A special-case killer wants to be known. He wants to be understood. He wants his suffering to be appreciated and his point of view to be granted respect.

At this moment my cell pings with an incoming text. It’s for Manning. (All his calls are routed through me.) Caller ID: UNKNOWN. A burner, no doubt. I tap the message icon:

LV is Hebrew. The letters “lamed” and “vav.”

Google it.

I think instantly, The woman. The one who shouted to Manning outside the townhouse in Georgetown.

I text back:

Who R U?

No response.

I show Manning the screen. A stranger watching him would notice zero change of expression. But I see.

Manning’s glance to me says, Trace this ASAP.

Gleason emerges from the Bunker. He comes up to the group. He has seen me show the phone to Manning.

GLEASON

What’s this grab-ass?

I’m thinking, A drop phone is untraceable. But I can back-link to the cell tower. I can find the neighborhood where the text was sent from.

As I’m thinking this, a second ping comes in.

Don’t believe me? Note victims. All 4 R Jews.

Gleason makes me show him the phone.

GLEASON

More bullshit.

But Manning’s look to me says, Trace this too. Same sender?

Silver, Kiriakin, and the others all note this wordless clash between Manning and Gleason. Gleason notes that they note it.

GLEASON

(to Silver)

Ready to roll?

Gleason’s second-in-command confirms. Gleason turns to Manning and me.

GLEASON

You two. Take a ride.

6

CAESAR’S SANCTUARY

THE CAESAR’S SANCTUARY STEAM BATHS sit at the corner of Surf Avenue and West Twenty-Seventh Street in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Brighton Beach, aka “Little Russia.”

Gleason has ordered Manning and me to accompany him and Silver, in Gleason’s car, with our own AV deadheading behind, trailed by a backup team in a blue-and-white. It’s 1330, less than forty minutes after the meeting in the Bunker.

I haven’t had one second to trace text #1 or #2, to run an info search on “lamed” and “vav,” or to shoot Manning the even bigger questions:

Why did the sender send these to Manning?

And how did he (or she) get the address?

The only thing I’ve been able to accomplish, feigning a trip to the loo before we left, is to ID the phone that sent the two texts.

It is indeed a throwaway. Text #2 was the last message the phone sent. The caller no doubt chucked it in the trash the instant he or she hit SEND.

The phone’s final message was relayed by cell tower 18706, Canarsie (actually an antenna array mounted on the top-floor facing of a tenement building), meaning the caller was somewhere within a block or two when the call was placed.