Step to the Graveyard Easy (6 page)

The hazel eyes dissected him. She shrugged again, pulled the robe back over her legs.

“Now what?” she said.

“Now we wait.”

“For what?”

“For Boone to show up.”

“What makes you think he’s coming here?”

“Same thing that makes me think he’s not your brother.”

A key scraped in the lock at a quarter to four. Cape was slouched in an armchair to the right of the shallow entrance foyer, so he couldn’t be seen from the doorway. Tanya was on the bed, propped up against the pillows, pretending he wasn’t there at all.

Boone came in, saw her, and said, “Good, you’re awake. Score was better than we hoped, close to sixteen thousand—”

“Seventeen hundred of it mine,” Cape said.

Boone, coming through the archway, carrying a small black satchel like a doctor’s bag, stopped as if he’d walked into a wall. His head swiveled jerkily; his eyes bugged a little. The smile he’d been wearing slipped, and he had difficulty pulling it back up.

He said, “Matt. Jesus, you gave me a jolt there.” He glanced at Tanya, put his eyes on Cape again. “What’re you doing here?”

“He spotted the gaff,” Tanya said.

The smile slipped all the way off this time. Boone’s round cheeks had been flushed; the color began to fade, leaving splotches of whiteness like cottage cheese curds. “What gaff?” he said. “Listen, I don’t know what you think you—”

“The shade work,” Cape said. “Quit trying to bluff. It didn’t work for her, either.”

A little silence. Then Boone squared his shoulders, drew himself up—little man trying to make himself big again. “Well. All right, then. I don’t see any cops, so what is it you want?”

“He wants the money,” Tanya said.

“Sure, no problem. How much was it you lost, Matt?”

“
All
the money. So he can give it back to the other marks.”

“No,” Boone said.

Cape said, “Yes. Put the satchel on the table over here.”

Boone clutched it more tightly. He said without turning his head, “Tanya.”

“I don’t have the gun. He’s got it.”

“Goddamn it!”

“Put the satchel on the table,” Cape said.

“You don’t understand. This money—we need it. We’ll cut you in for a percentage, say five thousand, but we’ve got to have the rest.”

“Why?”

“Seed money, that’s why.”

“For what? Another con?”

“We have to be in Tahoe day after tomorrow—”

“Shut up, Boone,” Tanya said.

“Six thousand,” Boone said to Cape. “That’s as high as we can go.”

“Put the satchel on the table.”

“No. Matt, will you just listen—”

Cape took the little automatic out of his pocket. “One more time. Put the satchel on the table.”

Boone obeyed finally. He took a couple of sideways steps, jammed the bag down hard enough so that the two top halves parted like a gaping mouth. He didn’t look soft and pudgy any longer; he looked small and hard and swollen with corruption. Boone the boil, ready to pop.

“You won’t get away with this,” he said between his teeth. “This is my goddamn money!”

“Our
goddamn money,” Tanya said bitterly.

“Take it away, and you’ll regret it, Matt. Guaranteed.”

Cape got to his feet. “Go over and sit on the bed with your wife or girlfriend or whatever she is.”

“You think I’d marry him?” she said. “A little toad like him?”

“Now
you
shut the fuck up, Tanya. This is all your fault. Why’d you let him in here? Why’d you let him get hold of your gun?”

She just looked at him, a faint sneer on her mouth.

“I ought to break your neck.”

“Try it and see what it gets you.”

“On the bed,” Cape said again, gesturing with the automatic. “Go on.”

Glaring, Boone went over and sat down apart from the woman.
Cape picked up the black bag. “I wouldn’t try setting up another game tomorrow night, if I were you. In fact, I’d be a long way from San Francisco by then. Word’s going to get around when I return this money.”

“Go to hell.”

“If I do, maybe the three of us can play poker with the devil.”

Boone and Tanya both had something to say to that, but their angry voices commingled, and he didn’t pay much attention anyway. He was already on his way out of there with the satchel.

Cape made sure the blinds were tightly closed, then upended the satchel over the motel-room bed. Packets of rumpled green, a dozen or so, loosely held together with rubber bands. Something else, too: a nine-by-twelve manila envelope, mostly flat, closed but not sealed.

The money first. Six packets of hundreds, three of fifties, two thicker ones of twenties, another of tens, fives, and singles. He made a riffling count without removing any of the rubber bands. Eighteen thousand and change. The night’s score was around sixteen thousand, by Cape’s estimate and Boone’s announcement on entering Tanya’s room. The remaining two thousand belonged to the grifters—seed money to grow a bigger crop of seed money.

He fed the cash back into the satchel, opened the manila envelope. Photographs. Four eight-by-ten color glossies. Two of them were candid shots of the same woman, taken at relatively close range; the angles and her expression said she hadn’t known she was being photographed. Sleek, big-eyed, tawny hair worn long enough to caress the swell of her breasts, some kind of beauty mark at one corner of a broad-lipped mouth. In one snap she was dressed in an expensive cream-colored outfit and getting into a silver BMW. In the other she wore a pale yellow sundress and was standing in front of the purple-and-gold entrance to what appeared
to be a hotel-casino complex. Part of a name was visible in the background, the words LAK and GRAND.

The other two photos were studio portraits of men. One: sixtyish, distinguished looking, flowing silver mustache and wavy silver hair. The other: around forty, olive-toned skin, curly black hair, handsome in a slick, hard way, eyes like fragments of black ice.

Cape looked at the backs of the glossies. Nothing written on any of them. He checked the envelope again, examined the satchel inside and out. Nothing. He put the photos inside with the money, set the satchel on the nightstand.

The digital alarm clock read 5:10 when he finally crawled into bed.

Edges of daylight and street noise woke him. Nine-fifteen. Four hours’ sleep, but he didn’t want much more than that. Downtime was lost time; each night’s rest was one less place to see, one less thing to do.

Before he left the room, he wrapped Tanya’s little automatic in a plastic clothes bag from the closet. Outside he hunted up the motel’s Dumpster, tossed the bag in. The satchel he locked in the ’Vette’s trunk.

Breakfast in a nearby coffee shop. Then he drove around the neighborhood until he found a chain drugstore large enough to have a stationery section. He bought five self-sealing padded mailing bags and a black marking pen.

Back in his room, he sat down with a couple of sheets of motel stationery and worked his memory. Names, faces, numbers—the salesman’s stock-in-trade. Over the years he’d developed an almost total recall in all three categories. It didn’t take him long to sort out and set down the loss amounts of the other five vies at last night’s game, starting with their buy-in figures. Then he divided by six the two thousand that no longer belonged to Boone and Tanya, added those amounts to the individual totals. That ensured that everybody, himself included, would not only get his money back but make a small profit for his trouble.

Once he had the final figures, he opened the satchel and counted out the money into six piles. His cut he stuffed into his wallet; the others went into the five mailing bags. He considered
writing some kind of note to go with the cash, but he’d have to write it five times—too much work. Unnecessary, besides. The smarter ones would figure it out for themselves, even if they never knew for sure who their benefactor was. The others wouldn’t care. Free ride on a gift horse.

With the marking pen he wrote their full names on each of the bags and then sealed them. Fifteen minutes later he was checked out and on his way downtown again.

The desk clerk at the Conover Arms said, “The Judsons are no longer with us—checked out early this morning. No forwarding address, I’m afraid.”

“Not a problem,” Cape said. “I know where they’re going.”

Three of the five insurance agents were staying at the Sir Francis Drake. Cape dropped off their money first, requesting that the packages be kept in the hotel safe until claimed. The clerk there didn’t ask any questions. Neither did the one manning the desk at the Hilton, the overflow convention hotel nearby where the other two players were booked.

When he was done, he picked up the ’Vette and got directions to the Bay Bridge from the parking garage attendant. Half an hour later he was on the other side of the bay, on Highway 80 headed east.

The High Sierra.

Highway 50 now, the long, steep descent from Echo Summit.

Cape pulled off onto an overlook, got out, and stood squinting into the cool mountain wind. Lake Tahoe Basin spread out below, part of the lake a bright blue blot in the distance. White-rimmed peaks, vast stretches of evergreens, massive juts and scarps of bare rock. Rugged beauty, harsh wilderness. Somewhere off to the north, where Highway 80 crested the Sierras on its asphalt path to Reno, was Emigration Gap—the place where the Donner Party had been trapped and perished, and the still living had fed briefly on the dead.

Behind him cars and trucks hissed by in a steady stream. He stayed there like that for a long time, hunched against the force of the wind, focused on the far reaches.

Up high like this, standing alone with your back to civilization, you felt that your humanity was safe.

Down below, among the roaming herds, where you couldn’t tell the weak from the strong, the predators from the prey, you had to be damn careful not to become one of the cannibals yourself.

Lake Tahoe.

Massive, sun-spattered, placid. Cupped by mountains all around, its far shores obscured by a bluish haze. Pleasure craft and paddlewheel excursion boats skimming like waterbugs over its surface.

South Lake Tahoe.

Not much of a town. Most of it stretched out along Lake Tahoe Boulevard, following the curve of the lakeshore. Malls, strip malls, wedding chapels, winter and summer resort businesses, a big new ski tram leading up to the flanking mountain. The last mile or so at the eastern end, it became a gamblers’ town, with strings of medium-priced motels lining the road, offering gambling-related specials.

Stateline.

On the Nevada side, a short strip of high-rise casino hotels. Harrah’s, Harvey’s, Horizon, Bill’s, Caesar’s Tahoe, Lakeside Grand. Huge marquee signs advertising entertainment, come-on promotions, nonstop action—the usual ballyhoo. Mini Las Vegas, poor man’s Las Vegas. A place for a quick visit, an even quicker getaway.

Cape parked in the free lot behind the Lakeside Grand. The side entrance to the hotel was the one in the photo background,
all right. He pushed through into a purple-and-gold lobby ringed with boutiques and specialty shops. Crossed that and entered the casino. Mirror-walled and -ceilinged, the usual banks of neon-lit electronic slots and gaming tables presided over by people dressed in purple and gold. The slots and blackjack layouts were getting some late-afternoon play; the craps, roulette, and baccarat tables were quiet. The high rollers, like vampires, only came out at night.

He wandered through the casino, showing the eight-by-ten glossies to a woman in one of the change booths, a sleepy-eyed croupier, an equally bored stickman. Head shakes and negatives. He entered the bar at the opposite end. The purple-shirted barman said, “Can’t help you, sir. Unless it’s a drink you want.”

A drink was just what he wanted. But not yet. He took the photos into the hotel lobby. A tour group had just come in; all the people behind the reception desk were busy. Cape crossed carpeting as thick as new sod to the shops. Jewelry, objets d’art, Asian antiques, men’s and women’s clothing. One of the boutiques was called Milady’s Pleasure. Nobody in there now except a saleswoman in a gold blouse and purple slacks.