L.K. is shivering. Of course it is a mistake to be here in this stranger’s territory. She has known this since the freight elevator.

Hurry! Now.

Yet she asks coolly, like a true art professional, “What do these—sculptures—sell for?”

“These ‘sculptures’ are not finished.”

“But if finished—”

“Prices vary. Wildly.”

“This one, for instance. If you were to price it.” A mannequin on a hook, one of those with a sponge for a brain. Between its legs a mock-bleeding wound. Both the “pubic” hair and the hair on the mannequin’s head resembles L.K.’s own hair, though it is—of course—synthetic and not human hair.

Vann states a price. L.K. recoils in surprise.

“D’you really get such prices? For things like this?”

“Depends.”

Things is deliberate. Vann must hear the contempt in her voice.

L.K. cannot look away from other works in progress, stuck back here in the shadows.

Canvases smeared with paint and adorned with “human” artifacts—finger- and toenails, earlobes, hair. Much hair.

Hair of all hues, textures. Wavy hair, glossy hair, frizzy hair, straight hair. Ashy blond, dirty blond, chestnut, mahogany, russet-red, dark hair threaded with silver.

Shelves of wigs. L.K. assumes these are wigs and not human hair in swaths.

(But how pungent these smell! A sort of arrested rot, treated with a chemical solution.)

“I’d told you, dear. All this is work in progress. Not for viewing.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

Vann lifts one of the wigs from the counter. Playfully, perhaps just slightly meanly, he suggests that L.K. try it on.

“Thanks, no.”

“But it will suit you. Try.”

Vann hands the wig to L.K., who takes it from him hesitantly. It’s a thick black wig, somewhat matted, lusterless. Its smell is pungent—indefinable. L.K. has no intention of fitting it on her head, but she examines it closely and sees, or thinks she sees, blood-stippled roots of hairs—actual hairs.

She drops the wig, appalled. She is trembling badly.

Vann laughs and picks the wig up from the floor.

“It smells. It’s awful. Please—put it away.”

In what appears to be a refrigerated display case L.K. sees bruised and battered heads, sallow-skinned faces. Heavy-lidded, bruised eyes. Matted hair.

There is a sickish, rank smell. A window has been opened partway to air out the loft.

Along a wall, a white porcelain freezer humming just perceptibly with electricity. L.K. thinks—He keeps his captives there. His “art.”

Overhead the skylight is scummy, opaque. L.K. is feeling weak and uncertain. Vann leads her out of the workroom into the living quarters of the loft. L.K. stumbles and sits heavily in one of the leather chairs. She reaches into the canvas bag for her cell phone and sees that it has gone dark, it has lost its power.

It is formaldehyde she smells. She is certain.

6.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, dear?”

Words you don’t want to hear in a private and sequestered place on the fourth floor of a near-deserted building.

Faltering, she says no. She doesn’t think so …