burger joint – which this place was, even if it did now sell salads. He strode into a seating area where a single TV monitor was playing. Set to NY 1, the local news channel, it now flashed pictures of the Bangkok arrest of a Brooklyn rabbi on murder charges. The suspect was in the trademark garb – beard, white shirt, black suit, trilby hat – as he was handcuffed and led away by two young and scowling Thai policemen. His face seemed to be determinedly aimed downward, in shame or to avoid recognition, Will could not tell. Altogether, the sight could not have been more incongruous. That sequence was followed by footage of NYPD officers arriving on foot in Crown Heights, eschewing their usual squad cars in a gesture of ‘sensitivity’ apparently ordered by the mayor’s office.
Those pictures renewed an argument Will and TC staged several times that long afternoon.
‘I should go back there, right now.’
‘And do what? Get dunked again?’
‘No. I would tell them what I, what you, wrote in that email. That I know what they’re up to and that they should cut a deal.’
‘Too risky. You might say just the wrong thing and escalate the whole situation. The virtue of email was that we could control exactly what was said.’ Was said, the cowardly passive again. TC was obviously reluctant to admit that she had put those words in Will’s mouth.
‘I can’t just leave Beth there. Who knows what they might do now that they’re under siege. They might panic. One of those thugs could tighten the screw a bit too hard, or keep her head in water ten seconds too long—’
‘You’re doing it again. Getting into a panic. I told you, this is like climbing a mountain: you mustn’t look down. You mustn’t think about any of that. Besides, the place is crawling with police today: they wouldn’t dare do anything while they’re around. The whole vibe of those text messages from Yosef Yitzhok is that everything’s still to play for. Nothing has changed, nothing terrible has happened.’
‘Except you don’t think they’re from Yosef Yitzhok.’
‘I’m not sure, that’s all.’
That’s how it went, several times over, ending inconclusively with both TC and Will falling into a sullen or drained silence. Afterwards, Will would reflect on the fact that Beth and he never bickered. They argued but never bickered; he and TC had turned it into an Olympic sport.
Interruption came whenever a message landed. These texts, which once made Will’s chest pound with nervous anticipation, were becoming routine. Even boring. Will clicked to see the latest.
To the victor the spoils
That sounded menacing, as if the Hassidim were registering a claim on Beth: if we win, we will keep her. Will felt his hatred rising. ‘Now they’re threatening us.’
‘To the victor the spoils,’ TC repeated slowly once Will had read it out, as if she were taking dictation.
Will glimpsed what looked like a grid on TC’s sketch pad, neatly filled in with each new line from YY. ‘What have you got?’
‘The numbers things didn’t work out, so I’ve been looking at anagrams for each one. And I can get something but nothing that hangs together. There’s no pattern. I’ve tried running it as an acrostic—’
‘A what?’
‘An acrostic. Where the first letter of each sentence provides a letter of the hidden word. You know, “Roses are red” gives you R, “Violets are blue” gives you V. There are some psalms laid out like that. Put together the first letter of each line and you get another line of prayer. It was a trick: a twelve-line poem with an invisible thirteenth line.’
‘I get it. So what do we get if we do that?’
‘So far? We have H, H, O, A, T. If we skip the indefinite article – so it’s “Friend in need” not “A friend in need” – we get H, H, O, F, T. Not much better.’
‘What the hell is he playing at? Hang on.’ Another one was coming through.
Goodness is better than beauty
Will was beginning to feel swamped. TC was having to think like a grandmaster at one of those chess exhibitions, moving around the room, playing a hundred games on a hundred different boards at once. It had taken a long time to decode just one message. Now she had six.
‘Look, Will. There’s no way to work out what this is till it stops. Whenever I try one theory, it’s blown out by the next message. We need to have the full set and then see what this guy’s trying to say.’
‘YY.’
‘If it’s him, yes.’
‘Who the fuck else could it be?’
‘Leave me alone, Will.’
He couldn’t blame her for being exasperated. He knew he was being insufferable, taking out his rage, grief and sheer fatigue on her. She didn’t have to take this from him. She could walk away – and he would be stranded.
He wanted to say sorry, but it was too late. She had turned her back on him, wisely preventing any escalation in hostilities. Pity neither of them had ever been so shrewd when they were lovers.
No more than two minutes later, another message arrived:
A man is known by the company he keeps
Was this some way of urging Will to think about the people around the rabbi who had interrogated him last night? Forget about him, start thinking about his henchmen. Was that what this clue was trying to say?
And then, perhaps thirty seconds later:
From little acorns, mighty oaks grow
Christ, this guy was annoying. What was this, some oblique reference to fathers and sons? The effort he was putting into these messages, hammering out long texts when all he had to do was send a few, simple words: the address where Beth was held. The ire was rising through Will’s body, reaching the veins in his neck.
He had not even shown TC the latest message when he began texting back:
Enough of these horseshit games.
You know what I need.
The instant he had sent it, Will regretted it. What if he scared Yosef Yitzhok off? TC was right: he was all they had. Worse, what if Will’s message was somehow intercepted by the Crown Heights hardliners, who would instantly realize what YY was up to, that he was in communication with the enemy, and punish him? Will imagined YY in an alleyway, just off Eastern Parkway, huddled over his cell phone, maybe using his prayer shawl as a canopy, when two men grab him from behind, snatch away his phone and drag him off for an impromptu meeting with the rabbi.
And yet, Will felt a release of cathartic energy flow through him. He could not stand the passivity of his situation, sitting there, hands outstretched, waiting for clues to fall like crumbs from the Hassidim’s table. It felt good to fight back.
Finally, the sky began to darken. Will started pacing, his right hand gripping the BlackBerry, turning it clammy. At 7.42pm exactly TC nodded, telling him that the Sabbath had now ended. Will glanced down immediately, expecting a red light to flicker on within seconds. No, no, advised TC: they should give it at least thirty minutes before expecting a reply. There were things to do after the sabbath, including the Havdalah ceremony which used wine, spices and a plaited candle to bid a final farewell to the day of rest. Then there was the walk back from synagogue to make Havdalah at home. Most men would probably want to freshen up after that. Even if the Hassidim read Will’s message on a computer in a home or office, they would not want to reply from there: too traceable. Not by Will of course, but by the police in some future investigation. So they would have to go back to the Internet Hot Spot – all of which could take at least an hour. Even this scenario was optimistic, TC warned. Will knew he had sent them an email, but they did not. They were not expecting one, so why would they rush to check?
On the other hand, maybe today was different.