“I remember you always like your dirt, Lincoln.”

“Useful, soil is,” he said, then continued. “Very little rock and none of it blasted or chipped, no limestone or Manhattan mica schist. So we’re looking at downtown. And from the amount of old wood particles, probably closer to Canal Street.”

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.