Bill Pronzini: The Other Side Of Silence

“Ee-o-leven, a winner! Pay the line. Same lucky shooter coming out… Eight, hard way eight, eight a number. Place your come and field bets… Nine, eight the point…”

Once more the dice rattled off the board. This time the crowd groaned.

“Ace-deuce, three craps-a loser. Pay the field… New shooter coming out. Place your bets… Seven! Seven, the winner. Pay the front line…”

Fallon moved on.

After a second circuit, to make sure he hadn’t missed anybody, he went into a raised, neon-lit lounge bar. The Western-etched leather stools were mostly filled, the barman busy, but only half the tables were occupied, mostly by players studying the big keno board on one wall. He picked a table along the outer rail, at a distance from the nearest players. A tired-looking cocktail waitress, thirtyish, wearing a Miss Kitty outfit and one of the distinctive sleeve garters, drifted over. He ordered a beer. When she brought it, he laid a ten-dollar bill on her tray.

“Busy night,” he said.

“I’ve seen it a lot busier.”

“Bet you have. Been working here long?”

She gave him an up-from-under-look.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not going to hit on you. I asked because I’m looking for a guy I know. I’ve been told he works here.”

“Is that right?”

Fallon said, “No, keep it,” as she started to hand over his change. “If you’ve been working here a while, you probably know him. This friend of mine.”

“Maybe. What’s his name?”

“Well, he called himself Banning when I knew him.”

“Called himself? What does that mean?”

“Claimed he had a good reason for not using his real name.” Fallon shrugged. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“I don’t know anybody named Banning,” she said.

“So maybe now he’s using his real name again. He’s in his midthirties, heavyset, kinky black hair. Dragon tattoo on his right wrist, wears a gold cat’s-eye ring on his left hand.”

She made a face. “Doesn’t sound like a guy I’d want to know. What do you want with him?”

“He owes me some money.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. What are you, anyway, some kind of cop?”

“Do cops give out five-dollar tips?”

“I don’t know any cops,” she said. “Or any Bannings. Or any guys with dragon tattoos. Thanks for the tip.” And she walked away.

Wrong approach. But what was the right one, given the sketchy information he had?

Fallon took one more stroll around the casino floor. This time there was activity on a raised stage set back into a long alcove at the rear. Tinny piano music blared and spotlights shone hard and bright on eight young women in skimpy costumes dancing a Western movie version of the can-can. Each wore one of the gold-and-black garters, not on their arms but on their bare thighs.

Ah, Christ, he thought. Dancers, cocktail waitresses, blackjack dealers- all the women employees wore them. And there didn’t seem to be any difference between a Golden Horseshoe sleeve garter and leg garter. The one Casey had seen at the motel didn’t have to’ve been Banning’s. It could just as easily belong to a girlfriend who worked here.

Some detective, Fallon. Jumping to conclusions, missing the obvious.

Maybe he was out of his league in this kind of hunt; maybe he wasn’t the right man for the job after all. It might be smarter to turn the legwork over to a professional. Sam Ulbrich, or someone like him. Foot the bill, and then stand off with Casey and wait for results.

No, the hell with that. Geena’s knock on him: not aggressive enough, not a fighter anymore-a quitter. Besides, detectives were expensive and he didn’t have unlimited funds, and there were no guarantees a pro would be able to find out any more than he could. Ulbrich hadn’t found Spicer and the boy, had he?

All right. Man up and use his head from now on.

He rode the escalator to the second floor, where there were a steak restaurant-Old Billy’s Texas Grill-and a coffee shop. He sat in one of the coffee-shop booths, tried a new approach on the woman who waited on him.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine. He might work here, might be a friend of one of the woman employees-I’m not sure which.” And then Banning’s description. Casual, offhand. No mention of the name Banning.

Craps-a loser.

After eight by the time he finished picking at a bad tuna salad. He tried the same line on the cashier while he paid his check, and when he went back down to the casino, on a different cocktail waitress.

Craps again.

THE INTIME ROOM RESEMBLED an oversized 1930s nightclub laid out in a circular fashion, with the three bars and the stage forming an outer ring around an inner one of close-packed tables lit by blue lamps and a parqueted dance floor. Waiters in tuxedos circulated among the tables; even the bartenders were in soup-and-fish. New Orleans-style jazz music blasted from loudspeakers. Benny Amato and his Jazzbos were onstage, warming up for their opening set with riffs and trills and runs that you could hear when one of the recorded pieces ended. The place was packed, standing room only at the bars. Fallon’s choice of the rear bar had been the right one. It was the least jammed of the three because it was the farthest from the performers.

He jostled his way to a position at one end. The stage was a long way off, but he had a clear enough look at the musicians. Mixed group-Latino, African-American, Caucasian. The piano man appeared to be the leader, Benny Amato. The rest were drums, bass, alto sax, tenor sax, trombone, cornet, and Eddie Sparrow on trumpet. Sparrow sat slumped on a stool, doing less noodling with his instrument than the others. He was even smaller in the flesh than he’d appeared in the group photo, maybe five and a half feet tall and a hundred and twenty pounds. He didn’t look as if he could blow a dozen riffs without losing his wind and keeling over.

Fallon knew a little about jazz. Geena’s brother Stephen was a nut on it, had insisted on dragging them to jazz clubs and festivals in the L.A. area. He liked it well enough, in small doses-the bluesy, sweet-and-lowdown pieces more than the wailing, frantic arrangements. There wouldn’t be much of the former here tonight, he figured, but he was wrong. The Jazzbos mixed it up pretty well, up-tempo and down-tempo, classics and less well-known compositions and a few that were probably of their own devising.

The first set was strictly Dixieland, which meant that they’d do swing, probably thirties-style New York or Kansas City, for the second set, and fusion-jazz elements mixed with pop, rock, folk, R &B-for the third. Their late-hour sets would be a mix of all three, with plenty of improv for the true aficionados who would rather linger here than head downstairs to the gaming tables.

They had the usual repertoire of standards: “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Saint James Infirmary,” “Basin Street Blues,” “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” “Take the A Train,” “Blues in the Night,” “Perdido,” “Gloomy Sunday.” Mixed in were vocals featuring the dark and slinky Helen Dupree: “Moanin’ Low,” “Jazz Me Blues,” “Skeleton Jangle.” Good group, all right, with Amato’s piano and Sparrow’s trumpet dominating the instrumentals. Despite his slightness, Sparrow seemed to have more energy and stamina than any of the others. Plenty of talent, too. His solos earned him enthusiastic applause.

When the first set ended, Fallon watched the musicians file off. Some of them went backstage, while three others, Eddie Sparrow among them, moved out through the audience. It took Sparrow six or seven minutes of handshakes and brief conversations to make his way to the rear bar. When he got close, Fallon stepped out and went to meet him.