Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

What the hell kind of dumb play was that?" demanded Sumner Rosencranz. "What are you, some kind of hippie? Why don't you carry a sign and picket the place? How do you suppose it makes me look when my wife gets up in the middle of a service and walks out on the rabbi?"

"I thought you didn't care for him." said Selma coldly. "What's that got to do with it? There are lots of people I don't care for, so do I go around insulting them to their faces in front of a whole bunch of people? I'm not so keen on your old lady—"

"And you show it. You show it every single solitary time she comes."

"I’ve never said a single goddam word to her that any reasonable person could call an insult."

"Oh, is that so? How about the time she gave you that shirt for your birthday? How about the time she asked you to stop off at the drugstore and get that beauty lotion?"

"Now wait a minute. Just wait one goddam minute, will you? I’ve explained that dozens of times, all I said was that it wouldn't do her any good. Those expensive lotions are just a big fake and they wouldn't do anybody any good and she could put her money to better use, that's all I meant, and as for that shirt. I just said— well, all I did was criticize the shirt, that's no insult to your mother, and how about the way you treat my mother when she comes?"

"Look." said Selma. "I treat your mother the same way she treats me. If she wants to come here as a guest she's perfectly welcome, but a guest doesn't go snooping in the refrigerator and she doesn't make personal comments on my friends. My friends are strictly my business and I'm going to stand up for them, and Edie Fine has been my best friend for years, we went to school together and if someone says she's married to a murderer and what's more actually goes to the police and tells them he's a murderer, when she's pregnant and is supposed to stay calm and not get upset, well. I don't care if he's the rabbi of the temple or if he's the Chief Rabbi of Israel. I'm going to show him what I think no matter who's around."

"How do you know. Clare? How can you know that the rabbi fingered this guy Fine?"

"Oh Mike, it's known. Everybody knows."

"But how do they know?" he persisted. "Who told you, for instance?"

"No one actually told me. I mean no one person I can think of, we were just sitting around talking. How do you know that Columbus discovered America? Somebody told somebody who told somebody. How did everybody know that it was the rabbi who got that Selzer kid off? Everybody knew it and nobody denied it, all right, the same way people know that he was the one that accused Fine."

"Well, if Fine is guilty and the rabbi happened to know about it, isn't he supposed to tell? Isn't that what a good citizen is supposed to do?"

"Mike, how can you talk like that? A rabbi isn't supposed to do things like an ordinary citizen. Rabbis and priests, people like that, don't even have to go to court. I mean you can't even make them go on the witness stand, that's religious freedom. Besides, if the rabbi didn't do it, why doesn't he come right out and say so?"

"You got a point there."

"Well, that's what I mean. Now Selma Rosencranz is one of my best friends, she put it before the girls and we all agreed, and I'm not sorry. "He shook his head in reluctant admiration. "I got to admit that broad Selma's got guts. Still, it was kind of raw, getting up and walking out like that."

"Look, as far as I'm concerned, this Fine is a snooty sonofabitch. I like Edie all right, she's a nice girl, but as for that husband of hers..."

"You hardly know him."

"I know him well enough, the big professor! Remember that political argument we had over at Al Kaufman's house and how he jumped down my throat? He struck me as a downright radical, maybe even a Commie, and when you made some objection to something he said, he acted like you were some kind of idiot. Oh, very polite, and with high class, ten-dollar words, but anyone who disagreed with him got jumped on, well, after hearing his Commie talk. I can believe he could do it. You know, to them it's not murder; they liquidate somebody."

"Believe me, you got him all wrong."

"Yeah, Well, if you want my opinion, if the rabbi fingered him he knew what he was doing, and this sonofabitch Fine is guilty as hell."

"This is a way for Jewish women to act? For a minute I didn't know what was happening. I thought maybe one of them got sick or something. I guess like me the rabbi didn't know what was happening either, at first, then he couldn't help knowing. So if he got angry, who could blame him? Let me tell you, in the same position I would’ve been mighty sore, anybody would, and I would’ve said some mighty nasty things, believe me. But not the rabbi, he stayed cool, he even smiled and made a little joke, he says everybody walks out after a sermon, but what kind of people walk out before?"

"So what was the joke he made?"

"That was it; I just told you."

"Some joke!"

"Well, it sounded funny at the time, and everybody laughed. Look, it's not whether the joke was funny or not. It's that he could make any kind of a joke at a time like that."

Gladys Lanigan handed her husband his gin and tonic and then poured one for herself. "I dropped in to the Shipshape for coffee this morning," she said. "A couple of women in the next booth were talking and I couldn't help overhearing."

"Didn't lean back and strain a little, did you?" asked Chief Lanigan affectionately.

"I did not!" She laughed. "They were talking loud enough so I didn't have to. Seems that there was some trouble at the service at the temple last night, a group of women got up and walked out just as Rabbi Small was about to give his sermon."

"They did? What for?"

"Well now, that's something I couldn't quite lean back far enough to make out. I gathered that these women were friends of the Fines, the one who was arrested for that Windemere business, they had some idea that it was the rabbi's fault. Do you know anything about it, Hugh?"

He shook his head, mystified.

"Why do people do things like that?" she exclaimed. "And the rabbi is such a nice young man."

"Just general cussedness, I suppose." He shook his head again, but this time philosophically. "They want to get rid of him, and do you know why? Because he's there, with them it's not like with us, there are plenty of people who don't like Father Aherne, but no one would think of trying to get rid of him, they wouldn't even know how to go about it, that's because he's sent here by the archbishop and we don't have any say in it, with them, they hire the rabbi and so they can fire him. But I'll tell you one thing. Gladys, for all he's so mild-mannered. David Small's as tough as nails, and he's going to stay here just as long as he wants to, there ain't no one going to push him out." He put down his glass. "I might stop by and see him tomorrow."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that,” she said quickly. "Why not?"

"Well, I gathered one reason they thought the rabbi had been able to bring it off was because he was friendly with you." He stared at her in angry disbelief.