“How do you mean?”
“We had a little problem here and I gave it to Goddard to chew on to see what they can come up with. So after a while, we get a preliminary report and it says they think they’ve found a way to lick it and then some—a kind of breakthrough. At this time we’re sort of playing with the idea of merging with another outfit—on a stock transfer basis. You understand?”
The rabbi nodded.
“This is confidential, Rabbi.”
“Of course.”
He laughed. “Confidential! Every brokerage house in Boston knows about it, but all they’ve got is rumors. You can’t keep this sort of thing secret. Still, I wouldn’t want it known that it came straight from me. See?”
The rabbi nodded again.
“So our stock starts going up. It’s normal whenever there’s news of a merger. It goes up for a couple of days and then slides back, sometimes even below where it was originally. But it doesn’t work that way with us. It keeps climbing, and after a couple of weeks it’s almost double. And I know damn well it isn’t the rumor of the merger that did it. It was something else—a rumor that we had something special in the works. I guess you can’t keep that kind of secret either. Maybe I’m a little sore about it. Maybe I got some idea that those double-domes over at the lab are playing the market, but I’m not hurting. After all, I’m in a merger situation on a stock transfer basis. Where I planned to give two of my shares for one of theirs, it looks now that I’ll be swapping even, so what harm is done? And it’s perfectly legit, you understand, because if I’ve got a new process coming through then my stock is worth that much more. Get it?”
“Yes.”
“And then I get a call from Quint at Goddard Friday afternoon, just as I was leaving. It was Kol Nidre night, and I was leaving early. And he tells me he’s very sorry, the preliminary report was premature—premature, hell, they’d flubbed the dub. You understand?”
“I think so,” said the rabbi doubtfully. “They had made a mistake.”
“That’s right. So where does it leave me? Here I am involved in a merger with a high-class outfit, and it looks like I’ve been manipulating my stock to get a better deal.”
“I see.”
“What can I do? It’s Yom Kippur, and when I get home I find my father is really sick. And the next day, he’s no better—maybe even a little worse. And the next day, Sunday, I get a call from these people, and they’re sore—and suspicious. Well, Monday I went down to Goddard to have it out with Quint. Maybe you never had any experience with these army types. He used to be a general, very dignified, very efficient, very businesslike. Bip, bip, bip. But I can see he’s uncomfortable, and he’s squirming. And finally, you know what he says? ‘Well, it’s your man who was at fault, Mr. Goralsky. You put him here. You practically forced us to take him—Isaac Hirsh!’ How do you like that? The first time I ever did business with him, he almost ruins me. Then for twenty years I don’t see or hear from him. When he comes here I’m careful to have nothing to do with him. And again he almost ruins me. See what I mean when I say you’ve got to keep away from guys like that? You want to know something, Rabbi? I’ll bet you’re wondering why I went to his funeral.”
“Well, to go to a funeral is traditionally considered a blessing, a mitzvah.”
“Mitzvah nothing! I wanted to make damn sure he got buried. . . .”
The maid put her head in the door. “Your father is awake now, Mr. Goralsky.”
As they started up the staircase, Goralsky said, “Not a word about the cemetery business, Rabbi. I don’t want my father upset.”
“Of course not.”
The old man was out of bed and sitting in a chair when his son and the rabbi entered. He extended a thin, blue-veined hand in greeting.
“See, Rabbi, I fasted and now I’m getting better.”
The rabbi smiled at him. “I’m happy to see you looking so well, Mr. Goralsky.”
“So well, I’m not yet.” He glared at his son. “Benjamin, are you going to let the rabbi stand? Get him a chair.”
“Oh, really you don’t have to trouble.” But Ben had already left the room. He came back carrying a chair, and set it down for the rabbi. He himself sat on the edge of the bed.
“I missed Kol Nidre,” the old man went on, “for the first time in my life. Not once, since I was maybe five years old, did I stay away from the Kol Nidre service. My Ben tells me you gave a fine sermon.”
The rabbi glanced covertly at Ben, who pursed his lips in a mute plea not to give him away. The rabbi grinned. “You know how it is, Mr. Goralsky, for Yom Kippur one tries a little harder. Next year, you’ll be able to judge for yourself.”
“Who knows if there’ll be a next year. I’m an old man and I’ve worked hard all my life.”
“Well, that’s what gives you your vitality. Hard work—”
“He’s been saying that for as long as I can remember,” said Ben.
The old man looked at his son reproachfully. “Benjamin, you interrupted the rabbi.”
“I was only going to say that hard work never hurt anyone, Mr. Goralsky. But you mustn’t worry about what will happen a year from now. You must concentrate on getting well.”
“That’s true. One never knows whose turn will come next. Once, a few years ago, I had a sore on my face like a wart. I read the Jewish papers, Rabbi, and they have there every day a column from a doctor. Once it said that a sore like this could become, God forbid, a cancer. So I went to the hospital. The young doctor who examined me thought maybe I was worried the sore would spoil my looks. Maybe he thought I was an actor and wanted to look pretty. He asked me how old I was. Then I was maybe seventy-five. So when I told him, he laughed. He said if you were younger maybe we’d operate, like with a man my age it was a waste of time. So he gave me a salve, I should put it on and come back the next week. The next week when I come back, is already a different doctor. So I asked where’s the doctor from last week, and they told me he had been killed in an automobile accident.”
“Serves him right,” said Ben.
“Idiot! You think I was complaining he was making fun of me? He was a fine young man, a doctor. What I mean is you can’t tell who God will pick first. I understand the Hirsh boy died, right on the night of Kol Nidre. He was a good boy, too, and educated.”
“He was a drunkard,” said Ben.
The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Used to be, Rabbi, a drunkard was a terrible thing. But only a couple days ago I was reading in the Jewish paper, in this same column from the doctor, how a drunkard he’s like a sick person—it’s not his fault.”
“He took his own life, Papa.”
The old man nodded sadly. “That’s a terrible thing. He must have suffered a lot. Maybe he couldn’t stand it to be a drunkard. He was an educated boy. So maybe for him to be a drunkard was like for another person to have a cancer.”
“You knew him well?” asked the rabbi.
“Isaac Hirsh? Sure, I knew him when he was born. I knew his father and mother. She was a fine woman, but the husband, the father, he was a nothing.” He canted his head on one side in reflection. “It’s hard to know what to do, what’s right. Here was Hirsh who never did an honest day’s work in his life. Even while his wife was alive, he used to be interested in the ladies. They used to say that a decent woman didn’t want to go into his shop for a fitting. He made with the hands—you know what I mean. And when she died, he could hardly wait to get married again. Yet his son was an educated boy who went through college on scholarship and even became a doctor, a Ph.D. doctor. And I, what I worked hard all my life and I observed all the regulations, not one of my four children went to college.”
“Well—”
“And yet, Rabbi, on the other side, all my children, they’re in good health, they’re well off, and they’re all good to me. And Isaac Hirsh didn’t even come to his father’s funeral, and now he too is dead. So you can’t tell.”
“Then you feel differently now ab
out Hirsh’s burial,” suggested the rabbi.
The old man’s mouth set in a hard line. “No, Rabbi,” he said. “A rule is a rule.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
No formal announcement was made by the district attorney; only a short notice appeared in the inside pages of the Lynn Examiner stating that the district attorney’s office was looking into the circumstances surrounding the death September 18 of Isaac Hirsh of 4 Bradford Lane, Barnard’s Crossing, and that a petition might be filed for an order to exhume the body.
Marvin Brown caught the item as he glanced through the paper during his morning coffee break and called Mortimer Schwarz immediately.
“I’ll bet the rabbi had something to do with that, Mort. It’s a trick—it’s one of the rabbi’s little tricks, I tell you.” He sounded excited.
“But how could the rabbi get to the district attorney? And what does he gain by it?”
“He’s thick as thieves with Chief Lanigan and Lanigan goes to the D.A. As for what he stands to gain—why, he stops us from going ahead.”
“You mean with the road? What’s that got to do with the D.A.’s investigation?”
“Well, wouldn’t it look kind of funny if we start building a road to set off the very grave they’re interested in? The paper said they were going to exhume the body. Wouldn’t that look nice while they’re digging up the body for us to be laying out the road? You don’t think there’d be questions?”
“I still don’t see anything for us to get excited about, Marve. Obviously there’s no connection between our work and theirs. And frankly, I can’t imagine the rabbi going to all that trouble, especially where it doesn’t change things the least bit. You know what I think? This guy Beam, the investigator for the insurance company, he must have got the ball rolling on this. After all, he represents a big insurance company that has a lot at stake. My guess is that they’d have a lot more influence with the district attorney than the rabbi would.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, Mort, I’m not going ahead with the road business until after the district attorney is out of there.”
“Personally, I don’t see it. But if you feel that way, okay, so we’ll wait a week.”
“But what about the Board meeting Sunday? It’s not safe to go ahead with the rabbi’s resignation while this business with Hirsh is still hanging fire.”
“Yeah, you’ve got a point there, Marve. You sure you don’t want to go ahead with our plans—”
“No.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what we’ll do: we’ll call off the Board meeting.”
“Isn’t that kind of high-handed?”
“I don’t think so. As president I can call a special meeting, can’t I?”
“Sure, but—”
“So why can’t I call off a meeting? Matter of fact, I could just call up our friends and tell them not to show. Then we wouldn’t have a quorum.”
“Maybe that would be better.”
“Well, I’ll see. In the meantime, keep your eye on the situation.”
Brown was aware that the door of his office had opened and that his secretary was standing on the threshold. He wondered uneasily how much she had heard. He looked up at her inquiringly.
“There are two men to see you, Mr. Brown—from the police.”
Since the death of her husband, Patricia Hirsh had not been left alone for a single evening by her friends and neighbors. She had been invited to dinner, and even when she was too tired and had to beg off, someone would drop in to spend part of the long evening with her. So she was not surprised one evening when Peter Dodge dropped in on her, although she had not seen him since the funeral.
“I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you, Pat. But I’ve been so busy with details of the MOGRE trip.”
“Oh, I understand,” she said. “And you’ve had to give up your walks, I suppose.”
He seemed embarrassed. “No, I’ve passed here several times and thought of stopping, but there always seemed to be company—”
“They were just neighbors, friends from around here.”
“I suppose it was foolish of me. I—I didn’t want them to think I might be calling for—well, for professional reasons.”
“Professional reasons?”
“Well, you see your friends and neighbors are mostly Jewish, and I was afraid they might think I was trying to win you back, now that your husband was gone.”
“But I was never converted,” she said. “Ike and I were married by a justice of the peace.”
“I know, I know. It was silly of me. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Peter.”
“Oh, but there is. You were all alone, and I should have been by your side, as your oldest friend here, as someone from your hometown—”
She smiled. “Well, all right, Peter, I forgive you.”
She patted his hand, and immediately he capped it with his own. “Tell me, how are you really? I know it was a terrible shock, but are you all right now?”
Gently she withdrew her hand. “Yes, Peter. It’s lonely, of course, but everyone has been very nice.”
“And what are you planning to do? Go back to South Bend?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, not to South Bend. I left there some time before I met Ike, and I have no one there, or anywhere else, for that matter. I haven’t thought about it much, but I suppose I will stay on here for a while and try to get a job of some sort. I’d like to keep this house as long as I can, but I might have to give it up and take a small flat in Lynn or Salem—”
“A job is a good idea; it will keep your mind occupied.”
“I suppose it will do that too, but it will mean I can eat regularly.” She smiled. “I sort of got into the habit.”
He was shocked. “I didn’t realize. Didn’t Ike—”
“Leave me provided? There’s a small checking account, less than three thousand dollars, and a savings account of a little over a thousand. We paid down four thousand dollars on the house, and I’m sure I won’t have any trouble selling the house for what we paid for it. And there’s the car which I plan to sell. After what happened I never want to see it again.”
“But wasn’t there insurance?”
“Yes, there was insurance. But there also was a suicide clause, and there’s a man around, a Mr. Beam, who is working for the insurance company, an investigator. If the insurance company decides it was suicide, then they’ll just return the premiums we paid in and that’s all.”
“But they have to prove it, Pat. They can’t just decide on their own.”
“That’s true, they can’t. But they can refuse to pay, and then I would have to sue them for the money. It could drag on for years. Dr. Sykes said they might offer me a settlement, but it would be a lot less than the policy calls for. Still I think I’d probably take it if it were anything within reason.”
“But why? You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?”
She nodded slowly. “I think perhaps he may have.” And she told him what happened at Goddard, how he was going downhill. When she finished, Dodge was silent a moment. Then: “I can’t believe it. I didn’t know your husband for long, and I didn’t know him very well, but his mind—well, he was still one of the smartest men I ever met.” He rose. “Look, Pat, I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to pack. I’m taking a plane south on this Civil Rights business tonight and just came to say goodby. I’ll be gone a week or two—three at the most. You can’t tell what’s likely to happen once you get down there.”
She held out her hand and he took it in both of his. “Promise me you won’t do anything—you won’t come to any decision on the insurance or anything else—until I get back. There are people in my parish, important people, businessmen, and I will consult with them. If you should need a job, I’m sure one of them will help. I want you to stay on here.”
She smiled at him. “All right, Peter. I’m not likely to do anything for the next few weeks.”
She went to the door with him.
“Good. Believe me, dear, we’ll work something out.”
“Look here, Rabbi, we’re on opposite sides of this cemetery business. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe I’m right. To me, it’s a matter of what’s best for the temple. I don’t like the idea of selling a man something and then taking it back from him, even if he pulled a fast one on me in the transaction. If someone puts something over on me, all right, I’ll know better the next time. Let the buyer beware—that’s law, isn’t it? And even though I sold Mrs. Hirsh that lot for her husband and it turns out maybe I shouldn’t have, his death not being strictly kosher, I’d be the last one to crybaby on it, even though you’re supposed to come to a deal with clean hands. But Mort Schwarz tells me that it isn’t kosher, and that it might lose the temple a lot of money, enough to build a whole new chapel. So I come up with this idea, and it was all for the good of the temple. All right, maybe you don’t agree with us, and maybe you’re right, but what I say is fight fair.” “Would you mind telling me what you’re talking about, Mr. Brown?”
“Oh, come on, Rabbi. Everybody in town knows that the chief of police and you are buddy-buddy.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t think an outsider, who isn’t even a member of our faith, should interfere in a matter that is strictly a temple matter.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Chief Lanigan came and tried to get you to change your stand on Hirsh?”
“He didn’t come himself. But he sent a Lieutenant Jennings down with another officer. They’re both in plain clothes and they come in and ask to see me. So my secretary—secretary?—she’s the bookkeeper, general officer worker, errand girl—she tells them I’m busy and can she help. So they say, no, they got to see me personal. So she says I’m busy and can’t be disturbed. And then they flash their badges and say they guess I got to be disturbed. Now you know what that can mean in an office. There were a couple of my salesmen around, and they were talking to some customers. And the girl herself.”
Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry Page 17