Free Whispers by Dean Koontz

ours.”
    Otto opened up again. “That’s the way I see it, too.”
    “Okay,” Tony said.
    “Okay. So what’s this Bobby Valdez done that makes you want him so bad?”
    “Parole violations,” Tony said.
    “And assault,” Frank said grudgingly.
    “And rape,” Tony said.
    “Hey,” Otto said, “didn’t you guys say you were with the homicide squad?”
    The band finished Still the Same with a clatter-bang-boom of sound not unlike the derailment of a speeding freight train. Then there were a few minutes of peace while the lead singer made unamusing small talk with the ringside customers who sat in clouds of smoke that, Tony felt sure, had come partly from cigarettes and partly from burning eardrums. The musicians pretended to tune their instruments.
    “When Bobby Valdez comes across an uncooperative woman,” Tony explained to Otto, “he pistol-whips her a little to make her more eager to please. Five days ago, he went after victim number ten, and she resisted, and he hit her on the head so hard and so often that she died in the hospital twelve hours later. Which brought the homicide squad into it.”
    “What I don’t understand,” the blonde said, “is why any guy would take it by force when there’s girls willing to give it away.” She winked at Tony, but he didn’t wink back.
    “Before the woman died,” Frank said, “she gave us a description that fit Bobby like a custom-made glove. So if you know anything about the slimy little bastard, we’ve got to hear it.”
    Otto hadn’t spent all his time watching spy movies. He had seen his share of police shows, too. He said, “So now you want him for murder-one.”
    “Murder-one,” Tony said. “Precisely.”
    “How’d you know to ask me about him?”
    “He accosted seven of those ten women in singles’ bar parking lots—”
    “None of them in our lot,” Otto interrupted defensively. “Our lot is very well lighted.”
    “That’s true,” Tony said. “But we’ve been going to singles’ bars all over the city, talking to bartenders and regular customers, showing them those mug shots, trying to get a line on Bobby Valdez. A couple of people at a place in Century City told us they thought they’d seen him here, but they couldn’t be sure.”
    “He was here all right,” Otto said.
    Now that Otto’s feathers had been smoothed, Frank took over the questioning again. “So he caused a commotion, and you did your beer glass trick, and he showed you his ID.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So what was the name on the ID?”
    Otto frowned. “I’m not sure.”
    “Was it Robert Valdez?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Try to remember.”
    “It was a Chicano name.”
    “Valdez is a Chicano name.”
    “This was more Chicano than that.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well . . . longer . . . with a couple Zs in it.”
    “Zs?”
    “And Qs. You know the kind of name I mean. Something like Velazquez.”
    “Was it Velazquez?”
    “Nah. But like that.”
    “Began with a V?”
    “I couldn’t say for sure. I’m just talking about the sound of it.”
    “What about the first name?”
    “I think I remember that.”
    “And?”
    “Juan.”
    “J-U-A-N?”
    “Yeah. Very Chicano.”
    “You notice an address on his ID?”
    “I wasn’t looking for that.”
    “He mention where he lived?”
    “We weren’t exactly chummy.”
    “He say anything at all about himself?”
    “He just drank quietly and left.”
    “And never came back?”
    “That’s right.”
    “You’re positive?”
    “He’s never been back on my shift, anyway.”
    “You got a good memory.”
    “Only for the troublemakers and the pretty ones.”
    “We’d like to show those mug shots to some of your customers,” Frank said.
    “Sure. Go ahead.”
    The blonde sitting next to Tony Clemenza said, “Can I get a closer look at them? Maybe I was in here when he was. Maybe I even talked to him.”
    Tony picked up the photographs and swiveled on his barstool.
    She swung toward him as he swung