The Other Side of Silence (9 page)

“Well, Mr. Fallon?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “No.”

“Why not, for God’s sake?”

He told her why not.

“False concerns,” she said. “Whatever Spicer’s hold, it can’t possibly involve a serious crime. I know my husband—he’s not capable of a criminal act. Infidelity, oh yes, and questionable business practices, yes indeed, but those are his limits.”

That was the liquor talking. Nobody knows anybody else as well as they think they do, and that went double for wives and husbands.

“I’m sorry. The answer is still no.”

“There’s nothing I can say to convince you?”

“No.”

It was several seconds before she said, “Suppose I could help you find Court Spicer.”

“How could you do that?”

“I have access to my husband’s personal records. It’s possible he has Spicer’s current address written down somewhere or stored on his computer.”

“If that’s the case, why haven’t you looked before? Or have you?”

“Yes, but mainly I was searching for something that would explain Spicer’s hold on David. I may have overlooked an address or phone number. Or failed to look in the right place.
Would
you do what I ask in exchange for that information?”

Fallon thought about it. Worth yet another gamble?

He was still thinking when she said, “I could confront Spicer myself, of course. But then I’m not particularly brave or aggressive outside the confines of this house. And it might compromise your efforts to return the child to his mother.”

“Yes, it might.”

“I could hire someone else to do the job. A professional. That might work to both our benefits.”

“It might also trade one blackmailer for another. There aren’t many reputable detectives who’d take on a job like this.”

“I’d run the same risk with you, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m not that kind of man.”

“No, I don’t think you are,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been as candid with you if I did. Which leaves you as my only option. Will you please help me?”

It was the “please” that made up his mind; the way it came out told him it was not a word she used often. “All right, Mrs. Rossi,” he said. “If you can give me a lead to Spicer, I’ll try to find out what you want to know.”

“And any . . . material you might recover?”

“You’ll get it, as long as it doesn’t put me in a legal bind.”

“I’ll have to be satisfied with that, then, won’t I,” she said.

Fallon traded his cell phone number and the name and location of the Best Western for her private number. “How long will it take you to search?” he asked then.

“Not long, unless I have to go to David’s office at Chemco. If there’s anything to find, I’ll have it tomorrow at the latest.”

She stood up when he did, steady on her feet despite all she’d had to drink. He didn’t think she’d keep on boozing after he left. Woman with a purpose now. The drinking was a product of loneliness and a less-than-happy marriage, but it was plain that she loved her husband and would do whatever was necessary to keep the relationship intact.

In a way, Fallon thought, she was a lot like him. A fighter at heart. All either of them really needed was something worth fighting for.

SEVEN

W
ILL RODRIGUEZ GOT BACK to him just as he was leaving the Hen-derson city limits. “I had to call in a favor of my own to get what you asked for,” Will said. “You owe me big time, amigo.”

“I know it. I won’t add to the debt.”

“Number you gave me is a cell phone registered to a woman named Harper, Constance Harper.”

Constance Harper. Constance—Candy’s real name? In character for a man like Bobby J. to use a phone registered in his girlfriend’s name.

“What’s the address?”

“Twenty-nine hundred Cactus Flower Court, unit twenty-two-B, Vegas.”

“Anything on her? Known associates, anything like that?”

“Not without a lot more checking than I had time to do. Pretty common name. What does she have to do with the missing kid?”

“Directly, nothing,” Fallon said. “But if I catch a break, she could be a way to find him.”

Twenty-nine hundred Cactus Flower Court turned out to be a collection of forty or so town-house-style apartment buildings, four units to each, that took up an entire block a mile northeast of the Strip. Long entrance drive at one end, rows of covered carports for the tenants, an open visitors’ parking area nearby. Low-maintenance desert landscaping with crisscrossing crushed-rock paths.

Fallon put the Jeep into one of the visitors’ slots and went first to check the carports. Each one was marked with a unit number; 22-B contained a dark blue Lexus a couple of years old—not the kind of car you’d expect a strong-arm pimp or a dancer in a Glitter Gulch casino to be driving.

He followed one of the paths into the complex. Kids and adults made a lot of Sunday-afternoon noise over at a pool and picnic area. The town houses were arranged in geometrical rows, separated by plantings and paths; he found his way to the building numbered 22. Apartment B was ground floor, its front windows and one beside the door covered by blinds.

When the door opened to his ring, it was on a chain and half of a woman’s face appeared in the aperture. A wrinkled, sixty-something face topped by gray-streaked red hair. The one eye studied him warily.

“Yes?”

“Constance Harper?”

“That’s right. I don’t know you. What do you want?”

“Is Candy here? Or Bobby J.?”

“Who?”

“Candy, from the Golden Horseshoe. Her boyfriend, Bobby J.”

“Never heard of them. You got the wrong unit, mister.”

“He has a dragon tattoo on his right wrist—”

That was as far as he got. She shut the door in his face.

Fallon went back to the Jeep with his teeth clenched tight. The woman hadn’t lied to him. The liar was Max Arbogast.

The son of a bitch had deliberately given him a wrong phone number.

Arbogast wasn’t home. Or if he was, he wasn’t answering his door.

Mild hunger prodded Fallon into a shopping-center coffee shop a few blocks from the Desert View Apartments. Lousy food and two glasses of weak iced tea used up half an hour. One more pass at Arbogast’s apartment, he decided, before he went back to the Best Western.

He couldn’t have timed it better. As he came down Ocotillo Street, Max Arbogast was just getting out of a parked Hyundai with a grocery bag under one arm.

Fallon swung the Jeep into a space opposite. Arbogast was on his way up the path to the entrance by then; he didn’t see Fallon cross the street and come up fast behind him, didn’t know he was there until he said, “Hey, Max.”

Arbogast stiffened, turning. “You again.”

“Me again. You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“What you want now?”

“The truth this time.”

“Truth? What’re you talking about?”

“Let’s go up to your apartment.”

Arbogast gnawed on his lower lip, little nibbling bites like a rat gnawing on a piece of cheese. “No. I had enough of that this morning.”

“Your car, then. Just so we have a little privacy.”

“I got nothing more to say—”

Fallon closed fingers around scrawny biceps, squeezed hard enough to make Arbogast wince. “Your car. Now.”

They went to the Hyundai. Arbogast unlocked the passenger door and Fallon prodded him inside, then slid in behind him. With the door shut, the car smelled of dust and leftover fast food. The grocery bag contained a six-pack of beer; Arbogast ran his hands over it, looking at Fallon’s ear again.

“You gave me the wrong phone number for Bobby J.”

“The hell I did.”

“The hell you didn’t. Let’s have the right one.”

Arbogast hesitated, but only for a few seconds. The number he recited then was close to the one that belonged to Constance Harper, but not that close.

“If that isn’t right,” Fallon said, “I’ll be seeing you again. And you won’t like what happens.”

“It’s right. I swear it.”

“Like you swore it this morning. What else did you lie to me about?”

“Nothing, for Chrissake.”

“So you told me everything you know.”

“Everything, yeah.”

“I don’t think so. I think you know or have some idea where Bobby J. lives or works or hangs out.”

“No.”

“Listen, Max. I’m going to find him one way or another, and when I do I’ll either drop your name or I won’t. Be straight with me and I never heard of you. Keep lying, and I’ll make him believe you sold him out for cash.”

Arbogast did some more lip-gnawing. The thin hands kept on moving restlessly over the bag.

“Okay. Okay. Cheyenne Street.”

“What about Cheyenne Street?”

“He’s got a place there. In back.”

“In back of what?”

“Slot machine repair business.”

“His?”

“I don’t know. His, some friend’s, I don’t know. I had to take him something there once. A package.”

“Drugs?”

“A package.”

Fallon sat looking at him for a time. All he saw was pale profile; Arbogast still wasn’t making eye contact.

“What’s the street number?”

“Nine eighty.”

“That better be right, too.”

“It is, it is. Nine eighty Cheyenne.”

Arbogast opened the driver’s door, quick, as if he were afraid Fallon might try to stop him. He didn’t even wait for Fallon to get out so he could lock the car again, he just started running for the Desert View’s entrance.

The Jeep’s GPS pinpointed the Cheyenne Street address. Northeast Las Vegas, not too many miles from the Desert View Apartments. But Fallon didn’t go that way; he went south to the Best Western instead.

Casey was at the motel, her Toyota slotted in front of the unit he’d reserved for her. He parked next to it, rapped on the door.

“How long have you been here?” he asked when she let him in.

“About two hours.” She caught hold of his arm, gripped it tightly. “What’ve you found out? Anything?”

“A few things. Getting closer.”

“To Court and Kevin? They’re still in Vegas?”

“That I don’t know yet.”

“Well, for God’s sake, what
do
you know? You promised you wouldn’t hold out on me, Rick.”

“I’m not trying to.”

He filled her in. As much of what he’d discovered as he thought she should know at this point. She paced while she listened. Tense and restless after the long drive and long wait, but she seemed all right otherwise. She’d made an effort with her appearance, either for him or for herself: hair combed, lipstick on her scabbed lips, makeup covering the healing marks on her face. The tight-fitting blouse and skirt she wore made him aware that her figure was well-developed.

“What now?” she said when he finished talking. “Just wait for the Rossi woman to call? Suppose she doesn’t, then what?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m going out again.”

“Where? To do what?”

“To see what I can find out about Bobby J.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No. It’s better if I do this alone.”

“I did enough sitting around at Furnace Creek. I’ll go crazy if I have to keep doing the same thing here.”

“It won’t be for long. Go over to the coffee shop next door, have a drink or two at the bar.”

She started to argue, changed her mind and sat down heavily on the bed.

Fallon said, “I’ll need the keys to your car.”

“My car? What for? What’s the matter with your Jeep?”

“Nothing’s the matter with it. How much gas is in the Toyota?”

“I don’t know, I had it filled before I left. Rick . . .”

“The keys,” he said. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

EIGHT

Fallon took all of this in on a slow drive-by. The place looked closed up, deserted despite the Explorer. The sun, big and hazy orange, had drifted low in the western sky; where its descent was blocked by buildings and trees, shadows gathered in pools and pockets along the cinder-block’s wall.

He circled the block. There was no rear access to Casino Slot Machine Repair from the next street over; you could see the lines of its roof, but that was all. When he turned back onto Cheyenne, he made sure there was nobody in sight and then parked the Toyota a short distance away, underneath a droopy palm tree on the opposite side of the street. Good vantage point: both front and side entrances and all of the parking area.

He picked up the 7 × 50 Zeiss binoculars from the seat beside him, slid down to a level where he could rest the glasses on the sill, and adjusted the focus until everything over there came into sharp relief. Next to the side door was a window with blinds drawn behind it. The powerful glasses showed him bars of light between the slats.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to arouse suspicion. Just the Explorer, the otherwise empty lot, the side door, the lighted window.

Setup.

Trap.

He’d figured it that way from the first; that was why he’d switched cars. Arbogast’s lack of surprise, his shifty-eyed nervousness, the too-quick way he’d given up the Cheyenne address—all red flags. The little bastard must have contacted Bobby J. after Fallon’s first visit, told him about giving out the wrong phone number, been told in return what to say and do if Fallon came back to brace him again. Fallon was asking too many questions for Bobby J. to keep ignoring him. So the trap had been set to find out who he was and why he was snooping around, and then to get rid of him one way or another—threats, a beating, maybe even a permanent disappearance. The desert surrounding Vegas had a reputation as a missing-persons graveyard.

Well, none of that was going to happen. Not here, not tonight.

Fallon waited, the Zeiss glasses on his lap. There wasn’t much activity in a neighborhood like this on a Sunday evening—an occasional car or truck passing by, but no pedestrians. The steady traffic hum on I-15 was audible but muted.

Sunset, dusk settling. And the cinder-block’s side door opened and a man eased out into the lot.

Fallon snapped up the binoculars. The man was built like a pro football lineman, with a mane of yellow hair and a yellow beard—not Bobby J. He walked out past the Explorer, to gaze up and down the street in an agitated way. Looking for a black Jeep, so he didn’t pay any attention to the parked Toyota Camry. After a few seconds he returned to the side door, paused to light a cigarette, then went back inside.

So there were at least two of them. And it didn’t look as though they were as good at waiting as Fallon was.

Full dark came quickly, as it always does in desert country. Lights blossomed in the front windows of the cinder-block—Judas lures, for all the good it would do them. The rest of the property remained dark. The only other lights in the vicinity were on street poles, none close to the Toyota.

Another hour went by. The side door opened again and the yellowbearded man came out and repeated what he’d done before, the fast, hard way he moved and a slapping gesture of one hand against his pant leg suggesting both frustration and anger. He stayed out there less than a minute. Fallon watched him go back inside, heard the faint slam of the door.

How much longer would they wait?

Not too long. Less than forty-five minutes.

The front window lights went out first. A couple of minutes later, the side door opened, blackness replaced the light inside, and two figures emerged. Fallon put the glasses on them; the Zeiss’s capacity for clear night vision was the best on any pair of commercial binoculars he’d used. The one who locked the door matched Bobby J.’s description. His face was tight-set and he seemed to be arguing with the bearded man as they crossed to the parked Explorer. Not Bobby J.’s vehicle, evidently; he got in on the passenger side.

Fallon drifted lower on the seat, his eyes on a level with the sill, as the Explorer’s headlights came on and the machine swung around fast, burning rubber. It was headed his way as it came off the property; the beams splashed over the Toyota. He sat up, reached for the ignition as soon as it shot past.

The Explorer was at the intersection when he completed his dark U-turn. As soon as it turned left, toward the freeway, he put the headlights on and increased his speed. Once he made the turn, he was less than a block behind.

He maintained that distance onto I-15 south, then slipped over into a different lane and dropped farther back. The Explorer, with its high rear end and fat taillights, was easy to keep in sight. The way Yellow Beard was driving, moderate speed, no lane changes, said that they didn’t know he was there. Even if they’d considered the possibility of a tail, it would be his Jeep they’d be alert for.

Vegas proper was where they went. The Charleston Boulevard exit, then half a mile west along there and into a deserted but well-lit shopping center. Fallon rolled on past, watching in the rearview mirror as the Explorer braked alongside a low-slung, light-colored car parked near the entrance. Bobby J.’s wheels. Yellow Beard dropping him off.

Fallon caught a green light at the next intersection, turned right, and pulled to the curb. From there he watched the Explorer U-turn, head out of the lot the way it had come in, and make a cross-traffic left turn back toward the freeway. Bobby J. had closed himself inside the light-colored car; its headlights flashed on. If he drove away in the same direction as Yellow Beard, keeping him in sight and catching up wouldn’t be easy.

But he didn’t. Piece of luck there: the light-colored car came shooting across the lot, at an angle to where Fallon waited, exited and turned right onto the same four-lane cross street. Mustang, one of the original models, white or beige. Fallon gave its taillights a full block lead before he swung out to follow.

And that was when his cell phone rang.

He almost didn’t answer it. Tailing another car at night was tricky enough without any distractions. But the noise grated on him, and Bobby J. was still moving in a straight line and about to be held up by a red light at the next intersection. Fallon yanked the phone out of his pocket, flipped it open.

“Mr. Fallon? This is Sharon Rossi.”

“Yes, Mrs. Rossi.”

“I think I may have found what we’re looking for. I’m not sure, but I don’t see what else it can signify.”

The light was green now and they were rolling again. A rattletrap pickup had cut in between the Toyota and Bobby J.’s Mustang. Fallon swerved into the other lane. Sharon Rossi’s voice droned in his ear, telling him what she’d found was a piece of paper under the blotter on her husband’s desk, in a handwriting different from his.

“Go ahead, what’s on the paper?”

“The name on it is Steven Courtney. That could be the name Spicer’s using, don’t you think? The same initials—”

“What else?”

“ ‘Care of Co-River Management, Laughlin.’ ”

“Laughlin.”

Bobby J. was about to make a left-hand turn. No signal, just the flash of brake lights and a rolling stop as he waited for a break in the oncoming traffic. Fallon couldn’t get over behind him in time; the pickup, forced to slow, too, was blocking the lane.

“That’s all,” Sharon Rossi said. “No address or phone number.”

Fallon passed the Mustang just as Bobby J. completed the turn, then cut into the inside lane. There was a left-turn lane at the intersection ahead, the light green. He hit the gas hard.

“Mr. Fallon?”

A quick glance into the rearview mirror showed him the Mustang just disappearing into a side street up ahead. He snapped, “Emergency, I’ll call you back,” and threw the phone onto the passenger seat so he could grip the wheel with both hands.

The light flashed yellow as he veered into the left-turn lane. He kept on going, out into the intersection in a sliding U-turn. Got the Toyota straightened out, accelerated to the side street and made the turn just in time. Near the end of the next block ahead, taillights threw a sheen of crimson on the darkness and the Mustang made a sharp left and disappeared behind a low wall.

Residential street: older tract houses on small lots. Fallon reduced his speed to twenty-five. The wall, he saw as he neared, was whitewashed stucco—a boundary between two of the houses. The one beyond had a huge tangle of prickly pear cactus growing in the front yard. The Mustang was in the driveway, dark now and drawn well back toward the rear. As Fallon passed, its door opened and a dome light came on and the dark shape of Bobby J. emerged.

Fallon drove on to the next intersection. A street sign there said he was on the 200 block of Sandstone Way. He turned right onto Pyrite Way, circled that block onto the first cross street—Mineral Way—and came back onto Sandstone. Short of the corner, he parked and shut off the lights. And sat there to let his pulse rate slow while he did some thinking.

What he felt like doing was going to the house on Sandstone, taking Bobby J. by surprise, and beating the crap out of him—payback for what he’d done to Casey, and what he and Yellow Beard had planned to do at Casino Slot Machine Repair. Stupid idea, fueled by ragged emotions. It could get him arrested for trespassing and assault, for one thing. Or the tables turned and the crap beaten out of
him
: he wasn’t armed and he didn’t know who else was in that house.

Besides, Bobby J. wasn’t the important issue here. Finding Court Spicer, reuniting Kevin and his mother, was. He hated the idea of letting a man like that get away without paying; but he wasn’t a crusader, he wasn’t even a law officer—it was not up to him to dispense justice. Sooner or later Bobby J. would take a fall, a hard fall. His kind almost always did.

Fallon started the car and headed back to the Best Western to tell Casey the news about Laughlin.