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
