He pocketed the tooth before Kurt saw it and delved farther, approaching the alley’s end, which was carpeted with a humus of moldering cardboard, leaves, and road turds blown or washed there. He kicked it aside as best he could, then crouched down to examine the sewer grating beneath. The greenish brass screws that anchored it to the ground had sharp cuts in their old grooves where they had been recently removed. He rattled the grating, which was about half a meter square, then slipped his multitool out of his belt holster. He flipped out the Phillips driver and went to work on the screws, unconsciously putting Kurt’s flashlight in his mouth, his front teeth finding purchase in the dents that Kurt’s own had left there.
He realized with a brief shudder that Kurt probably used this flashlight while nipple-deep in dumpsters, had an image of Kurt transferring it from his gloved hands to his mouth and back again as he dug through bags of kitchen and toilet waste, looking for discarded technology. But the metal was cool and clean against his teeth and so he bit down and worked the four screws loose, worked his fingers into the mossy slots in the grate, lifted it out, and set it to one side.
He shone the light down the hole and found another fingerbone, the tip of a thumb, desiccated to the size of a large raisin, and he pocketed that, too. There was a lot of blood here, a little puddle that was still wet in the crusted middle. Frederick’s blood.
He stepped over the grating and shone the light back down the hole, inviting Kurt to have a look.
“That’s where they went,” he said as Kurt bent down.
“That hole?”
“That hole,” he said.
“Is that blood?”
“That’s blood. It’s not easy to fit someone my brother’s size down a hole like that.” He set the grate back, screwed it into place, and passed the torch back to Kurt. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
On the street, Alan looked at his blood and moss-grimed palms. Kurt pushed back his floppy, frizzed-out, bleach-white mohawk and scratched vigorously at the downy brown fuzz growing in on the sides of his skull.