I met Chic in a part of Compton that had been revitalized, meaning the crackheads looked better fed.

He leaned over my window and said, “Genevieve’s father invested in a company that owned a boutique that Kasey Broach once bought soap at. They bought car tires from the same wholesaler, Broach in person, Genevieve through her mechanic at Lexus.”

“What’s that give us?”

“Nuthin’ worth marking on the scorecard.” He grinned. “Database guy is good at digging stuff up, not necessarily good stuff. We’ll see what else he comes up with. I don’t think there’s gonna be much between the two of them—it’s a connection between Broach and you that would smell like pay dirt to me. If it links Genevieve, too, trifecta.” As we crossed the street, Chic flicked his chin at the warehouse up ahead. “That’s our boy’s art studio there.”

“Art studio?”

“That’s right. And don’t go embarrassin’ me and callin’ it graffiti.”

“What do I call it?”

“Aerosol art.”

“Naturally.”

We entered to find a large woman behind a reception desk, blowing on a set of fingernails that doubled the length of her hand. She looked up, eyebrows raised as if we’d shoved in on her in a changing room.

“Engelbert Humperdinck here’s lookin’ for Bishop,” Chic said, jerking his head in my direction, “but he didn’t want to come down alone because he’s afraid you all might put him in a cannibal pot.”

“One o’ them black ones?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lemme go get it.” She pushed back from the desk and disappeared through a metal door. Her voice came amplified through the walls. “Bish! Folks here to see you!” We couldn’t make out the response, but we heard her say, “Then sit reception you own damn self.”

She reappeared, holding the heavy door for us to pass through. She eyed me as I passed. “He a cop or a buyer?”

“He a writer,” Chic said.

She snorted. “Which restaurant?”

We entered the warehouse proper. Aside from a desk in the far corner, several cardboard boxes, and a rotund naked black man, the room was empty. The man was giving us his generous backside, facing an enormous canvas, marked with splotches, that was strapped to the far wall. Paint dripped from his fingertips, streamed down his broad calves.

I looked at Chic, and he shrugged. We crossed the vast space, admiring the blown-up photos adorning the walls—distinctive graffiti art on trains, billboards, even a few cop cars. The cardboard boxes were full of spray-paint cans, tips and nozzles, night-vision goggles flecked with backspray.

Chic cleared his throat, but Bishop didn’t turn around. He bent over, plucked a roller from a pan of purple paint, and ran it from his shins to his neck. Emitting a bass roar, he charged forward and flung himself against the canvas, leaving a large purple mark. He took a few steps away from the wall, wiped himself down with a wet towel, and pulled on a pair of velour sweatpants.

“Interesting technique,” Chic said. “Seems like…”

“Bullshit?” Bishop said in a great rumble of a voice. “Course it is. But it fetch me three grand at the gallery. If you could get that for a Rorschach of your nutsack, tell me you wouldn’t.”

I said, “If I could get three grand for anything involving my nutsack, I would.”

He laughed. “You gentlemen lookin’ to buy?”

“Actually, just a quick question for you.” I unfolded a copy of the freeway ramp graffiti from my back pocket. I’d pulled some Kinko’s magic, blowing it up, zeroing in so as to leave the body out of frame.

Bishop glanced at it and said, “Wudn’t me.”

“I know the feeling,” I said, “but we’re not cops or prosecutors, and we don’t care that it’s illegal.”

“No, I mean it wudn’t me.” He gestured grandly to the surrounding photographs. “See the 103 tag? Lower-right corner, every time?”

I studied the photos. The numbers resolved, almost as in the posters at the mall that you squint at for twenty minutes before being awarded a 3-D image or a migraine.

“That ’ cuz I came up on 103rd in Watts.” Bishop tapped the copy in my hands. “Ain’t no 103 there. Beside, I don’t use no Amazon Green and Metallic Periwinkle. That ain’t Bishop’s palette. This some toy done bite my piece.”

“Translation for the white guy?”

“I’m a fame writer. That’s why y’ all knew to come find me. But this a toy writer, a kid comin’ up. He bite my work—copy my shit—to show props.”

“Do you recognize which kid made this graffi—”

Chic cut me off. “Aerosol art?”

“Course. That his name right there, fool.” Bishop flicked the paper in the upper-left corner. Hidden in the puffs and bubbles of color were two letters, rendered in abstract hypercalligraphy. WB. “West Manchester Boulevard, by the Forum in the ’ Wood. That where he came up. Inglewood. Junior do good work, bombs freeway ramps and long-term storage joints. No stencils or airbrushing shit, squiggles the tail on his Q s.”

He’d pronounced the name soft, Latin style: Hoon-yore.

“He Mexican?” Chic asked.

“Ain’t no racial issues in the graf community. We about the art.”

“You know where we can find him?”

“Yeah. Boy send me fan mail.” Bishop plodded over to the little metal desk and dug in the drawers, sending candy-bar wrappers fluttering to the ground. He pulled out a crumpled letter from a drawer full of correspondence. It contained a Polaroid shot of a rolling storage door that had been transformed into a spray-paint wonderland. The letter read:

I flipped the envelope over. The return address listed a place called Hope House with an address on West Sixth. I pulled the Bic from behind my ear and copied the address in a black-leather detective’s notepad Cal had given me years ago.

“I gotta go meet with a distributor at the restaurant,” Chic said. “Think you’ll be safe visiting Junior without a big Negro holding your hand?”

“Dunno.” I looked at Bishop. “Wanna hold my hand?”

Bishop smirked. “I’m spoken for.”