North of Twenty-seventh Street the bedrock lies close to the surface of Manhattan. South of that, the ground is dirt, sand, and clay, and it’s very damp. When the sandhogs were digging the subways years ago the soupy ground around Canal Street would flood the shaft. Twice a day all work had to cease while the tunnel was pumped out and the walls shored up with timber, which over the years had rotted away into the soil.

Hoddleston wasn’t optimistic. Although Rhyme’s information limited the geographic area, he explained, there were dozens of connecting tunnels, transfer platforms, and portions of stations themselves that had been closed off over the years. Some of them were as sealed and forgotten as Egyptian tombs. Years after Alfred Beach died workmen building another subway line broke through a wall and discovered his original tunnel, long abandoned, with its opulent waiting room, which had included murals, a grand piano, and a goldfish tank.

“Any chance he’s just sleeping in active stations or between stations in a cutout?” Hoddleston asked.

Sellitto shook his head. “Not his profile. He’s a druggie. He’d be worried about his stash.”

Rhyme then told Hoddleston about the turquoise mosaic.

“Impossible to say where that came from, Lincoln. We’ve done so much work retiling, there’s tile dust and grout everywhere. Who knows where he could’ve picked it up.”

“So give me a number, Chief,” Rhyme said. “How many spots we looking at?”

“I’d guess twenty locations,” Hoddleston’s athletic voice said. “Maybe a few less.”

“Ouch,” Rhyme muttered. “Well, fax us a list of the most likely ones.”

“Sure. When do you need it?” But before Rhyme could answer, Hoddleston said, “Never mind. I remember you from the old days, Lincoln. You want it yesterday.”

“Last week,” Rhyme joked, impatient the chief was bantering and not writing.

Five minutes later the fax machine buzzed. Thom set the piece of paper in front of Rhyme. It listed fifteen locations in the subway system. “Okay, Sachs, get going.”

She nodded as Sellitto called Haumann to have the S &S teams get started. Rhyme added emphatically, “Amelia, you stay in the rear now, okay? You’re Crime Scene, remember? Only Crime Scene.”

On a curb in downtown Manhattan sat Leon the Shill. Beside him was the Bear Man – so named because he wheeled around a shopping cart filled with dozens of stuffed animals, supposedly for sale, though only the most psychotic of parents would buy one of the tattered, licey little toys for their child.

Leon and the Bear Man lived together – that is, they shared an alley near Chinatown – and survived on bottle deposits and handouts and a little harmless petty larceny.

“He dying, man,” Leon said.

“Naw, bad dream’s what it is,” Bear Man responded, rocking his shopping cart as if trying to put the bears to sleep.

“Oughta spenda dime, get a ambulance here.”

Leon and the Bear Man were looking across the street, into an alley. There lay another homeless man, black and sick looking, with a twitchy and mean – though currently unconscious – face. His clothes were in tatters.

“Oughta call somebody.”

“Les take a look.”

They crossed the street, skittish as mice.

The man was skinny – AIDS, probably, which told them he probably used smack – and filthy. Even Leon and Bear Man bathed occasionally in the Washington Square Park fountain or the lagoon in Central Park, despite the turtles. He wore ragged jeans, caked socks, no shoes, and a torn, filthy jacket that said Cats…The Musical on it.

They stared at him for a moment. When Leon tentatively touched Cats’s leg the man jerked awake and sat up, freezing them with a weird glare. “The fuck’re you? The fuck’re you?”

“Hey, man, you okay?” They backed away a few feet.

Cats shivered, clutching his abdomen. He coughed long and Leon whispered, “Looks too fucking mean to be sick, you know?”

“He’s scary. Les go.” Bear Man wanted to get back to his A &P baby carriage.

“I need help,” Cats muttered. “I hurt, man.”

“There’s a clinic over on -”

“Can’t go to no clinic,” Cats snapped, as if they’d insulted him.

So he had a record, and on the street refusing to go to a clinic when you were this sick meant you had a serious record. Felony warrants outstanding. Yeah, this mutt was trouble.

“I need medicine. You got some? I pay you. I got money.”

Which they normally wouldn’t’ve believed except that Cats was a can picker. And fucking good at it, they could see. Beside him was a huge bag of soda and beer cans he’d culled from the trash. Leon eyed it enviously. Must’ve taken two days to get that many. Worth thirty bucks, forty.

“We don’t got nothing. We don’t do that. Stuff, I mean.”

“Pills, he means.”

“You wanna bottle? T-bird. I got some nice T-bird, yessir. Trade you a bottle fo’ them cans…”

Cats struggled up on one arm. “I don’t want no fuckin’ bottle. I got beat up. Some kids, they beat me up. They busted something in me. It don’t feel right. I need medicine. Not crack or smack or fucking T-bird. I need something stop me hurtin’. I need pills!” He climbed to his feet and teetered, swaying toward Bear Man.

“Nothing, man. We don’t got nothing.”

“I’ma ask you a las’ time, you gonna give me somethin’?” He groaned and held his side. They knew how crazy strong some crackheads were. And this guy was big. He could easily break both of them in half.

Leon whispered to Bear Man, “That guy, th’other day?”

Bear Man was nodding avidly though it was a fear reflex. He didn’t know who the hell Leon was talking about.

Leon continued, “There’s this guy, okay? Was trying to sell us some shit yesterday. Pills. Pleased as could be.”

“Yeah, pleased as could be,” Bear Man said quickly, as if confirming the story might calm Cats down.

“Didn’t care who saw him. Just selling pills. No crack, no smack, no Jane. But uppers, downers, you name it.”

“Yeah, you name it.”

“I got money.” Cats fumbled in his filthy pocket and pulled out two or three crumpled twenties. “See? So where this motherfucker be?”

“Over near City Hall. Old subway station…”

“I’m sick, man. I got beat up. Why somebody beat me up? What I do? I’s pickin’ some cans’s all. And look what happen. Fuck. What his name?”

“I don’t know,” Bear Man said quickly, squiggling up his forehead as if he were thinking fiercely. “No, wait. He said something.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You remember… He was looking at my bears.”

“An’ he said something. Yeah, yeah. Said his name was Joe or something. Maybe Jodie.”

“Yeah, that was it. I’m sure.”

“Jodie,” Cats repeated, then wiped his forehead. “I’ma see him. Man, I need somethin’. I’m sick, man. Fuck you. I’m sick. Fuck you too.”

When Cats had staggered off, moaning and muttering to himself, dragging his bag of cans behind him, Leon and Bear Man returned to the curb and sat down. Leon cracked a Voodoo ale and they started drinking.

“Shouldn’ta done that to that fella,” he said.

“Who?”

“Joe or whatever his name was.”

“You want that motherfucker round here?” Bear Man asked. “He dangerous. He scare me. You want him to hang round here?”

“Course I don’t. But, man, you know.”

“Yeah, but -”

“You know, man.”

“Yeah, I know. Gimme the bottle.”