Curtis Beauvais gave me the address, which took him three weeks to decide to do and which he did on the condition that I tell Marcus he had. It is a townhouse in a development off Monroe Road with a basketball hoop over the garage.

I knocked at about eleven on a Saturday morning. A woman answered — I’d guess mid-thirties, a child somewhere behind her in the house — and I said my name and who I was, and she said “hold on” and shut the door, not rudely, and was gone about four minutes.

When she came back she said: “He says no. He says he’s sorry and he means it but no.”

“Can I leave something?”

“He said you’d say that.” She put her hand on the frame. “He said if you leave a check he’ll tear it up, and he’d rather you didn’t make him do that.”

I asked if I could ask her one question and she said one.