“You cop know, you don’t con know.” He swept his flash right to left and back again, paying close attention to the shadows. “They zero in on the wheels, the air bags, the catalytic converters, high-value stuff.” He spoke as though he were teaching a class in chop shop—slow, step-by-step. He turned back to eye the tarp. “They must have been moving too fast to get that one off its blocks. Good money tossed down the can, you ask me.”

I glanced over at him. “We’re looking for anything that definitively connects Darby and Spada to the Williams brothers and your friend Leon.”

“I know, but first, get it straight. You and me are friends. That’s why I’m creeping around in here and not home watching American Ninja Warrior. Me and Leon? We were in the joint together and I saved him from getting shanked in the back. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t shank me if he felt like it.”

I stopped, held the flashlight up so I could see his face. “No honor among thieves?”

Whip snorted. “Depends on the thief . . . and what you consider honorable.”

“Darby’s a con, Leon’s a con. Spada could be a con,” I said.

“And maybe he did his stint with either Darby or Leon?”

“Or both.”

Whip chuckled. “You do meet a lot of interesting people living on the state’s dime.”

“So they get out and now everybody’s just itching to do Spada’s bidding?”

Whip nodded. “If the price is right, only you can’t say for sure because Darby got himself chunked up and the cops don’t have Leon yet.”

We eased into the office, which was even darker than the garage had been. No windows, just an old table and a few scarred chairs, the table littered with used paper cups smelling of old coffee, some girlie mags, a deck of cards. I turned to Whip, looked a question.

“Told you. You don’t need a lot to get the chopping done.”

“So let’s say Spada is a con, and let’s say he’s got his hands in a lot of different pies. He somehow gets this place and sets Leon up to work the chop shop, but he’s also got Sterling, which is semilegitimate, with this secret-death part built in. That’s where Darby and that fake nurse would have to come in, right? Spada would know how to get his hands on killers. Maybe Spada’s an alias. That’d explain my not turning up anything on him.” I looked at Whip. “It’s so easy for cons to get hooked back into this crap. It’s a revolving door of crime and incarceration.”