Read Online Someday the Rabbi Will Leave by Harry Kemelman - Free Book Online

Magnuson and Beck are traded on the stock exchange. Maybe it occurred to some of the members that if Magnuson were president, he would be likely to contribute to various temple projects, but I imagine that most were content to be associated with a big name.”
    â€œAll right. So why would he want the job?”
    The rabbi shook his head. “That I don’t know.”
    â€œMaybe he got religion,” suggested Brooks.
    The rabbi smiled. “Maybe. I suppose that’s the way a tycoon would get religion, by becoming president of the congregation.”

9
    Tony D’Angelo’s small furnished flat in Revere was curiously at odds with the dashing figure he cut. It was in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, and the sparse furniture was cheap and shabby at that. A largish room served as kitchen, living room, dining room, and bedroom, and there was a tiny bathroom. But it didn’t matter—he never brought anyone important there.
    Millie Hanson, who had been living with him for several months now—like being married, he thought sometimes in wonderment—was forty and blond and buxom. Originally from a small town in Nebraska, she had drifted east, maintaining herself by a succession of odd jobs—salesgirl, supermarket checkout cashier, waitress—and had finally come to Revere, where she worked as a cocktail waitress in one of the nightclubs on the promenade. She was easygoing and friendly, and it had required no great effort on Tony’s part to get her to come home with him. There was no lengthy courtship. She moved in easily and although nothing was ever said, it was tacitly agreed she would simply move out, if either of them wanted a change.
    She continued to work at the nightclub. Sometimes he would drop in near closing time and take her home. When he did not, she would take a cab. If the apartment was dark when she got home, it meant he was sleeping, in which case she would undress in the bathroom, finding her way there with the aid of a pocket flashlight, and then slip into bed beside him.
    Normally, he was up first and made toast and coffee for both of them. If he stayed home, she reciprocated by preparing their lunch, usually canned soup and sandwiches. In the evening they ate out at small, inexpensive Italian or Chinese restaurants, and then came back to the apartment to watch television until it was time for her to go to work.
    During the day she hung around the apartment in housecoat and flapping slippers, reading the newspaper or romance novels she got at the drugstore, or watching soap operas. Sometime during the day, she would make the bed and clean the apartment, and occasionally she would go shopping for the few groceries they needed.
    Sundays they both got up late, and while he lounged about in bathrobe and pajamas, she prepared a special breakfast of French toast and sausages. They ate in front of the TV set so that he could watch the political panel shows. This Sunday, when she began to dress, he asked, “Going someplace, Baby?”
    â€œJust down to the drugstore to get the paper.”
    â€œGet me some cigarettes, will you? Got enough money?”
    â€œYeah, I got enough.”
    She was back in less than a half hour. She drew a pack of cigarettes from the paper bag she was carrying and tossed it in his lap. Then she took out a yellow envelope. “I got the pictures from that roll you gave them to develop.”
    â€œOh yeah? Any good?”
    â€œI haven’t looked at them yet.” She handed him the envelope and looked over his shoulder as he drew out the photographs. “You cut off part of my head there,” she said as he held up the first.
    â€œI guess I was focusing on your legs.”
    The next one he had snapped as a sudden gust of wind had blown her skirt up. “Oh, that was mean,” she exclaimed. “My whole whatsis is showing.”
    He slid his hand under her dress along her thigh to the buttock. “It’s a very