“I just need to go over things once more before we get you out of here,” Bosch said.
“I told everything I know to that black girl.”
“You mean Detective Gunn? Well, that was sort of preliminary. Before I was assigned. I need to hear some things for myself. Plus we now have the advantage of having studied the crime scene and talked to the witnesses.”
Blitzstein’s eyebrows shot up momentarily and he tried to cover by bringing the cup up and gulping down more coffee. But Bosch now had one of his tells and he registered it accordingly.
“Wow, that’s hot!” he exclaimed. “You mean there are witnesses?”
“We’ll get to the witnesses in a few minutes,” Bosch said. “First I want to hear your version of events again. This way I have it directly from you instead of secondhand through Detective Gunn. This way it’s not colored by anything anybody else has said or claimed to have seen.”
“What do you mean, ‘claimed to have seen’?”
“Just a turn of phrase, Mr. Blitzstein,” Bosch said.
Blitzstein blew out his breath in exasperation and started recounting the same story he had told Gunn four hours earlier. He threw in no new details and left nothing out from his first accounting. This was unusual. True stories evolve as details are remembered and others are forgotten. A false story, one that has been rehearsed in the mind, usually remains constant. Bosch knew all of this and felt his suspicion of Blitzstein was moving onto more solid ground.
“So how soon were you to the car after the shot?”
“I don’t know because I didn’t hear it. But I don’t think it was too long. I had heard her pull in. I waited and when she didn’t come into the house, I went out to see what was wrong.”
“So if somebody said they thought you were already at the car when the shot was fired, would they be wrong?”
“What? Right at the-no way, I wasn’t right there when the shot was fired. I didn’t even see who did it. What are you trying to say?”
Bosch shook his head.
“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m trying to get as clear a picture of what happened as I can. As you can imagine, we get conflicting views. People say different things. I had a partner once who said if you put twenty people in a room and a naked man ran through it, you’d get twelve people who would say he was white, seven who would say he was black and at least one who would claim it was a woman.”
Blitzstein didn’t even smile.
“Tell you what,” Bosch said. “Why don’t you tell me your theory of what happened out there?”
Blitzstein didn’t even have to think about it.
“Simple. She was followed home. She won a lot of money and somebody from that casino followed her home and killed her for it.”
Bosch nodded like it all fit.
“How do you know that she won a lot of money?”
“Because she told me when she called me from the cage to tell me she was coming home.”
“What cage?”
“The cash cage. She was cashing in her chips and they let her use the phone because she’s a regular. She forgot her cell phone last night. She called me and said she was driving home.”
“Was she scared carrying all of that cash?”
“Not really. She won more often than she lost and knew to take precautions.”
“Did she carry a weapon?”
“No. Actually-I think she had like a little can of mace in her purse.”
Bosch nodded.
“We found that. But that’s it, just the pepper spray?”
“Far as I know.”
“Okay, then what about you? Did you play down there? Did you ever go with her?”
“I used to. But not in about a year.”
“How come?”
“I’m sort of banned from that casino. There was a misunderstanding last year.”
Bosch drank some more coffee and wondered if he should pursue this or if it was a misdirection Blitzstein was hoping he would pursue. He decided to proceed with caution.
“What was the misunderstanding?”
“It’s got nothing to do with this.”
“If it has to do with that card room in Commerce, then it does have something to do with this. If you want to help me find your wife’s killer, then you have to answer my questions and let me decide what matters and what is important. What was the misunderstanding?”
“All right, I’ll tell you if you have to know. They accused me of cheating and there’s nothing I could do to defend myself. I wasn’t cheating and it’s their interpretation against my word. End of story. They kicked me out and won’t let me back in. Banned for life.”
“But they didn’t have a problem with your wife still coming?”
Blitzstein shook his head angrily.
“Of course not. She’s a draw, man. She brings business in over there. When she’s playing, you get all these guys coming out of the woodwork to play against the girl from the world series and the ESPN commercials. They all want to kick her ass. It’s a guy thing. It’s like marking their turf, coming in her face. It’s the same with all the women on the tour.”
Bosch was silent for a moment. This was no misdirection by Blitzstein. Bosch was beginning to see at least part of the motivation for murder. Blitzstein knew that if the murder of his wife-a well-liked and well-known player-was attributed to a follow home from the casino in Commerce, then the card room would take a major public-relations hit that could impact its business and reputation. As if on cue, Blitzstein’s bile boiled up and added further to Bosch’s understanding of the crime.
“You know what?” he said. “If this thing turns out that somebody followed her home, I am going to sue their asses over there. It will be the biggest goddamn jackpot I ever rake in.”
Bosch simply nodded, hoping Blitzstein would say more. But he may have realized he had already said too much. He turned quiet and Bosch started off in a new direction.
“How would you describe your relationship with your wife?”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, were you happy with each other, was it getting boring, were you upset that she was a poker celebrity and you weren’t?”
Bosch stared pointedly at him while he said the last part. Blitzstein reacted immediately.
“We were fine. We were still in love and I didn’t give a shit about who was a celebrity and who wasn’t. You know what poker comes down to? Twenty percent skill and eighty percent luck. Some people are more skilled than others but luck is always the thing.”
Again Bosch waited a few moments to see if he would say more but he didn’t. Bosch continued.
“All right, so the card room in Commerce is off-limits. Where then do you play? The Hustler or the card room at the Hollywood track?”
“Nope, I don’t play anywhere. They’re all together on this. You get banned one place and they put your picture on the wall everyplace else. It’s fucking unconstitutional but nothing I can do anything about.”
“So you play private games?”
“When I can get them, yeah. Meantime, I was my wife’s manager.”
Bosch thought about his ex-wife and the stories she told about private games, the personal items, car keys and
“You ever win anything besides money at those private games?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My ex-wife is a player-you might even know her. Eleanor Wish?”
Blitzstein hesitated and then nodded.
“Yeah, I remember her. I think Tracey told me she was in Hong Kong or Macau these days. I was even thinking
