Bill Pronzini - The Other Side Of Silence

Fallon said, “Take off your clothes.”

“… What?”

“You heard me. Strip. Everything off.”

“You’re crazy, man. You’re fucking nuts.”

He extended the Ruger in the radius of light from the headlamps. “You think a busted nose hurts? A shattered kneecap’s ten times worse.”

Jablonsky lowered his hand; splotches of blood glistened on the tattoo as if it was the dragon that had been wounded. Angrily he ripped off his jacket and shirt, threw them down. Pants next. Boots, socks. Underwear. He stood glaring and whitely naked in the yellow-white cones.

“Kick everything over this way except your undershirt. You can keep that for your nose.”

“Goddamn faggot, huh? Like looking at a big hunk of meat?” The words were meant to be cutting and defiant; they came out sounding like a pathetic schoolyard taunt.

“Do what you’re told. All right, now back up a few more steps.”

“What’s the idea?” Jablonsky said, backing.

The idea was simple. An old military tactic that had been used for centuries before Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Strip a prisoner naked in front of a fully dressed interrogator, make him feel defenseless and humiliated, and you gain a strong psychological advantage: a naked man doesn’t lie easily or well, particularly one with an injury that he’d brought on himself. Fallon didn’t believe in torture on principle, but these were special circumstances. And Bobby J. was a pig.

“That’s far enough. Now we’ll have our talk.”

“Talk? Like this?”

“Why did you kill Court Spicer?”

Jablonsky stopped mopping blood with the undershirt. “Why did I- Jesus Christ! Spicer’s dead ?”

“You know he is.”

“Like hell I do. When? What happened?”

“Last night. Shot in his rented house in Bullhead City.”

“And you think I did it?”

“Pretty good bet.”

“No way! I done a lot of things, but I never shot nobody. I don’t even own a gun.”

“I’ll say it again, Jablonsky: you’re a lousy liar. I found the Saturday night special under your mattress.”

“… Yeah, all right, but I never fired it, not one time.”

“What about your other piece?”

“I don’t have another piece.”

“Small caliber, twenty-two or thirty-two.”

“No. I never owned one of those.”

Fallon said, “We’ll see about that. Don’t move.”

He backed up around the open passenger door, slid into the bucket on one hip. The glove compartment was locked; the ignition key unlocked it. He shined the flashlight inside. Pint bottle of sloe gin. Unopened packet of condoms. Handful of papers that he held up one at a time for brief looks, keeping Bobby J. in sight with his other eye. Registration. Insurance card. Unpaid parking tickets.

No gun. No drugs, either.

Fallon lifted himself out again, shut the door, and backpedaled to the rear. He unlocked the trunk, aimed the flash beam in there. The trunk floor was covered with a rubber mat; nothing on it that could be dried blood, and no signs of recent cleaning. Spare tire. Jack. Toolbox. He opened the box, felt around inside. Just tools-no sidearm. The only other object in the trunk was a gray, rough-weave blanket. He pulled it out, shook it open, ran the light over it. Dirt, but no stains.

He switched off the flash, tossed it into the trunk. Then, leaving the lid up, he went to stand again at the front fender.

Bobby J. said, “I told you I got no other gun.”

“That’s not all I was looking for.”

“What the hell else?”

“Evidence that Casey Dunbar and her son were in the car, alive or dead.”

“Oh, man, you really are nuts. I haven’t seen her since…”

“Since you raped her at the Rest-a-While.”

“It wasn’t rape. She asked for it. And I never even laid eyes on that kid of hers.”

“The boy was in the house when Spicer was shot. He’s missing now. So’s his mother. Whoever killed Spicer kidnapped one or both of them.”

“It wasn’t me!”

A thin, raw wind was blowing now, kicking up little whorls of sand that glinted mica-like in the headlights. You could see Bobby J. shiver when the wind gusted, but he didn’t wrap his arms around himself. To him, it would have been a sign of weakness. The blood had stopped running out of his nose, but there were streaks of it like Indian warpaint on his cheeks, his bare chest.

“I’m being straight with you,” he said, “I swear to God. Let me put my clothes back on, all right? I’m freezing here.”

“No. You weren’t home last night. Where were you?”

“Losing three bills playing Texas Hold ’Em. Javelina Casino in Hender-son, from around five until after midnight.”

“People there know you? Players, dealers?”

Bobby J. jumped all over that. “Yeah, sure, they know me. Dealer’s name is Ruiz, Hector Ruiz. Ask him, he’ll tell you.”

“Where’d you go after you quit playing poker?”

“With a woman, to her place. Annie Harris, blackjack dealer at the Javelina.” Pain and cold had put a whine in the growly voice. “Ask her, she’ll tell you.”

Fallon said, “Tell me about you and Spicer. How the two of you hooked up. What kind of deal you had with him.”

“He put the word out he needed some new ID. I heard about it, got in touch. I got connections, I know people do that kind of work.”

“When was that?”

“Five, six months ago.”

“Where’d you deliver the ID to him? Laughlin? His place in Bullhead City?”

“No. Here in Vegas. I never saw him down there. Didn’t have no idea where he was living.”

“What else you do for him? Help him work his blackmail scam?”

“Blackmail? Christ, I don’t know nothing about blackmail. I didn’t see him again till ten days ago. He called me up, said he was going to a party at some rich guy’s place in Henderson. Said meet him there, he had a proposition for me.”

“Beating up and raping his ex-wife.”

“No. Knock her around a little, deliver a message to lay off trying to find him. The other thing… she asked for it, I told you that-”

“Shut up,” Fallon said. “No more lies.”

A long way off, a coyote bayed; the sudden sound made Bobby J. twitch and shiver again.

“How much did Spicer pay you?”

“A thousand. He said ask her for another two K, she’d bring it. You want it back? I still got most of it stashed away-”

“He knew he’d been traced to Vegas. How?”

“Private cop she hired asking questions. Some musician he knows told him about it.”

“Did he know the private cop? Have any contact with him?”

“Didn’t say nothing about that. Just deliver the message, that’s all.”

“After you delivered it-then what? You see him again?”

“No. Talked on the phone a couple of times.”

“After I showed up using his name?”

“Yeah. He thought you must be another private cop.”

“Make you a proposition to take care of me too?”

“No. That thing Sunday night… my idea. Just a talk, like I said. Find out who you were, convince you to lay off.”

“Beat me up. Dump me somewhere. Then hit Spicer up for more money.”

“No! I told you-”

Fallon said, “Back up a few more paces.”

“Why? What happens now?”

“Back up.”

Jablonsky obeyed haltingly. Fallon moved forward into the light, bent to scoop up the pile of clothing and boots.

“You gonna let me get dressed?”

“No.”

“Come on, man, I told you everything I know. I got to get to a doctor…”

“No.”

“Hey, come on ! I told you everything I know…”

Fallon retreated to the trunk, threw the armload inside. Before he slammed the lid, he removed the dirty blanket. He went around to the driver’s side, tossed the blanket onto the sandy ground. Then he opened the driver’s door.