"Well, I tell you, Mark is decent. When I lost my store, he offered me a job right away, there was a lot of talk around that I'd been hitting the bottle, but he had confidence in me, and I appreciated it."
"And were you?"
"Was I what?" asked McLane.
"Were you hitting the bottle?"
"Hell, no. Look. I'd take a drink every now and then same as anybody else. When I lost my— when my wife passed away, I'd stop at the tavern around the corner because— well, because I was going home to an empty house, maybe that's how the story got started, but all I had was one or at the most, two, and I wasn't hiding it. I didn't take a bottle to bed with me. Just a drink at the local bar."
Lanigan shrugged. "What difference does it make how much you actually drink? If your customers think you're a lush and stop coming in, then you were drinking too much even if you only took a nip once in a blue moon. It lost you your store, didn't it?"
"No such thing. I lost my store because I was pushed to the wall."
"Aw cummon."
"It's the truth. Chief. You know that guy Kestler, the old geezer that died recently, he had a chattel mortgage on my store and he called it. If he'd given me some time. I could’ve worked it off. But no, he wanted that store because he had a chance to sell it at a good price."
"So Kestler called your mortgage?" Lanigan smiled. "I guess you didn't feel too bad when he passed on then."
"You want to know something funny? He got a prescription filled with us the very night he died. Dr. Cohen, Dan Cohen, he called it in and I took it on the phone. When I heard it was for Kestler, I thought I'd see him in hell before I'd fill out a prescription for him. But do you want to know something? When I heard he was dead. I felt sorry for the old bugger."
"But you did fill it out, didn't you?" asked Lanigan easily.
"I did like hell. I gave it to young Aptaker and told him to do it, as a matter of fact, I was working on one that a guy was waiting for, and he'd volunteered to deliver the Kestler prescription, so—"
"Young Aptaker? Marcus?"
"Hell no, he's older than I am. I mean Arnold."
"But I thought Arnold came to work just last week."
"That's right, but he was up here visiting that day, we were busy as hell on account of the storm, and he came in to lend a hand with the prescriptions."
"You mean he worked just that night?" the chief asked.
"Uh-huh, he came in like he owned the place, he goes right to the prescription room in the back and says, 'I'm Arnold Aptaker. I'll give you a hand.' I looked at Marcus, who was out front, but he just smiled kind of proud and didn't say a word. So I started to show him around, you know, how the place was organized. But these young guys, you can't tell them anything, he says. 'I know, I know,' so I let him fumble around and by God first thing I know he knocks over a bottle of cough syrup, and then starts to clean it up with paper towels, that stuff is sticky, well, anyone else I would’veblown mv stack, but this was Mark's son, he was so pleased and proud to have him there, I didn't say a word but just got the mop and cleaned up, after that Arnold settled down and was a real help with the pile of prescriptions we had, and we finished a lot earlier than I thought we would. I was hoping he'd stay on, because it's a little heavy for two pharmacists, but the next day Mark said he'd gone to Philadelphia.""But now he's back for good?"
"I guess he plans to stay until his daddy gets back on his feet. I don't know if he'll stay after that. You know how these young fellows are." He glanced at his watch. "Hey, I got to get back, we start to get busy now, about that ticket—"
"Don't worry," said Lanigan affably. "I'll take care of it."
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
It was her mother Leah told, because her father was not home and she couldn't wait for him or keep it in any longer. "His name is Akiva—"
"Akiva? Spanish?"
"No, Akiva is his first name. You know, after the famous Rabbi Akiva, the one who—"
"Then his folks must be terribly religious," said Edie.
"I haven't met them yet, but I understand they're not. You see, it's his own name. I mean, he chose it for himself." Leah finally got the story told, editing it a little along the way. How she had met Akiva quite accidentally when he brought Jackie across the road from the beach and it turned out she knew him "because he used to come from around here." How he had come back that night because of the terrible storm and his concern for their safety— hers and Jackie's. "He had this long beard and I joked about it and told him I didn't like it." And then how she had not heard from him for days "and I assumed it was one of those things" and then how he had suddenly appeared again and he had shaved his beard off, and how they had been seeing each other every night and how much he liked Jackie and Jackie liked him.
"But what does he do? How does he make a living?" her mother asked.
"Oh, I thought I mentioned it, he's a pharmacist, working for his father."
"You've got to be practical about these things, Leah," said her mother gently. "I mean where he's only a pharmacist working in a drugstore—"
"But that's what's so wonderful about it. When he told his folks about us, his father offered him the store as a kind of wedding present. You see, he had this heart attack— his father did, I mean— and he's supposed to take it easy. So he'll work for Akiva—"
"Where is this store?" asked Mrs. Kaplan, her voice suddenly very quiet.
"Why, it's right here in town, over by the Salem line. I'm sure you know it. It's one of the oldest stores in the area."
"Town-Line Drugs? Marcus Aptaker's store?"
"That's right, and Akiva is Arnold Aptaker."
Chester Kaplan arrived home shortly after Leah had left, he was overjoyed at the news.
"So what do you intend to do?" asked Mrs. Kaplan.
He rubbed his hands gleefully. "Do? What's to do? We'll invite the young man to dinner, and a week or so later, we'll invite his folks, then I suppose they'll invite us—"
"You forget his father is in the hospital."
"That's right," he said. "So we'll invite Mrs. aptaker, and maybe we can go visit him in the hospital."
"And what if she should refuse to come?" Edie asked. "Why should she refuse? We're not good enough for her?"
"Because if it was me, I'd refuse," his wife replied. "I'd feel that where you were pushing my husband out of business and maybe gave him a heart attack on account of it, I wouldn't want to eat at your house. I'd feel the food would choke me."
"I gave him a heart attack? Because we sold the block and I told him to apply to the new owner for a renewal of his lease? And when I file suit against somebody and he gets a heart attack, it's my fault?"
"That you have to do because it's your profession. This you didn't have to do, and Aptaker asked you for the renewal before Safferstein made an offer for the property."
"Sure but Safferstein told me he was interested in the property as soon as the terms of the will were made public. So naturally, where I’ve got a possible buyer, am I going to spoil it by giving leases?"
"And the rabbi is against it."
"It's a matter of interpretation of the law," he said loftily. "You wouldn't understand about that."
"But how the Aptakers will feel toward you, that I can understand. I'd be surprised if they even came to the wedding."
"So show me where it's written that the parents of the bride have to be friendly with the parents of the groom," her husband said. "The Schneursons and the Feldmans don't even talk to each other, the Blackmans were in Florida all winter last year and Sidney Blackman told me that not once did his son's in-laws invite them for even a cup of tea."