leave it in the mail slot. I brought it back with me. That was right, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, absolutely. I’ll take it up to him now.”

  She handed him a manila envelope and watched expectantly as he riffled through the typed pages.

  “Beautiful,” he said. “I really appreciate this, Molly.”

  “But it doesn’t balance.”

  He ran an expert eye down a column of figures. “Here it is,” he announced pointing. “This is an asset, not a liability. You sure I marked it L rather than A?”

  She flipped open the file. “This one? You want me to make the correction on my typewriter? I can x it out and—”

  “No, don’t bother.” He made the correction in pencil. “I’ll show it to him to explain what held it up.”

  From Molly’s he drove directly to Jordon’s house. As he turned in at the gate, he heard an automobile horn, seemingly from the direction of the house. It grew louder as he drove up the driveway, and sure enough, there was a car parked in front of the door. It was Martha, her face contorted with rage as she pushed down on the horn button on the steering wheel.

  He got out of his car and approached her. “What’s going on? What’s the matter? What’s the racket for?”

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Gore.” Her face relaxed, and she even managed a shamefaced little smile. “There’s a month’s wages due me. I knocked on the door and rang the bell but there’s no answer. The old bugger must have seen it was me and won’t answer out of spite. I’d like to put a pin in the bell like we used to do when we were kids on Halloween.”

  “He’s probably gone out.”

  “No, look at he door. It’s not pulled to. He wouldn’t leave it like that if he weren’t in. You can just push it open.”

  He walked to the door, as she got out of the car to follow him. He stabbed at the bell button. Sure enough, he could hear it ringing inside.

  “See, the bell is all right. You can hear it, can’t you?”

  He nodded and pushed the button once more. They waited, and she said, “I’ll bet he’s watching and waiting for me to go away.”

  He shook his head impatiently and then, with sudden decision, pushed the door open and stepped in. Martha was right behind him. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust from the bright morning sunlight to the dim light of the room, somber with its curtained and draped windows. It was the buzzing of a large bluebottle fly that drew their eyes to the figure of Ellsworth Jordon lying back in his recliner as though asleep. But there was an ugly wound at the base of the forehead, right between the eyes, from which the blood had trickled down both sides of his nose to the corner of his mouth.

  Martha screamed. Gore pressed his lips tightly together and managed to repress the urge to retch.

  “He’s hurt,” she moaned. “The poor man is hurt. Why don’t you do something?”

  “Shut up,” he snapped. Without moving, he looked around the room, noting a broken medicine bottle, the fragments of a shattered light bulb, the torn canvas of the oil painting of Jordon’s father on the wall.

  “We’ve got to call the police,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’ll wait here while you get in your car and drive down to the corner. There’s a pay station there.”

  “Can’t you call from here?” she asked.

  “Fingerprints,” he replied tersely. “There may be prints on the phone.”

  As soon as she had gone, he forced himself to approach the figure in the recliner. He touched the icy forehead with his fingertips and then wiped them on his trouserleg. Suddenly he thought of Billy and called out, “Billy? Are you there, Billy?” He giggled in relief as no answer came.

  He backed out of the room and left the house, closing the door behind him, but making sure that the lock did not catch. As he went to his car to await the arrival of the police a wild thought occurred to him: that now there was no way of proving who had won the bet he had made the night before.

 
22

  While his men worked in the living room, photographing, measuring, dusting for fingerprints, the state detective, Sergeant McLure, and a police stenographer were in the kitchen—because it had a table to write on—questioning Gore. Lanigan and his lieutenant, Eban Jennings, had taken over the dining room as a command post, where they issued orders and received reports from their subordinates.

  They had just finished questioning Martha Peterson, subdued and teary-eyed, and had sent her on home.

  “You believe her explanation of the door of the boy’s room being locked?” asked Jennings. “You believe this Jordon would lock a young man of eighteen in his room like a teacher would send a kid to stand in the corner?”

  Lanigan shrugged noncommittally.

  “Even though he knew the kid would hop out the window?”

  “It’s just crazy enough to be true,” said Lanigan. “Maybe Gore might know something about it. We’ll ask him when McLure gets through with him.”

  “Everything about this case seems kind of crazy, Hugh.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, this Jordon is supposed to have been a millionaire. Right?”

  “That’s the reputation he had around town. We’ll probably find out more about that, too, from Gore. What about it?”

  “Well, doesn’t this strike you as a funny layout for a millionaire?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “This dining room now, it’s clean enough, but those drapes are pretty faded and these chairs are kind of worn. Same with the other room.”

  “I suppose that’s the result of having a housekeeper instead of a wife,” said Lanigan. “A wife is always after her husband to buy new stuff when it gets worn, but a housekeeper will just keep the place clean.”

  “Yeah. But it’s more than that. Here’s this big ark of a house three stories high, and yet everything is on the first floor. It don’t look as though the rooms on the other two floors are used at all. What was probably the back parlor, he used as his bedroom, right off the living room, mind you. And that little room next to it, that was made into another bedroom for the boy. That looks to me as though he was trying to cut down on his fuel bills.”