The righteous men

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Monday, 4.40am, Manhattan

For a minute, he thought about asking the desk sergeant.

Then he reconsidered. It would not look great, a dishevelled murder suspect, alternately ranting about the identity of the true killer — 'He has piercing blue eyes!' — and then demanding to read the bible. Fine if Will was guilty and pursuing a 'diminished responsibility' defence; not so great for a man who wanted to walk out of the seventh precinct having convinced the police he was both innocent and sane.

Instead he waited for his father pacing outside, desperate to get away. Finally William Monroe Sr, dressed in a battered sailing jacket, appeared. He looked exhausted, his eyes ringed in red. Will wondered if he had been crying.

'Thank God, William,' he said, hugging his son, his hand cupping the back of his head. 'I wondered what on earth you'd done.'

'Thanks for that vote of confidence, Dad,' said Will, pulling away. 'No time to talk. Do you have the thing I asked you to bring?'

His father nodded, a gesture of sad surrender, as if he was humouring a son who was babbling about the voices in his head or demanding a hundred bucks for another fix of crack. 'Here.'

Will pounced on the bible. 'OK, Dad. You know those text messages I've been getting? Well, here's the latest.' Will held up his cell phone.

Sort the letters of no Christian! (1, 7, 29) 'What could that mean?'

Hurriedly, Will explained. 'No Christian is an anagram for Corinthians. The figure I refers to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians — and it must be Chapter 7, Verse 29. Which is why I wanted a bible. And here it is.'

What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short.

'He's getting desperate.'

'Will-'

'Hold on, Dad. I just want to prove something to you.

Now, I know how bizarre this will sound, but at the heart of this whole, fucked-up business seems to be a Jewish religious theory. It centres on men of exceptional goodness.'

He could see his father's face moving from pity to impatience.

'Will, what on earth are you talking about? The police brought you here on suspicion of murder tonight. Do you have any idea of the trouble you're in?'

'Oh yes, Dad, believe me. I know that I am in the deepest shit imaginable. Deeper than you think. But please hear me out on this. The Hassidim who are holding Beth say that someone — it may even be one of them for all I know — is killing good people. Extraordinarily good people. Not just here, but all over the world. What happened tonight is that I came this close to witnessing one of those killings. If the Hassidim's theory is right, the man who was murdered tonight will be a so-called righteous man. Which is why I wanted you to see this.'

He took his BlackBerry out of the police zip-loc bag, clicked on the internet browser and selected Google. Then he punched in the words 'Bitensky and Lower East Side'.

Google was searching, not fast on this handheld machine.

Finally, a page of search results. A biomedical website, something about a classical pianist. And then a link to Downtown Express, 'the weekly newspaper of lower Manhattan'. He clicked on it, waited an age for the page to load and then scrolled down. It was an archive item from a couple of years ago. He prayed for it to be something of substance, something which might prove to Monroe Sr that his son was not completely deranged.

Residents of the Greenstreet area endured a chilly start to the Passover season this week, when their apartment building was evacuated for a fire alert Tuesday.

It was after midnight when scores of residents filed together into the park, as fire crews examined the building before declaring it was safe to re-enter.

While most folks were clothed only in pyjamas and robes, one group were fully dressed — since they had been taking part in the traditional seder that often continues until the early hours.

They were guests ofJudah Bitensky, one of the the last Jewish residents of a building that was once a hub for the East Broadway Jewish community. It appears that Mr Bitensky, janitor at one of the area's remaining synagogues, hosts an annual seder meal at his home — inviting all those who have no other home to go to.

'It's kind of a tradition,' said Irving Tannenbaum, 66 and a regular. 'Every year Judah opens his door to people like us.

Some of the crowd are elderly and live alone. Some are, you know, street people. It's quite a scene in there.'

Riwy Gold, 5I and homeless, added, 'It's the best meal I get all year. This is the one night I feel like I have family.'

Downtown Express counted twenty-six people heading back into Mr Bitensky's tiny apartment — including three in wheelchairs and two on crutches. Reluctant to give an interview to a reporter, Mr Bitensky was asked how he was able to feed so many, despite living on a meager income himself. 'Somehow I manage,' he said. I don't quite know how.'