The Other Side of Silence (8 page)

FIVE

S
UNDAY 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?”

The intense, proddy type, Vernon Young. But then, under the circumstances he had a right to demand answers. “It’s a long story, Mr. Young. She can tell you how we met if she wants to. About the money—”

“I’m not concerned about the money, I’m concerned about Casey.”

“She’d be grateful if you’d give her time to pay you back.”

“Yes, yes, as much time as she needs. I should have given her the money in the first place.”

“Maybe let her keep her job, too?”

“Yes, of course,” Young said. Then, “Spicer and the boy . . . are they why you’re in Las Vegas?”

“It’s possible they’re here. We just don’t know yet.”

Pause. “No offense, Mr. Fallon, but you’re just a voice on the phone. I’ll feel better about all this if I can talk to Casey. You understand?”

“I understand.”

“I would appreciate it if you’d ask her to call me as soon as possible. Will you do that?”

Fallon said he would.

Casey answered her cell so fast, she must have been sitting with it in her hand. “I thought you’d never call,” she said. Spirit, eagerness in her voice today.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Have you found out anything yet?”

“A few things. Nothing definite. How’re you feeling?”

“I’m all right. But if I have to stay in this cabin much longer, I’ll start climbing the walls.”

“Your car fixed?”

“Yes. And yes, I’m up to the drive down there. Where are you?”

Fallon told her the name and location of the Best Western. “I’ll make a reservation for you when we hang up,” he said. “If I’m not in my room when you get here, wait in yours until I get back.”

“Where will you be?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“For God’s sake, don’t be evasive.”

“I’m not. I
don’t
know yet where I’ll be. You just have to let me do things my own way. I won’t withhold anything important from you.”

“. . . All right.”

“One piece of news: I just spoke to Vernon Young.”

“What? You called him? For God’s sake, why?”

“To get the money situation straightened out. It’s okay, he’s on your side. You can take as much time as you need to pay back the two thousand. And you can keep your job.”

“He . . . said that?”

“Yes. He sounded pretty worried about you.”

“You didn’t tell him what I tried to do to myself?”

“No.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’m a friend helping you try to get your son back. Not much else. He wants you to call him to confirm it and that you’re okay. I think it’s a good idea. He seems to care about you.”

She didn’t say anything. Faint muffled sounds came over the line. Crying a little? If so, she didn’t want him to know it. He made it easier for her by saying he’d see her soon and then breaking the connection.

Different from any woman he’d ever known, Casey Dunbar. A bundle of conflicted, deep-seated emotions. He had a feeling that her depression and her self-destructive impulses were caused by more than the situation with Spicer and her missing son. Self-doubts, more than a little self-hatred. Other things, too, that he couldn’t fathom—like trying to see through dark, turbulent water.

Better not try too hard to understand her and her private demons. He had enough of his own to deal with.

SIX

H
ENDERSON WAS A DESERT community seven miles southeast of Vegas, off the highway that led to Boulder Dam. The fastest-growing city in Nevada, according to advertising billboards, as if that was an attraction to be recommended. Gateway to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Fallon took the downtown exit and passed several big chemical plants, following signs that said HISTORIC WATER STREET DISTRICT. Once he got there, the whole character of the town changed. Luxury resorts and the usual casinos, art galleries, boutiques—much of the architecture art deco–themed. Henderson was no longer just an industrial center, where half of the state’s nontourist industry output was produced. It had changed its image, gone upscale. Home base now for the wealthy and the upwardly mobile who liked their surroundings and their recreations less gaudy than those in Vegas proper.

He found a parking garage off Water Street, went back and joined the flow of walkers and gawkers. All of the shops were open; no dark Sundays in places like this. He found a gift shop that sold local maps, bought one, and carried it into the lobby of a nearby casino hotel. There were several roads that snaked out into the desert to the east, he found. To cover them all, blind, would take too long.

Once he left the hotel, it took him less than five minutes to locate a real estate agency. The woman he spoke to was eager to please when he said he was in the industrial chemical business, in the process of moving to the area from California, and in the market for a new home.

“We have several excellent listings, Mr. Spicer. How large a home are you interested in?”

“At least four bedrooms. With some open space around it. Would you have anything in the vicinity of the Rossi home?”

“Rossi?”

“Works in the same industry I do. Big home on a mesa.”

“Oh, of course. David Rossi, from Chemco.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you know, that’s quite an exclusive section . . .”

“Not a problem.”

That widened her smile. “Well, then, let’s see what we have on or near Wildhorse Road.”

Wildhorse Road ran due east through miles of new housing developments, finished and under construction, unchecked growth that would eventually swallow up every available mile of desert landscape west of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Beyond its present outer limits, where open desert still dominated, a few larger and more expensive homes appeared at widely spaced intervals. In the distance, then, he could see the low mesa rising up off the desert floor, the hacienda that stretched like a huge sand-colored growth across its flat top.

A little over a mile and he was at the base of the mesa, where a paved lane led up to stone pillars and a pair of black-iron gates. Stone walls extended out on both sides to make sure you didn’t drive onto the property unless you were invited. An electronic communicator was mounted on a pole just below the gates. Fallon stopped alongside, rolled his window down, reached out to punch the button that opened the line.

Pretty soon the box made noises and a Spanish-accented woman’s voice said, “Yes, please?”

“Is Mr. Rossi home? David Rossi?”

“What is your name, sir?”

Fallon didn’t hesitate. His own name wouldn’t get him in; only one name might. “Spicer. Court Spicer. It’s important that I talk to Mr. Rossi.”

“Wait, please.”

He switched off the ignition. With the window lowered and the Jeep’s engine shut down, the desert afternoon should have been quiet, but it wasn’t. Even out here he could hear the engines, literally. A small plane sliced through the air overhead, making a rumbling whine. When it passed, the accelerating roar of a couple of racing dune buggies rose out of the distance. That was the thing about the desert-eaters: they were never silent.

Ten minutes passed. He was thinking that he’d been blown off without a callback when a loud electronic buzzing sounded and the gates began to swing inward. He drove through, climbed the asphalt drive between low stone walls. When it leveled off at the top, he was in a sandy parking area large enough to accommodate fifty or more vehicles. Some view from up here, as long as you faced toward the east—sage-dotted desert and distant shimmering water.

Up close, the house seemed almost fortresslike. It was built of native stone with a tile roof that gleamed redly in the sun glare. Seven or eight thousand square feet, Fallon judged, maybe more. Yucca trees and desert plantings, and a flagstone walkway, separated it from the parking area.

A middle-aged Latina opened the door to his ring. She didn’t say anything, just stepped aside so he could walk in. Dim and twenty degrees cooler inside. The woman led him down a hallway, through a massive sunken living room: tile floors, muraled walls, dark-wood furnishings, Indian rugs and pottery. Casual elegance. Geena would have loved it.

The entire inner wall was floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors. Through the glass, Fallon could see that the hacienda had been built around a central courtyard as large as a parade ground: more yuccas and plantings, stone benches, a swimming pool surrounded by flagstones and outdoor furniture. Sitting at one of the umbrella-shaded tables was a woman in a floppy brimmed sun hat—the only person in the courtyard.

The woman got to her feet as the maid led Fallon outside, stood waiting as they approached. There was a glacial look about her despite the hot sun: thin white robe that covered a slender body from throat to ankles, the sun hat white with white-gold hair showing beneath the brim, white skin. Her expression was cold, too, but it changed slightly, her eyes narrowing and her mouth opening an inch or so, when she got a clear look at Fallon.

“All right, Lupe. That will be all.” She continued to look at him, unblinkingly, as the maid drifted away. The gray eyes were as cold the rest of her. She might have been a mature thirty-five or a face-lifted forty-five.

When they were alone, she said, “I’m Sharon Rossi,” without offering her hand.

“It’s your husband I wanted to see, Mrs. Rossi.”

“My husband left this morning on a business trip. Perhaps I can help you, Mr.—Spicer, is it? Court Spicer?”

“No. My name is Fallon.”

Her unpainted mouth shaped itself into a faint, humorless smile. “You told Lupe you were Court Spicer. A ploy to get yourself admitted?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What do you want with my husband?”

“To ask him about Spicer.”

“Why?”

“I think he may know the man, know where I can find him.”

“Why do you want to find him?”

“Personal reasons.”

“I see. Do you have identification, Mr. Fallon?”

He opened his wallet, slid out both his driver’s license and his Unidyne ID. She studied them for a full minute each, as if memorizing the data they contained, before she handed them back.

“Sit down,” she said then. “It’s cooler under the umbrella.” She waited until he was seated before sitting again herself. On the table next to a cloth pool bag was a pitcher of pale-green liquid with ice cubes and lime wedges floating in it. “Would you like a margarita?” indicating the pitcher. “They’re very good. Lupe’s special recipe.”

“Nothing, thanks.”

Sharon Rossi poured her glass three-quarters full, took a sip that lowered it to the halfway mark. Her movements were slow, deliberate, and for the first time, watching her, Fallon realized she was a little drunk.

“Now then,” she said, “I’d like to know exactly why you want to find Court Spicer.”

“First tell me this. Is Spicer a friend of your husband’s?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“Business acquaintance?”

“No.”

“Friend of yours?”

“Hardly.

“Then why did you agree to see me?”

“Your motives first, Mr. Fallon. Then we’ll get to mine.”

Lay it out for her? He couldn’t see any reason not to, up to a point. He said, “When I find him, I’ll also find his son.”

“His son.” The way she said the words told him she hadn’t known about the boy. “And why do you want to find his son?”

“Spicer kidnapped him four months ago, in San Diego. No one’s been able to find them since. The boy is eight and a half, asthmatic, and his mother is desperate to get him back.”

“I see. And what is your interest?”

“Let’s just say I’m a friend of the mother.”

“Your Unidyne card says you’re a security officer. Does that mean you have experience in detective work?”

“Not if you mean finding people. Military police for four years, private security work for the past dozen.”

“I see,” she said again. Another sip of her margarita. She seemed to be thawing a bit. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe what he’d told her. Or maybe a little of both. “What made you come here to ask about Court Spicer?”

“A jazz musician who knows Spicer saw him at a jam here last Sunday.”

“Ah, yes. David’s all-consuming passion for jazz.”

“Did you see Spicer then?”

“I saw him, yes.”

“Talk to him?”

“No. We have nothing to say to each other.”

“So he’s been here before. At other parties.”

“But not to listen to the music. On business, I think.”

“What kind of business?”

“My husband prefers not to tell me that.”

Fallon said, “Spicer was with a man called Bobby J. last Sunday.”

“Was he? I wouldn’t know.”

“The initial J. Bobby J.” Fallon described him. “Familiar?”

“Vaguely. I seem to recall the tattoo. But there were quite a lot of people here. There always are at one of my husband’s jams.”

“His jams?”

“Ours,” she amended, but a faint resentment lingered in her voice. David Rossi was the jazz buff, not his wife.

“Was Spicer playing at the Sunday jam?”

“No. He wasn’t a spectator either. He and my husband spent some time together in David’s study.”

“Any idea why?”

“No, but I’d like to know. I’d very much like to know.” Sharon Rossi drank again before she added, “My motives now, Mr. Fallon.”

He waited.

“Do you know anything about my husband?”

“Not much, no.”

“He’s usually very sure of himself. I’ve never known him to be afraid of anything or anyone—except Court Spicer.”

“How do you mean, afraid?”

“Just that. Nervous, on edge—afraid. Every time Spicer has come here, David has looked and acted the same, during and afterward.” She made a low, mirthless chuckling sound. “It’s almost Pavlovian, the effect that man has on him. And I haven’t a clue why. The one time I asked him about Spicer, he told me to mind my own damn business.”

Fallon asked, “How long has he known Spicer?”

“I’m not sure. A while.”

“More than three years?”

“At least that long.”

“How often does Spicer show up here?”

“Not often. And when he does, judging from David’s reaction, it’s without an invitation.”

“I wonder if your husband knows where he’s living now.”

“He might. It would depend on their business, wouldn’t you say?”

“What do you think that business is?”

She poured her glass full again, drank deeply this time. The thaw was complete now; there was high color in her cheeks, a faint glaze on her eyes. She was the type of drinker who knew her limits and seldom exceeded them, but she seemed to feel she had cause today. Dutch courage for what she was about to reveal.

“I think Court Spicer has some sort of hold on my husband,” she said. “I think he comes here for money, large amounts of money.”

“Blackmail?”

“Or extortion. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but David keeps a large sum of cash in his safe. The morning after the last jam, I opened the safe and there was quite a bit less than there should have been.”

“How much less?”

“Five thousand dollars.”

Spicer’s outside source of income—not much doubt of that now. He must have stumbled onto something three years ago, something David Rossi didn’t want revealed, and been using it to bleed him ever since.

Fallon asked, “So you thought I was Spicer coming back for more. What were you planning to do?”

“Confront him.”

“Just like that?”

“No.” She reached into the pool bag, came out with nickel-plate and pearl shining in her hand. “With leverage.”

It wasn’t much of a gun. A .32-caliber automatic slightly larger than her palm. Lethal enough at close range, but unreliable at any distance.

“Suppose he wasn’t intimidated,” Fallon said. “What would you have done then?”

“Would I have shot him? I don’t know, I might have.”

“It takes a lot of courage to shoot a man.”

“Or a lot of provocation. When it comes to protecting my nest, I’m as much of an animal as any wild thing.”

Fallon believed it. He said, “Why tell me all this, Mrs. Rossi? It’s personal and you don’t know me, you didn’t even know I existed until a few minutes ago.”

“Isn’t it obvious? You have a good reason for finding Court Spicer and you seem determined to do so. When you do, you’ll be in a position to find out what hold he has on my husband. And to recover anything in his possession that might be . . . shall we say embarrassing?”

Fallon said nothing.

“The idea doesn’t appeal to you? You’re big and strong, Spicer is small and soft. You shouldn’t have any difficulty.”

Still didn’t say anything.

“If you agree,” she said, “I’ll pay you the same amount my husband gave Spicer—five thousand dollars. And if you succeed, I’ll double that amount.”

He said carefully, “I’m not in this for money. Money isn’t important to me.”

“Oh, come on now. Money is important to everyone.”

“Not me.”

“So noble. Just doing a favor for a friend. Why not do what I ask and make it two favors, the second one paid for?”

It sounded good on the surface. Return a kidnapped boy to his mother and at the same time put an end to a blackmail or extortion game. Recoup his expenses and make a profit, whether he succeeded or not. But there were pitfalls. As things stood now, all he had to do if and when he located Spicer was to call the police and have him arrested on the kidnapping charge. What Sharon Rossi wanted meant confronting the man, maybe threatening him, maybe leaning on him. Breaking the law. Another thing: suppose the hold Spicer had on David Rossi involved a felony of some kind? Suppose there was incriminating material and he could lay hands on it? If he turned it over to Sharon Rossi or her husband for pay, he’d be guilty of withholding evidence, compounding a felony. He could go to jail.