red mouth. 'I'm Martine. And this is Adrienne and Denise.' So her name was Denise. 'And this is Andre.'
'Count Andre,' the young man said. 'Count of after you mess with me you better count your fingers. Now you introduced, how about you go back to your table before you're counting fingers?' 'How about you talk nice? I ain't been saying nothin' wrong. Have I, ladies?' Lonny said with a grin.
'No,' all three girls said.
A screaming and laughing heavy girl ran past, bumping into Lonny, who almost fell over the table into Denise's lap.
'You got a phone number?' he said.
The girl named Martine laughed.
'Hey, get the fuck out of here,' said the count. 'Don't be messin' with my cousin.'
Lonny ignored him. The pretty Denise, who looked just as good up close as from across the room, nodded.
'Can't give it to you,' she said. Great voice-and that accent. 'My mamma doesn't want me to go out with boys yet. Says I'm too young.'
'Not from where I'm standing,' Lonny said.
The other two girls at the table whispered to each other and the count stood up, reaching for his pocket. He never got that far. Dalbert had the young man's wrist and lago stood with his back to the table showing something to the angry young man, something that made the count ease up.
'No hard feelins here, my man,' Lonny said. 'What say I pay for a round of burgers all round. And then we sit talkin', me and my friends, with you all for awhile?'
The count had no choice. He sat flanked now by Dalbert and lago.
'What you got?' Lonny said, standing up and fishing four dollars from his pocket. Dalbert coughed up two bucks and some change and lago found three dollars, mostly in change.
'Be right back,' Lonny said and began making his way through the crowd to the counter.
No doubt now. He needed money.
And he knew where he was going to get it.
Unwelcome Visitors
When the doorbell rang, Abe had just settled in his bath with his book of crossword puzzles. On the floor in reserve, if he so desired, lay last Sunday's Tribune Magazine.
It couldn't be Todd with the kids. Barry had a key. Unless he forgot or lost it Lieberman got out of the tub, dried himself quickly, and put on his blue terry cloth robe. The doorbell rang insistently. He slipped on his battered slippers, a Hanukkah gift from Maish and Yetta, and hurried into the hall, across the dining and living rooms to the front door. The bell was ringing as he opened the door and found himself facing Rabbi Nathanson and a small woman. A fine rain was falling and the woman was wincing as if each drop was an acid assault.
'See,' said the Camel triumphantly, 'I told you. He's here. Lieberman, we have to talk.'
With that, the rabbi and the woman, who looked a bit like a sparrow, pushed past Abe Lieberman. Abe had no choice but to close the door and turn to his guests, who were already choosing their places at the dining room table.
'This is my wife, Leah,' said Rabbi Nathanson, holding out his long arm in the woman's direction.
She smiled politely at Lieberman.
'Rabbi, this is a bad time,' said Lieberman, still standing and rapidly coming to the conclusion that anytime the Camel appeared at his house was going to be a bad time.
'A minute, a minute only,' the rabbi said, removing the yarmulke from his head so that he could run a broad palm over his moist hair. 'Even the Lord gave Joshua a minute.
Even the great Rabbi Eleazar could always spare a minute for anyone who sought his counsel or his company.'
The rabbi's coat was partly open now and Lieberman could see that he was hi his pajamas.
'I don't want to be rude, Mrs. Nathanson,' Lieberman said, avoiding the open chair near the table. 'But I've had a long day and as you can see…,' he said, looking down at his robe and slippers.
'You are a policeman,' said Nathanson with a knowing nod of his head. 'The stories you must have. The things you must have seen. We live in a world of chaos, in a time of violence. We need, our people need, salvation and comfort in the word of our God.'
'Amen,' Mrs. Nathanson said dutifully.
'Amen,' said Lieberman. 'Now, Rabbi, if you-'
'I wanted Leah to see this house, this perfect house, and I wanted to urge you to cash the check I gave you. Every day we delay is a day further from the realization of a new home, a much-needed home, for my congregation and my family.'
'Rabbi,' Lieberman said. 'I have to talk to my lawyer.'
'Why?' asked the rabbi, looking at his wife, who had no answer. 'I'll pay your price. My wife will have no other house.'
Mrs. Nathanson was, for the first time, looking around the room, at the walls, into the semidark living room, toward the closed door of the kitchen.
The sound of a key in the front door gave Rabbi Nathanson no pause.
'To be homeless is a curse of our people, Lieberman. Delay creates anxiety. Anxiety results in neglect of one's duties and places a burden on those we love and who depend upon us.'
Lieberman's grandchildren, Barry, approaching thirteen, and Melisa, eight, stepped in with their father, Todd Cresswell, behind them.
Mrs. Nathanson smiled at the trio. The rabbi didn't seem to notice their arrival.
'Lieberman, who knows?' he said intently, leaning toward Abe, who stood dripping before him. 'Who knows how much time God has given us for the work we are to do on this troubled earth? Do we delay over the obstacles of civilization heaped high with distrust?' 'Rabbi, Mrs. Nathanson,' said Lieberman, 'this is my son-in-law Todd and my grandchildren, Barry and Melisa.'
'We saw Beethoven's Second,' said Melisa, who, Lieberman thought, looked exactly like her mother at the age of eight. Serious, studious, suspicious.
Todd, tall, with a handsome, lopsided face, cornstalk-straight hair, and rimless glasses, nodded at the Nathansons. Barry, who closely resembled his father, looked at Abe for an explanation of the presence of the night visitor in pajamas.
'Rabbi Nathanson and his wife are interested in buying the house,' Abe explained.
Todd, whose hair was a rain-scattered mess, nodded and said, 'Lisa's…?' Todd began looking toward the kitchen.
'Working late,' Lieberman said.
Todd nodded.
'Do not pain a hungry heart,' Rabbi Nathanson went on. 'And do not anger a man who is in want. Do not increase the troubles of a mind that is incensed. And do not put off giving to a man who is in need. Make yourself beloved in the congregation, and bow your head to a great personage. Listen to what a poor man has to say and give him a peaceful and gentle answer.'
'Rescue a man who is being wronged from the hand of the wrongdoer, and do not be fainthearted about giving your judgment,' Todd said, looking at Lieberman.
Rabbi Nathanson turned in his chair to face the challenging presence of Todd Cresswell.
'The Wisdom of Sirach from the Apocrypha,' explained Todd. 'The rabbi left out a line.'
'Todd's a classics professor at Northwestern,' Lieberman explained. 'Cresswell's his name. Greek tragedy's his game.'
'The Apocrypha was written in Greek,' Todd explained to Barry as if the assembled adults all knew this already.
'It's part of the Greek version of the original Jewish Bible. The parts not included in the final, accepted
