Harry Kemelman - Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

“Neither do we. That’s Christian doctrine. We regard it as condoning sin.”

“Oh yeah?” He nodded. “That’s interesting.”

“You preferred to get back at him?” Lanigan suggested.

The Negro shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t give it no thought if you want to know. I just wanted to split. These were kids—most of them nice kids—but kids.”

“You only wanted to get home,” the rabbi offered.

“That’s right. It’d been a pretty dreary evening. It wasn’t the kids’ fault, but on the other hand, they didn’t help any. I just wanted out. So I picked up my bike at Didi’s and took off. Well. I hadn’t gone far when it started to rain. I could’ve gone back to Didi’s. I suppose, but then I thought of that Hillson House, and I knew the door was open.”

“Which was nearer, Hillson House or Didi’s?” asked the rabbi.

Jenkins shrugged. “What difference? Hillson House was on the way. Didi’s meant going back.”

“And you weren’t thinking about Moose lying there all nicely tied up and helpless?” asked Lanigan sarcastically.

“Not until after I got in.” said Jenkins cheerfully.

“Yet you were careful to wheel your bike across the sidewalk and hide it behind the bushes.”

“Why sure, man. I had no right to be in there for all the door was open.” He looked from one to the other to see if they understood. “So I went in and put the latch on the door.”

“Why did you do that?”

“They said the police come by and sometimes try the door. Then I looked out, and I see this car coming along. When he gets near the house, he slows down and just crawls by like he’s trying to look in, maybe. But he rides on.”

“Paff,” said Lanigan in an aside to the rabbi. The rabbi nodded.

“That kind of frightened me,” Jenkins went on, “so I pulled the shades down. I had a flashlight with me, but then I noticed I could still see some of the light from the streetlamp through the shades, so maybe somebody outside could see in. So I unhooked these heavy lined velvet drapes until it was pitch dark, and then I figured I was safe to use my flash.”

“Did you go in the little room to see Moose? Was he all right?”

“I didn’t have to see him; I could hear him snoring away. I peeked through the drapes, and this time I see this car parked right under the streetlamp, with a guy sitting at the wheel like he’s got nothing but time.”

“The same car?” asked Lanigan.

Jenkins shook his head. “I don’t know. I just got a glimpse of the car the first time—mostly his headlights, but at the time I don’t think it was the same one, because I started worrying about the third car.”

“The third car?”

“Sure. I see one car, and he passes slow. I see another, and he stops and waits. You know the drill. Trouble comes in threes. And the third car that comes along, the guy is bound to come in.” He looked at his questioners, satisfied that his logic was unassailable and that they would understand.

“And all this time you never once thought about Moose?” Lanigan’s voice showed disbelief.

“Sure. I thought about him,” said Jenkins. “I thought about him lying there, as you say, nice and helpless.”

“Ah.” Lanigan hitched his chair forward.

“I thought I ought to get some of my own back. Some stupid kid trick, but just something to make me feel better. If I’d had my paints with me, I would have painted his face black, maybe. That cracked me up—the thought of seeing his look when the kids found him like that. I thought of giving him a haircut maybe, something special, like trimming my initials in that whiffle of his, or maybe just pinching his shoes and hiding them on him. But, of course, that would have meant unwrapping him, and I didn’t want to do that.”

“Naturally.” said Lanigan drily.

“You think I was afraid of him?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” said Lanigan.

Jenkins shook his head. “I wouldn’t fight him fair and square. Why should I? He had fifty pounds on me. But if we’d been alone together down the beach and he’d started to crack wise. I would have gone after him with a rock. I couldn’t with the kids there. They’d have stopped it.”

“But they weren’t there now.”

“That’s right. And I started to get mad. There I had this wonderful chance, and there was nothing I could do. So then I remembered about his cigarette case, and I decided to take it so it shouldn’t be a total loss.”

“You took his cigarette case?”

“Yeah. I’d noticed it earlier in the evening. One side had cigarettes and one side had sticks.”

“Sticks?” asked the rabbi. “That’s right, pot.”

“He was smoking those during the evening?” asked Lanigan.

“Oh no, he smoked the regulars, but I’d spotted the others. I was going down to New York the next morning, and I figured they’d come in handy. The case was in his shirt pocket, and I just slid it out. And when I came back in the living room and peeked through the curtains again, I see the car is gone. Believe me. I didn’t wait. I lit right out of there.”

“You unlatched the door for Gorflnkle and Jacobs, of course,” suggested the rabbi.

Jenkins smiled and shook his head. “What would I do that for? No. I left it locked. They were just coming to rescue this Moose. Why make it easy for them?”

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?”