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dimes?” Prendergast called after me.
    I waved a hand over my head without looking back. Prendergast always called that out to me when I left the city room to chase
     a story. It was a line from
Chinatown
. I didn’t use pay phones anymore—no reporter did—but the sentiment was clear. Stay in touch.
    The globe lobby was the formal entrance to the newspaper building at the corner of First and Spring. A brass globe the size
     of a Volkswagen rotated on a steel axis at the center of the room. The many international bureaus and outposts of the
Times
were permanently notched on the raised continents, despite the fact that many had been shuttered to save money. The marble
     walls were adorned with photos and plaques denoting the many milestones in the history of the paper, the Pulitzer Prizes won
     and the staffs that won them, and the correspondents killed in the line of duty. It was a proud museum, just as the whole
     paper would be before too long. The word was that the building was up for sale.
    But I only cared about the next twelve days. I had one last deadline and one last murder story to write. I just needed that
     globe to keep turning until then.
    Sonny Lester was waiting in a company car when I pushed through the heavy front door. I got in and told him where we were
     going. He made a bold U-turn to get over to Broadway and then took it to the freeway entrance just past the courthouse. Pretty
     soon we were on the 110 heading into South L.A.
    “I take it that it’s no coincidence that I’m on this assignment,” he said after we cleared downtown.
    I looked over at him and shrugged.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Ask Azmitia. I told him I needed somebody and he told me it was you.”
    Lester nodded like he didn’t believe it and I didn’t really care. Newspapers had a strong and proud tradition of standing
     up against segregation and racial profiling and things like that. But there was also a practical tradition of using newsroom
     diversity to its full advantage. If an earthquake shatters Tokyo, send a Japanese reporter. If a black actress wins the Oscar,
     send a black reporter to interview her. If the Border Patrol finds twenty-four dead illegals in the back of a truck in Calexico,
     send your best Spanish-speaking reporter. That’s how you got the story. Lester was black and his presence might provide me
     safety as I entered the projects. That’s all I cared about. I had a story to report and I wasn’t worried about being politically
     correct about it.
    Lester asked me questions about what we were doing and I told him as much as I could. But so far I didn’t have a lot to go
     on. I told him that the woman we were going to see had complained about my story calling her grandson a murderer. I was hoping
     to find her and tell her that I would look into disproving the charges against him if she and her grandson agreed to cooperate
     with me. I didn’t tell him the real plan. I figured he was smart enough to eventually put it together himself.
    Lester nodded when I finished and we rode the rest of the way in silence. We rolled into Rodia Gardens about one o’clock and
     it was quiet in the projects. School wasn’t out yet and the drug trade didn’t really get going until dusk. The dealers, dopers
     and gangbangers were all still sleeping.
    The complex was a maze of two-story buildings painted in two tones. Brown and beige on most of the buildings. Lime and beige
     on the rest. The structures were unadorned by any bushes or trees, for these could be used to hide drugs and weapons. Overall,
     the place had the look of a newly built community where the extras had not yet been put in place. Only on closer inspection,
     it was clear that it wasn’t fresh paint on the walls and these weren’t new buildings.
    We found the address Braselton gave me without difficulty. It was a corner apartment on the second floor with the stairway
     on the right side of the building. Lester took a large, heavy camera bag