“What could he want to show me anyway?”

“There is one simple and straightforward way to find out.”

Again he swept his arm forward theatrically toward the interior of the vehicle. Odessa saw that it was weirdly roomy inside, and well appointed: burgundy leather seats with dark stitching, a bar to one side that appeared to feature only bottled water, tinted windows. There was no one else inside.

“He’s not here?”

“I am to take you to him.”

Odessa looked around at the street: the people walking past, glancing at the fancy vehicle; cars rolling by; buildings high above. It almost felt as if she were leaving this everyday world for another one.

She remembered Solomon’s words from their first meeting, which had made little sense to her at the time, but kept coming back around in her memory. Everything is an invocation. Little moments of holy summoning.

“You know what?” she said. “Why not?”

She entered the vehicle, and with a formal nod Mr. Lusk closed the door behind her.

Chapter

The Phantom rolled out of the city, heading north. Odessa had accepted Blackwood’s strange invitation with the assumption that the destination was close by.

Three and a half hours later, the Phantom pulled off the highway in the city of Providence, Rhode Island.

“Almost there,” sang Mr. Lusk, his porky hands gripping the ivory-colored steering wheel in the front seat.

Underneath the elevated highway, they turned near the industrial waterfront, rolling along a decaying part of the city replete with crumbling brick factories and strip clubs. Mr. Lusk pulled the Phantom up outside a tattoo parlor with a hand-lettered sign over the door reading ANGEL’S.

“You’re kidding me,” she said.

Mr. Lusk lifted his bulk out of the driver’s-side door and came around to open hers. Odessa stood out on the sidewalk smelling the salt air, looking up and down the vacant block beneath the highway. The front window was mostly blacked out.

“Seriously,” she said.

Mr. Lusk walked ahead of her to the door. He pressed a buzzer and waited. The door was pushed open by a large, well-inked man with a flared brown mustache.

“Come in, come in,” he said, his voice deep and Mexican-accented. Odessa and Mr. Lusk entered, and the tall man closed and locked the door behind them. The walls were decorated with tattoo designs—nothing hip, all low-rent—everything from Warner Bros. cartoon characters to pissing Calvin to tramp stamps to a single, perfect rose. Variations on MOTHER. Every branch of the armed forces, cartoon renderings of naked women and men, and multiple alphabets in various forms of Gothic script. Also for sale were knives and Zippo lighters, in displays near the front counter.