Not here, he thought. Don’t let her life have ended here.

Cortlandt Alley was a monkey puzzle of fire escapes and hanging wires. Neddo’s storefront was black, and the only clue to his business was a small brass plate on the brickwork with the words NEDDO ANTIQUES. A black cast-iron screen protected the glass, but the interior was concealed by gray drapes that had not been moved in a very long time, and the whole storefront looked like it had recently been sprayed with dust. To the left of the glass was a black steel door with an intercom beside it, inset with a camera lens. The windows above were all dark.

I had seen no trace of anyone watching the apartment building when I left. Angel covered me from the door as I went to my car, and I took the most circuitous route that I could to Manhattan. Once or twice, I thought I saw a beat-up yellow Toyota a couple of cars behind me, but it was gone by the time I got to Cortlandt Alley.

I pressed the button on the intercom. It was answered within seconds by a man, and he didn’t sound like he’d just been woken up.

“I’m looking for Charles Neddo,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Parker. I’m a private investigator.”

“It’s a little late to be calling, isn’t it?”

“It’s important.”

“How important?”

The alley was empty, and I could see no one on the street. I took the statue from the bag and, carefully holding it by its plinth, displayed it before the lens.

“This important,” I said.

“Show me some ID.”

I juggled the statue, found my wallet, and flipped it open.

Nothing happened for a time, then the voice said: “Wait there.”

He took his time. Any longer and I could have put down roots. Eventually, I heard the sound of a key in the lock and bolts being drawn back. The door opened and a man stood before me, segmented by a series of strong security chains. He was late middle-aged, with pointed tufts of gray hair sticking up from his skull that gave him the appearance of an ageing punk. His eyes were very small and round, and his mouth was set in a plump scowl. He wore a bright green robe that seemed to have trouble stretching all the way around his body. Beneath it I could see black trousers and a white shirt, wrinkled but clean.

“Your identification again, please,” he said. “I want to be sure.”

I handed him my license.

“Maine,” he said. “There are some good stores in Maine.”

“You mean L.L. Bean?”

The scowl deepened.

“I was talking about antiques. Well, I suppose you’d better come in. We can’t have you standing around in the dead of night.”

He partially closed the door, undid the chains, then stepped aside to let me enter. Inside, a flight of worn steps led up to what I assumed were Neddo’s living quarters, while to the right a door gave access to the store itself. It was through this door that Neddo led me, past glass display cases filled with antique silver, between rows of battered chairs and scuffed tables, until we came to a small back room furnished with a telephone, a huge gray filing cabinet that looked like it belonged in a Soviet bureaucrat’s office, and a desk lit by a lamp with an adjustable arm and a magnifying glass fitted halfway down its length. A curtain at the rear of the office had been pulled across almost far enough to conceal the door behind it.

Neddo sat down at the desk and removed a pair of glasses from the pocket of his dressing gown.

“Give it to me,” he said.

I placed the statue on a plinth, then removed the skulls and laid them at either side of it. Neddo barely glanced at the skulls. Instead, his attention was focused on the bone sculpture. He didn’t touch it directly, instead using the plinth to turn it while employing a large magnifying glass to peruse it in great detail. He did not speak throughout his examination. At last he pushed it away and removed his glasses.

“What made you think I’d be interested in this?” he said. He was trying very hard to remain poker-faced, but his hands were trembling.

“Shouldn’t you have asked me that before you invited me in? The fact that I’m here in your office kind of answers your question for you.”

Neddo grunted. “Let me rephrase it, then: who led you to believe that I might be interested in such an item?”

“Sarah Yeates. She works at the Museum of Natural History.”

“The librarian? A bright girl. I greatly enjoyed her occasional visits.”

The scowl on Neddo’s face relaxed slightly, and his little eyes grew animated. Judging by his words, it was clear that Sarah didn’t come around so much anymore, and from the expression on his face-one of mingled lust and regret-I was pretty sure why Sarah now kept her distance from him.

“Do you always work so late?” he said.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I don’t sleep very much. I am troubled by insomnia.”

He slipped on a pair of plastic gloves and turned his attention to the skulls. I noticed that he handled them delicately, almost respectfully, as though fearing to commit some desecration on the remains. It was hard to think of anything worse than what had already been done, but then I was no expert. The pelvic bone upon which the skull rested jutted out slightly from beneath the jaw, like an ossified tongue. Neddo laid it on a piece of black velvet and adjusted the lamp so that the skull shone.

“Where did you get these?”

“In an apartment.”

“There were others like this?”

I didn’t know how much to tell him. My hesitation gave me away.

“I’m guessing that there were, since you seem reluctant to answer. Never mind. Tell me, how exactly were these skulls placed when you found them?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Were they arranged in a particular way? Were they resting on anything else?”

I thought about the question.

“There were four bones to one side of the statue and between the skulls, piled one on top of the other. They were curved. They looked like sections of hip. Behind it was a length of vertebrae, probably from the base of a spine.”

Neddo nodded.

“It was incomplete.”

“You’ve seen something like this before?”

Neddo lifted the skull and gazed into the empty sockets of its eyes.

“Oh yes,” he said softly.

He turned to me.

“Don’t you think that there’s something beautiful about it, Mr. Parker? Don’t you find edifying the idea that someone would take bones and use them to create a piece of art?”

“No,” I said, with more force than I should have used.

Neddo looked at me over the tops of his glasses.

“And why is that?”

“I’ve met people before who tried to make art out of bone and blood. I didn’t much care for them.”

Neddo waved a hand in dismissal. “Nonsense,” he said. “I don’t know what manner of men you’re speaking of but-”

“Faulkner,” I said.

Neddo stopped talking. It was a guess, nothing more, but anyone who was interested in such matters could not help but know of the Reverend Faulkner, and perhaps also of others whom I had encountered. I needed Neddo’s help, and if that meant dangling the promise of revelations before him, then I was content to do that.

“Yes,” he said, after a time, and now he seemed to be looking at me with renewed interest. “Yes, the Reverend Faulkner was such an individual. You met him? Wait, wait, you’re the one, aren’t you? You’re the detective who found him? Yes, I remember now. Faulkner vanished.”

“So they say.”

Neddo was now rigid with excitement.

“Then you saw it? You saw the book?”

“I saw it. There was no beauty to it. He made it from skin and bone. People died for its creation.”

Neddo shook his head. “Still, I would give a great deal to look upon it. Whatever you may say or feel about him, he was a part of a tradition. The book did not exist in isolation. There were others like it: not so ornate, perhaps, or so ambitious in their construction, but the raw materials remain the same, and such anthropodermic bindings are sought after items among collectors of a certain mien.”