Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

"Do you think she'll turn up?" asked Selma Rosencranz as she riffled a deck of cards. Of the four women in her Wednesday afternoon bridge group, she was the only serious card player; the others played to be sociable and it showed in their game. Selma also belonged to another foursome on Mondays and still another group that played Mah Jong Tuesday nights when her husband had his regular poker game.

"I could certainly understand if she didn't." said Annabelle Fisher, this week's hostess, she passed into the kitchen to check the tiny toasted sandwiches she was planning to serve, she was the least skillful player, with frequent lapses in concentration, but whenever the girls met at her house they were sure to get something different to eat— and delicious, she reappeared from the kitchen. "If my husband had just been arrested, believe me. I wouldn't have the heart to play cards."

"But she ought to call." insisted Flossie Bloom, a thin, sallow girl with a small hard mouth who prided herself on being candid and outspoken— "It's the way I am." Her husband was a salesman and not as successful as the husbands of the others. "If Edie doesn't come —"

"Then we won't play," said Selma, she set out the cards for solitaire.

"Do you believe he did it?" asked Flossie. "Absolutely impossible." said Annabelle Fisher. "Harvey says he has it on very good authority that Roger is tied in with all these radical students." said Flossie. "You know, the ones who have been staging all these riots and seizing college buildings and breaking up the furniture."

"Oh, I don't think so." said Annabelle Fisher, who found it impossible to think badly of anyone she knew.

"The eight can go on the nine." said Flossie. "Have you girls heard the talk that's going around about the rabbi— and Roger. I mean?"

"I’ve heard Roger make some cracks about the rabbi." said Selma, deftly shifting a line of cards from one column to another. "And it's certainly understandable after all the grief he gave him and Edie about the wedding."

"Oh, that was something else." said Flossie. "No, the story I heard is that the rabbi got that Selzer boy off by accusing Roger instead."

"That's absolutely ridiculous." said Annabelle.

"I don't find it so ridiculous." said Selma imperturbably, her eyes scanning the cards in front of her. "Everybody is saying the rabbi was the one who got the Selzer kid off, well, how could he know, in advance, that they were going to let the kid off if he didn't know they were going to arrest Roger? And how could he know that unless he had something to do with it? I for one certainly don't think our rabbi has wings. Remember how nasty he was to Edie before the wedding and how at the ceremony butter wouldn't melt in his mouth? You think he wouldn't hold a grudge like anybody else? And if the chance came along— no. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the story were true. Where'd you hear it. Flossie?"

"Oh, I’ve heard it several places." said Mrs. Bloom vaguely. "It's going around."

Selma saw that she was stymied and scooped up all the cards. "Well, let me tell you girls,” she said, "if that story should rum out to be true. I for one wouldn't take it lying down."

"Why, what would you do?" asked Annabelle.

"I'd think of something, I know that." declared Selma. "And I'd make sure that the rabbi and the whole congregation knew exactly how I felt about it, too."

The doorbell rang.

"That must be Edie now." said Annabelle, she ran to the door and they could hear her say, "We thought you weren't coming."

"Sorry I'm late, girls." said Edie Fine. "I got held up. I went to see Roger."

"How is he?"

"Are they treating him all right?"

"It must’ve been terrible for you."

She sat down at the table with them. "Such a place," she said. "You get such a funny feeling when you go in, and the people, the types you see hanging around." She shook her head in disbelief.

"What happened?" asked Flossie.

"Well, first." said Edie, "you make out this form and hand it in, and then they not only search your handbag, but they make you walk through this place with this metal detector—"

"Like going on a plane."

"Yes, only more so, they're terribly careful. I asked Mr. Winston, that's Roger's lawyer, how they can sneak in all these guns and things that you hear about, and he just smiled and said. 'They don't search the guards.' How do you like that? So then I went into this little room, which Mr. Winston got special permission for us to use. Otherwise we would have had to meet in this big room with a barrier between us like you see in the movies, well, I came in and Roger was already there waiting, he looked at me as though he weren't sure just how I was going to take it, so of course I smiled, and then he smiled back and I felt everything was all right. We sat down at this little table and he asked me if I thought he had done it, and of course I told him it never entered my mind, and that made him very happy. Really, he was quite cheerful after that, almost as though he was enjoying himself, he assured me that I was not to worry. Of course, he may have been putting on an act the same as I was at first, but I really didn't think so."

"But how did he—" Flossie started over again. "I mean how did the police decide to arrest— Did he talk about it?"

"Oh yes." said Edie. "You see he was in the administration building at the time. You know, he's involved in all this social justice business, and he was waiting for this important call, the whole point is that the building is practically empty on Friday afternoons, and the rabbi—"

"The rabbi?"

"Yes, the rabbi has a class on Friday afternoon, and after he finished as he was leaving, he passed by Roger's office and happened to see him there."

Selma looked significantly at Flossie Bloom and then they both looked at Annabelle Fisher.