The righteous men

by Sam Bourne

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Monday, 12.28 am, Manhattan

  Should he try to break into one or both of these places, to find the man he had followed? A true man of action would do just that. But as he was sizing up the first building, a police car sped past, lights flashing. He stepped back. That was all he needed: to be arrested for breaking into a synagogue in the small hours of Monday morning. And on Yom Kippur of all days. What believable grounds for following this man did he even have? He had seen him come out of an apartment building on the Lower East Side. Oh, and he had seen him out of TO's window yesterday. He had seen him commit no crime. As Harden would say, 'You've got a notebook full of nothing.' Nothing except a grim suspicion that was becoming firmer every minute.

  He retraced his steps towards the building on Montgomery Street. He and Rabbi Freilich had discussed what he should do in only the sketchiest terms. 'Just call me,' the rabbi had said. 'Even if you're not sure it's him, call.'

  'And then what?'

  'We'll come and we'll help.'

  Will was not quite sure what that meant.

  He crossed the street and took a few furtive steps towards the entrance of the tenement. A gleam of light drew his eye to the door-lock: it was not fully shut! The stalker must have left it ajar, perhaps to avoid making even that small noise.

  Will creaked it open and slipped inside.

  Perez, La Pinez, Abdulla, Bitensky, Wilkins, Gonzales, Yoelson, Alberto. The mailboxes offered no clues.

  There was a rickety elevator, but that was no use. He needed to check each floor, every apartment. He ran quietly up the stairs, stopping at each landing: but all he could see were shut doors, shabby doormats, the odd sodden umbrella left outside. Will realized the futility of this expedition. What was he looking for? A plaque announcing, 'Mr Righteous Tzaddik lives here. Available for weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvahs'?

  By the third landing, he was poised to call Freilich and press him for more information. Anything else they had which might narrow it down. But the last apartment on the third floor stopped him dead.

  The door was open.

  Will crept towards it, lightly tapping it with his knuckles as he moved past and inside. 'Hello,' he called out, almost in a whisper. No lights were on, just the silver shadow of the moon, coming through the window that faced the street.

  He looked to his left. A galley kitchen, small and made up of 1950s units. Not as some retro fashion statement, but the real thing: a bulky, curved fridge; a stove with oversized knobs.

  This was the home, Will concluded, of an old person.

  Then he looked to his right. He could see a big radio on a table; a couple of wooden chairs, whose seats were cushioned in thin, fake leather; one was spilling out its stuffing. Then a couch- Will gasped, jumping back. There was a man lying on it, flat on his back. Silhouetted in the light were the bristles on his chin. He had a small, squirrel-like face framed by clunky, chunky spectacles. The rest of him looked shrunken with age, in a too-big cardigan. He seemed to be sleeping.

  Will took a step forward, then another one, until he was crouched over him. He placed his hand in front of the man's mouth and waited to feel a breath.

  Nothing.

  Then Will touched him, placing a hand on his forehead.

  Cold. He put a finger on his neck, searching for a pulse. He knew there would be none.

  Will moved backwards, as if to take in the enormity of what he could see. As he did, he felt a crunch of glass. He looked down to see that he had just stepped on a syringe.

  He was bending down to get a closer look when the room flooded with light.

  'Put your hands in the air and turn around. NOW!'

  Will did as he was told. He could barely see; he was dazzled by the three or four torches aimed directly at his eyes.

  'Step away from the body. That's good. Now walk towards me. SLOWLY!'

  His eyes were not yet adjusted but he could make out the small circle dancing before him, right next to the ring of torch light. It was the barrel of a gun — and it was aimed at him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Monday, 12.51am, Manhattan

  In a way, it helped that he was so exhausted. In normal circumstances, his heart would have been banging loud enough to wake the neighbourhood. Instead, his fatigue acted as a kind of defensive shield, slowing down his reactions and even his emotions.

  His default mental state had become weary resignation.

  He was now in handcuffs in the back of a squad car, jammed up against an officer of the New York Police Department. In front, the radio traffic was constant — and all about him. He was, it was clear, a murder suspect.

  The men in the car were giving off an odour that Will recalled from his adolescence: testosterone and adrenalin, the smell of a locker room after a big win. These men were high on success, and he was the prize. They had caught him all but red-handed, looming over his victim, his fingerprints on his neck. The officers in this unit could almost touch the police medals they were bound to receive.

  'I did not kill that man,' Will heard himself say. The scene was so absurd, so remote from the rest of his life experience, that the voice sounded disembodied, unconnected. It was like listening to the radio, one of the BBC afternoon dramas his mother was hooked on.

  'I know what it looks like, but I assure you that's not what happened.' Suddenly a bolt of inspiration. 'But I could lead you to the man who did do it! I followed him out of that building less than an hour ago. I know where he's hiding! I can even give you a description.'

  The officer in the front passenger seat turned around to give Will an ironic smile. Sure you can, son. And I'm gonna pitch for the Yankees next Tuesday.

  At the seventh precinct station, Will maintained his defiance.

  'I just found that body!' he said, as they led him upstairs.

  I'd seen the man leave the building, I followed him and then I went back. I thought he had killed someone and I was right!'

  Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew they sounded ridiculous. The cop who had been guarding Will from the start stared at him contemptuously. 'Will you shut the fuck up?'

  For the first time since the police had picked him up, Will began to panic. What the hell was he doing here? He needed to get to Beth. He needed to be out on the streets, in Crown Heights or wherever else, searching for his wife — not chained up as a prisoner of the New York Police Department. He was not even thinking about the prospect of being charged with murder; merely losing vital hours battling the bureaucracy of the New York criminal justice system was nightmarish enough.

  Every minute spent here was another minute not finding Beth. Besides, the Hassidim had been emphatic: there was no time to lose; the fate of the world was to be decided in the coming hours and minutes. Yet here he was, doing nothing; his hands literally tied.

  They took him to the sergeant's desk, where someone was waiting for him: the detective he had seen at the apartment building. He had inspected the scene while they kept Will in the car. 'I got a prisoner to log in,' he said, addressing the clerk and ignoring Will. Whippet-faced and in his late thirties, the rising star of the homicide department, Will guessed.

  'OK, let's empty his pockets.' The cop who had played bodyguard stepped forward. He had already frisked Will hard at the apartment: after the police had seen the syringe, they were taking no chances. They also took his cell phone and BlackBerry: no calling of accomplices. Now they took the rest: coins, keys, notebook.

  'Let's get all this stuff vouchered,' the detective said. Each item was put in a clear, plastic zip-loc bag and sealed. The detective made a note, witnessed by the desk sergeant.

  As they opened his wallet, Will was prompted to make one of his biggest mistakes of the night. In among the plastic was his press card: Will Monroe, New York Times.

  'OK, I'll admit it. The real reason I was in that building was that I was on assignment for the Times. It was undercover.

  I've been writing a series on crime
in the city and that's what I was doing.'

  The detective looked at him for the first time.

  'You work for The New York Times?'

  'Yes. Yes, I do,' said Will, glad just to have got a response.

  The detective looked away and the clerk went back to her work.

  Will was led to another desk, where he was asked to place his right index finger on the electronic device in front of him, hold still, and then do the same with his left. Then the rest of his fingers and his thumbs. It beeped, as if he was a package at a supermarket.

  Next, Will was taken towards a room marked 'interview suite'. On the way the detective handed a copy of Will's details to a colleague: 'Jeannie, can you do a name-search on this for me?'

  Now they were inside. Just a table, with a chair on either side and a phone in the corner. Nothing on the walls but a calendar: New York, the Empire State.

  'OK, my name is Larry Fitzwalter and I'm going to be your detective for the evening. We're going to begin like this.' He produced another form. 'You have the right to remain silent.

  Do you understand?'

  'I do understand, but I would really like to explain-'

  'OK, you understand. Can you initial here, please?'

  'Look, I was in there because I followed a man in there-'

  'Can you initial here, please? That means you understand that you have the right to remain silent. OK. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?'

  'This is a simple mistake-'

  'Do you understand? That's all I'm asking right now. Do you understand the words I am saying? If you do, then initial the goddamn form.'

  Will said no more as Fitzwalter got to the end of the form, telling him his rights. Once it was initialled, the detective pushed it to one side.

  'OK, now that you know your rights, do you wish to talk to us?'

  'Don't I get to make a phone call?'

  'It's the middle of the night. Who you gonna call?'

  'Do I have to tell you?'

  'No,' said the detective, taking the phone from the back table and stretching its cord to place it on the desk between them. 'Just tell me the number you want me to dial.'

  Will knew there was only one person he could possibly call but the idea was appalling. How could he, with this news? He looked at his watch. 2.15am. Fitzwalter was getting impatient.

  Will dictated the number. The detective dialled it, then handed him the phone — staying firmly in his seat. It was clear he was going to listen in on every word. Finally, Will heard the voice he was wanting and dreading to hear.

  'Hello? Dad?'

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Monday, 3.06am, Manhattan

  'I have good news and bad news for you, Mr Monroe.' It was Fitzwaiter. 'Which would you like first?'

  Will lifted his eyes slowly. He had spent only forty minutes in this cell, but it felt like forty nights. His father had told him to invoke the first of the rights he had been read and to say nothing. Once Fitzwalter was certain Will was not going to crack, and that the interview was over, he had him locked up.

  'The good news is that His Honour Judge William Monroe Senior has telephoned to say he is on his way in from Sag Harbor.'

  His father's voice floated back into Will's head now, as audible as it had been when he made that call. Sleepy, then shocked, then stern, then disappointed, then purposeful. Since Will had spent his youth three thousand miles away from his father, he had never gone through that teenage rite of passage: announcing' to your father that you have in some way betrayed his trust. Dad, I trashed the car. Dad, I got caught smoking dope. These were sentences he had never had to utter. He had never heard his father say, as all his contemporaries had, 'Son, you've let me down.' So to hear it now — not the words, but that tone — was an extra ordeal, to be piled on top of all the others.

  'Mr Monroe, are you listening to me?'

  'Sorry?'

  'You've had the good news. Don't you want to hear the bad news?'

  'Not really, no.'

  'The bad news is, I've just come off the phone with the duty lawyer at the Times. He's made some calls and guess what? They don't think you're on assignment for them at all.

  In fact, what they say is that you're taking a few days "rest".

  By order of the editor himself. Sounds like you got yourself in a whole pile of trouble, my friend.'

  Will cupped his hands over his eyes. What a basic error: to offer a lie that could so easily be disproved. His legal defence was already compromised. He had made that cardinal mistake of all guilty men: he had changed his story. As for his career, that was surely over. He would be suspended 'in order to defend himself on these grave charges' — and then quietly dropped.

  The door slammed shut. In some strange way, Will almost felt grateful to be in this cell. Ever since Friday morning, he had been on the move, feverishly rushing from one place to another, from one new plan to the next. He had criss-crossed the city, in and out, either to Brooklyn or Long Island or back again, trying to think, to focus, to act. Even when sitting down, he had been willing the train or cab to go faster, to get there now, or praying for the phone to ring or an email to arrive.

  Now there was nowhere he could go and nothing he could do. The scheming and thinking and frantic calculating were at an end. His jailers had not even allowed him a pencil and paper.

  The pause let in the realization he had been resisting for days. Any time it had broken surface in the last nearly seventy two hours, Will had pushed it back down. But now he had no strength for the task.

  Everything was falling apart. That was the conclusion he had refused to face, but which was now too strong to resist.

  His wife was missing, a captive of men whose fanaticism ran deep. He was about to be charged with murder, facing a pile of circumstantial evidence that would be hard to refute.

  Worse still, he had fallen for a classic set-up.

  After all, who had sent him to that building in the middle of the night? Was he really meant to believe it was just a coincidence that a brutal murder was in progress the minute he appeared on the scene? And how strange that the killer should almost certainly have taken refuge in, of all places, a Hassidic synagogue.

  All that guff about fearing for the end of the world. They were bringing it about themselves! Will and TO had cottoned onto their plot, so Freilich had had to come up with some bullshit about 'whoever is behind this' blah, blah. Will's first instinct had been right. There was no 'they'. The Hassidim had found the identities of these righteous men and now, for some warped reason of their own, they wanted them dead.

  Will was getting in the way. What better way to take him out of circulation than to have him picked up not by them, but by the police! Will had to hand it to them: it was masterful.

  How funny to think that a matter of days ago the central force in his life had been his career. His career! It was now in shreds: he had been caught engaged in gross misconduct by the editor himself. And now he had lost all standing in the eyes of the only man whose opinion really mattered: his father. He saw that now with great clarity. Of course it was bound to have affected him, growing up all those years without a dad. He felt it every day. Cricket games, when other boys were getting cheered from the boundary. Sports days, when he had no one to cheer in the fathers' race. People used to ask if his dad was dead.

  He had gone through all the phases. He had been angry with his father; he had resented him; he had, on occasion, joined forces with his mother in hating him. But mainly he had missed him. He had missed the thing he had seen other boys get every day from their fathers: a hand on the shoulder, a tousle of the hair, a gesture that constituted male approval.

  Now, in this prison cell, unfogged by ambiguity and nuance, he saw more starkly than ever before why he had crossed the Atlantic and changed his life. He had come to seek his father's approval. It was not going to find him sitting in London; he would have to come to America to get it for himself.
r />   He had had a plan too. He would be the bright young man in a hurry, Will Monroe, Oxford star, come to make a splash in New York City. He had imagined the day, perhaps ten years from now, when he would wear black tie, lean into a microphone positioned a few inches too low for a man of his height, and thank the Pulitzer judges for their belief in him.

  This very week — on the front page, twice — it had even seemed within reach. Yet now he was an exhausted wreck.

  The woman he loved, and the future he dreamed of, had vanished.

  Even as he engaged in this mental audit, he could feel a nagging intrusion — one more thought demanding to break the surface. Will had been pushing it below the waves more vigorously than the rest; he was hoping it would sink.

  It forced itself up. What if the Hassidim are right? What if the moment the thirty-six men are killed, the world is no longer upheld? Everything about this wild theory had stacked up so far. The Chancellor really had performed an act of stunning goodness. So had Baxter. And they were disguised just as Mandelbaum said they would be. Could all the detail be right, but the idea itself be wrong?

  Tonight he had witnessed, or just missed, the murder of a man who may well have been a tzaddik, one of thirty-six righteous ones. If that's who this man was, then it would be one more confirmation that the Hassidim were telling the truth — or at least part of it. It would also mean the killers of the lamad vav were getting very close to their goal. He looked at his watch: from what TO had told him, Yom Kippur would be over in about sixteen hours. They had so little time.

  He had to know: was the man in that building a tzaddik, as the Hassidim had predicted? For the first time in hours, Will had an idea.

  Some time later, the cell door opened again. Will braced himself to see his father. But it was Fitzwalter.

  'Come with me.'

  'Where am I going?'

  'You'll see.'

  Will was led downstairs, into a room with bright fluorescent lights. There were seven or eight other men there. At least three of them looked to be stoned; he guessed several were homeless. The door was slammed shut.