After the police cars left the mall and Todd’s Prelude was lifted onto a flatbed tow truck, a man in an old green pickup pulled out of his spot in Row F, completely unnoticed by the police or detectives previously on the scene. He drove out of the mall’s parking lot in the opposite direction.
Seventeen
The next day at 11:00 a.m. the four golfers met at the diner. The Rabbi was early and had a cup of green tea while sitting at the counter waiting for the other three to arrive. Todd took an Uber, since the police had towed his car, but the other two friends came together in one car and walked in at precisely eleven o’clock.
“What the fuck do you guys think is happening to us? Each of us have been shot at, and two of us were seriously wounded. Who the fuck could be doing this?” asked Jack.
“Jack, please don’t curse, especially in a public place like this,” Bloom responded briskly.
“Is that all you’re worried about, Neil, my saying fuck in public? What about the fact that somebody is trying to kill us, doesn’t that bother you a little more?” Jack asked.
Todd interrupted by using his best respectable tone. “Gentlemen, we are in a corner booth and no one is near us. We need to talk about why we are being shot at and by whom. I assume you’ve all been interviewed by the police and have met Detective Pratt?”
“I did,” said Tony.
“Me too,” replied both Jack and Neil, sounding like a duet.
Todd now took over the meeting. “Do you guys have any ideas about what’s going on? I thought about it intensely and came up with nothing so far. I can’t believe we upset another group of golfers and now they’re trying to scare us away from the course. I just can’t make any sense of it at all,” he said.
“What about the fact that only two shots were taken at each of us? That must have some meaning, don’t you think?” Bloom asked.
Tony retorted, “Well, I for one don’t believe that we are the only ones who are being shot at. I’ll bet within a few days, someone else who is not in our group will be shot at too. And obviously, they’re not shooting just at you Jewish guys, because they came after me too. Maybe they just hate Jews and Blacks.”
“Whatever, they are certainly scaring the shit out of me,” Todd offered.
Bloom now entered the conversation again. “And me too,” adding “but gentlemen, please, I am a man of the cloth. Can’t you show me some gosh-darn respect by not cursing in my presence, you assholes!”
The others cracked up at this comment. They took him seriously at first about their use of profanity, until he used it. But they soon sobered up to the serious matter at hand, all agreeing they were scared too.
“Ever since I got out of the hospital, I’ve been afraid to leave my house,” Neil said.
Tony added his thoughts with rising anger. “Why would someone want to shoot any of us, Rabbi? I’m asking you again, why? Nobody shoots Rabbis or priests. They may want to shoot us Black guys, but you guys are White, what the fuck?”
They were all silent for a minute; then Todd came up with an idea. “How about we all agree to be interviewed together by our local paper? We’ll let them ask all their questions, and then we’ll say that we intend to meet again in front of this diner next week. Once we agree on the day, we’ll see if that draws out the shooter. Obviously, Detective Pratt will have to agree with this plan, and if he does, he’ll have enough undercover officers there to assure our safety.”
They each agreed it was a promising plan. Bloom even suggested that he should have some influence in getting the Sedona Times Herald to interview them, since its publisher was a member of his congregation. Jack volunteered to call Detective Pratt and make sure it was okay with him. They picked next Thursday afternoon at 4:00 for the interview, hoping it would be published the following weekend.
The reporter assigned to the “Shooter” case met with them together, as planned, interviewing each one about what they knew to date They agreed to meet again in a week to discuss the people they suspected might be after them, just happening to mention that they would meet at 2:30 p.m. next Thursday outside of El Hombre’s Diner. The time was picked to minimize the possibility of ‘collateral damage,’because they knew that the diner closed at two p.m. after the lunch hour, while the higher-end restaurants in town were open for dinner too. They also knew that the reporter would be tempted to print what she overheard.
The reporter, believing she might have an award-winning scoop on her hands, took the bait and wrote exactly what they hoped she would. The paper was published that weekend, and on the following Thursday the four met as planned in front of El Hombre’s Diner at 2:30, with several undercover cops nearby. They waited for two hours and nothing happened.
Detective Pratt, observing from his unmarked car, came over to them and said, “Nice try guys, but whoever this asshole is, he either didn’t read the newspaper or suspected a trap. I’ll get back to my investigation and keep you all informed if I make any progress.”
After Pratt left, Tony shared a crazy notion with his friends. “Let’s play eighteen this Sunday and see if any of us gets shot at.”
“Great idea, Tony,” Bloom said mockingly. “That way, if the shooter succeeds and does kill one of you guys on the course, I’ll be able to hold your funeral service right near the hole in
