The Other Side of Silence by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page B

Ulbrich.”
    “. . . Are you saying Sam Ulbrich helped set me up?”
    “I don’t know Sam Ulbrich.”
    “Neither did I, before I hired him. I picked his name out of the phone book. His office isn’t far from where I live.”
    “He didn’t have to know you or Spicer to set you up,” Fallon said. “Detectives can be bought off during the course of an investigation.”
    “I don’t believe it. He was very professional, he didn’t try to overcharge me or anything like that. For God’s sake, Court isn’t that powerful. He doesn’t have unlimited funds, he can’t corrupt everybody.”
    “So we’ll assume Ulbrich’s clean. Let’s get back to Banning. You agreed to his terms, and he told you when and where to meet him.”
    “The Rest-a-While Motel, room twenty, at three o’clock Wednesday afternoon.”
    Fallon asked where the motel was located. North Las Vegas, she said, on North Rancho Drive. She didn’t remember the exact address. Small, old, nondescript—the cut-rate type of place.
    “Was the room reserved in your name?”
    “No, Banning said I was to check in and wait for him in number twenty. But I think the clerk may have been expecting me.”
    “Oh?”
    “I didn’t have to ask for room twenty. As soon as he saw my name on the registration card, he gave me the key.”
    He asked if she’d gotten the clerk’s name. She hadn’t. But she remembered the man well enough: midforties, balding, slightly built but with a noticeable paunch.
    “How long were you in the room before Banning showed up?”
    “About ten minutes.”
    So he’d either had surveillance on the motel, so he knew when she arrived, or he’d got a call from the clerk. He’d been somewhere close by, in any case. “Describe him.”
    After a few seconds she said, “Not handsome, not ugly. About your height, six feet. Heavyset but not fat. Strong. I couldn’t fight him. I couldn’t even scream with his hand on my throat. He—”
    “Don’t dwell on that. How old?”
    “Thirties. Maybe thirty-five.”
    “Hair color?”
    “Black. Short and kinky.”
    “Distinguishing marks? Scars, moles, anything like that.”
    “A tattoo. On the back of his right wrist.”
    “What kind of tattoo?”
    “A dragon. Breathing fire.”
    “What was he wearing?”
    “Brown leather jacket. Slacks, shirt, cowboy boots . . .” She paused, frowning. “He had something odd in the jacket pocket. It fell out when he took the jacket off and he grabbed it and stuffed it back—quick, as if he didn’t want me to see it.”
    “Did you get a good look at it?”
    “No, but I’m pretty sure it was a garter. Gold, with black ruffles around the edge. I think it had writing on it.”
    “Writing?”
    “A name of some kind.”
    Not a woman’s garter, then. A sleeve garter. Some casino employees— floor bosses, dealers, croupiers, stickmen, bartenders—wore them. The name on it could be that of a casino.
    “Can you remember anything else about him?”
    “He wore a ring, a big gold cat’s-eye ring. One of the times he hit me, it cut my cheek.”
    “You’re doing fine,” Fallon said. “Now, what about his car?”
    “I didn’t see it. I didn’t even hear him drive up.”
    “Okay. What did he say to you when you let him in?”
    “Just . . . ‘I’m Banning.’ He was smiling.”
    “And then?”
    “He asked if I’d brought the money and I said yes and took it out of my purse and gave it to him. He counted it before he put it in his pocket. Then . . . then his smile changed and he said, ‘All right, now you get what’s coming to you,’ and that’s when he grabbed me and threw me down on the bed. It all happened so fast . . .”
    “When did he deliver the warning? While he was attacking you?”
    “No. After he . . . afterwards.”
    “Can you remember his exact words?”
    She’d picked up her coffee cup; the question made her put it down again, hard, so that it rattled the saucer and nearly tipped over. “I’ll never forget it. ‘Message