Sixto looked back at Klay with uncomprehending eyes. Klay helped him scoop the quaaludes up with a piece of paper and pour them into a tissue box. Sixto retrieved a dustpan and swept up the broken dispenser and dropped the pieces into Martelino’s wastebasket. Watching the boy, Klay felt the weight of powerlessness in the face of evil. He got to his feet. “You know, I don’t think we could do ivory, Father. It would be better, certainly, but it could be a problem. There are laws about ivory, aren’t there? Let’s think about wood, okay?”

The priest dropped heavily onto a sofa. “Batikulin is the best wood,” he said without interest. “Santol is cheaper.”

“I would only want to do this for our wealthy clients. Price is no object. They only want the best.”

“Then ivory! Ivory is what we want, Tomas!”

We.

Klay looked at the ivory sculpture. “It is beautiful.”

“Of course. Ivories will be the perfect memorial for your dead ones.”

“How would I get these to the United States?”

“There are ways. For the Vatican, I wrapped a dormido in dirty underwear, covered the underwear in chicken blood and human shit, like a dirty diaper. No one opened it. When the cardinal asked about it, I told him his Niño was so real he even smelled like a baby.”

Klay laughed.

“Could we get the Vatican to bless it?”

“The Holy Father, no. The papal nuncio, no. But I have many contacts in the Holy See. They know my relics. First, we will discuss with my carvers. Get me my phone, Sixto.”

When the boy had left, Klay continued, “We would need a supplier in Africa. Do you know someone?”

Martelino slapped Klay’s knee. “That’s the easy part!”

The priest leapt from his sofa with surprising speed, crossed the room, and took a book from a shelf above his desk. It was a Koran. He opened it, and a handful of photographs spilled from the book onto his desk. “The Muslims bring it from Africa.”

“The Muslims?”

“On Mindanao! Look at this.” The priest handed Klay a photograph of a commercial pier, and a pair of large ships rigged with purse seine nets in the background. In the foreground rows of plastic tubs the size of refrigerators appeared to be filled with small fish in crushed ice. Klay did a quick count of the tubs, multiplying the number he could see on each axis; there were hundreds of them. Standing among the tubs were four men holding automatic weapons.

“That’s a lot of fish.”

“Zamboanga is the sardine capital of the Philippines.”

Martelino handed Klay more photographs featuring the same pier. A steel nozzle sucked sardines out of the large plastic tubs and dumped them onto a conveyor belt rolling into a building Klay assumed was a cannery.

“I tell my supplier his ivories stink like fish. It gets me a discount!”