Free Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet by Harry Kemelman Page B

for the property?” asked Abner Fisher, who frequently played devil’s advocate to the group.
    Kaplan turned toward the questioner, his face full of candor. “I don’t know, Abner, all I know is what I said to some of you already. I was telling Bill Safferstein about the last retreat, he wasn’t at that one, see? The monsignor came down and we got to talking and he said how the church was willing to sell the property. Now, the price he mentioned seemed to me like a steal. I told Bill that for a hundred grand we could buy it and fix it up. So he said, ‘Tell you what, I’ll give you a hundred grand for the Goralsky property.’ I thought he was kidding, but he wrote out a check right then and there for a thousand dollars as an earnest against his offer to buy. Now that’s all I know, maybe that’s his way of making a contribution to the temple.”
    “Cummon!” Abner Fisher was derisive. “Billy Safferstein is a nice guy, and generous, but paying that kind of money for a block of crappy stores, and with one of them vacant yet –”
    “I got a letter the other day from the drugstore asking for a renewal on his lease,” Kaplan interposed.
    “All right, so there’s one good store in the block, but it still doesn’t explain –”
    “That’s how Bill operates.” Paul Goodman said. “You ever play poker with him? When his luck is running, he plays it to the hilt. Say., the betting is going a chip at a time, he’ll say, ‘Let’s drive out the buttonhole makers,’ and kick it up five, and he buys real estate the same way. When I was liquidating the Harrington estate, he bid seventy-five grand for the land when the other operators were offering bids in the low fifties. Naturally, he got it, and then he split it up into about a hundred lots and peddled them off for an average of three thousand apiece and made himself a sweet little bundle, after he bought it, I told him he could have got it for twenty thousand less, and you know what he said? ‘I never try to buy a property as cheap as possible, that way you’re in competition with the other operators, they keep kicking each other up and before you know it, you’re paying more than you intended and more than it’s worth. I always figure what a property is worth to me, and that’s what I offer, that way you discourage the competition. It takes the heart right out of them.’”
    “Well,” said Kaplan, “all I know is, it’s one hellova good price, and if we don’t take it, we all ought to go see some shrink and have our heads examined.”
    “I admit it’s a good price and I think we ought to sell.” said Fisher.
    “But I want to know if the place up in Petersville is a good buy and is it the place we want for a permanent retreat.”
    “You’ve been up there, Abner. You’ve seen it.”
    “Yeah, but I was there on a retreat. I saw it but I didn’t check it over like I would if it were a place I was going to buy.”
    “Well sure, Abner, that’s why I’m arranging for a retreat for this weekend. It’ll give us a chance to look over the place, we can decide while we’re up there and then come back and vote on it formally at Sunday’s board meeting.”
    “It’ll be a regular retreat?”
    “You bet. Rabbi Mezzik will be there, and the rebbitzin to serve the Sabbath meal and bless the candles, then Saturday, we can take a real good look at the place and come to a decision –”
    “How about transacting business on the Sabbath, Chet?” Kaplan grinned. “I figure this is holy business, so it’s all right.”
     
    A police cruiser passed, slowed down and parked just ahead of him, the patrolman in a yellow slicker got out and came over, he shone his flashlight through the window.
    “Why, it’s Mr. Safferstein? Anything the matter?”
    Safferstein lowered his window. “No, nothing wrong, officer. It was just coming down so fast that my wipers couldn’t handle it, and then the windshield got steamed up. I thought I’d pull up here and wait a