The Other Side of Silence

by Bill Pronzini

  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.

  Midafternoon.

  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.

  FOUR

  UP CLOSE, IN A lighted room, Bobby J. was pretty much what Fallon had expected. Squat and blocky in slacks and a white T-shirt that showed off his pecs and the fire-breathing dragon tattoo that covered his right wrist and extended a couple of inches up his hairy forearm. Ice-blue eyes, empty except for a predatory cunning—the eyes of a man who cared about no one but himself, who was capable of any act that benefited or protected Bobby Jablonsky. Flat, hard features. The kind of aggressive, tough-guy look and manner that attracted women like Candy.

  Outwardly he reminded Fallon of a kick-ass drill sergeant he’d known at Fort Benning, a career soldier who had been in Nam and talked about killing men as casually and dispassionately as an exterminator talked about killing bugs. Every grunt who’d encountered him feared his wrath and hated his guts. The difference between the sergeant and Jablonsky was on the inside. The sergeant had discipline, moral fiber, the stones and steel it took to lead men and fight battles. Bobby J. was all hardshell belligerence, powerful only when he had the upper hand; down deep where it counted, he was a coward. You could break him if you handled him right. You couldn’t have broken the sergeant with a sledgehammer.

  The Ruger didn’t seem to scare Jablonsky, but he respected it enough not to make any stupid moves. He stood flatfooted, hating Fallon with those empty eyes. Fallon gave it back to him, just as hard and implacable.

  “What the fuck you doing in my house?” Growly tough-guy voice to go with the tough-guy demeanor.

  “It’s not your house.”

  Candy said from the couch, “I couldn’t help it, Bobby. He just came busting in with that gun—”

  “How long’s he been here?”

  “I don’t know, three hours. More.”

  “He do anything to you?”

  “No. Just looked around and made me call you.”

  Jablonsky said to Fallon, “How’d you find out where I live?”

  “It wasn’t hard. I know a lot about you.”

  “Yeah? What do you know?”

  “I know about your deal with Court Spicer, for one thing. I know you were down in Laughlin and Bullhead City last night.”

  “Wrong, man. I ain’t been down there in months.”

  “He said you raped somebody,” Candy said. “Is that right? Did you?”

  “No. What’d you tell him about me?”

  “Nothing. He wanted to know where y
ou were last night, I told him I don’t have a clue. Out raping somebody else, for all I know.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Bobby J. said to her, and then to Fallon, “You’re not a cop. Who the hell are you? What you want with me?”

  “Payback for what you did to Spicer’s ex-wife and son—”

  “I never done nothing to that kid.”

  “—and for what you and Clem Vinson were planning to do to me Sunday night.”

  “How’d you know—” The shape of his expression changed; he rotated the cat’s-eye ring on his finger, closed the hand into a fist. “Yeah. That stupid Arbogast.”

  Fallon let him believe it.

  Candy said, “What’s this about you and Clem?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  “Fuck you, Bobby.”

  “Say that once more and I’ll kick your face in.”

  Fallon said, “You like to beat up on women, don’t you? Makes you feel like a big man.”

  “Yeah, the way you feel with that gun in your hand. Put it down, then we’ll find out who’s the big man.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Fallon glanced at Candy. “You keep a flashlight in the house?”

  “. . . Flashlight? Why?”

  “Go get it. And don’t come back with anything else.”

  She got up, glared at Bobby J., and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jablonsky said, “You want to run your mouth to me, all right, but don’t say nothing more in front of her.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  In half a minute Candy was back with a short, stubby flashlight. He motioned for her to come around behind the couch, took the light from her, motioned for her to sit down again. The beam was strong and steady when he switched it on to test it. He shoved it into his empty jacket pocket.

  “Okay,” he said to Bobby J. “Now we go for a ride.”

  “What the hell you mean, a ride? Where?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, man.”

  “Yes, you are. Give me any trouble, I’ll blow a hole in your kneecap. You can’t even imagine the pain.”

  “You wouldn’t do that. Not with a cannon like that, in this neighborhood.”

  No, he wouldn’t, but Bobby J. didn’t know that. “Try me,” he said.