LITMIR.BIZ

      We were at Pelham’s HQ fifteen minutes later. Ms Wensley hadn’t touched the doll, but had left it in the box. It faced upward, so that whoever opened the box saw the mouthless visage when the box was opened.

      “It’s just creepy,” Ms Wensley said, spinning on her heel and returning to her work up front with the phone banks.

      Waltz called for a Forensics team to pick up the doll and take it in for vetting. The first doll had returned nothing: no prints, not even smudges. That in itself was a message; whoever sent the doll didn’t want to be discovered. While we waited, Waltz scanned a sheaf of letters mailed to the headquarters.

      “Anything real bad?” I asked.

      “Once you carve away the invective it’s mainly disagreement on various issues. About fifty per cent carry similarly worded passages, which come verbatim from talk radio and TV commentators. There’s no real threat, just unhappiness with misspellings.”

      “Venting. But there’s the stage above that, right?”

      He tapped a much smaller stack of letters and phone-call transcripts he’d culled from the stack. “Women as bitches and whores and sluts. These people spend a goodly portion of their day frothing at the mouth.”

      I concurred. “I know the type. Guys who need an enemy in order to give them a life.”

      Waltz sighed. “What a full and happy life it is, hating gays, blacks, Latinos, environmentalists, Chevrolet owners, whatever.” Waltz laughed without humor. “There’s a bleak element in the anti-women contingent, the kind that fancies hooks and electrodes. Check this one out –”

      I saw a poorly centered home-made letterhead proclaiming MEN UNITED! Beneath was a sour mishmash of hate and blame that rambled for seven pages, with particularly strident passages IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE A POINT. The writer had obviously gotten a bargain on exclamation marks.

      I handed it back. “Seems them doggone wimmen have done him wrong.”

      Shelly tucked the letter into his pocket. “I’ve not heard of this particular group, so I’m going to visit our scribe. Want to come along? Maybe it’ll be feeding time.”

      Whereas email correspondents tended to the anonymity of a handle like Ultiman or T’Rone34, J. William Blankley had opted for old-fashioned snailmail on letterhead complete with signature. J. William lived in an apartment building near downtown Brooklyn, a decent but not posh address, according to Shelly. We exited the car to air smelling like impending rain, the clouds a low gray shelf. Thunder shivered in the distance.

      Blankley answered the door. He was late twenties or early thirties. Not a bad-looking guy, semi-fit, five-eight or nine, tidy haircut, khakis and blue oxford shirt. Just a guy who might do your taxes or find a book for you at the library, until you noticed the tightness at the corners of his eyes. Scowler’s eyes.

      Waltz held up his badge. “Can we come in, Mr Blankley? We just want a few minutes of your time.”

      The small apartment was neat to the point of immaculate, resembling a photograph of a living room in an Ethan Allen ad. There was no color or sense of personality. Everything seemed beige, even the TV screen, an all-news channel, muted. A blonde anchorwoman moved her lips as Hispanics tumbled over a border fence superimposed at her back.

      The only disarray was in a corner of the dining alcove, a computer desk and files, posters taped above the desk and work area. The word Men was prominent.

      Blankley gave Waltz and me about six square feet just inside the door. Waltz held out the letter.

      “You send this, Mr Blankley?”

      “That’s personal correspondence, you’re not allowed to read it.”

      “The other party felt compelled to show it to me. That’s allowed. I counted the word slut or sluts twenty-four times, bitch or bitches came in at thirteen, whore or whores hit the trifecta at seven. Your writing isn’t overly joyful, Mr Blankley.”

      Blankley jammed his hands in his pockets and strode away, stopped halfway across the room. “I’m supposed to be happy when men are under attack twenty-four seven?”

      “I wasn’t alerted. Have I missed something?”

      “The feminist conspiracy to strip men of our gender-ordained rights. We’re physically and intellectually superior, but treated like a disease because we lack the politically correct plumbing.”

      “Interesting. The, uh, upshot?”

      He jabbed his finger toward a hand-drawn logo above his computer, either an artichoke on a stick or a raised fist, beneath it the legend, MEN UNITED!

      “We’re fighting the conspiracy to feminize America. Men are being treated like slaves, broken down, discarded. The insidious feminizing influences are everywhere.”

      Waltz said, “You’ve been feminized, Mr Blankley? I can’t really tell.”

      “I haven’t been. They’ve tried, but I’ve resisted. Are you here because I exercised my first amendment rights and wrote a damn letter?”

      “We’re checking out threats to conference participants. This letter verges on threatening.”

      “I’m the one that’s threatened. My gender. My God-given maleness. Tell Pelham and her kind to stop threatening me, then I’ll lay down my sword.”

      “How long has your organization been in existence, Mr Blankley?” Waltz asked.

      “Almost five months. Our Ten Tenets of Male Awareness are as follows: One, to counter the pro-feminist agenda wherever we find it. Two, to create newsletters reflecting our –”

      Waltz held up his hand to cut Blankley off mid-tenet. “You’re the founder of the organization?”

      “The Supreme Commander. And treasurer. Our third tenet is …”

      I kept quiet as Blankley yapped. I’d seen guys like him before. Most had a pivotal moment or

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