Step to the Graveyard Easy (10 page)

Cape picked up the check, tore it into small pieces, and dropped the pieces onto his plate. He said, “Classic type A, your husband. He’ll have a massive coronary someday, if he doesn’t slow down.”

“I’ve told him the same thing. He won’t listen.” She sighed, pushed her salad around on the plate. “He can be overbearing and abrasive, and he thinks money is God and he’s one of its disciples. But he’s a decent man underneath. Really, he is.”

Cape doubted that. Andrew Vanowen, as far as he was concerned, was just what Justine had led him to believe—an arrogant, high-powered asshole. Stacy Vanowen knew it, too, despite what she’d said. The knowledge was in her eyes, in the tight line of her mouth.

He said, “I’ll take your word for it.”

After a time she said, “Those people, the Judsons or whoever they are…”

“What about them?”

“
Do
we have anything to fear from them? Your honest opinion.”

“I doubt it. Whatever their game was, it’s likely I sidetracked it when I took their cash and got hold of those photographs. And I’d be willing to bet it was nothing as heavy as a kidnapping.”

“That’s reassuring. Anyway, it’s our problem now. You’ll be leaving Tahoe soon, I suppose.”

“Soon enough. Your friend Mahannah invited me to sit in on his poker game tomorrow night.”

“Oh? Are you going to?”

“Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Pick, pick at the salad. “When you do leave, where will you go?”

“Reno, maybe. North from there or east into Utah. Depends on my mood at the time.”

“I envy you,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I could just get in my car and drive and keep on driving.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m a woman, for one thing. Women alone are targets.”

“Not if they’re careful.”

“You can’t be careful twenty-four/seven, can you?”

“You have a point. Nobody can.”

“Besides, I’m married and I love my husband and most of the time I’m reasonably content with my life. I leave the free-and-easy lifestyle to my sister.”

“Lacy?”

“How do you know her name?”

“I met her. Yesterday, at your house. She didn’t tell you?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I’m not surprised. I gathered you’re not close.”

“I wish we were. What did she say about me?”

“Nothing worth repeating.”

“I can imagine.” Pause. “I suppose she… came on to you?”

“Not exactly. Why, does she come on to most men she meets?’

“More often than not.” Disapproval in her tone, and a hint oi malice in what she said next. “My sister never met a penis she didn’t like.”

Cape’s laugh put a tint of color in her cheeks.

“That probably sounds prudish,” she said. “But the truth is, I’m just a little jealous. Lacy has always done exactly what she wants and I’ve always been the good girl, the practical one.”

“I’d say she’s a little jealous of you, too.”

“Not of who I am. Of what I have. She—Oh, God, why am I talking like this? I don’t know you and you don’t really care about my family situation.”

Cape said nothing.

“You’re not eating,” Stacy Vanowen said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I like to make my own choices from a menu.”

“Oh, I see. Another of my husband’s less than endearing traits. He thinks he knows what’s best for everybody.”

“I’ve stopped letting other people make my decisions for me,” Cape said, “even the small ones. Pretty liberating.”

“I wish I could do the same.”

“One of these days, maybe you will.”

“Yes,” she said, “maybe,” but she didn’t sound as if she believed it.

A piece of paper was tucked under one of the Corvette’s windshield wipers. Note written in purple ink and a bold scrawl:
Easy
does it, salesman. 246 Lake Summit Road, Cave Rock. Any time after 7 o’clock.
The signature was the single letter
L.

Cape smiled faintly, folded the note, and put it in his shirt pocket. Two reasons to stay, now. Vince Mahannah’s poker game tomorrow night, tonight an attractive woman who had never met a penis she didn’t like.

Why not?

Cape returned to the clubhouse, found a public phone, and called Vince Mahannah. He said, “I’ve decided to take you up on your invitation.”

“Good. I was hoping you would.”

“What time?”

“We usually start around nine.”

“Suits me.”

Mahannah gave him an address in Glenbrook, on the Nevada shore, and directions; Cape wrote them down. “Get here earlier if you want something to eat. Plenty of food, drinks.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“The other matter,” Mahannah said. “You had lunch with the Vanowens? Gave them the photographs?”

“Yes.”

“Their reaction?”

“Angry wait-and-see on his part.”

“That’s Andy. And Stacy?”

“Worried. She brought up the subject of kidnapping.”

“What? I don’t see it that way.”

“Neither do I.”

“Andy reassure her?”

“No. He had other business on his mind. I did what I could after he left.”

“You spent time with Stacy alone?’

“A few minutes.”

“What do you think of her?”

“Attractive,” Cape said, “and unhappy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“General impression. And some things she said.”

“About what?”

“Her marriage, for one.”

“You asked her about her marriage?” Edge in Mahannah’s voice now. “Her private life?”

“I didn’t ask. She volunteered.”

“What, specifically?”

“Nothing, specifically.”

“You wouldn’t be planning to see her again, would you?”

“No reason to.”

“Then don’t. Any problems she might have are none of your business. You understand?”

That edge—protectiveness, the kind that went beyond simple friendship. Possession or unsated hunger, one or the other.

“I understand,” Cape said.

Time on his hands. The rest of the day until seven o’clock. He took the Corvette east on Highway 50, up into the mountains, then down a steep grade into Carson City.

Not much to interest him there. Silver-domed capital building, state museums, a few casinos. Small-town feel. He drove on to SR 341, turned off and wound up into the hills to Virginia City.

More to his liking. Home of the Comstock Lode, the silver strike that had helped build San Francisco and finance the Union Army during the Civil War. Lots of old buildings restored to give the place a nineteenth-century boomtown ambience. Touristy, but not too bad. He wandered the hillside streets, drank a beer in the Bucket of Blood Saloon, let an old-fashioned one-armed bandit steal a few dollars in another saloon, took a tour of Piper’s Opera House, where Edwin Booth and Lotta Crabtree had performed in Virginia City’s heyday.

On one of the upper streets was a brick church, St. Mary’s in the Mountains. He went in and sat for a time in the cool emptiness. First church he’d been in since St. Vincent’s in Rockford. No reason for staying there as long as he did; no amazing grace to save a wretch like him. Just that he liked the atmosphere—history mixed with piety. Another good, quiet place to sit and think.

It was after five when he got back to Stateline and the Lakeside Grand. Upstairs, he keyed open the door to his room, took a step inside. And stopped, staring.

The room wasn’t the same as he’d left it. Drawers pulled out, bedclothes ripped off, mattress yanked askew, his suitcase open and empty on the floor. And sitting in the larger of the two armchairs, the person responsible for all the upheaval.

Tanya Judson.

With another little automatic in her hand.

She popped to her feet as Cape came all the way inside and shut the door. One good look at her, and he knew she was a different woman than the one he’d dealt with in San Francisco. The cool self-possession was gone, for one thing. Sloppy clothes, for another: loose-fitting blouse, chinos, flat shoes. Blond hair tangled, windblown. Purplish welt on one temple. Face set in grim lines, something more than anger and determination in her eyes. Fear. Strong dose of it.

He said, “How’d you know where to find me?”

“Never mind that.”

“Okay, then how’d you get in here? Bribe a maid? Tell some half-wit bellboy you’re my wife and you forgot your key?”

The gun was steady in her hand, a little purse-size job like the one he’d taken from her in the Conover Arms. “It’s not here,” she said. She made a menacing gesture with the automatic. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The money, damn you. The sixteen thousand you stole from us.”

“I don’t have it anymore.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Cape. I want that money!”

“I gave it back to the other marks in the game, like I said I would. All except what belonged to me.”

“Bullshit.”

“God’s honest truth. The next morning, before I left the city.”

“Two thousand of it was ours!”

“Forfeit charge,” Cape said. “I divvied it up six ways.”

She made a noise like a cat’s hiss. “Your wallet. Toss it on the bed.”

“I’m only carrying about two hundred.”

“On the bed. Now.”

Cape shrugged, flipped his wallet onto the mattress. Tanya leaned over to fumble for it without taking her eyes off him. When she had the thin sheaf of bills out, she held them up in a fan.

“I told you,” he said. “Two hundred, give or take.”

“Where’s the rest of it? You’ve got more than this.”

“I might’ve lost it all in the casinos.”

“Don’t give me that crap. Where is it?”

“All right. There’s a little under five thousand in the hotel safe.”

“Four thousand. What about the other twelve?”

“I told you. Back to the rightful owners.”

“I want that money!”

“You
want it. What about Boone?”

“Screw him. He’s a damn fool.”

“Is that right?”

“In way over his head…. I told him but he wouldn’t listen.”

“In over his head in what?”

“He can rot in hell for all I care. Him and Rollo both.”

“Who’s Rollo?”

Headshake.

Cape said, “You walked out on Boone, is that it?”

“Soon as you give me the money, then I’m gone.”

“Where is he? Here in Tahoe?”

“Never mind where he is.”

“What’re Boone and Rollo up to?”

“You think I’m going to tell you?”

“Why not, if you’re through with Boone and getting out? What kind of con are they setting up for the Vanowens and Vince Mahannah?”

“How did you—”

“The photographs were in the satchel with the money. Or didn’t Boone tell you that?”

“Is that why
you We
here? Those damn photographs?”

“The con, Tanya. Poker scam or something else?”

“Uh-uh. You’re not getting anything out of me.”

“At least tell me why you’re quitting Boone. What happened? He start knocking you around?”

“He’ll never lay another hand on me, that’s for sure.”

“What’s got you so scared, Tanya?”

“Scared? What makes you think I’m scared?”

“Your eyes, your voice. That gun in your hand.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I want out, that’s all.”

“Out of what?”

“That’s enough!” The automatic jabbed, jumped. On her forehead now, little buttons of sweat. “The rest of the money must be in the hotel safe,” she said. “Sure, that’s it. The whole sixteen thousand.”

“Wrong. Just under five thousand, all of it mine.”

“We’re going down there,” she said. “You and me, right now.”

“Wrong again. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’ll use this gun, Cape. I mean it. I’ll blow your cock right out of the saddle.”

“Tough talk. What good would that do you?”

“I want that money!”

Broken record. Cape walked over to the other chair, sat down: slowly, deliberately.

The hissing cat sound again. “Get up! We’re going downstairs.”

“No, we’re not.”

“I’ll kill you! You think I won’t?”

“I think you won’t.”

The gun’s muzzle danced sideways, and she fired.

Noise halfway between a bang and a pop. The bullet chewed into the carpet alongside Cape’s chair. He didn’t move, his gaze locked with hers.