Summary

The Book of the Dead – Ka Bienaime, an artist of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, speaks to hotel manager Flavio Salinas and Officer Bo. Ka, of Haitian descent, explains that she and her sixty-five year-old father, a barber with a facial scar, were on the way to Tampa to deliver one of her sculptures when he went missing from their hotel in Lakeland, Florida. The sculpture –a study of her father –is to be delivered to Gabrielle Fonteneau, a Haitian-born television actress who was persuaded by mutual friend Celine Benoit, to buy the sculpture. Salinas and Bo ask when Ka last saw her father. She explains it was the night before and that nothing was amiss. When she woke up, her father, the rental car, and the sculpture were gone. Bo says he will put the word out to everyone. He...