Read Online Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out by Harry Kemelman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Harry Kemelman
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Crime, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime Fiction, Jewish, Thrillers & Suspense, World Literature
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only with dinner, and while you could linger over coffee and a brandy afterward, the house committee did not like you to linger too long. During the sailing season, the dining room was busy and there were apt to be people waiting for a table. In the off-season, the waiters resented having to wait overlong to clean up.
There was the lounge, of course, but it was on the formal side a room of long windows curtained and velvet draped, of rugs and carpets, of sofas and armchairs in satin and brocade, of highly polished mahogany tables, with silk-shaded lamps. It was where you met your guests and chatted for a few minutes, just long enough for them to be impressed, before ushering them into the dining room, or down to the dock to your boat. Mostly women sat there and had tea or coffee brought to them.
For serious drinking, or for the long pointless conversations that killed an evening, there was the bar, and it was masculine territory. It was not forbidden to women, but by tacit agreement they never went there. It was a bare room with glaring ceiling lights that cast pools of light on the bare gray battleship linoleum that covered the floor, the furniture consisted of half a dozen round cigarette-scarred wooden tables, each surrounded by several captain’s chairs, against the wall was a small bar, little more than a high counter, behind which were shelves of bottles, a small refrigerator and a sink.
The decor, or lack of it, was a holdover from Prohibition days, the feeling then had been that while it was not necessary that drinking be surreptitious, it would be brazen to do it in luxurious comfort, with repeal, and periodically since, there were suggestions that the room should be refurnished, something on the order of leather armchairs and knotty pine paneling and sporting or sailing prints, but the members who used it most resisted stoutly, perhaps through fear that if it were spruced up and redecorated, women might be attracted to it.
There were no waiters, only the barman. If it was not busy, he might in response to a nod bring over a refill, but usually you got your drink at the bar and carried it over to a table. Thursday was usually an off night at the bar, which is why Jordon chose it for his weekly visit, he did not like crowded bars, full of the boisterous din of well-lubricated good fellowship, he preferred the company of his old cronies, people he was used to, with whom ha could talk sensibly, even seriously and philosophically; or sit with them in pleasant silence if the mood so moved them.
Although others would probably drift in later, only one table was now occupied, and as he waited for his drink to be poured. Jordon noted with satisfaction that of the four men seated around it, two were Thursday night regulars, there was old Dr. Springhurst, the retired rector of St, Andrew’s Episcopal, silver-haired and distinguished-looking in his Roman collar and gray flannel suit, as an avowed atheist, Jordon got a special pleasure in arguing religion with him, the other was Albert Megrim, a stockbroker and one of the selectmen of the town, with whom he liked to talk politics. Megrim was a stoutish man, with a round face surmounted by thin hair precisely parted in the middle, he always wore a dark conservative business suit and a white shirt with a bow tie, even on hot summer nights.
The other two at the table. Jordon knew only casually. Jason Walters, a corporation lawyer, was a tall, craggy man, who went in for vigorous sports and made a fetish of keeping fit. Jordon noted that he was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers and was probably going to top off the evening with a fast game of squash, the fourth man, by far the youngest of the group, not yet forty; was Don Burkhardt, a partner in a firm called Creative Engineers Incorporated, which went in for such diverse things as designing office furniture and layout, work-flow analysis and even preparing the graphics for the annual reports of corporations. Him. Jordon
There was the lounge, of course, but it was on the formal side a room of long windows curtained and velvet draped, of rugs and carpets, of sofas and armchairs in satin and brocade, of highly polished mahogany tables, with silk-shaded lamps. It was where you met your guests and chatted for a few minutes, just long enough for them to be impressed, before ushering them into the dining room, or down to the dock to your boat. Mostly women sat there and had tea or coffee brought to them.
For serious drinking, or for the long pointless conversations that killed an evening, there was the bar, and it was masculine territory. It was not forbidden to women, but by tacit agreement they never went there. It was a bare room with glaring ceiling lights that cast pools of light on the bare gray battleship linoleum that covered the floor, the furniture consisted of half a dozen round cigarette-scarred wooden tables, each surrounded by several captain’s chairs, against the wall was a small bar, little more than a high counter, behind which were shelves of bottles, a small refrigerator and a sink.
The decor, or lack of it, was a holdover from Prohibition days, the feeling then had been that while it was not necessary that drinking be surreptitious, it would be brazen to do it in luxurious comfort, with repeal, and periodically since, there were suggestions that the room should be refurnished, something on the order of leather armchairs and knotty pine paneling and sporting or sailing prints, but the members who used it most resisted stoutly, perhaps through fear that if it were spruced up and redecorated, women might be attracted to it.
There were no waiters, only the barman. If it was not busy, he might in response to a nod bring over a refill, but usually you got your drink at the bar and carried it over to a table. Thursday was usually an off night at the bar, which is why Jordon chose it for his weekly visit, he did not like crowded bars, full of the boisterous din of well-lubricated good fellowship, he preferred the company of his old cronies, people he was used to, with whom ha could talk sensibly, even seriously and philosophically; or sit with them in pleasant silence if the mood so moved them.
Although others would probably drift in later, only one table was now occupied, and as he waited for his drink to be poured. Jordon noted with satisfaction that of the four men seated around it, two were Thursday night regulars, there was old Dr. Springhurst, the retired rector of St, Andrew’s Episcopal, silver-haired and distinguished-looking in his Roman collar and gray flannel suit, as an avowed atheist, Jordon got a special pleasure in arguing religion with him, the other was Albert Megrim, a stockbroker and one of the selectmen of the town, with whom he liked to talk politics. Megrim was a stoutish man, with a round face surmounted by thin hair precisely parted in the middle, he always wore a dark conservative business suit and a white shirt with a bow tie, even on hot summer nights.
The other two at the table. Jordon knew only casually. Jason Walters, a corporation lawyer, was a tall, craggy man, who went in for vigorous sports and made a fetish of keeping fit. Jordon noted that he was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers and was probably going to top off the evening with a fast game of squash, the fourth man, by far the youngest of the group, not yet forty; was Don Burkhardt, a partner in a firm called Creative Engineers Incorporated, which went in for such diverse things as designing office furniture and layout, work-flow analysis and even preparing the graphics for the annual reports of corporations. Him. Jordon
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