Malik waited until the garage door rolled shut before he opened the envelope.
The Impala sat quiet in the bay Selena found for him, dust still in the seams, old blue paint dulled by heat.
Inside the envelope was a Polaroid and one folded note.
The photo showed a brick wall on Fourteenth.
June laughing with one hand up, head tipped back, a rough gold halo sprayed over the corner.
The note was in his father's block handwriting.
Mally.
If June's wall starts going blue, get there before the second coat.
Don't ask what they showing.
Ask what they hiding.
Malik read it twice.
Then the blue screen came up.
[Memory Interference Alert]
[Timed mission: Stop wall erasure before 10:30]
[Condition: Expose paying hand before spending]
[Reward: Buried Name Access]
[Penalty for failure: Local Trust -1 | Legacy trail distortion]
Malik checked the time.
9:42.
He took a picture of the note and sent it to Selena.
Her answer came back before the phone cooled.
`Fourteenth and Second.`
`Crew there now. Calder's cleanup people.`
`Rochelle already heard.`
`Do not turn this into a rich-boy save.`
Malik folded the note once and put it in his pocket.
He left the Impala where it sat.
The Porsche got him there in seven minutes.
Too late to stop the first coat.
Blue latex was already rolling across June's face when Malik hit the corner.
One man was on a ladder. One worked the sidewalk with a wide roller and a bucket of primer. A white van sat at the curb with no company name on it. Three kids stood by the hydrant. Two old heads watched from folding chairs in the shade.
Rochelle Grant stood near the beauty-supply gate with her arms folded.
She looked at Malik once.
"If you make this about you," she said, "leave."
Malik looked at the wall.
June had been dead three years.
The mural was the only place people still said his name big.
"I came for the wall," Malik said.
"Then act like it."
The man on the ladder rolled more blue over June's forehead.
Malik stepped up to the one on the sidewalk.
"Who ordered it?"
The man kept rolling.
"Cleanup job."
"City?"
"Job says paint. I paint."
Malik looked at the clipboard leaning on the van hood.
No city seal. No permit. Just a printed work order with one smaller line at the bottom.
CAS PROPERTY SERVICES.
He took a picture.
The roller man reached for the clipboard.
"Don't do that."
Malik held the phone up.
"Then tell me who pays CAS."
The man pointed with the roller.
"That ain't my business."
One of the boys by the hydrant said it anyway.
"Funny how cleanup always comes when somebody richer wants a corner quiet."
Rochelle did not turn, but Malik saw her hear it.
The blue screen flashed again.
[Condition unresolved]
[Paying hand still hidden]
Malik called Selena.
She picked up on the first ring.
"You at the wall?"
"Yeah."
"That is not city work," she said. "Calder has a site walk at eleven on the parcels behind it. They been calling the wall visual blight since Monday."
"Who signed the order?"
"CAS fronts for whoever doesn't want their own name on the bucket."
"Good enough."
"It isn't," Selena said. "Make them say it out loud."
Malik ended the call and looked at the foreman climbing down.
Forties. Sunburned neck. Work boots too clean for a man who lived on ladders.
"You the boss?"
"Boss enough."
"You want your day covered?"
The man narrowed his eyes.
"You buying brick now?"
"I'm buying one phone call. Speaker on."
The foreman laughed once.
Then looked past Malik at Rochelle, the boys, and the knot of people growing because nothing on the block stayed private when paint got involved.
"Why?"
"So everybody hears who paid you to bury a dead man before lunch."
That changed his face a little.
Not guilt.
Just annoyance.
"I ain't getting in nobody politics."
Malik pulled out his phone.
"I'll cover the full day, the paint, and the lost stop. But the call goes on speaker, or you explain to the whole corner why cleanup jobs come with fake paper."
The foreman looked at the clipboard picture still on Malik's screen.
Then he pulled out his phone.
He called.
Speaker on.
A man answered already irritated.
"Why'd you stop?"
The foreman looked at Malik like the mess belonged to him now.
"Guy here wants to know who's paying."
"Then tell him CAS is paying and keep rolling."
Malik stepped closer to the phone.
"Coward answer."
A beat.
Then the voice came back colder.
"Who is this?"
"The man standing in front of the wall you wanted cleaned before your little walk-through."
"You don't own that wall."
Rochelle said, quiet but sharp, "He didn't say he did."
The caller ignored her.
"I'm not bringing buyers past a dead-boy shrine, candles, and spray paint. Roll it flat. I paid for clean brick, not local feelings."
The corner went still.
Even the man on the ladder stopped moving.
One of the boys started filming for real now.
Malik didn't raise his voice.
"Say the company name."
Silence.
Then:
"Calder wants the block to stop selling grief as scenery."
Rochelle gave one ugly laugh.
"That was stupid."
The line went dead.
The foreman looked sick of the whole morning.
"Man."
Malik held his stare.
"You got lied to and paid to insult this corner."
"I got paid to paint."
"You got paid to stop."
Malik sent the money.
Not flashy.
Just enough to cover the crew, the paint, and the fact that the street had turned on the job.
The foreman's phone buzzed.
Payment landed.
Malik pointed at the wall.
"Now strip the blue while it's wet. Slow. Don't cut the old layer."
The foreman looked up at June's face under the fresh coat, then at the crowd.
"You paying for that too?"
"I'm paying for you not to leave your disrespect drying in the sun."
That got the first sound out of the corner that felt like approval.
Not applause.
Just one short grunt from an old man in the folding chair.
The ladder went back up.
Rags. Buckets. Careful scraping.
Malik called the number Selena sent next and paid for fresh paint, sealant, two floodlights, and a metal cage to go over the lights before night.
That was the real flex.
Money that said the wall would still be there after the crowd went home.
Rochelle watched him finish the transfer.
"That don't buy trust," she said.
"I know."
"Good."
A woman from the corner store came out with a case of water and set it on the sidewalk without asking who would pay her back.
One of the boys took a rag from the foreman and started wiping the lower brick.
The second man on the crew stopped acting above the job and started helping pull the wet blue away in long careful strips.
June's face came back first.
Forehead.
Eye.
The raised hand by the halo.
Then something under the lower right side did not come back the same.
The boy with the rag frowned.
"Hold up."
The foreman leaned down.
"There another layer under this."
Malik stepped closer.
Under the wet blue and under the newer color around June's shoulder, older paint was pushing through the brick.
Not random spray.
Letters.
A hard white edge under darker red.
Rochelle moved off the curb for the first time.
Malik took the note from his pocket again.
Don't ask what they showing.
Ask what they hiding.
The boy wiped again.
More came loose.
S.
Then A.
The old man in the chair got to his feet slow like his knees hated the idea but the wall made it happen anyway.
Nobody talked.
The crew worked gentler now.
I.
N.
T.
The whole name sat under June and under the fresh blue both.
Buried.
Painted over.
Still there.
Malik stared at the brick.
The screen flashed one more time.
[Buried Name Access: confirmed]
Under June's wall, under Calder's blue, under years of people acting like the block forgot on its own, one name came back out of the paint.
SAINT.