A formar Julliard-trained classical musician and devoted family man, Romulus now lives as an outcast in a netherworld on the edge of Manhattan. Haunted by delusions of a power adversary, Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, who he believes malevolently charts his every move from atop the Chrysler building.

Ledbetter is drawn out of his insanity to track down the killer of handsome young drifter Scotty Gates, whose frozen corpse he discovers hanging in a tree outside his cave-like dwelling. Though the police dismiss the transient Gate's death, Ledbetter is convinced that he was murdered by Davud Keppenraub, a prominent art photographer for whom the boy often posed as a model.

But who is going to believe the rantings of a paranoid schizophrenic living in a cave? Not his daughter Lulu, a young police officer. Not Leppenraub's privileged friends in New York's art world. Alone with his voices and his visions, Romulus must piece together the twisted puzzle, risking his life and the remaining shreds of his sanity to bring justice to another lost soul.