Someday the Rabbi Will Leave (10 page)

The printer nodded to himself and looked up. “You still working for Moriarty?” he asked.

“His Nibs? I sure as hell ain't working against him,” said Tony genially.

“So what do you want?”

“I'd like this set up on a piece of notepaper. You know, something you can fold over once and put in an envelope.” He looked around at the dusty shelves, and spotting a pile of printed forms, he took one. “Something like this. Just about this size, but good quality. You know, we don't want it to look cheap. This ‘Concerned Citizens' line, that can go up in the right-hand corner. Understand?”

The printer nodded.

“Now all this stuff, the picture and these little captions under each guy, I'd like that on the upper part of the page just above where it would be folded. Get it? Then below, that would be below the fold, you understand, I want just one line: ‘Do you care who your senator associates with?'”

“Whom,” said the printer.

“What's that?”

“It should be whom. Whom your senator associates with.”

“Oh yeah?” He sampled it. “‘Do you care whom your senator associates with?' Yeah, sounds more refined. Tell you what, how about, ‘Do you care with whom your senator associates?'”

“That would be even better.”

“Okay, do it that way.” He watched as the printer penciled it in block letters. “Now these little captions under each guy, how about having like a little box with maybe an arrow pointing to the guy it applies to?”

“I can do it, but if I put it just below each figure, I don't think you'd need an arrow. It would be plain enough with just the box. Or without the box if there was a separation between them.” He studied the paper and the photograph, then pointed with an inky finger. “How about this one?”

“Nothing under that one. You know him?”

The printer shook his head.

“Never heard of Tommy Baggio?”

Again the printer shook his head.

“He's running for state senator.”

“And I guess you people would rather he wouldn't?”

“That's right. There's just one thing. He needs a moustache, a little Hitler moustache.” From his wallet he drew the newspaper clipping with Baggio's picture. “This is what he looks like now. Ouestion is, can you put back the moustache?”

The printer studied the clipping and the photograph for a moment, and then said, “No problem.”

“Okay. What will the whole business cost me?”

“You mean with the envelopes and all?”

“Yeah, we got to have envelopes. And the envelopes got to have The Committee of Concerned Citizens in the upper left-hand corner.”

“No address?”

“No. Just The Committee of Concerned Citizens. How much would it be?”

“Well, how many would you want?”

“Oh yeah. Look, I don't know right now. Could you sort of make it up and give me like a proof? Then I could tell you afterwards how many we'd want to print up.”

“Yeah, I could do that.”

Tony started for the door, and then stopped. “Hey, how about changing that sentence to ‘Do you care?' You know, it makes it more subtle-like.”

“Sure. Tell you what, I'll set it up both ways and you can see which you like best.”

“Swell.”

14

Howard Magnuson patted the papers spread out on the desk in his study and said to Morris Halperin, “I had a couple of chaps from my Boston office do a little research. I wanted to know how our salary schedule compared with those of other religious institutions. Some of the results are quite surprising. Were you aware that overall we pay our people a lot more than our Christian friends do theirs?”

Halperin nodded. He had the uneasy feeling that he was about to be treated to a display of Magnuson's business thinking: If synagogue salaries were generally higher than church salaries, obviously money could be saved by cutting back. He thought to head him off.

“It's the old business of apples and oranges,” he said easily. “You can't compare the work of our teachers in the religious school, who are professionals and work a full week, with Sunday school teachers, who teach an hour or so a week. As for the job of cantor, I don't know what you'd compare him to in a church. Maybe the leader of the choir. Again, there's really no comparison.”

“I was thinking primarily of the rabbi,” said Magnuson. “Now there's a reasonable comparison between the rabbi on the one hand and a minister or a priest on the other.”

“Only on the surface,” said Halperin. “The minister or the priest has a vocation; he receives a call to preach the word of God, something like the prophet Jonah.”

“So?”

“So he's in the position of somebody who's terribly anxious to sell something to someone who's not particularly interested in buying. Which makes it a buyer's market.”

“And the rabbi?”

“He's under no such divine command. He goes into the rabbinate the way someone goes into law or medicine, and he goes to a congregation, not because he receives a call—unless it's a telephone call from the head of the Ritual Committee—but because he's offered a contract. So the law of supply and demand controls, and there just aren't that many rabbis available.”

“You seem to know a lot about the rabbi situation,” said Magnuson.

Halperin grinned. “I ought to. We've got one in the family. My kid brother is a rabbi.”

“Oh yes? I see. Well, I just brought up the comparison with churches as a matter of minor interest. What I'm really concerned about is the difference among synagogues. For one thing, there seems to be a general difference between the three groups, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.”

“Sure, because it depends on the size and wealth of the congregation. A lot of Orthodox congregations tend to be small. Sometimes, they are what remains in the city when there has been a general move to the suburbs.”

“Yes, I was aware of that, but still it's a little surprising. Salaries of teachers in the religious schools—taking in differences between cities and small towns—are remarkably similar. There is, however, a wide difference in the salaries of cantors.”

“There's a wide difference in voices, too,” Halperin offered.

“Of course. But now rabbis' salaries, once you make adjustments for size and social status of the congregation and so on, seem to be quite level.”

“Is that so?”

“Which is why I wonder at the salary we're paying Rabbi Small. It's considerably less than other rabbis in comparable situations are getting.”

“Maybe it's because he never asked for a raise.”

“And others do?”

“I'm sure they do, or their party does,” said Halperin.

“What do you mean by their party? What party is that?”

Halperin leaned back in his chair and said, “Let me teach you something about rabbis, Mr. Magnuson. A rabbi is in a vulnerable position, like any public servant, like a mayor, or a school principal. There are always people in the congregation who don't cotton to him because they were friends of the rabbi he succeeded, or because their wives think his wife is too hoity-toity, or because they don't like the way he parts his hair, or for any other reason that people don't like other people. He has a contract, but it's a service contract which doesn't mean too much. If they should want to get rid of him, they can, contract or no contract, by making things unpleasant for him. And since he's apt to get involved in controversy just by reason of what he might say in some sermon, there's always a group who'd like to get rid of him. So the smart operator, as soon as he comes to a congregation, sets about organizing a group of friends, associates, what have you—in effect, a party—preferably from among the important members of the congregation.”

“I see.”

“This party backs you and stands by you in a fight. On things like salary, they go to bat for you. If the rabbi is shy about asking for a raise, or for a sabbatical year in Israel, or whatever, they are the ones who raise the matter in the board.”

“I get it. And who is in Rabbi Small's party?”

“That's just it. He doesn't have a party. Oh, there are people who like him, but that doesn't prevent Rabbi Small from disagreeing with them, or fighting them on a particular question that he feels strongly about. Another rabbi would soft-pedal his opposition, compromise a little, for the sake of friendship and not to antagonize his supporters, but not Rabbi Small. You might say that he has no political sense whatsoever. Or you might say he just doesn't give a damn.”

Magnuson nodded. Then, smiling, he said, “You know, I think the first thing I ought to do is see to it that Rabbi Small gets a raise.”

Halperin looked his surprise.

“And not just a token raise,” Magnuson continued, “but a whopping big raise that will put him on a par with other rabbis in comparable congregations. I have in mind a raise of about six thousand a year.”

“But—but—I don't get it.”

Magnuson smiled broadly and leaning back in his chair, he said, “Let me teach you something about business management, Mr. Halperin. When you take over a company, it's important that you get complete control of the entire management team. Anyone you sense is not devoted to you and your interests, you get rid of. The trouble with that is that you may lose some awfully good talent. So you try to convert them. Sometimes you exert a little pressure. Fine, if it works, but I have found that you get better results by giving the man a raise. If he's a gentleman, he'll always remember that he owes you one.”

“You think the board will go along?”

“Oh, I think so. I can count on your vote and your support, can't I?”

“Oh sure.”

“That's fine.” He reached for the phone. “So now I'll call the rabbi.”

“You mean you're going to tell him before we've voted on it?”

“Of course not. I'm just going to call to tell him that I'd rather he didn't come to the next meeting of the board.”

15

Tony D'angelo watched Al Cash's secretary, an estimable woman of sixty who had been with him for years, leave the Prescott Building in Lynn's Central Square. Then he mounted the stairs and entered Cash's real estate and insurance office.

Without waiting for an invitation, D'Angelo sat down in the visitor's chair. “Hullo, Al,” he said genially.

“Er—hullo,” Cash replied, nonplussed. “What brings you here?”

“Took the lady friend shopping. Hey, you ever go shopping with your missus? They don't just go and buy what they need, even if they see exactly what they're after. They got to go to all the other stores, and see if maybe there's something they want even better. So I said I'd meet her afterwards. Which gives me some time to kill, so I'm right in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd drop by and pass the time of day.”

“Haven't seen you around the statehouse lately,” Cash remarked.

D'Angelo nodded. “That's a fact. I've been taking some time off.”

“Moriarty sent you?”

“His Nibs? Well, let's just say I'm here on my own.” D'Angelo favored Cash with a conspiratorial smile.

“I see. He doesn't want to be involved. Okay, what is it?”

D'Angelo's smile disappeared as he leaned forward and stared hard at the man behind the desk. “You're in a threeway race. Would it help you if it were a two-way race?”

“Who's the two?”

“You and Scofield.”

“You mean Baggio might drop out? You got something on him?”

D'Angelo folded his arms across his chest and remained silent.

“Why should the Majority Whip want to get involved in Republican politics?” asked Cash suspiciously.

“He don't want to get involved, but you can understand that he might be interested.”

“I see. So that's why you're here”—he smiled—“on your own.”

“Uh-huh.”

“All right. So why does Moriarty want me to win? I voted against the Harbor Bill, and ah—he wants me to vote against reconsideration. That's the
quid pro quo
, isn't it?”

“You vote any way you want.”

“I don't get it.”

“What's to get?”

“I'll tell you what's to get. Why should the Majority Whip—yeah, I know you say he's not concerned, but we both know better, don't we?—why should he be interested enough in my winning the nomination to want to do something about it when it isn't even his party? And he knows I'll be voting against him most of the time. And what's more, when it was me who led the fight against the Harbor Bill and almost made it. And furthermore knows that I'm backing reconsideration and have a good chance of bringing it off. Did he fall out with Atlantic Dredging and wants to show them that he can pass their lousy Harbor Bill or unpass it if he wants to? Is that it? He wants to show Atlantic Dredging that they don't own him?”

“Just because he backed the Harbor Bill don't mean he takes orders from Atlantic Dredging,” said D'Angelo coolly, “anymore than you take orders from Northeast Fisheries because you opposed it.”

“I have no connection with Northeast Fisheries,” said Cash coldly.

“Sure, that's what I'm saying,” said D'Angelo affably. “Just like you got no connection with Northeast Fisheries, His Nibs got no connection with Atlantic Dredging.”

“Then why does he want to do me a favor for nothing?” A thought struck him. “Or is it Baggio he wants to get?”

“I didn't say it was for nothing,” said D'Angela “It'll cost you.”

“What will it cost me?”

“Oh, nothing very much. Just a few thousand dollars—for expenses.”

“What do you call a few thousand?”

D'Angelo shrugged elaborately. “Three, four, five thousand at the most. Whatever it comes to.”

“Ah, I'm beginning to see daylight. For some reason, you people don't want Baggio. I can't imagine what you've got against him. He's nobody. Unless it's his brother-in-law on the Election Commission you're thinking of, maybe on account of the
paisanos
he controls. So you come to me to help you ditch him. Why? Because on no account must the Majority Whip appear to be interfering with who the opposition is picking to represent them. So you come to see me not as his agent, but on your own with an offer of straightforward, honest skullduggery.” He rubbed his hands. “All right, what have you got?”