The Other Side of Silence (10 page)

PART III

LAUGHLIN

ONE

T
HEY LEFT FOR LAUGHLIN early Monday morning. Fallon would have preferred to make the drive alone, but Casey wasn’t having any of that. Not that he blamed her. If her son was somewhere in the Laughlin area, she needed to be there when he was found. Compromise: she’d agreed to stay in the background, let him handle things in his own way. She followed him to McCarran International and left the Toyota in long-term parking, and they went together in the Jeep.

Laughlin was ninety-five miles south of Vegas, on the Nevada side of the Colorado River boundary with Arizona. The state’s newest gambling hot spot, with a string of big hotel and casino resorts along the riverfront. Another desert-consuming creature spreading out on both the Laughlin side and across the river in Bullhead City, where most of the casino service people lived. Fifty thousand population in the area now and more coming in all the time, for the gambling and the related jobs, the fishing and boating on the Colorado and Lake Mohave, the lure of desert-country retirement living. And every day, more open space disappeared and the creature spread closer to Spirit Mountain on the east, the gold-and-silver-bearing hills beyond Bullhead City—wilderness areas that Fallon had explored when he was stationed at Fort Huachuca, and again on a packing trip with Geena not long after they were married.

Casey had wanted to leave right away last night, as soon as he told her Sharon Rossi’s news, but he’d talked her out of it. There was no good reason to make the long drive until daylight; their only lead was Co-River Management, and whatever kind of business it was, it was bound to be closed at night. Only the casinos ran twenty-four hours.

She’d been upbeat and animated then—a glimpse into the kind of woman she must have been once, before the deterioration of her marriage and the loss of her son and the rape and beating that had driven her to attempted suicide. Animated, trusting, likable. Attractive, too. She had a nice smile, a warmth that softened the hard edges created by adversity and depression.

This morning, though, she’d retreated inside herself again. She had little to say as they headed south on 95. She sat stiff and tight-drawn, hunched forward a little on the seat, eyes steady on the surface of the highway; the only time she spoke in the first thirty miles was to ask him to drive faster, even though he was pushing it as it was, at seventy-five.

He tried to start a neutral conversation, draw out some details about her life. All he could get were thumbnail sketches: Born and grew up in Chula Vista. Two years at San Diego State, majoring in business administration and “more drunken parties than I can remember.” A couple of menial jobs before she answered an ad and Vernon Young gave her a chance to work first as a receptionist and then as a sales agent. Interests? Kevin. Reading—biographies, mostly. Romantic movies. Music, but not jazz, she’d had all she could stomach of her ex’s brand of music. Future plans when she had the boy back? Keep him safe, make sure he grew up to be a better man than his father. She didn’t answer when Fallon asked her what she wanted for herself.

After a time, he found himself shifting the conversation to his relationship with Timmy, the things they’d enjoyed doing together. She listened, but all she contributed were monosyllables. She didn’t ask him about his background, and he didn’t volunteer any information. He didn’t like talking about the early part of his life.

But he couldn’t keep the memories from intruding as he drove. The near-slum neighborhood in East L.A., his low-income civil servant father, his alcoholic waitress mother, the crime-ridden streets, the crappy schools, the daily struggle during his teenage years to avoid the lure of gangs and drugs. If he hadn’t gotten out by joining the army when he turned eighteen, God knew what direction his life would have taken. He might have ended up in a dead-end job like Pop’s, living poor and eventually dying in that miserable neighborhood the way his parents had, Pop of a heart attack at fifty-four while Fallon was at Fort Benning, Ma two years later of too much booze, too many long hours waiting tables, too much grinding poverty.

The army had given him hope, discipline, pride, a sense of honor and justice, the desire to build a better life for himself. And then Geena had given him the rest of what he needed. He’d met her in Tucson in the last year of his tour. Driven over from Huachuca with a couple of buddies, and there’d been a party, and there she was—pretty, sweet-natured, as lonely and as hungry for love as he was. They’d gotten married as soon as he was discharged. Moved back to the Encino area when the Unidyne job offer came up, Geena already pregnant the first time. Difficult pregnancy; she’d miscarried in her fourth month. Three years later, after another difficult pregnancy, Timmy had been born. And the future looked as bright as his boyhood had been dark.

Until Timmy’s accident. Until it all collapsed.

Now he was ready to rebuild another future, one that suited the man he’d evolved into after his son’s death. The third stage of the life of Richard Fallon. Put on temporary hold by Casey Dunbar and his commitment to her, but that was all right. True peace of mind didn’t come easy; sometimes it came only after you were put to a test. This was his test. This was the price he felt obligated to pay.

It was midmorning when they reached the junction with State 163, near the Arizona border, and turned there toward Laughlin. Hotter down here than it had been in Vegas; heat mirage pulsed liquidly off the asphalt ahead. The desert country in this corner was more sun-baked, even, than Death Valley. The hottest day anywhere in recorded U.S. history, Fallon remembered reading somewhere, had been in Bullhead City in 1983—132 degrees in the shade.

When they were traveling on 163, Casey stirred and asked, “How much farther is it?”

“Less than twenty miles.”

She ran her hands along the front of her thin skirt, then extended them out toward the air-conditioning ducts. “I keep wondering,” she said then.

“About what?”

“Kevin. If he’s all right.”

“Dry heat like this should be good for his asthma.”

“Yes, but how is Court treating him? Is he allowed to go out, go to school? Is somebody watching him when Court’s working? Or is he being locked up in some sweltering room somewhere?”

“Don’t. You can make yourself crazy with that kind of worrying.”

“I’m half crazy already,” she said. “You ought to know that if anybody does.”

Despite its rapid growth in recent years, Laughlin was still a small town. The population sign they passed on the outskirts read 8,629, which made it five times smaller than Bullhead City. Most of the growth seemed to be to the south and east in the direction of bare, raggedy Spirit Mountain— housing tracts, schools, malls. The main drag, Casino Drive, followed the line of the river and was crowded with tourist-related businesses on the east side, the big casino resorts all fronting the Colorado like a miniature version of the Vegas Strip—Don Laughlin’s Riverside, named after the town’s founder, Colorado Belle, Edgewater, River Palms, half a dozen others.

As early as it was, people streamed along the sidewalks and on the river walk that wound its way behind the casinos, and you could see pleasure boats trailing milky wakes on the sun-bright water. The Colorado, the West’s most important water source, had a shrunken look—the result of the worst drought in a century, nine years long now and counting. Another couple of years and a shortage would probably be declared and the Department of the Interior would reduce water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada, if not southern California. Nature paying humanity back for its encroachment and its decades of waste.

One of the streets that angled off Casino Drive to the east was Bruce Woodbury Drive. That was where Co-River Management was located, in a new office park, in a building with three other small businesses. A sign on the front cleared up the minor mystery about its function; it was a property management outfit that handled residential and commercial rentals and leases and new home sales.

As he parked in the facing lot, Fallon debated letting Casey come inside with him. She might be able to get information more easily than he could because of her real estate license: professional reciprocity. But he decided against it. The marks on her face, the scabbing and chapping and peeling sunburn, hadn’t healed enough to be fully concealed by makeup.

He said, “You’d better wait here.” She didn’t argue, so he added, “I can leave the engine running if you want to stay cool.”

“No, I need to get out and walk. I’ve been sitting too long.”

Fallon left her and went inside. Co-River’s anteroom resembled a doctor’s office: half a dozen uncomfortable-looking chairs, tables with magazines and brochures, an L-shaped counter with a couple of desks behind it, a short hallway and a pair of closed doors. The one difference was the wall decorations: a three-by-six-foot architect’s drawing of a housing development called Sunrise Acres, and an aerial photograph of the same development under construction.

Behind the counter were two women, one a youngish redhead, the other middle-aged, both of them working on computers. The middle-aged one pasted on a professional smile as Fallon approached, stood up to ask what she could do for him.

“I’m looking for one of your clients,” he told her. “A man named Courtney, Steven Courtney.”

“Yes?”

“He’s a professional musician. Plays piano.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve heard he’s good and I’d like to talk to him, hear him play, maybe offer him a better deal than he has here. I own a small lounge up in Vegas that’s just been renovated and I need some new talent for the reopening.”

“I see.” Her smile had slipped some; the bright version was reserved for prospective clients. “Why have you come to us?”

“I don’t know where Courtney is working or living in the area,” Fallon said, “but I understand he receives his mail here. So I thought you might tell me how to get in touch with him.”

The rest of the smile disappeared. “We don’t give out personal information about our clients.”

“Not even if it’s to their benefit?”

She shook her head. “If you’d like to leave your name and number, I’ll see that Mr. Courtney gets it.”

“I would, but I’m pressed for time. I need to hire a piano man as soon as possible. Couldn’t you make an exception in this case?”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m not authorized to do that.”

“Who
is
authorized?”

“Our director, Mr. Sanchez. But he isn’t here. He’s gone to a meeting in Fort Mohave.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know,” she said, tight-lipped now. “Possibly late afternoon, possibly not until tomorrow morning.”

“That might be too late for Courtney and me. Couldn’t you at least tell me where he’s working in Laughlin?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

The young redhead had been listening to the conversation while she tapped away on her computer keyboard. She said, “Oh, Lord, Jeanette, that’s not privileged information. Why don’t you just tell him?”

“Mind your own business, Kristin.”

That came out sharp, and the redhead bristled and glared. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not in charge here.”

“Neither are you.”

Fallon said to the redhead, “Mr. Courtney will thank you for it,” to take advantage of the friction between them. “I really am interested in hiring him.”

Jeanette said, “I’ve already told you—”

Kristin said, “He’s working at the Wagonwheel Casino, in their Sunset Lounge. I just looked up his file.”

The older woman swung around angrily. “Mr. Sanchez will hear about this. Don’t think I won’t tell him, because I will.”

“Go ahead. I’m just helping out a client, that’s all.”

“Now you listen here . . .”

They weren’t interested in Fallon any longer, and he wasn’t interested in their workplace bickering. He made a quick exit into the morning heat.

“I knew Kevin was here,” Casey said. She’d taken off her sunglasses and her eyes were bright. “I knew it!”

Fallon said, “Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“Bobby J. knows I’ve been asking questions and he’s probably alerted Spicer by now. Spicer doesn’t know who I am, but he can put two and two together and it’s bound to spook him. If he’s spooked enough, he’s liable to start running again.”

“But not this soon. He must believe you’re still in Las Vegas, that you don’t know he’s in Laughlin.”

“Maybe,” Fallon said again.

“Kevin’s here. I
know
he is, I can feel it.”

“In any case, it’s time we let the law take over.”

“The police? In a little town like this?”

“Bring in the FBI, then.”

“No,” she said. “No.”

“Why not?”

“They’d take their time before they did anything, that’s why. Agents would have to come down here from Las Vegas to interview us, then they’d check with the management company, the casino, God knows who else to make absolutely sure Steven Courtney and Court Spicer are the same person, and then they’d have to plan and coordinate before they acted. I almost went crazy when Kevin was kidnapped, waiting for somebody to do something. You’re in the security business, you must know that’s the way they work.”

He did know it. The law was methodical; no agency was going to rush out and arrest a man who might or might not be Spicer, and if they found the boy, hand him over immediately to his mother.

“It could take days,” Casey said. “And what if that gave Court enough time to disappear with Kevin again? I’m so afraid for him, Rick.”

Fallon said nothing.

“There’s another thing, too. The authorities don’t know Court like I do. He’s capable of holding Kevin hostage, hurting him or worse. I think I’ve convinced you how dangerous he is, but what if I couldn’t convince them?” “They’re professionals. They won’t put Kevin at risk. If Spicer’s still here, they’d arrest him while he’s at the Sunset Lounge, separated from the boy.”

“We could do the same thing in reverse, and much more quickly—wait until Court’s at the lounge, make sure Kevin’s safe, and then contact the FBI. That makes sense, too, doesn’t it?”

“In theory. It would depend on where Kevin is, whether he’s alone or being guarded, how easily he could be rescued.”