Free Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet by Harry Kemelman Page A

been away all day.”
    “So why don’t you call them?”
    “Yeah, I guess I will.” He picked up the phone. “No dial tone,” he announced, he tried dialing anyway, but there was no answer, he jiggled the hook and then dialed the operator, he listened intently with the instrument pressed tight against his ear. Finally, he replaced it on its hook. “Out of order. Funny, it was all right a few minutes ago when I called the drugstore, maybe that last lightning bolt hit a transformer, or the line may be down.”
    “I’ll tell you what you do, Dan. Drive over there. If the place is all lit up and there are a bunch of cars outside, you’ll know it’s all right and you’ll go in. If it’s dark, or just ordinary lit, and there are no cars, you’ll know it’s been called off and you’ll come home.”
    “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’ll do.”
     
    Safferstein carefully tucked the two small manila envelopes, each with its bottle of pills, into the pocket of his raincoat. It was raining now, so he put up his coat collar and dashed out to his car. No sooner had he set the car in motion when a lightning flash momentarily made everything bright as day, a crash of thunder followed immediately, and then the skies opened and the rain came pelting down in large drops that danced on the black asphalt road, a continuous sheet of water coursed down his windshield, and his wipers were powerless to clear the glass, the windshield began to steam up and he put on the defroster, but to no avail, he pulled up under a lamppost and shut off the motor. This can’t last long, he thought.
     
    “Well, that was quick,” Mrs. Cohen said as her husband opened the door and wriggled out of his coat. “The place was dark, huh?”
    “I didn’t get to it, there’s a tree lying across the road, right at the corner. I had to back up all the way to Baird Street to turn around.”
    “Oh, that big old elm? What a shame! Maybe you ought to call the police and tell them.”
    “And how am I going to call them? With smoke signals?”
     
    “What I’m trying to get is a consensus.” Chester Kaplan urged. “Now are we all agreed that it’s pointless for the temple to retain and operate the Goralsky property?”
    The response was general and immediate.
    “Oh, sure. Who wants to be bothered collecting rents?”
    “Or making repairs, or renting a vacant store.”
    “You can always get some real estate company to manage it for us,” Abner Fisher pointed out.
    “Yeah, and they take ten percent of the gross.”
    “Five percent,” Fisher corrected.
    “So five percent, and they don’t do a damn thing except collect rents. I know. I’m with you, Chet, that we should sell the property, but can we, according to the terms of Goralsky’s will?”
    “Believe me, it’s okay,” Kaplan said quickly. “The will reads – and I’m quoting it exactly – ‘To the temple I bequeath the store block known as the Goralsky Block with the land thereunto adjoining.’ Then he goes on to give the boundaries and then he says – now get this – ‘.., so that the temple may derive therefrom an annual income to help meet the ordinary expenses of operation, or for the purpose of erecting a building such as a religious school or a permanent residence for the incumbent rabbi, or for any similar purpose that will be to the interest and advantage of the temple.’ Now as far as I’m concerned, that last clause does it, we can use the property any way we want as long as it is to the interest and advantage of the temple. Right, Paul?”
    Paul Goodman, who was also a lawyer, nodded. “That’s the way I read it.”
    “And I’d say selling it and using the money to buy a place for a permanent retreat is definitely to the interest and advantage of the temple,” Kaplan pressed on. “And the time to sell is now, because we’ve got an offer that we won’t see again in a hurry.”
    “Well, what I want to know is why is Bill Safferstein offering such a high price