Don't Ever Look Back: A Mystery (Buck Schatz Series) by Daniel Friedman Page A

premises? Is there a safe here?”
    “What do you think I am? Do you think I am fleecing these people? Are you accusing me of running some kind of scam?”
    “I’m not accusing you of anything. I know there’s a gang out there planning a robbery that is somehow related to the striking workers.”
    “That’s got nothing to do with me. I have nothing here worth stealing. I’ve got this one-room office, and I’m about to fall behind on the rent. I sleep on the floor, most nights, unless one of the strikers or a member of the clergy offers me a hot meal and a bed someplace.”
    Sitting on a filing cabinet behind Molloy’s desk was a dirty glass with a toothbrush in it. Maybe a better detective would have spotted that sooner, and drawn appropriate conclusions.
    “If that’s the truth, maybe I came to the wrong place, and I suppose I’m sorry if I caused you distress,” I said. I wondered what my son and his rabbi would think of this conversation, and I felt, right then, the way I’d felt after Brian saw me beat down Paul Schulman.
    “If you looking for someplace with a lot of money, maybe you should go to a bank.”
    I had to admit, that wasn’t a bad idea.

    SOMETHING I DON’T WANT TO FORGET:
    On television, the man my grandson wanted to elect president was trying to talk himself out of a tight corner:
    “The remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”
    “He’ll have to work a lot harder than that, if he wants to convince any Jews that he’s a supporter of Israel,” I said. “How many years did he go to Jeremiah Wright’s church? It’s practically the same as following Farrakhan.”
    I was in a bad mood, because I didn’t realize how much worse things were going to get for me. It was March 2008, and I was still nearly a year away from getting shot in the back and losing my house, my independence, and my dignity.
    I stuck my cigarette in my mouth so I could write part of what Obama had said in my notebook, and then I wrote “Jeremiah Wright = Anti-Semite” underneath it, so I’d remember the context.
    “Are you copying down what he’s saying?” Rose asked.
    “I want to remember it, for when Brian calls later, to talk about this.”
    “William,” Rose said.
    “What?”
    “Our grandson’s name is William.”
    “Wasn’t that what I said?”
    “He says we’ve got to vote for this guy,” Rose said.
    “Who says?”
    “William. Our grandson, William.”
    “Oh. What does he know?”
    “He knows a lot. He reads the New York Times . I’m still hoping Hillary gets the nomination.”
    “Never going to happen,” I said. “It’s this guy, or else it’s John McCain.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “It was probably William.”
    “Yeah, it probably was.”
    “I wanted to live to see a woman president. Now I guess I won’t get to.”
    “The efforts of women throughout thousands of years of human history, all building up to the coronation of Hillary Clinton, and then this guy has to spoil it,” I said.
    “You can be really obnoxious sometimes.”
    On television, Obama said: “Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely—just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”
    “You have to give him that one,” Rose said.
    “Wright baptized