A man wearing an embroidered kippah with his name (Ari) sewed in, clutched Harry and Gomez by the shoulder and said, "Please join us for a minyan." It was time for Maariv, the evening prayers where a minyan, ten men are needed to get it started. It was about the last thing that Harry and Gomez felt like doing. Unless it was another sign from the Big Guy. "I gave you the Big Break on a silver platter, now go thank me."
"No thanks," Gomez said. "I have to make a call," and then he slipped away into a circle of tubby aunties in a heated debate about soup. Too late for Harry though, he was caught like a deer in the headlights. Holy-rollers wearing kippahs could do that to him, especially this Ari guy who definitely had some kind of look going on, a look no man or woman could resist.
The Look: A cheesy Al Pacino resemblance. Tussled hair, pouchy soulful eyes, weary expression. The first time Harry witnessed cool and religious melded under one kippah. Interesting, Harry always thought that religion and cool were like oil and water.
The Urgency: If this prayer session was as important as Ari made it out to be, then so it must be. Harry was getting off on Ari's sense of urgency which was earnest. After all, he was looking to get off the hook for his latest transgression; bringing his mistress along on his honeymoon. Which made turning all those odometers back on his used car lot seem like child's play.
Ari led Harry and the rag tag minyan of old world bible-thumpers and new world shikse humpers into a corner of the sumptuous hotel corridor. Ari pulled out a pocket-sized prayer book from inside his caftan - (Was he, like Shooky, an underwear-stuffer?) - and stopped in a discrete corner of the hall corridor.
"Here. We pray here," Ari said while pointing straight ahead."Jerusalem is in that direction."
"No no, no," interrupted a crusty old bible-thumper wearing a fedora jauntily tipped to the side. "Jerusalem is that away," he insisted while pointing to the opposite direction where a debauched Hollywood movie producers was leading an underage hooker on their way to a room. Mr. Hollywood Debauched freaked out when the Crusty Bible-Thumper pointed in his direction. The slimester panicked and fled. This bolting caught the attention of Crusty Bible-Thumper who gave the underage hooker a once-over.
"Nice tits," he whispered to Ari.
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