Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

At 5:30 Fallon tried Vernon Young’s home number a second time, got the answering machine again. He called Casey’s cell, to find out how she was doing. There seemed to be some life in her voice when she said she was all right, feeling better. He told her he was in Vegas, but not where he was staying the night, and a little of what he was planning for tonight. There wasn’t much else to say except that he’d call again in the morning.

Six o’clock.

No calls, no visitors.

Fallon went into the bathroom for a small strip of toilet paper. Outside, with the pack slung over his shoulder, he closed the toilet paper into the joining of the door and the jamb, a couple of inches below the lock, with just enough of it showing so that he could feel it with a fingertip. Then he locked the door, put himself and the pack inside the Jeep, and joined the rush of platelets heading for the heart of the Vegas creature.

THE HOT LICKS CLUB wasn’t just a jazz spot. Like just about every other entertainment spot in Vegas, it was dominated by a ground-floor casino and it had a theme-a broad mix of 1920s speakeasy and 1930s supper club. Wall murals and furnishings reflecting that bygone era, jazz music blaring over loudspeakers, employees decked out in period costumes that ranged from tuxedos and gowns to gangster-style and flapper outfits. Combined with the neon glitz-and-glitter of the casino, the effect was ludicrous. But the customers didn’t seem to think so. The casino was packed, the slots and tables getting heavy play, streams and knots of gawkers clogging the narrow aisleways.

Fallon found his way to an escalator at the far end. Propped up there was a large billboard sign that read: BENNY AMATO AND HIS JAZZBOS. VOCALS BY HELEN DUPREE. APPEARING NIGHTLY EXCEPT SUNDAY IN THE INTIME ROOM. DIXIELAND, SWING, FUSION. DINNER AND DANCING TILL THE WEE HOURS. There was a photo of a group of eight men and one woman, all wearing the requisite period clothing. The man in the foreground holding a trumpet was black and middle-aged, but neither he nor any of the other Jazzbos was identified by name.

On the second floor, a velvet-roped aisleway led to a wide set of closed doors. A neon sign above them bore the standard ’30s tilted cocktail glass and the words INTIME ROOM in blue letters. Another billboard in front of the doors announced that the Intime Room opened for dinner at 7:00 and that the music started at 9:00. Nearby was a gated ticket window staffed by a smiling young woman painted up like a Busby Berkeley hoofer. Fallon put on a smile as he walked up.

Before he could say anything, the woman said in a chirpy voice, “We’re sold out for supper, sir, but bar space is still available. The Intime Room has three bars,” she added, as if she were awed by the fact.

“Can I ask you a question before I decide to buy a ticket?”

“Oh, sure. About the Jazzbos?”

“Yes. I thought I recognized the trumpet player in the billboard photo downstairs. Eddie Sparrow?”

“Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“Well, I knew Eddie in San Diego,” Fallon lied. “Is there any chance I could see him for a couple of minutes, say hello?”

“You mean now? Oh, I don’t think he’s here yet. The musicians don’t usually come in until about an hour before they’re ready to go on.”

“They allowed to mingle on their breaks between sets?”

“With the customers? Oh, sure. The management likes them to do that.”

“You said three bars. They have names?”

“Names? No, they’re just bars. You know, one on each side and one in back where you go in.”

“So I can pick any one I want.”

“Oh, sure. Wherever there’s room. But you have to buy a ticket.”

Fallon said patiently, “I will. I’d also like to leave a message for Eddie.”

“Message? You mean with me? I won’t see him when he comes in-I’ll still be working here in the booth.”

“You could pass it on to someone who will see him, couldn’t you?”

“Pass it on?” she said doubtfully. “Well… I guess I could.”

On a page in his notebook Fallon wrote: I’m a friend of Court Spicer. I’ll make it worth your while if you’ll give me a couple of minutes during your first or second break. Look for me at the bar nearest the entrance, white man, blue shirt, tan suede jacket. He signed it Rick , folded the paper twice, and put it and three bills into the tray under the window gate.

“The extra ten is for you,” he said.

Her smile got even brighter. “Thanks! I’ll pass it on. The message, I mean.”

“One more question,” he said as he pocketed the ticket. “Would you know of a casino where the employees wear gold sleeve garters with black ruffles?”

“Sleeve garters?”

“Like women’s garters, only around their upper arms.”

“Oh.” The smile turned into a thinking frown. “Gold with black ruffles… well, I know I’ve seen them somewhere… Oh! Oh, sure, the Golden Horseshoe.”

“The Golden Horseshoe.”

“It’s in Glitter Gulch,” she said.“You know, the Fremont Street Experience?”

Glitter Gulch. The Fremont Street Experience. That was downtown Vegas, a mile or so north of the Strip-five blocks of casinos, restaurants, lounges in a covered mall dominated by a ninety-foot-high, multimillion-dollar Viva Vision screen, the largest on the planet. One of the city’s big attractions. Fallon had gone there once with Geena-for ten minutes, all he could stand of a constant assault on the visual and aural senses. Larger-than-life animations, integrated live video feeds, synchronized music on a high-tech canopy the length of more than five football fields. State of the art fiber-optic light shows and what was billed as 550,000 watts of concert-quality sound.

Deafening noise, to him. The kind that shattered silence like a sledgehammer powdering glass.

Two minutes inside the mall and his head ached; his eyes felt as raw as if he’d been staring into the noonday desert sun. Milling, jostling crowds as thick as those on the Strip. Shills offering come-on gambling packages, hawkers handing out prostitutes’ calling cards and extolling their services even though prostitution was technically illegal in the City Where Anything Goes. Walking here or on the Strip on a Saturday night was like being trapped on the shrieking, neon midway of a madman’s carnival.

It was almost a relief to walk into the Golden Horseshoe. Almost. Electronic bells and whistles and bongs and burbles, rattling dice and clicking chips and clinking glassware, chattering human voices, laughter, shouts and cries and all the other myriad sounds made by men and women caught up in the gaming fever-a pulsing din that kept rising and being bounced back down from the low glass ceiling. Didn’t matter what casino you entered during peak times, from the megaglitz palaces to the low-roller clubs like this one-the noise level was the same. Loud, loud, loud.

The motif here was Western, the old Hollywood movie variety. Waitresses dressed like saloon girls, croupiers and dealers and stickmen and pit bosses in ruffled shirts and string ties and cowboy boots. And all of them wearing gold armbands with black-ruffled edges.

Fallon took a long, slow walk around the casino. Making it look casual when he paused near one of the blackjack, craps, or roulette layouts for a look at a male employee who more or less fit Casey’s description of Banning. None of them had a dragon tattoo or wore a cat’s-eye ring.

A crowd of people was grouped around one of the crap tables, hooting and hollering whenever the dice were rolled. Fallon stepped over that way for a look at the stickman, all but invisible in the crush, whose droning voice reminded him of the handful of crap games he’d gotten into in the army.