Read Available Dark: A Crime Novel (Cass Neary) for Free Online

nineteenth-century cyanotype of a string quartet of skeletons in evening dress, and images from an archeological dig—piles of human skulls, skeletons missing skulls or limbs.
    Other than the Turbevilles, none of them reflected the sort of blingy taste I associated with the fashion photographers I’d known, especially those who’d made their money in the Go-Go ’90s. I didn’t recognize any of Ilkka’s own work on the walls. There was no indication he’d ever done commercial photography, except for that Jenny Saville deconstruction of a couture model. It all seemed coldly ascetic, almost monastic, save for the faint scent of wood smoke and vetiver. I passed an office where Suri sat staring at a laptop, and finally reached the bathroom.
    I locked the door, took a long pull at the Jack Daniel’s, and checked out the medicine cabinet. Nothing but soaps wrapped in black tissue, the same autumnal scent as Ilkka’s cologne. I stuck one in my bag, washed my face, and exchanged my frayed turtleneck for my striped shirt; popped a couple of Focalin and opened the envelope Ilkka had given me. Inside was a vinyl wallet containing three thousand euros. Anton had kept his side of the deal. I counted out half the notes and slipped them into my own tattered wallet, shoved the rest into my pocket, and returned to the living room.
    Ilkka stood by the window, talking on a cell phone. He shot me an apologetic look, spoke for another minute, and signed off.
    “Sorry. That was my wife; one of our children is not feeling well at school. She may come back early with him if the nurse thinks he should come home.”
    “You’ve got kids?” I could no more imagine children here than in my own apartment.
    “Two. A boy and a girl.” He gazed at the frozen garden, then turned and gestured toward the hall. “Come. I’ll show you what you’ve come to see. Tell me, how do you know Anton?”
    “I don’t. He asked me to look at some photos he’s interested in buying. Yours. I never heard of him before two days ago.”
    “You might want to keep it that way.”
    “Why?”
    “We have a saying: Kun paholaiselle antaa pikkusormen, se perkele vie koko käden . ‘If you give your little finger to the Devil, it will take your whole hand.’”
    We turned down a passageway, and he continued. “I was delighted when Anton told me he had retained you to authenticate my photos. Dead Girls was a very important book for me; I found it in a used bookstore when I was at university. I hadn’t realized there were other people doing the kind of photography that I wanted to do. I felt as though I suddenly had permission to create my own work. All those photos of yours, they aged well. Better than your punks did.” He gave a barking laugh. “Iggy Pop and Johnny Rotten, dinosaurs selling insurance and butter on TV. So much for anarchy. And I saw your Stern photograph online, the Kamestos death mask. Everything has a price, yes?”
    “I don’t care who’s buying the round, long as he pays.”
    “I hope Anton has paid you well, then. He can afford to.”
    I shrugged. The truth was, I was caught off guard by the fact that both Anton and Ilkka knew my work. I’d spent thirty years living under the world’s radar, scraping by on booze and whatever drugs I could scrounge from Phil Cohen. It was unsettling to think I had a second life, courtesy of some old black-and-white photos of dead people. Ilkka looked at me curiously.
    “You’re a cult figure,” he said. “Didn’t you know that?”
    “Must be a very small cult.”
    “It is,” said Ilkka, and laughed.
    The hall ended in a room with wood-paneled walls and a staircase. Ilkka stopped me before I could start upstairs. “Not that way. Here—”
    He slid aside a panel to reveal an alarm box, punched in a code, and slid open a section of wall. Last time I’d heard of something like this was in a Nancy Drew book. Ilkka stepped inside. He switched on a light and beckoned me to follow, closing the door