“To a motel.”
“In L.A.?”
“In Oxnard.”
“Did he say which one?”
She studied the check again, then looked up and said, “All he tells me is they’re locos and he drives ‘em to Oxnard, a motel there. You think maybe these locos are mixed up with the big Chinese and the tall guy with the real dark tan?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, of course.”
“So if I don’t tell you what motel Carlos took ‘em to, you’re gonna take back the check, right?”
“No.”
She waved the check a little, almost admonishing Stallings with it.
“Look. If this is some kinda trick or joke, I don’t think I can stand it.”
“It’s no trick or joke and you have our deepest sympathy,” Stallings said and rose.
She looked up at him and said with great formality, “I thank you for coming and for the money. You’re a very nice man. Can I offer you something to drink—some coffee maybe?”
He smiled. “Thank you, no.”
“Can I ask one more question?”
“Of course.”
“How long were you a limo driver?”
“Over thirty years.”
She nodded gravely and said, “I thought it must be something like that.”
Twenty-five
It took Otherguy Overby less than half an hour to win nearly $500 at the draw poker club in Gardena. He won by playing what he thought of as “sullen style”—never speaking other than to say “three cards” or
“fold” or “raise ten” or “call.” He also kept looking over his left shoulder.
The player to his right was a fiftyish woman with a 30-year-old body and a face that too much sun had baked into a filigree of fine lines.
She wore a blue tank top and a Dodgers baseball cap with the bill turned sideways to the left. After Overby looked over his shoulder for what could have been the sixteenth time, she said, “You expecting reinforcements?”
“A guy’s supposed to meet me here.”
“Way you’re squirming around, he must owe you a bundle.”
“I’m looking to pay, not collect—if he ever shows up.”
The woman lowered her voice and leaned toward Overby. “If you’re really hurting, I can give you a number.”
Overby scowled at her. “I look like a doper?”
“Who mentioned dope? But come to think of it you do look like every narc I ever saw.”
Overby made his scowl go away. “I buy home videos.”
They played two more hands before the woman asked, “Home videos of what?”
“Of people doing things they shouldn’t.”
“You mean sex stuff?”
Overby glared at her again. “What’s with you, lady? First I’m a doper. Then I’m a narc. And now you’ve got me in the porn business.”
She leaned closer to him and whispered, “What about a video of a couple trying to drown their four-month-old baby?”
Overby’s glare changed into a speculative gaze. “You want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” the woman said and gathered up her chips.
She said her name was Cheyne Grace. She spelled Cheyne and told Overby it was pronounced like Shane, the old movie, or Shayne, the old detective.
“What old detective?” Overby asked.
“Michael Shayne, private eye. What’s his name, Lloyd Nolan, used to play him in pictures.”
Overby stirred his coffee for almost fifteen seconds, looked over his left shoulder and said, “Tell me about the baby-drowning video.”
“This guy I know says he knows somebody who saw it.”
“Maybe I oughta talk to him—this guy you know.”
