Pepper, an aging enforcer, reflects on his declining health and persistent stomach problems before taking the bodyguard job from Patterson, mostly as a favor to Elizabeth. After meeting the condescending Patterson at the Waldorf Astoria, Pepper accompanies him to a bank to withdraw cash for the transaction. That night, they travel to a grimy club in Alphabet City called Shoot the Hostages for the art deal. The club is filled with downtown eccentrics, and Pepper is immediately suspicious of the venue. A young man named Dee Void introduces himself as the man handling the final bids and attempts to raise the price. During an avant-garde art reveal by a graffiti artist known as Daily Newz, Pepper becomes violently ill and rushes to the bathroom, where he vomits a mix of pink Pepto Bismol, bile, and blood. While he’s gone, Void takes Patterson’s money. Pepper returns to find Patterson on the floor and learns that he has been robbed.

This chapter opens with the transformation of Pepper’s old criminal haunt, Donegal’s, which has been increasingly taken over by yuppies, symbolizing the end of his era. 

Pepper pursues Void but loses him. A furious Patterson reveals that the $80,000 was for an African mask called a Ngil, acquired through a cash deal that he acknowledges wasn’t entirely above board. Nando Schmidt owns Zilch Gallery and had arranged Patterson’s previous purchases, with Void working as his assistant. Pepper vows to recover the money. He’s then approached by a young woman with a mohawk who was also at the club. She introduces herself as LJ and, for a “finder’s fee,” offers to lead him to Void. She insists that they go together, while Pepper decides that he wants to recover both the money and the mask.

The perspective briefly shifts to a professional assassin known as the “Melancholy Hitman”—Herb to his friends. He’s in New York for a job and struggles with a deep-seated melancholy that is amplified by the city. 

Pepper and LJ navigate the East Village as LJ explains that Void’s former bandmate Mickey works at a video store and may know Void’s whereabouts. At Video Basket on St. Mark’s Place, Pepper violently threatens Mickey, who reveals that Void frequents a bar called Downtown Beirut. At the bar, Pepper discovers Void’s body in a bathroom stall; his face has been cut off, and the briefcase of money is gone. Pepper takes the dead man’s wallet and keys and leaves, ignoring LJ on his way out. Outside, overcome by his illness, Pepper collapses.

The Melancholy Hitman is revealed to have killed Void and retrieved the Ngil for his employer, Jurgen Roos.

After having nightmares of a string of failed jobs—the Bellerose Screw Factory, the Ellington Job, and the Titan Pharmaceuticals bust—Pepper awakens on a futon in LJ’s apartment; she found him after he collapsed and brought him home. After he tells LJ that Void was murdered, they go to a diner to talk. LJ reveals that her boss, a film director named Aaron Flood, was also a bidder for the Ngil mask and that she was at Shoot the Hostages to finalize the purchase. Her boss’s mission is to repatriate stolen African art, returning the objects to where they belong. 

Using Void’s keys, they enter his Ludlow Street apartment. The money and mask are gone, but they find a photograph of the artifact. LJ explains that the mask was once used by a secret society of “justice-wielders.” After speaking with Aaron, LJ reports that Nando Schmidt wants to meet about the Ngil.

Before meeting the dealer, Pepper calls Patterson and falsely claims to have a lead on his money. He and LJ then go to Zilch Gallery to meet with Schmidt. The nervous, drug-fueled Schmidt reveals how the Ngil passed through several hands: The original thief, D’Angelo, stole the Ngil from the estate of powerful collector Jurgen Roos; D’Angelo passed it to a fence named Harold in Providence, Rhode Island; Schmidt then took it from Harold and, with Void, reached out to buyers. Void subsequently stole the mask from Schmidt’s own safe. Both D’Angelo and Harold were found murdered, each with his face cut off; Schmidt identifies the killer as Roos’s man but conceals the fact that the man has already threatened to kill him unless he produces the mask. He swears that he doesn’t have the mask. Later, upon returning to LJ’s apartment, they find that it has been entered and subtly disturbed—a clear warning. Terrified, LJ asks if she can stay with Pepper for safety.

LJ awakens in Pepper’s Harlem apartment, which is located above a funeral home. She reflects on the danger surrounding the Ngil mask and her commitment to restitution work. After learning from a news report that Schmidt has been murdered, she insists that they visit her boss, Aaron Flood, whom she reveals is an old acquaintance of Pepper’s. 

The narrative reveals that the Melancholy Hitman killed Schmidt and, after determining that Schmidt didn’t know the mask’s location, plans to find out what LJ knows. 

The narrative then shifts to Aaron, a filmmaker who goes by the name Zippo. He recalls his career, from a blaxploitation hit to commercial failures. His guilt over profiting from The Gods Must Be Crazy, which he considers racist, followed by hearing about an anonymous buyer who donated Beninese pieces to the Nigerian government, leads him toward his own restitution project. Pepper and LJ arrive at Zippo’s apartment.

The Melancholy Hitman searches Void’s apartment and finds an invoice for November rent at an address on Avenue C, which he plans to investigate after his Circle Line cruise. 

Meanwhile, Pepper and LJ go to Zippo’s sprawling SoHo loft. Pepper is distrustful, remembering Zippo as a dangerous young hustler. Zippo reveals that he was the man in the astronaut helmet at Shoot the Hostages, that he identified Pepper there, and that he suggested that LJ turn to him for help. He confirms Jurgen Roos’s ruthless reputation. He then passionately tries to recruit Pepper to his cause of art restitution. While in Zippo’s bathroom, Pepper has an epiphany: Void was a drummer, but his drum kit wasn’t in his apartment. He realizes that finding Void’s drum kit may provide another lead to the mask and money. 

Pepper and LJ return to Mickey, who directs them to Void’s rehearsal space on Avenue C. Pepper goes there alone and finds the Ngil hidden beneath an old boiler, but the Melancholy Hitman arrives and demands the mask. During the ensuing fight, Pepper gouges out the Hitman’s eyes and strikes him with an amplifier. Afterward, Pepper finds Patterson’s briefcase, with all but $500 of the money still inside, and retrieves the Ngil. Pepper puts on the mask.

Not long after the Ngil job, Pepper celebrates his birthday with the Carneys and sees the Girl on a Corner painting newly hung in their hall. Recovering from his recent illness and injuries, he tells Elizabeth that the painting belongs where she has placed it. Two weeks later, he calls LJ and gives her the Ngil mask for her restitution work, stating that he’s done. When LJ asks why he isn’t returning it to Patterson, he tells her, “If you can make it right, make it right” (245). LJ tells Pepper that she and Aaron have been in contact with a culture minister about another set of Fang artifacts in Nice, France. The section closes with graffiti artist Daily Newz preparing to paint one final “Headline” on the wall of Carney’s furniture store before leaving for Europe.