“I am Joachim, the proprietor.” Joachim stood six feet, six inches, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans under a full-length brown duster. He shook Odessa’s hand, his palm dwarfing hers. “Here he is,” he said to Mr. Lusk, shaking his hand as well. “I expected you half an hour ago.”

Mr. Lusk said, “We were delayed leaving the city,” apparently meaning her visit with Agent Solomon.

“No matter,” said Joachim.

Odessa scanned the ink sleeving his arms. Symbols and sunsets and religious iconography: as careful and complete a mosaic as she had ever seen on any surface. Guernica on flesh.

“You here for a tattoo?” said Joachim.

Odessa shook her head, checking with Mr. Lusk.

Joachim chuckled. “I’m kidding. But if you ever want one, you come to me.”

Odessa nodded, still reading his skin. One face on his forearm caught her eye, looking familiar. Was it…?

Joachim saw her looking at it. “You like this one? Pretty good likeness, no?”

Odessa looked back and forth between the tattoo and Mr. Lusk. The attorney smiled pleasantly, nodding. Yes—it was Mr. Lusk’s face.

“Really captures his spirit, I think.”

She scanned the other faces, wondering who and why and what…

“Check out my newest one, here.”

Joachim stepped to the counter, turning on a bright lamp and flexing the arm to focus on his midsection. He lifted his T-shirt up to his pecs, revealing more inked flesh, much of it radiating off a large cross in the muscled center of his chest, sunlight or divine light shining from behind it. A small bandage covered a patch of skin on his left side near the bottom of his rib cage. He peeled back the adhesive, revealing red, swollen flesh around a raw impression roughly the size of an extra-large egg.

It was a woman’s face.

It was Odessa’s face.

She stepped back. She looked up at him, smiling down at her.

“Not a bad likeness,” he said.

Odessa was speechless. He covered up the new ink and lowered his shirt on the living mural.

“Come on in back,” said Joachim. “He’s waiting for you.”

“How did you…?” She was too mystified even to finish the sentence. Get a picture of my face?

“Right back here,” he said, staring ahead of her.

Joachim led them through the back office and another door, down a narrow hallway to a locked door leading into an adjacent factory.

Stepping inside, she felt the wide-open, high-ceilinged space more than she saw it. It was dusty and dark. The floor was grimy, the sound of her shoes upon it carrying wide into the room.

Hugo Blackwood walked out of the shadows, wearing the same dark suit, or an exact replica, that he had worn before. “You’re late,” he said.

Odessa was still shaken, speechless.

Blackwood nodded to Joachim, who stepped back to the wall near the door, pressing a small switch.