I drop Manning off (he refuses my hand to steady him) and watch him trudge, one shoe-splat at a time, up the unlit, flotsam-strewn alley to enter the club via his customary rear ingress. For the first time since I’ve known him, Manning looks old to me.

Rachel and Ben-David are waiting outside my loft. They look as hollow-eyed as Manning.

ME

What are you doing here? How’d you even get my address?

They’re scared.

I’m thinking, Indicate nothing about where you’ve been tonight since Ellie Landau’s murder and say zip about what you’ve learned.

ME

I hope you like Asian food, ’cause that’s all I got.

I tell the car where to park (Howard Street, amazingly, is dry; there are actual spaces) and lead Rachel and Ben-David up the stairs and inside.

Ben-David asks about Manning. Clearly he and Rachel had hoped to find him with me and still on the job. I tell them Manning’s down with a migraine.

Ben-David says he and Rachel have been trying for the past two hours to get a flight out to Israel. But JFK and LGA are shut down with the gale. No planes are taking off as far south as Charlotte and as far north as New Brunswick.

I ask why they left the memorial room at Beth Shalom.

BEN-DAVID

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I tell him to sit. I’ll whip up some eggs and coffee.

I’m trying to remember everything that’s happened to Ben-David tonight. He’s been attacked on a subway platform (the bruise marks are still visible on his throat), he has leapt onto the tracks in front of a train, experienced the murder of his friend Ellie—and the killer is still out there, probably searching for him right now to finish the job.

ME

How does it feel being a Righteous Man?

BEN-DAVID

It’s the kind of attention I can do without.

I indicate the bathroom. Clean up, I tell him. Take a shower. I offer Rachel and Ben-David dry clothes. From the Lo. My father’s stuff.

ME

Here. For what good it’ll do.

Ben-David showers. He takes cargo pants and a tee. Rachel wants nothing. She towel-dries her hair and uses her fingers to work out the tangles. When I hand her a hot coffee, she meets my eye, something she’s never done. “Thank you,” she says.

ME

For what?

RACHEL

For that night in the hospital.

I scramble eggs with bean sprouts and snow peas. I have to close the windows against the gale. The interior is sweltering. We park ourselves on the floor, the three of us with our plates, in the dark away from the door and the windows.

RACHEL

Where’s Manning now?

I describe his location. The feed from his GPS locator displays on my phone. His lapel camera records automatically.