Page 27 of The Dreidl Disaster

Speaking of friends, he also needed to poke Leo about the drama surrounding McManus’s Pub…

“And the sculptor…”

Had he turned out for a second? Had she moved on to a conversation about something else? “Wait…what?”

“The guy who’s making this dreidl. Max Ellison.”

Right. Which made sense; granted he still wondered how Carol got the information when he hadn’t gotten it yet. But all he said was, “Okay?”

“Anyway,” Carol continued, as an entire dish of sour cream arrived. “My friend in Hollowville has an art gallery and she’s met this guy. Weird. Not like Sarah’s Isaac—who, by the way, is not only a brilliant metal Sculptor, he’s also working in wood these days.”

“Can I have her number? The gallery owner?” he asked, aware he needed to check all sources and information when he was prepping to fix trouble.

“Absolutely.”

Shortly thereafter, Carol left to take care of other business in the store. “Make yourself at home,” she’d said.

After browsing the comic section for a signed copy of one of the new Mr. Shadow origin books, he came back to the café area and called Molly Concannon, owner of the Hollowville art gallery.

“Yeah,” Molly said after he’d introduced himself, explained who’d sent him and what he was after, “if you had the number of someone who could possibly fix the sculpture, it would be a good thing.”

He blinked. “Why? What’s wrong with the sculptor or his art?”

“Max Ellison is a nice guy,” she confirmed. “Very talented. But the man wouldn’t know a good adhesive if it hit him in the face. A breath of air would knock it down.”

Another reason to get Sarah’s number from Batya; Hanukkah consultations and access to someone who might step in and fix the dreidl if there was an emergency…in one place.

And when he ended the call, he headed out to his car.

But there were still questions to ask and answer; on the way back to Rivertown, he called Emily Gould-Smythe. After he told her what he’d found and what he’d planned to do, she reassured him that the Empires were willing to follow his lead. “That’s why we hired you,” she said. “Whatever you say, whatever you organize, we will do.”

“Good to hear,” he said.

“Let us know how tonight goes; we can strategize from that point.”

“Will do,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot of Geirowitz’s kosher mart, the home of what was becoming his favorite babka. And the key to dinner at Abe’s.

Chapter Ten

Dinner at Judith’swas the perfect way to take the temperature of the town in the hours before the town meeting. Now that the conversation about the public walk with Artur had finished, Judith and Ash were a friendly source of town gossip.

Not to mention, talking with Artur had made her think about a few things; primarily how ridiculous it was that Asher, as the head of the JHPA, hadn’t been involved in any of the ‘event’ planning previously. Neither by the town nor by the team.

His former team.

Which seemed to bother him a lot less than it would her. But once they were sitting down to dinner, she turned to him. “Would you be willing to work with the town?”

“Of course,” Ash said as he took a slice of the taco casserole, the vegan sour cream sitting just off to the side on his plate. “Definitely. Personally and in my capacity as the JHPA founder.”

“Good,” she said digging into her own piece, sour cream and salsa sitting happy on her plate. “Good to know for the future as things are coming together. I think the Empires are dedicated to making this work.”

“Seems so,” Ash said. “Fixer seems really focused on getting things together.”

“So,” Judith interjected. “What’s the story with the fixer?”

What Judith meant was: ‘you’ve been talking about this fixer for a while, and I know nothing about him.’

“Artur Rabinovitch,” Liv replied, deciding to start with the basics. “He’s a good guy.”

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