The Other Side of Silence (13 page)

TWO

T
HE GATES AT THE foot of the desert mesa were open, evidently left that way for him by Sharon Rossi. She was outside waiting when he drove onto the packed-sand parking area, came hurrying over as he stepped out of the Jeep. Dressed all in white again—peasant blouse, pleated skirt, sandals—but she didn’t look cool or self-possessed today. Anxiety had cut thin furrows into her artfully made-up face. There was angry determination in her, too; you could see it in the pinched corners of her mouth, the tightly set jawline.

One other thing he noticed: the all-white outfit was loose-fitting, but not loose enough to conceal a handgun, even one as small as the .32 purse job she’d showed him on Sunday. She might have had it strapped to her thigh under the skirt, but he didn’t think so; she wasn’t the type. He’d have to watch her inside, though: the automatic could be stashed somewhere for easy access. He wasn’t taking chances with anybody now, not where weapons were concerned.

She said, “So you’re here. Now tell me what you found out.”

Fallon ignored that. “Where’s your husband?”

“In our bedroom, dressing. He’s going to his office.”

“Did you tell him I was coming?”

“No. Not without some idea of what’s going on. I won’t be blindsided on this, Mr. Fallon, not in my own home.”

“It won’t happen like that.”

“So you say.
Did
you find Court Spicer?”

He was going to gamble here too, cautiously, as he’d been prepared all day to do with Bobby Jablonsky. It was the only way he was likely to get fast and honest answers.

He said, “Yes. I found him.”

“The evidence we discussed? His hold over my husband?”

“No. But that may not be an issue now.”

“What does that mean, not an issue?”

“I need to know some things before we go inside. Did you contact Co-River Management yourself yesterday?”

The question caught her off-stride. “I don’t . . . no, of course not.”

“Find out where Spicer’s been living any other way?”

“No. How would I?”

“Where were you last night?”

“. . . Why do you want to know that?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Here. Right here.”

“Alone?”

“No. Lupe, our housekeeper, was home—she lives with us.”

“Is she here now?”

“No. I sent her out to do some shopping.”

He’d been watching her closely. All he saw was anxious bewilderment.

“All right, let’s go in. Tell your husband I have some important personal business to discuss with him. If you want to say I was here on Sunday, that’s up to you.”

“What are you going to say to him?”

“Depends on what he has to say to me. Either way, I won’t embarrass you.”

“You’d better not,” she said coldly. “I trusted you—don’t betray that trust.”

Inside, she took him into the sunken living room and left him there. The drapes were open over the windows overlooking the courtyard; sunlight streaming in laid bright gold patches across the tile floor. Fallon paced a little, waiting. Five minutes, no more, before he heard footsteps and Sharon Rossi brought her husband in.

David Rossi was in his late forties, lanky, with thinning brush-cut hair and a long-chinned, ruddy, freshly shaven face. The expression on it now was flat and neutral; if he played poker, he was probably good at it. He wore a light-colored suit and tie, expensive and perfectly tailored—the kind of outfit the high-level execs at Unidyne paraded around in. Corporate badges of success and power.

Rossi said brusquely, without offering to shake hands, “I don’t know you, Mr . . . Fallon, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“Personal business, my wife said. What does that mean, exactly?”

“Court Spicer.”

Rossi closed up, tight. You could see it happening, like watching a desert cactus flower fold its petals at sunset. But the poker face revealed nothing of what was happening behind it. He looked at Fallon, hard, for several seconds. Then he looked at his wife.

“Sharon,” he said, “please leave us alone.”

She said, “No. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Sharon . . .”

“I know about Court Spicer, David.”

“You know? What do you know?”

“That you’ve been paying him money. That he has some kind of hold over you. I’m not blind and I’m not stupid.”

Rossi said, “Oh Lord,” in a low, pained voice. Then, with a flare of anger, “Dammit, we’re not alone here.”

“I already knew about it,” Fallon said.

“You . . . How? How did you know?”

Sharon Rossi gave Fallon a look of appeal. He said, “It doesn’t matter how I found out.”

“What are you, another bloodsucker? Is that why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Spicer. Did he send you?”

“Nobody sent me.”

“Then why? What do you want? Who are you?”

“A friend of Spicer’s ex-wife. He kidnapped their son four months ago.”

“He . . . what?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I didn’t even know he had a son.”

“Eight and a half years old. The mother had custody and Spicer kidnapped him. I’ve been helping her try to find him.”

“My God. He’s an even worse bastard than I thought.”

“The last time you saw him was when?”

“A week, two weeks, I don’t remember exactly.”

“A week ago Sunday,” his wife said. “The last big jam.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Fallon said, “He came with a big man with a dragon tattoo on his right wrist. You remember him?”

“Yes, but I don’t know who he is. I never saw him before. A lot of people come to my jams, they bring others with them . . .”

“Have you talked to Spicer since then?”

“No.”

“You know he’s been living in the Laughlin area?”

“Yes.”

“Where, exactly? His address?”

“No.”

“Sure about that?”

“You think he’d let me have his address? Not if you know him, you don’t. A mail drop, that’s all he gave me.”

“Where were you between five and eight last night, Mr. Rossi?”

Rossi said stiffly, “Why are you asking all these questions? What do you want from me?”

“Answer the last one and I’ll tell you.”

Sharon Rossi said, “Answer him, David.”

“I was in Phoenix,” he said. “A business engagement. Drinks at five, dinner at seven. There were five of us. Would you like their names?”

A man with Rossi’s money and corporate status could get five people to lie for him if he needed to, but Fallon didn’t think he was lying. Now was the time to make sure. Pull the pin on a verbal grenade.

He said, “Spicer’s dead.”

The explosion rocked them both. Shock is one of the hardest things to fake; the open mouths and staring eyes were genuine. The brief silence that followed had a charged quality.

“Dead?” Rossi said numbly. “Dead?”

His wife said, “How? What happened?”

“Somebody killed him last night in the house he was renting.”

“Somebody . . .
you
?”

“No, not me. I wouldn’t be here telling you about it if I had.”

Rossi moved over to one of the leather chairs, started to sit down, changed his mind, and went around and leaned on the back of it. “You thought it was me,” he said then.

“I thought it could be,” Fallon said. “I don’t anymore. Whoever killed him took the boy and maybe the mother too. She was down there with me and she disappeared last night. You might’ve snatched the boy if he was a homicide witness. I couldn’t see any reason why you’d go after the mother, but I had to make sure.”

Rossi didn’t seem to be listening now. Or to notice when his wife went over next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. His eyes had a unblinking, inward focus. “Dead,” he said. “Now I really am screwed.”

“David, be quiet.”

“They’ll find it. They’ll come after me.”

“Be quiet! You said it yourself—we’re not alone.”

Rossi said, “He already knows,” meaning Fallon.

“No, he doesn’t, not everything.”

“Screwed. They’ll put me in jail. A stupid accident three years ago and I’ll go to prison.”

Sharon Rossi surprised Fallon by moving backward a step and then slapping her husband across the face, hard. The sound of it was like a pistol shot in the quiet room. Rossi recoiled, lifted a hand to his cheek, stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what she’d done.

“All right, then,” she said in that coldly angry way of hers. “Go ahead, tell us both. What stupid accident? What did you do?”

Rossi shook his head, but it wasn’t a refusal. Under that cool corporate façade, the man had a conscience that had been giving him hell for a long time. You could see it in his eyes, the grayish pallor that had replaced the ruddiness. Whatever he’d done, he was haunted by it.

Sharon Rossi sensed it too. She glanced at Fallon, an unreadable look this time, then fixed her gaze on her husband again. “I’m tired of all the secrets and evasions, David. I have a right to know. Did you hurt somebody? Kill somebody?
What
?”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“What wasn’t your fault?”

Rossi didn’t answer until she jabbed him with the heel of her hand. Then he said in a halting voice, like a man confessing a mortal sin to a priest, “I had too much to drink that night, I don’t remember everything that happened. The woman . . . dark street . . . all of a sudden right there in my headlights, running like somebody was chasing her . . .
she
must have been drunk. I couldn’t stop in time. I swear to God it wasn’t my fault.”

“Hit and run,” Sharon Rossi said. “You hit some woman and then drove away without reporting it.”

“God help me, yes.”

“Did you even stop to see how badly she was hurt?”

“I stopped. She was . . . there wasn’t anything we could do. He said we had to get out of there before somebody came. I was confused, scared . . . I let him talk me into it.”

“Spicer. He was in the car with you?”

“There was a jam in South Vegas. I went alone, you didn’t want to go. It was late, four A.M., when it broke up. Spicer was there, he asked me for a ride to his hotel . . . Lord, if only I’d said no . . .”

“You obviously had the damage to the car fixed. If he’d gone to the police later, it would have been your word against his. Unless he had some kind of evidence. Did he?”

“Yes. Photographs. He took them with his cell phone camera. The woman, the blood, the damage, my license plate.” Rossi drew in a shuddery breath. “The police are sure to find them now that he’s dead . . .”

“Not necessarily. It depends on where he kept them.” Sharon Rossi’s ice-gray eyes shifted to pin Fallon. “You know Spicer’s dead—if you didn’t kill him, that means you found him. Did you find anything else?”

“There wasn’t anything else to find.”

“You’re sure there were no photographs?”

“Not anywhere you’d think to look.”

“Did you notify the police that Spicer was dead?”

Fallon said nothing.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “And you won’t say anything about a three-year-old accident, either, will you? Without evidence it would be your word against David’s and mine. You know that as well as I do.”

“I know it.”

“So you’re going to forget what you just heard and let my husband and me handle it. In return, we’ll forget you told us Spicer is dead and you didn’t report finding his body. Deal?”

He didn’t have any choice. He’d satisfied himself that neither of them had anything to do with Spicer’s death, but he’d overestimated his ability to control the situation, let himself get backed into a moral corner. Maybe the police would find those photographs and maybe they wouldn’t; maybe David Rossi would continue to get away with a drunken, fatal hit-and-run. Either way there wasn’t a damn thing Fallon could do about it.

“Deal,” he said.

THREE

H
E DIDN’T LIKE HIMSELF much when he left the Rossi hacienda. Getting in deeper and deeper with every move he made. But it was too late for him to quit, even if he ended up hating himself. All he could think about was Casey and her son, out there somewhere, alive—they had to be alive. Nobody else was hunting for them. They didn’t have anybody else.

Hey, Geena, he thought, how do you like this for a commitment? What would you say if you knew about it?

Well, he had a pretty good idea what she’d say. Something like “This isn’t a commitment anymore, it’s an obsession.” Something like “You’re not as tough as you think you are.” Something like “Fools rush in. You’re a damned fool, Rick.” And she’d be right, according to her view of him and the world she lived in.

But she’d be wrong, too. He might be a damned fool, but living in his world depended on finishing what he’d started.

The Rossis were out of it now. Bobby Jablonsky was still his last best hope in Vegas. All he had to do was find him.

He made another trip to Sandstone Way. Still nobody there.

Where was Jablonsky? Somewhere down in the Laughlin area? Candy should be home, even if he wasn’t. One o’clock now. Maybe she’d gone to the Golden Horseshoe early. Maybe Bobby J. was there playing poker by now.

Wrong on both counts. Neither of them was at the casino. Nobody he talked to had seen them yet today.

On the run?

Fallon rejected the thought immediately. From what he knew of the man, Bobby J. wasn’t the type to panic. Even the commission of a homicide wouldn’t be enough to prod him into running. His dealings with Spicer had been covert; he’d know it was unlikely that he’d come under suspicion once the body was found. He’d just cover his tracks and go on home as if nothing had happened.

He was around Vegas somewhere. Keep looking in the same places and sooner or later he’d turn up.

Fallon had been traveling the desert-eater’s veins and arteries for nearly three hours, covering the same ground. Sandstone Way, Cheyenne Street and Casino Slot Machine Repair, Glitter Gulch and another quick check-in at the Golden Horseshoe. Still no Bobby J.

His nerves had always been good. Tense situations didn’t bother him. If anything, he functioned better under pressure, focused on a single objective. But this was a new experience, more urgent than any except Timmy’s fall and fatal injury, and there hadn’t been anything he could do about that. Passivity ran against his grain. And that was what all this futile running around amounted to—doing nothing, putting himself and his emotions on hold.

Three thirty-five. Sandstone Way again.

And this time, finally, there was a car in the cracked asphalt driveway.

Not Bobby J.’s Mustang—the light-colored four-door he’d seen parked there on Sunday night.

Candy’s wheels.

She took her time answering the door. The reason was that she’d been getting ready for work at the Golden Horseshoe. Putting on makeup: she had a mascara brush in one hand, and she was wearing a thin blue robe with a towel draped around her neck. She scowled at Fallon and said angrily, “What the hell’s the idea leaning on the bell like that?”

“Are you Candy Barr?”

“Goddamn salesman,” she said, and started to close the door.

He jammed his shoulder and leg against it, shoved hard enough to send her backpedaling. She caught herself as he stepped inside and threw the door shut behind him. He said, “Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He could have saved his breath; she wasn’t the screaming type. A fighter. She came rushing back toward him, her eyes flashing. Her fingernails were long and painted blood-red and she’d have gone straight for his face and eyes if he hadn’t shown her the Ruger, drawn the hammer back with an audible click.

It stopped her cold. Her mouth opened, snapped shut. She began to breathe heavily through her nose, staring at the gun.

“What do you want?” The words came out scratchy but with more anger than fear.

“Bobby J.”

“Yeah,” she said, “that figures. He’s not here.”

“Where he is?”

“How should I know? I’m not his keeper.”

“Anybody else in the house besides you?”

“Nobody else lives here.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“No. Just me.”

“Let’s go make sure.”

He moved forward, gesturing with the Ruger. She backed up, finally turned as he came close, and walked away slowly with her head tilted around so she could watch him. The room they were in, the living room, was shabbily furnished but kept neater than he would have expected. The kitchen, a dining alcove, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a utility room, a tiny back porch—all empty. The only one that had a disordered look was the last, the bedroom she shared with Jablonsky: unmade bed, her skimpy costume laid out on it, and a vanity table cluttered with tubes and bottles of makeup.

She said, “You satisfied now?”

“Bobby J. bring anybody here last night?”

“Like who?”

“A woman and a young boy.”

“A kid? Bobby J.?” Her laugh was bleak, humorless. “He hates kids.”

“I’ll bet he does. Answer the question.”

“No. The answer is no.”

Fallon took a long look at her. Typical Vegas showgirl with the requisite attributes. Midtwenties. Dyed red hair, long and pinned up now for her French can-can routine. The kind of round face and round, topheavy body that was attractive now but that would run to fat by the time she was forty. The hazel eyes were hard and cynical. Same with the wide mouth. She’d seen a lot and done a lot in her twenty-five years, and not much of it had made her happy. Plaything for users and abusers like Bobby J.

The front of her robe had gaped open, exposing most of one heavy, freckled breast; she made no effort to close it. She saw him looking and misinterpreted his appraisal. “Go ahead and stare, asshole. You try doing anything more, I’ll yank your balls out by the roots, gun or no gun.”

“Bobby J.’s the rapist, not me.”

“. . . What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Casey Dunbar.”

The name bounced right off of her. “Who?”

“So he didn’t tell you about his deal with Spicer.”

Another bounce. “Who the hell is Spicer?”

“Come on, Candy. Court Spicer—Bobby J. must have mentioned him.”

“Bobby J. doesn’t tell me his business.”

“Unless it has to do with teenage runaways and the Rest-a-While Motel.”

“. . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fallon said, “Where was he last night around five o’clock?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“He wasn’t here, was he.”

“Who knows? I was working last night. Who
are
you, man? What do you want with Bobby J.?”

“I want to know where he was last night.”

“I told you, I don’t know. Playing poker. Out trolling for pussy with one of his buddies. Jerking off in the Bellagio lobby. I don’t know!”

“Last time you saw him—when?”

“I don’t remember. He comes, he goes, I don’t keep track.”

She wasn’t afraid of Fallon, but the Ruger was a hefty piece of artillery and it made her nervous. She kept alternating her gaze between it and him. Deliberately he lowered the hammer, then cocked it again. “When, Candy?”

“Oh, shit, all right. Yesterday around noon.”

“He call you any time after that?”

“No.”

“Where were you all day?”

“Out eating—I don’t cook. Shopping. Getting my hair done. Hanging out with a girlfriend. You think I just sit around here and wait for Bobby J.?”

Fallon said, “There a weapon in the house?”

“Weapon? You mean a gun?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Candy. If there’s one here, you’d better tell me. Don’t make me lock you in a closet and ransack the place to find it.”

Her tongue ran a wet circuit of her lips while she made up her mind. “Under the mattress, right side—his side.”

The piece was tucked in between the mattress and box springs. Saturday night special, rounds in every chamber. Fallon sniffed the barrel. Not fired recently. Or cleaned recently; there was no odor of gun oil. He emptied the cartridges onto the rumpled top sheet, put the gun back where he’d found it and the loads into his jacket pocket.

“That the only one?”

“One’s all you need for protection.”

“Sure. Protection. Bobby J. keep another piece in that Mustang of his?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“Never sure of anything with him.”

Fallon asked, “Where’s your phone?”

“We don’t have a phone.”

“Not a land line, maybe. Cell phone.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.”

“Where do you keep it?”

“Purse. On the vanity.”

He moved over there, opened the purse with his free hand, rummaged around inside until he found her cell phone. Then he gestured again with the Ruger and they went back into the living room, where he tossed the phone onto an ugly plaid couch.

“Sit down there,” he said, “and call Bobby J. And don’t try to tell me he doesn’t have a cell. I know he does.”

“Call him and say what?”

“Tell him to come home right away. Tell him you just got here and there was a break-in while you were out and the house has been trashed.”

“That won’t get him here. He doesn’t give a shit about this place.”

“Then tell him something that will get him here.”

“Like what? I can’t think of anything.”

“I can,” Fallon said. “You’ve got a hot new teenage runaway on the hook and he’d better come quick before she wiggles off. You brought her home and she’s here waiting.”

“He won’t believe that. I don’t have anything to do with that part of his life. A party once in a while, sure, but that’s all.”

Now she was lying. “Everybody in Vegas is into one scam or another, and you’re no exception. Call him, Candy, and make it sound right.”

“What if he doesn’t answer?”

“Leave a short message, tell him to call back ASAP. Either way, don’t say anything to warn him.”

“Or else what?”

“You don’t want to find out.”

“What’re you gonna do to him? Beat him up? Kill him?”

He looked at her without answering.

“What’d he do to you, anyway?”

He didn’t answer that, either.

She said, “What about me? What’re you gonna do to me?”

“Nothing, if you cooperate.”

He watched her think it over. Then, “Fuck it. You know what? I don’t really care what you do to him. He treats me like crap most of the time. Maybe he deserves a taste of what it’s like.”

“Go ahead, make the call.”

She made it. Bobby J. didn’t answer; the call went to his voice mail. She left the message he’d told her to, brief and terse.

When she broke the connection, he said, “Now call the Golden Horseshoe, tell them you won’t be in tonight. Make up an excuse.”

“Hey, listen, they don’t like us calling in at the last minute. You want me to lose my job?”

“Just keep doing what you’re told.”

She grumbled some more but she did it. “Now what?”

“Now we wait for Bobby J. to call.”

“For how long? It might be hours before he checks his messages. Once he went off someplace and didn’t call for three damn days . . .”

“Hours, days, it doesn’t matter,” Fallon said. “As long as it takes.”

Candy was a poor waiter. She fidgeted on the couch, she got up and walked around, she threw dagger glares at him every couple of minutes. Once, after an hour, she unleashed a tirade of four-letter words that he didn’t respond to. He sat in the same place with the Ruger on his lap, watching her, the tension in him tamped down under a layer of cold patience. For the most part he kept his mind blank, and when he did think, it wasn’t about her or Jablonsky. Casey and Kevin. Timmy. Death Valley and the desert solitude.

Two hours.

The windows were curtained and as dusk settled outside, the room darkened. He told Candy to turn on a couple of lamps. When she’d done that, she stood scowling down at him, her arms folded across her heavy breasts. The robe was still open, showing more freckled white flesh.

“I need a drink,” she said. “Steady my nerves.”

“It’s your house. Help yourself.”

“Liquor’s out in the kitchen.”

“So’s the back door.”

“Come with me then, for Chrissake—”

Her cell phone rang.

The sudden fluttery ringtone made her jump. She looked at Fallon, did the lip-licking thing again, and flipped it open. Bobby J. The conversation lasted less than a minute. Fallon stood close to her, holding the Ruger where she could see it, to make sure she’d didn’t try to warn Jablonsky.

“He’s coming,” she said.

“Alone?”

“Yeah. Alone.”

“Where was he calling from?”

“Golden Horseshoe. Finally checked his goddamn messages when he saw I wasn’t there.”

Fallon took the phone from her, made sure it was switched off, then slid it into the pocket with the cartridges from the Saturday night special. “Shouldn’t take him more than half an hour.”

“So what when he gets here? You start shooting up the place?”

“It’s not going to be like that. As long as you keep your mouth shut when he comes in.”

Twenty-seven minutes had ticked off on Fallon’s watch when headlights flashed across the dark front window and he heard the Mustang slide noisily into the driveway. He said to Candy, “Stay there and keep still,” and got up and moved over at an angle between her and the door.

Hard steps on the porch. The door opened inward, toward where Fallon was standing so that the man coming in didn’t see him until he was three paces inside and flinging the door shut behind him. His eyes picked out Candy on the couch, shifted, and when he saw Fallon he froze.

Fallon thumbed the Ruger to full cock. “Guess who, Bobby J.,” he said.