THE DOROT LIBRARY, REVISITED

MANNING

How do we kill him? There’s gotta be some way.

BEN-DAVID

He can’t be killed. If he could be, your bullets would’ve done it on the subway platform.

We’re at the Jewish Library. An hour past dawn. Rachel has vanished. Manning and I let her out of our sight for thirty seconds and she bolted. She’s on an El Al jet to Israel right now, though we won’t learn this for another ninety minutes when she texts her brother from somewhere over the North Atlantic. Manning is furious with himself, and none too happy with me.

He stands now before an oaken table (the same one where he first met Instancer) in the main reading room of the Dorot Library at Forty-Second and Fifth. Before him sprawls a welter of esoteric texts and scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin.

MANNING

(to Ben-David)

Tell me the ground rules. Instancer must have a weakness.

From the kitchen at the athletic club, Manning ordered me to phone Gleason, who in turn called heaven-knows-who. Somehow, at oh-dark-thirty in the middle of the worst weather calamity of the past dozen years, the main branch of the New York Public Library unlocked its doors and let our party in.

The research librarian of the Dorot division of the library has made his way in from his home in Park Slope to assist. He enters from the librarian’s station now, lugging an additional armload of research material.

BEN-DAVID

He’s supernatural, Manning! The definition is he has no weaknesses.

MANNING

Bullshit. If Instancer had unlimited powers, he wouldn’t have needed Rachel to compile the list of Righteous Men and he wouldn’t have had to stalk them before he struck. Besides, he wants something. And anyone who wants something is vulnerable.

The librarian’s glance darts from face to face.

LIBRARIAN

What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What is the question we’re trying to answer?

MANNING

(to Ben-David)

And he’s vain. That’s why he leaves the “LV” sign . . . why he’s sucked every one of us in to his drama. It’s not enough for him to wipe out the human race. He wants to leave a record to show how clever he was.

BEN-DAVID

Record for whom? If nobody’s left to read it.

MANNING

For God.

An hour passes. The great thing about New York is that even in the aftermath of a superstorm, you can still get coffee and bagels delivered. The side table of the reading room looks like a deli counter, supporting a spread of sandwich wrappers, take-out cups and lids, cream cheese containers, sugar packets, and plastic utensils.