Step To The Graveyard Easy Part 15

Quiet Sat.u.r.day morning in South Lake Tahoe. Cape drove all around the Pioneer Trail/Black Bart Road area, covering an eight-block radius. No blue Mitsubis.h.i.+. No Tanya, no Boone.

Waste of time. He wasn't even sure why he'd bothered to go over there again. Another encounter with Tanya and her little automatic? Answers to questions that really had nothing much to do with him?

Give it up, Cape. Get on with the rest of your life.

Day trip around the lake. Fallen Leaf Lake, Emerald Bay, Sugar Pine Point, Pine Beach, Homewood, tourist-clogged Tahoe City, Carnelian Bay. Back across the Nevada line and a late lunch in Incline Village. Nevada State Park, a place called Whittell's Castle that sounded interesting but wasn't, Skunk Harbor, Glenwood Bay. Pretty country, but not much different from what he'd already seen coming through the Sierras and driving along the south sh.o.r.e. Restlessness in him now. And the craving for new sights, new experiences, stronger than ever.

He almost regretted accepting Vince Mahannah's invitation to poker tonight. Almost, but not quite.

Mahannah's home in Glenwood north of Cave Rock, like the property of everybody with money in the Tahoe Basin, was big, rustic-styled, lakefront, and private. Cut pine logs, redwood shakes, railed redwood deck, covered walkway leading to a T-shaped concrete pier. Inside, just what you'd expect: redwood paneling, native-stone fireplace, mounted dead-animal heads, Native American rugs and wall hangings, a gla.s.s-front gun rack loaded with expensive-looking rifles and shotguns. Forty-foot-square game room overlooking the deck and lake: another stone fireplace, dark brown leather couches and chairs, a wet bar, and in the middle under a green-shaded droplight, an antique poker table, hexagonal, with faded green felt and wells to hold each player's chips.

When Mahannah ushered Cape in there, the man sitting on one of the couches came to his feet as if he were spring-loaded. Andrew Vanowen. Cream-colored cashmere sweater, pearl gray slacks, Gucci loafers-the image of casual elegance. Mahannah's clothes were equally expensive: tailored chinos, a hand-knit s.h.i.+rt. Cape's off-the-rack slacks and pullover seemed tawdry by comparison. Once he would have been a little intimidated in the presence of men like these, surroundings like these. No more.

He acknowledged Vanowen, received a curt nod in return. The drink in Vanowen's hand might have been laced with lemon juice, as tightly puckered as his mouth looked.

Mahannah said to Cape, "Help yourself at the bar."

"No, thanks. I don't drink before I play cards. Or during."

"Is that right? Neither do I."

"I can hold my liquor," Vanowen said argumentatively.

"Sure you can, Andy," Mahannah agreed. "Nothing against you."

Vanowen's narrowed eyes were fixed on Cape. From the flush on his cheeks, he was holding plenty of liquor already. "Enough small talk," he said. "Tell us about the woman, Cape. This Tanya."

"I put the gist of it in my message last night."

"I want to hear you tell it. In detail."

Mahannah said, "Go ahead, humor us."

Cape related the incident, all of it from start to finish. The name Rollo meant nothing to either of them, or so they claimed. "Sounds like a phony name to me," Vanowen said. He was still argumentative; Cape's answers to his questions, more or less the same ones Lacy had asked, didn't seem to satisfy him. He kept digging, kept repeating the same d.a.m.n questions.

"Now, look," Cape said when he'd had enough. "How many times do I have to say it? I don't have any more idea of what's going on than either of you."

"Don't you?" Vanowen said.

"I just said I didn't."

"Bulls.h.i.+t, Cape. You think we're stupid?"

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning enough game playing." He waved his gla.s.s, yanked at his lower lip, s.h.i.+fted his feet, flapped his arms; it was like watching a marionette being manipulated by invisible strings. "Why don't you just go ahead and make your pitch, get it over with."

"What pitch?"

Mahannah said in neutral tones, "Andy thinks you're not the good Samaritan you pretend to be. He thinks you have an agenda."

"I think you're looking to shake us down," Vanowen said, "that's what I think."

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"Look at it from our point of view," Mahannah said reasonably. "You show up in Tahoe with a batch of photographs that no stranger should have in his possession. You tell us an unlikely story about a pair of grifters that can't be corroborated, people we've never seen or heard from even though you say they're now in our backyard. Then you tell us another story that also can't be corroborated about the woman showing up in your hotel room and taking a potshot at you. Wouldn't you be suspicious if you were us?"

Cape said, thin and tight, "Come over to the Grand with me, and I'll show you the bullet hole in the carpet."

Pig snort from Vanowen. "That doesn't mean a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing. You could've put it there yourself."

"For what reason? How is that supposed to help me shake you down?"

"You tell us."

"I'm not going to tell you anything else because there isn't anything else. I don't give a d.a.m.n what you think or what the Judsons' game is or if one of them walks up someday and shoves you in front of a bus. I've had it. I'm out of here."

He spun on his heel and went.

Mahannah caught up with him as he was pulling the front door open, gripped his arm. Cape fought loose and started out.

"Hold on, will you?"

"Why should I? I'm all through talking to you people."

"Even if I say I don't share Andy's opinions?"

"I don't care if you do or not."

Cape headed across the gravel turnaround to where he'd parked the Corvette. Mahannah hurried after him, swung around between him and the car.

"Cool down, man," he said in his caviar voice. "I mean it-I don't agree with Andy. I think you've been straight with us, down the line."

"Then why side with him in there?"

"I didn't side with him. Just played devil's advocate. You have to admit, it all sounds far-fetched, and there's nothing to back up any of it."

The edge had smoothed off Cape's anger. "Maybe."

"He was the one who was aggressive about it, not me."

"Aggressive, arrogant, offensive. He's a p.r.i.c.k."

"I won't give you an argument on that a.s.sessment. But I can make him listen to reason, if you'll give me the chance. Let's go back inside, and we'll start over again."

"Give me one good reason why I should."

"I'll give you four," Mahannah said. "The main one is that you'd like to find out what's going on almost as much as we would. If we put our heads together, we might be able to come up with an explanation that makes sense."

"I doubt it."

"Worth a try, just the same."

"Maybe," Cape said again. "The other three reasons?"

"You're already here, you like to gamble, and you don't have anything better to do tonight or you wouldn't have come in the first place."

Cape thought about it. "All right. But if Vanowen gets in my face again, I'm gone for good."

The other players began to arrive at a quarter past eight, were all there by eight-forty. J. T. Sturgess, real-estate developer from South Lake Tahoe. Jack Wineberg, a.s.sistant manager of a North Sh.o.r.e casino. Sherman Bellah, owner of one of the local ski resorts. Wayman Jones, freelance writer from Tahoe Keys. All personable types with an obvious pa.s.sion for poker. Moderate drinkers, nonsmokers-Mahannah evidently had a thing about tobacco, wouldn't allow it in the house-and easy to get along with. The only sour apple in the mix was Vanowen.

But Mahannah had talked to him, and whatever he'd said had had an effect. Vanowen kept his suspicions to himself after that. Nothing came out of their brainstorming except that Vanowen and Mahannah were both adamant about not bringing in the law unless circ.u.mstances made it unavoidable.

Cape had relaxed again by the time the six of them grouped around the poker table. It was a warmish night, and Mahannah had the doors to the deck open; Cape's chair faced that way, so that he could see the hard yellow s.h.i.+ne of the moon reflected off the lake. Mahannah sat on his right, Bellah on his left, Vanowen across from him.

His kind of game, his kind of players. Very little chatter, no nonsense of any sort. Just good old-fas.h.i.+oned, hard-nosed poker, and the kind of gamesmans.h.i.+p that is mostly friendly but with an edge. That was something else they all shared, a pa.s.sion for winning. Not a loser in the bunch. Even Vanowen played his cards close, with complete concentration.

Two large pots in the first half-dozen hands. Cape stayed in both, lost both. Sturgess and Mahannah pushed him, testing his mettle, trying to read his game. He didn't show them any more than they showed him. Wineberg tried to bluff him on another hand; Cape won it with a pair of sixes to Wineberg's treys. They treated him as an equal after that.

Fast game, intense but not cutthroat, high-stakes betting but not the variety that would have driven Cape out unless he hit an early streak. He didn't hit a streak; he lost sixteen hundred in the first hour. He didn't change his game, continuing to bet aggressively when a hand warranted it, and finally he began to draw better cards. He won two hands of five-stud in a row, lost one, then claimed a twenty-eight-hundred-dollar pot with an ace-high spade flush over Wineberg's trip kings and Vanowen's small straight. That earned him a laser glare across the table. Vanowen hated to lose, and so far it wasn't his night.

Three hours in, Mahannah and Jones were the big winners, and Cape had edged up to twenty-one hundred ahead. Vanowen had won just one small pot, was down close to five thousand and letting it get to him. Every time he lost or folded now, he turned his glare on Cape as if holding him personally responsible. He took to getting up every few minutes and refilling his gla.s.s at the wet bar. The others noted it, but n.o.body said anything except Mahannah.

"Night's young, Andy. Why not go easy on that stuff?"

"I don't need any lectures on drinking."

"I wasn't delivering one. Just making a comment."

"Well, keep your comments to yourself."

Vanowen finally won another pot, a good-size one, but it didn't seem to improve his mood. He was still glowering, still drinking. The deal pa.s.sed to him, and he slapped out a hand of seven-stud. Cape's hole cards were a king and a jack, his first up card another jack. Promising. He bet the pair, caught a third jack on the next round, bet accordingly. Vanowen, with a pair of tens, raised him a hundred; Cape upped that another hundred, got a call and another glare in return.

Vanowen picked up the deck to deal the next round. And all at once, he froze and the glower metamorphosed into a stare of astonishment. He said explosively, "Jesus Christ!"

A couple of the others made startled noises, their eyes raised to something behind Cape. He swiveled his head, then froze himself.

Somebody had come into the room, breeze-silent, and was now moving quickly toward the table. Five or six inches under six feet, compact, dressed all in black, head covered by a black ski mask, one hand waggling a large-caliber automatic.

"Everybody sit still, you don't want to die." Raspy, nervous male voice m.u.f.fled by the mask. "Hands on the table. Do it!"

They did it. The sudden tension in the room was electric. Cape could feel it on the back of his neck, p.r.i.c.kling, stiffening the short hairs.

The gunman took something white and folded from his pocket, moved close enough to toss it on the table. Pillowcase or flour sack. "You," he said to Sturgess, who was the bank. "Fill it with the cash. Hurry up."

Vanowen opened his mouth. "You won't get away with this."

"Shut up."

"You think we don't know who you are? Even with that mask?"

Cape glanced over at him. Veins bulged in his neck, throbbed in his temples. His liquor-s.h.i.+ny eyes showed anger, contempt, but no fear.

"I told you shut up, a.s.shole." The automatic made fidgety, weaving motions; to Cape it was like watching a coiled, one-eyed snake. "Rest of you put your wallets, watches, jewelry on the table. Everything valuable. Use one hand, keep the other where I can see it."

Silently, they complied. Vanowen was the only one who took his time, and when he had his wallet out, he slapped it down hard on the felt. The platinum ring on his left hand, with its circle of fat diamonds, made gleams and glints in the spill from the low-hanging droplight. Instead of stripping it off, he covered it with his other hand.

"Everything in the sack," the gunman said to Sturgess. And when it was full, "Pa.s.s it over to this guy here," indicating Cape.

Cape took the sack.

"Hold it out with your right hand."

He did that, and the gunman came forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him. Backed off again.

"You," he said, and now he was looking at Vanowen. "That ring you're covering up. Take it off, toss it over here."

Vanowen sat motionless, glaring.

"Take it off. Now!"

"Go to h.e.l.l, Judson. That's what you call yourself, isn't it?"

Mahannah said warningly, "Andy, for G.o.d's sake."

"Boone Judson. You-"

The masked man shot him. In the face, so that Vanowen's head seemed to burst in streaks and spatters of bright red.

The automatic s.h.i.+fted and he fired again, this time straight at Cape.

18.

Cape was already moving in a sideways dive out of the chair. The bullet missed close, burning through the left side of his s.h.i.+rt. He jarred into the floor, his legs tangled up with the chair. He heard the gun go off again, and in the same instant the poker table came cras.h.i.+ng down on top of him. That round missed, too; the metal jacket thwacked into something solid near his head.

All around him was chaos. Moans, yells, running steps, scrambling on the hardwood floor, the air choked with the stink of burned powder. An edge of the table dug into his back; somebody's flailing elbow cracked the side of his jaw as he heaved up. The weight s.h.i.+fted off him. He kicked loose of the chair, corkscrewed his body around. One hand slicked through something wet and sticky as he dragged his knees under him and shoved, lurching, to his feet.

For a second or two his vision was c.o.c.keyed. When it cleared, he saw that the shooter was no longer in the game room. The running steps... he could still hear them in another part of the house. Heading for the front entrance? He ran that way, not looking back even when somebody yelled his name, the commotion made by the others diminis.h.i.+ng behind him.

The front door stood wide open. He plunged outside. Powdery moonlight brightened the gravel turnaround, gleamed off the dark shapes of cars; n.o.body moved anywhere among them. The access drive and the road beyond were empty black stripes. Then his ears picked up rustlings, the snap and crackle of twigs being crushed: the gunman was somewhere in the woods that stretched along the lakesh.o.r.e. Cape ran parallel to the house and the railed deck, across the far edge of the turnaround. Over there was a path angling away into the evergreens. Enough moons.h.i.+ne filtered down through the overhead branches to soften shadows, give him a sense of where he was going.

Sudden noise: engine starting up somewhere ahead.