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spirituality systems , went to Harvard, worked at Columbia, and then fell off the side of the earth. Dude’s old-fashioned for his generation. It’s not like he was out there liking people’s angry gerbil videos or nothing. So that’s as far as it goes, at least on the Internet streets anyway. There is, however, one place where there’s quite an extensive collection of Wick memorabilia. Or Wickabilia, as we say in the field …”
    “Bennie.”
    “I made you promise no corny puns. I made no such promise.”
    “That wasn’t even a … You know what, just go on.”
    “He has a paper trail. I know, seems so archaic, right? It’s at the Columbia anthropology archive.”
    “Sweet!”
    “Good luck getting in, though. Not like you can just dougie on through the front gates.”
    “Ha. I got people that are experts at these things. Thanks for the help, B.”
    An anthropology expert. Maybe Wick had been studying Grandpa Lázaro’s shadowshaper thing, whatever it was. If she could find him, maybe he could help her figure out what was going on. Maybe he’d know how to find Lucera.
    Robbie had started painting another intricate Robbie-design, some kind of skeleton woman unraveling across the Tower wall. It was perfectly creepy. Sierra sized him up. “I’m not through interrogating you, bro.”
    Robbie kept his eyes on the painting. “I know, sis.”
    “I’ll be back later.” She shook her head, scrolled quickly through her contacts, and made a call.
    “What it do, Sierra baby?” Uncle Neville sounded chipper as ever.
    “How you feel about doing your goddaughter a solid on this lovely Saturday morning and taking a quick ride uptown?”

 
    “So when popo came around the block, we just laid low,” Uncle Neville said, smiling at his own memories with those big, nicotine-stained teeth. “You know, acted like we was all some dumb stoop Negroes with nothing better to do.”
    “And what happened?”
    “Well, Hog knew better than to make a move. He was scared of us but he was just as scared of the cops. But when they rolled past, he tried to break out. T-Bone tripped him and we let him have it.”
    All the windows were rolled down in Neville’s dark blue 1969 Cadillac Seville, and the wind whipped across Sierra’s face as they zipped north along the FDR. Manhattan was a towering mass of skyscrapers on their left. To the right, the East River sparkled orange in the midday sun.
    “You killed him?”
    Neville exploded with laughter. “Naw, girl! What kinda gangster you think your ol’ godfather be?” Sierra wasn’t sure how to answer that, but fortunately he just kept talking. “We’da never done that to the brother. Then we’da been just like the police, and that’d defeat the whole point. We just turned him upside down a few times, you know, and sent him on his way, never to be seen from again. Think he landed in Tennessee or somethin’.”
    “He hurt Sheila pretty bad?”
    “Spent three weeks in the hospital. And she never spoke to a single one of us again.”
    “Dang …”
    When Neville smiled, his narrow cheeks seemed to fold into themselves to make room for that great wide mouth. He always got happy talking about the good ol’ days, even though most of his stories ended with people getting messed up. Sierra and Bennie had stayed up entire nights trying to work out what exactly it was Neville did for a living. Asking directly seemed like a breach of some unspoken protocol. Anyway, it was more fun to guess.
    “What is it we doin’ up at Columbia again?” Neville asked. He gripped the leather steering wheel with one hand and fished around inside his jacket for another cigarette with the other.
    “It’s hard to explain,” Sierra said. “But basically, I need to do some research on something. Kind of about my family — my grandpa Lázaro, actually.” She shot a meaningful look at him to see if he’d take the bait. Neville kept his eyes on the road. “It’s about some missing Columbia