Chapter 12: The Card Room

"Gardena," Marva repeated. "At ten at night. Alone."

"He told me to prove it."

"He told you that so you'd stop talking."

"Then he shouldn't have said it to me."

The sports guy was already pulling his keys out.

"I'll drive you," he said.

"You've had four beers."

He looked at the four empty bottles in front of him.

"There's a diner next to the card room," he said instead. "Our guy eats there before he works. Pie and coffee. Every night around ten-thirty."

"How do you know that?"

"I lost a lot of money in my thirties."

Marva pressed something into my hand.

Her old flip phone, charged, with her number on speed dial.

"Battery lasts four days," she said. "Yours lasts four hours. Call me if anything smells wrong."

The drive took forty minutes down the 110.

Gardena at night is strip malls and palm trees and a lot of parking lots lit up orange.

The card room was a huge low building with a neon sign of a playing card and a valet stand nobody used.

Next to it was a diner with a pie case in the window.

I parked across the street and watched the window.

At 10:41 he came out.

Windbreaker. Blue Dodgers cap. A to-go cup of coffee.

He walked across the lot without looking around.

Maybe he did.

He went in through the card room's side door.

I waited a minute and followed him.

Inside it was cold and loud. Rows of green felt tables under low lights, dealers flicking cards, chips clacking.

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