Step to the Graveyard Easy (9 page)

He spent the rest of the morning making the rounds of the other casinos. In Harrah’s he won a hundred and fifty playing blackjack. In Caesar’s, another ninety. One of the craps layouts was getting some play in the Harvey’s; the shooter, a sweating bald man in his sixties, was riding a hot streak and betting heavily. Cape watched him make another pass, moved in, and put fifty on the pass line. Eleven, another winner. He let his winnings ride. The next roll was an eight. Cape put another twenty on the Come line, and the shooter made his eight point the hard way, with a pair of fours, on the third roll. The bald man paused to wipe his streaming face; his eyes had a glazed look. Subtle change in the vibes. Cape switched half his stack of chips to Don’t Pass. Right choice: The next roll was boxcars. Craps for the shooter, another winner for Cape.

All right. No luck with Justine, but a nice little run of luck on the gambling end; he was close to five hundred ahead for his twenty-some hours in Stateline. Hang for a while, try to ride it up? Or put it on hold and move on when he was done with the Vanowens?

The red message light on his room phone was blinking. Voice-mail message from Vince Mahannah: Call him back any time, he expected to be home all day.

Cape tapped out the number. Mahannah said without preamble, “How would you like to sit in on my poker game tomorrow night?”

“I was thinking I might get back on the road this afternoon.”

“Someplace you need to be?”

“No.”

“Then stick around a couple of days. Play some poker, leave Sunday.”

“Tell me something. Why the invitation?”

“Would you buy it if I said it was the favor I mentioned last night?”

Cape said, “It wouldn’t be a favor if I lost money.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Truth is, we’re shorthanded. Just five of us this time, and I don’t like playing with less than six.”

“I can’t afford to get into a high-stakes game.”

“You won’t be,” Mahannah said. “Not all of mine are like that. No high rollers in this one, just friends of mine. How much can you afford to lose?”

Cape thought about it. “A few thousand, maybe. But not for an hour or two’s entertainment.”

“You don’t strike me as the wild-hair type. That kind of play is the only way you’d lose a few thousand in an hour or two. Table stakes, twenty-dollar ante, no limit on the bets, four-limit on the raises. Straight poker, nothing fancy.”

“I don’t know,” Cape said. “I had a good run in the casinos this morning, and I’m not sure I want to push my luck.”

“Sometimes pushing it means riding it.”

“Sometimes.”

“Think it over. Give me another call if you’re interested.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the invitation.”

“Don’t thank me unless you play and win.”

Lakepoint Country Club.

Big, precision-landscaped place on the lakeshore. Most of the eighteen-hole golf course spread over a jut of land flanked by thick stands of trees—chlorophyll-bright greens, manmade lagoon, rolling fairways, not too many hazards. Clubhouse and restaurant and outbuildings made of pine and some darker wood, embellished
with native stone and plenty of glass. Playpen for the rich. The greens fees would be high, membership fee upwards of five thousand a year: Keep out the riffraff.

Cape had played a couple of courses like this one in the Chicago area. Golf had been part of his salesman’s persona, a comfortable, outdoors way to schmooze Emerson’s clients and prospective clients. He’d never been very good at the game. Nor developed the passion for it some people did. It had been a means to an end, a take-it-or-leave-it pastime that he didn’t miss at all. The new Cape, standing here looking out over all that green opulence, was as alien to golf as the old Cape would have been to the bunch of skydivers in Phoenix.

He parked in a large lot, went up onto the path that separated the lot from the woodsy grounds and led around to the clubhouse. When he passed a screen of oleanders, a section of lawn opened up and let him see another path bordering one of the fairways. A gardener’s cart stood there, two people talking beside it. The dark, pudgy man in uniform was probably one of the grounds crew; the tall woman in white blouse and shorts was Lacy Hammond.

She was facing Cape’s way, recognized him. She broke off her conversation with the gardener and cut across the lawn in long, loose strides to intercept Cape before he reached the clubhouse.

“Hello, salesman,” she said. Sober this morning, and apparently none the worse for yesterday’s drinking. “You do get around.”

“I might say the same for you.”

“I live in this area. You don’t.”

“Play golf, do you?”

“When the mood strikes. I’m pretty good, too. Been whacking balls since I was twelve.”

“I’ll bet you have.”

She let him hear her bawdy laugh. “You don’t look much like a ball-whacker yourself.”

“I used to be. Not anymore.”

“So what’re you doing here? No, wait, let me guess. Baby sister?”

“And her husband. I’ve been invited to lunch.”

“My, my. You really must be some salesman.”

“I told you yesterday,” Cape said, “I’m not selling anything.”

“Then how come the free lunch?”

“It won’t be free. I’ll pay for my own.”

“Andy won’t like that. He enjoys throwing his money around. Sometimes he even throws some my way.”

“And you don’t duck when he does.”

“I don’t drop it, either. Lacy plays catch with both hands.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Money and men both,” she said. Her voice was bantering, but her gaze was analytical. “Two hands, squeeze hard, hang on tight.”

“And use ’em up fast, money and men both.”

“Why not? The using up works both ways.”

“Pretty cynical attitude.”

“You could benefit from it. If you played your cards right.”

Cape said, “I won’t be in Tahoe long enough,” and started away.

She called after him, “You give up easy, salesman.”

“That’s the way I do everything these days,” he said without turning. “Easy.”

Andrew Vanowen said, “You’re not what I expected, Cape.”

“No? What did you expect?”

“Older man, glib, not so low-key.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“He didn’t mean it that way,” Stacy Vanowen said.

“Stacy.” Sharp, but without looking at her. As if he were telling a pet to be quiet.

She smiled faintly, looked out through the tall window on her right. A slant of sunshine lay across that side of her face, along her bare shoulder and arm. On the lake, on the glass, the sunlight glittered hotly. On her it seemed cooler, a paler shade, like light rays on sculptured white marble. Reach over and touch her, and she’d have a marble feel—cool, smooth, surface-soft. The type of woman who would never sweat, even when she was making love. Direct opposite of her sister.

Of her husband, too. He was like something made out of bone and tightly strung wire, covered with tanned rawhide and powered by a generator tuned so high you could hear it hum and crackle. He attacked his crab cocktail as if it were an enemy. The crab cocktails had been waiting along with the Vanowens when Cape was shown to their table in the packed, beam-ceilinged restaurant.
One for him as well. Ordered in advance. He hadn’t touched it. And wouldn’t.

Through a red mouthful, Vanowen asked, “What is it you do, exactly?”

“Do?” Cape said.

“Your livelihood. What’s your business?”

“You might say I’m retired.”

“From what?”

“The rat race.”

“That’s an evasion.”

“Not really. I used to work for a manufacturing firm in Illinois, and I got fed up with the grind.”

“And now you collect photographs of people you don’t know and travel around selling them, is that it?”

“No, that’s not it. Everybody seems to think I’m a salesman. That’s what I used to be. It’s not what I am today.”

“Everybody’s a salesman.”

“Not me. Not anymore.”

“Perhaps Mr. Cape is simply a good Samaritan,” Stacy Vanowen said. “They do exist, you know.”

“Not in my experience.” Vanowen finished his cocktail, shoved his plate aside, scrubbed at his mouth with his napkin, looked at his watch, rotated an expensive ring on his left hand—platinum, with a circle of fat diamonds—gestured to the waiter, and said as if there’d been no pause, “Everybody has motives. Everybody’s got an agenda.”

“Not me,” Cape said again.

Stacy Vanowen said, “I’d like to see the photos, Mr. Cape.”

He handed her the glossies. Before she could separate them, her husband snatched them out of her hand. He glanced at the two of her, scowled at the one of himself. “This is the studio portrait I had taken for the
BusinessWeek
article last year. What the devil?”

“Let me look at them, Andy.”

He allowed her to reclaim the photos. “How could somebody get hold of that one? Magazine didn’t use it after all, some kind of space problem, and they sent it back. I don’t remember what I did with it.” He asked her, “Do you?”

“You said you were going to burn it.”

“I thought I did.” Vanowen rotated the fancy ring again, his
eyes still on Cape. “I take lousy photographs. Thought this one was all right at first, but I’m glad
BusinessWeek
didn’t use it. Makes me look stiff, like I’ve got a broom handle stuck up my ass.”

Cape said, “Maybe this copy came from the photographer.”

“I doubt it. He’s a friend of mine, he wouldn’t sell or give away any copies without my permission.”

“Did you give out any to friends or business associates?”

“No. My secretary might have, but she usually mentions that sort of request. I’ll ask her about it.”

“I don’t like this,” Stacy Vanowen said. “These pictures of me…”

Cape asked her, “Can you tell when they were taken?”

“It had to’ve been recently, within the past month or so. I’ve only owned this beige outfit a few weeks.” She hugged her arms. “They make me feel cold. As if I’ve been… violated.”

“Damn right it’s a violation,” Vanowen said. “These people you told Vince Mahannah about, Cape, the ones in San Francisco—”

“Boone and Tanya Judson.”

“Grifters, cardsharps.” He made an angry gesture, shifted in his chair, leaned back, leaned forward. “Why did they have these photos? What’s their game?”

“I don’t have any answers for you, Mr. Vanowen.”

“The poker scam idea doesn’t make sense. My wife isn’t a player, she never gambles at all. She—”

He broke off as more food arrived. Three orders: one seafood salad, two plates of some kind of fileted whitefish. Cape glanced at his fish and then ignored it.

Stacy Vanowen said, “What if it’s some kind of kidnapping scheme?”

Her husband jumped as if she’d goosed him. “Kidnapping?”

“It’s possible, Andrew. We’re well off, aren’t we?”

“They wouldn’t need seed money for something like that,” Cape said.

“That might’ve been just a lie to mislead you.”

“There’s also the photo of Vince Mahannah. Why include him if you and your husband are kidnapping targets?”

“God, I don’t know. Who knows how people like that think?”

“It’s a big jump from convention-circuit con games to a capital offense. I don’t see those two making it.”

Vanowen said, “You’re no expert, Cape.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

“All right, then. We don’t know what they’re up to, that’s the bottom line.” Vanowen poked at his filet, banged the fork down without eating, pinched the ridge of muscle along his lower lip instead. “Mahannah passed on their description, but I want to hear it from you. In detail.”

Cape obliged.

“Total strangers,” Vanowen said. “Stacy?”

“Yes. To me, too.”

“Well, if either of them shows up around here, they’ll damn well be sorry—”

His shirt pocket buzzed. Cell phone. He had it out and switched on and jammed against his ear in three fast movements. He said, “Vanowen,” listened, said, “How much?” and listened again. Then he said, “Twenty minutes,” and made the cell disappear as swiftly as he’d produced it.

His wife said, “You’re leaving, I suppose.”

“Have to. Business. You go ahead and finish your lunch.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat it anyway.” Vanowen snaked a hand inside the pocket of his sand-colored slacks, brought it out clutching a checkbook. Inside was a loose check, already made out. He dropped it on the table, used one finger to slide it over toward Cape.

Cape ignored it, just as he’d ignored the crab cocktail and the fileted whitefish.

“Go ahead,” Vanowen said, “take it.”

“No, thanks.”

“It’s for two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I wouldn’t care if it was twenty-five hundred or twenty-five thousand. I don’t want your money.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I didn’t earn it. Because I don’t take money for offering a helping hand. Because I spent most of my life letting myself be bought in one way or another. Because I’m tired of everybody I’ve met the past two days misjudging me and my motives. Take your pick.”

Vanowen stared at him as if he were a new and baffling species. Abruptly he got to his feet. He said to Cape, “Suit yourself,” said to
his wife, “I don’t know what time I’ll be home,” and power-walked his way out of the restaurant.