Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Chapter Fifty

The young man was indignant. “I see him bring the prisoner in, and I try to get a pic, and this Lieutenant Jennings blocks me. Then I ask the chief for a statement, and he says, ‘No statement now.’ So I figure I’ll hang around and speak to him when things quiet down a little. So then—now get this: A guy that one of the cops tells me is the rabbi of the local synagogue comes in and goes into Lanigan’s office. And pretty soon Lanigan and this rabbi come out, and the two of them go down to the cell-block to question the prisoner. I try to go along, and Lanigan shuts the door in my face. If a rabbi can be present while the prisoner is being questioned—and he’s not Jewish, because he’s colored, so he can’t be his spiritual adviser, that’s for sure—why can’t a reporter?”

“All right. Let it go.” Harvey Kanter dismissed the young man and reached for the telephone. “Hello. Hugh? Harvey Kanter. How are you?”

“Okay, and you?”

“Never better. And the missus?”

“She’s fine.”

“What do you hear from the boy?”

“Turning the West Coast upside down according to his last letter.”

“Good. Hey, what are you doing Sunday night?”

“Nothing that I know of.”

“Well. Edith is planning a regular seafood dinner—clam chowder, steamers, lobsters—the works. How about you and the missus coming over?”

“Sounds good, but isn’t it your holiday?”

“Come to think of it.” He chuckled. “I got a brother-in-law who’s president of a synagogue, and I got to call a Catholic to tell me it’s the seder. But I haven’t kept it for so long I wouldn’t know how to start. I’ll scrounge around and find a skullcap for you if it’ll make you feel any better. Is it a date?”

“Oh, sure, but I’ll have to check with Gladys—”

“Edith will call her. Say, while I’ve got you on the line, what is this I hear you been doing to my boy? He tells me you won’t give him the right time.”

“He’s pushy, Harvey. Why don’t you teach him some manners down there?”

Kanter chuckled. “We don’t teach them anything these days. They come from a school of journalism, and they know it all. He’s a good kid, but he’s been watching The FrontPage on the late-night movie, and he thinks he’s Hildy Johnson. He tells me you’ve got Jenkins. Did he talk?”

“Oh, he talked, all right…”

Kanter reached for a pencil and a pad of paper.