I gently lifted the box I was holding. “Stay here for a while longer, see what else you can find. If I can’t get back here first, I’ll call you and give you time to get out before I talk to the cops.”

Garcia sat in his car, a yellow Toyota, and watched the men enter his apartment. He guessed that the pimp was smarter than he had appeared to be, because there was no other way that they could have found his base so quickly. The pimp had followed someone to Garcia, probably in an effort to gain some room for maneuver in case his betrayal of the girl rebounded on him. Garcia was furious. A day or two later and the apartment would have been empty, its occupant gone. There was much in those rooms that was valuable to Garcia. He wanted it back. Yet Brightwell’s instructions had been clear: follow them and find out where they go, but don’t hurt them or attempt to engage them. If they separated, he was to stay with the man in the leather jacket, the one who had lingered in the alleyway as though aware of their presence. The fat man had appeared distracted as he left Garcia, but also strangely excited. Garcia knew better than to ask him why.

Don’t hurt them.

But that was before Brightwell knew where they were going. Now they were in Garcia’s place, and close to what they were seeking, although they might not recognize it if they saw it. Nevertheless, if they called the police, then Garcia would become a marked man in this country just as he was back home, and he might also be at risk from the very people who were sheltering him if his exposure threatened to bring down trouble on their heads. Garcia tried to recall if there was any way of connecting Brightwell to him through whatever remained in the apartment. He didn’t believe so, but he had watched some of the cop shows on TV, and sometimes it seemed like they could perform miracles using only dust and dirt. Then he considered all of his hard work in recent months, the great effort of construction for which he had been brought to the city. This too was threatened by the presence of the visitors. If they discovered it, or decided to report whatever they found in Garcia’s apartment, then all would be undone. Garcia was proud of what had been built; it was worthy to stand alongside the Capuchin church in Rome, the church behind the Farnese Palace, even Sedlec itself.

Garcia took out his cell. Brightwell’s number was to be called only in an emergency, but Garcia figured that this qualified. He entered the digits and waited.

“They’re at my place,” he said, once the fat man answered.

“What remains?”

“Tools,” said Garcia. “Materials.”

“Anything that I should be concerned about?”

Garcia considered his options, then made his decision.

“No,” he lied.

“Then walk away.”

“I will,” Garcia lied again.

When I’m done.

He touched his fingers to the small relic that hung from a silver chain amid the hairs of his chest. It was a shard of bone, taken from the body of the woman for whom these men were searching, these trespassers on Garcia’s sacred place. Garcia had dedicated the relic to his guardian, to Santa Muerte, and now it was imbued with her spirit, her essence.

“Muertecita,” he whispered, as his anger grew. “Reza por mi.”

Sarah Yeates was one of those people you needed in your life. Apart from being smart and funny, she was also a treasure trove of esoteric information, a status that was due at least in part to her work in the library of the Museum of Natural History. She was dark-haired, looked about ten years younger than her age, and had the kind of personality that scared off dumb men and forced the smart ones to think fast on their feet. I wasn’t sure what category I fell into where Sarah was concerned. I hoped I was in the second group, but I sometimes suspected that I might be included by default, and Sarah was just waiting for a vacancy to open up in the first group so she could file me there instead.

I called her at home. It took her a few rings to answer, and when she did her voice was foggy with sleep.

“Huh?” she said.

“Hello to you too.”

“Who is this?”

“Charlie Parker. Am I calling at a bad time?”

“You are if you’re trying to be funny. You do know what time it is, right?”

“Late.”

“Yeah, which is what you’ll be if you don’t have a good reason for calling me.”

“It’s important. I need to pick your brain about something.”

I heard her sigh and sink back into her pillow.

“Go on.”

“I have some items that I’ve found in an apartment. They’re human bones. Some have been made into candlesticks. There’s also a statue of some kind, constructed from human and animal remains mixed together. I found a bath of urine with bones in it, so I think someone was treating them for some reason. Pretty soon I’m going to have to call the cops and tell them what I’ve found, so I don’t have long. You’re the first person I’ve woken over this, but I expect to wake others before the night is through. Is there anyone in the museum, or even outside it, who might be able to tell me something I can use?”

Sarah was quiet for so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep again.

“Sarah?” I said.

“Jeez, you’re impatient,” she said. “Give a girl time to think.”

There were noises from the other end of the line as she got out of bed, told me to hold on, then put the phone down. I waited, hearing drawers opening and closing in the background. Eventually she came back.

“I’m not going to give you the names of anyone at the museum, because I’d kind of like to keep my job. It pays my rent, you know, and enables me to keep a telephone so dipshits who don’t even remember to send a Christmas card can call me in the dead of night asking for my help.”

“I didn’t know you were religious.”

“That’s not the point. I like presents.”

“I’ll make it up to you this year.”

“You’d better. Okay, if this runs dry, I’ll arrange for you to talk to some people in the morning, but this is the guy you need to meet anyway. You got a pen? Right, well you also have a namesake. His name is Neddo, Charles Neddo. He’s got a place down in Cortlandt Alley. The plate beside his door says he’s an antique dealer, but the front of the store is full of junk. He wouldn’t make enough out of it to feed flies if it weren’t for his sidelines.”

“Which are?”

“He deals in what collectors term ‘esoterica.’ Occult stuff, mainly, but he’s been known to sell artifacts that you don’t generally find outside of museum basements. He keeps that merchandise in a locked room behind a curtain at the back of the store. I’ve been in there, once or twice, so I know what I’m talking about. I seem to recall seeing items similar to the ones you’re talking about, although Neddo’s equivalents would be pretty old. He’s the place to start, though. He lives above the store. Go wake him up and let me get back to sleep.”

“Will he cooperate with a stranger?”

“He will if the stranger offers him something in return. Just be sure to bring along your finds. If they’re interesting to him, then you’ll learn something.”

“Thanks, Sarah.”

“Yeah, whatever. I hear you found a girlfriend. How’d that happen?”

“Good luck.”

“Yours, I think, not hers. Don’t forget my present.”

Then she hung up.

Louis moved through the unfinished floor, framed by doorways and lit by moonlight, until he came at last to the window. The window did not look onto the street. Instead, it showed Louis the dimly lit interior of a white-tiled room. In the center of the room, over a drain in the sloped floor, a chair had been fixed. There were leather restraints on the arms and the legs.

Louis opened the door and entered the white room. A shape moved to his left, and he almost fired at it before he saw his own reflection in the two-way glass. He knelt down by the drain. The floor, the drain, all were clean. Even the chair had been scrubbed, the grain cleansed of any trace of those who had occupied it. He smelled disinfectant and bleach. His gloved fingers touched the wood of the armrest, then gripped it tightly.