Bill Pronzini - The Other Side Of Silence

“Listen, you have to understand… my salary isn’t much, and my rent… A man has to live, don’t he?”

“How does Bobby J. live, if he’s not a pimp?”

“I don’t know.”

“Drugs? Dealer as well as a user?”

“I tell you, I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

“What’s his connection with the Golden Horseshoe?”

“Huh? Oh… Candy.”

“Who’s Candy?”

“His woman. He brought her with him a couple of times.”

“She work at the casino?”

“Dancer. They got this French can-can show…”

“What’s her last name?”

“I don’t know. Just Candy.”

“Describe her.”

“Blonde. Tall, legs up to here, nice tits.”

Fallon said, “Court Spicer.”

“Huh?”

“Name mean anything to you?”

“… Your name, isn’t it? That’s how you signed the register.”

“What’d Bobby J. say when you told him Court Spicer was asking about him?”

“Wanted to know what you looked like. What kind of car you drive, from what state.”

“What did he say then?”

“Just… look in your room, see what I could find out from your stuff.”

“And when you called him again and told him there wasn’t any stuff?”

“Keep an eye on you, let him know if you tried to pump me again.”

“All right. What’s his phone number?”

“… You’re not gonna call him up? You do, he’ll know where you got it…”

“Not if I tell him otherwise. You’re not the only person in Vegas with his number.”

Arbogast gave it to him, reluctantly. “Just don’t tell him you been talking to me, okay, Mr. Spicer?”

Fallon said, “My name’s not Spicer,” and left Arbogast standing there sweating in his cold apartment.

SUNDAY MORNING SLOW AT the Golden Horseshoe. Red-and-gold curtains were drawn across the stage where the can-can dancers performed. More than half the roulette, craps, and blackjack tables were covered; at a couple of the others and among the banks of slots, a scattering of players, pale and zombie-eyed, sat trying to recoup their losses. A cleaning crew ran a phalanx of whirring vacuum cleaners over the worn carpets.

Fallon sat down at an open but empty blackjack table and tried working the bored woman dealer for information on Candy. It cost him twenty dollars on four lost hands, the last two when he had paired face cards and the dealer hit twenty-one, plus a five-buck tip to find out that the stage show started at one o’clock on Sundays. If the dealer knew Candy, she wasn’t admitting it.

He tried the bartender in the lounge, one of the cocktail waitresses, another waitress in the coffee shop. The only one who could or would tell him anything about Candy was the cocktail waitress, but for another five dollars it wasn’t much.

“I know her, sure,” she said, “but I don’t think she works Sundays.”

“Where can I get in touch with her?”

“I wouldn’t tell you that even if I knew. Besides, she’s not available.”

“I’m not planning to hit on her. That’s not why I want to talk to her.”

“Yeah, sure. Well, whatever you want with Candy, you don’t want anything to do with her boyfriend.”

“Is that right? Why not?”

“Trust me, you just don’t.”

Fallon asked the boyfriend’s name. The waitress gave him a cynical, humorless smile, shook her head, and walked away.

“Another favor? Getting to be a habit.” But Will Rodriguez didn’t sound annoyed. He had a wife who talked nonstop, three rambunctious kids, and an even temperament; it took a lot more than an early Sunday morning call to raise his blood pressure. “What is it this time?”

“I’ve got a phone number and I need the name and address that goes with it. Think you might be able to get me a match today?”

“I suppose I can try, if it’s important.”

“It is.”

“Uh-huh. Anything else you want?”

“Background on whoever the number belongs to, if you can manage it.” “Hey, why not. I had nothing better to do today than spend time with my family.”

“I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way, Will.”

“I know, I know. Let me get a pen… Okay, what’s the number?”

Fallon read it off to him.

“Seven-oh-two area code. Las Vegas.”

“That’s where I am now.”

“… Vegas can be a rough town, amigo.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“The Dunbar woman there with you?”

“Not yet. Still resting in Death Valley.”

“But you’ll be hooking up with her later.”

“Not the way you mean.”

“You think her ex-husband and son are there, is that it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Fallon said. “That’s why I need the name and address.”

Will made a noise that could have been a laugh or a snort. “I never knew they had windmills in the Nevada desert.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Think about it,” Will said. “I’ll get back to you.”

Windmills. Christ.

Fallon drove back to the Rest-a-While. He’d put another piece of toilet paper under the door lock when he left; it was still there. No need to go inside-all his belongings were stowed in the Jeep. He walked through the gathering heat to the motel office.

Yet another clerk was behind the desk, this one a wheezily fat woman with dyed yellow hair. Any messages for room 20? No messages. He asked her if she knew a man named Bobby J., added the man’s description. No again. It didn’t sound like a lie; her expression remained bored and disinterested.

There wasn’t much point in staying here any longer. Bobby J. had to be curious who he was, why he’d come to the Rest-a-While using Court Spicer’s name, but evidently not curious enough to initiate contact. Either that, or the decision to play a waiting game had been Spicer’s. As far as one or both knew, Fallon didn’t have any idea who Bobby J. was or how to find out. The beating and rape hadn’t been reported; they were in the clear as long as they did nothing to call attention to themselves.

He wheeled the Jeep over to the freeway, took Interstate 15 south to Mc-Carran International. There were a lot of motels in the vicinity; he picked a Best Western with a VACANCY sign on Tropicana Avenue, checked himself in under his own name. As before, he brought his pack into the room, left everything else locked in the Jeep.

Late morning by then. He used his cell phone to call Vernon Young’s home number in San Diego. This time he got a person, a woman, instead of the answering machine. He asked for Vernon Young and she went and got him.

“You don’t know me,” he said when Young came on the line, “and my name isn’t important. I’m a friend of Casey Dunbar.”

Longish silence. Then, “How is she? Is she all right?”

“Yes.”

“Is she with you? Let me talk to her.”

“She’s not here right now.”

“Where’s ‘here’? Where are you calling from?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Did she ask you to get in touch with me?”

“No, it was my idea. About the money she owes you.”

“What money?”

“The two thousand dollars she borrowed.”

“… She told you about that? What else did she tell you?”

“Enough about what happened to her son to put me on her side.”

“The boy? Spicer? Did she-?”

“No, not yet.”

“… You’re helping her?”

“Yes.”

“Another detective?” Young sounded flustered.

“Not exactly.”

“Then just who are you?”

“I told you, a friend.”

“Is there some reason you won’t give me your name?”

There wasn’t. “It’s Fallon.”

“She never mentioned anyone named Fallon. How long have you known her?”