Step to the Graveyard Easy

by Bill Pronzini

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Also by Bill Pronzini

  Imprint

  For Marcia

  And the Spirit say, Go down, Death easy

  I want you to go down, Death easy

  I want you to go down, Death easy

  And bring my servant home.

  Step to the graveyard easy

  I want you to step to the graveyard easy

  I want you to step to the graveyard easy

  And bring my servant home.

  —“GO DOWN, DEATH”

  1

  Cape was screwing the little redhead from Logan’s Café when Anna came home and caught him.

  He didn’t see or hear her walk into the bedroom. The redhead was on top, making pleasure noises, leaning forward with her breasts in his face. Neither of them knew Anna was there until she yelled, “You son of a bitch!” in a shrill tremolo.

  The redhead wrenched around and off him so violently she damn near ruptured him. Anna was standing stick straight in the doorway. White face, white fisted hands, white nurse’s outfit and cap. Like a ghost except for her eyes. They burned hot, smoky at the edges, like cigarette holes in a piece of paper before it bursts into flame.

  None of them said anything. Anna stared at him; the redhead, Lonnie, stared at Anna; and he didn’t look straight at either one. Lonnie was scrambling into her clothes, panting in a different cadence now. He heard her start to babble.

  “Oh God, Mrs. Cape, I’m sorry… he said you wouldn’t be home until late… I didn’t mean to… I don’t know why… oh God, I’m sorry…”

  “Get out of here,” Anna said. She didn’t take her eyes off Cape.

  “So sorry, really, I…”

  “Get out of my house.”

  Lonnie ran out, holding her blouse closed with one hand, her bra trailing from the other. The front door slammed.

  Anna said, “In our bed. Right here in our bed.”

  Cape swung painfully off the bed, stood up. He didn’t say anything.

  “You’re such a shit.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Put something on,” she said, disgust in her voice. “She shines all over you like grease.”

  He bent, wincing, to pick up his pants. He put them on, put on his shirt. The doorway was empty by then. When he went out into the living room, Anna was at the sideboard pouring Scotch. The bottle’s neck chattered against the rim of the tumbler. She’d pulled off her cap; her blond hair was frizzed up on top and sides like a fright wig. He moved past her to the front window, stood looking out.

  Behind him she said, “Well?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “No excuses? No apology?”

  A kid went by on a bicycle, pumping hard, his long hair streaming out behind him.

  “All right, then. Tell me this. Is she the first?”

  Another kid, this one fat, working the pedals even harder and sweating in the muggy June heat. The type who would always be lagging behind, trying to catch up to the front-runners and never quite making it. The type Cape himself had always been.

  “Answer me, Matthew.”

  No. Not really like that kid, not any longer. He’d quit pumping hard, trying to catch up; for some time now he’d just been standing still.

  “Damn you, say something!”

  “Would you believe me if I said Yes, she was the first?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she was.”

  “Liar.”

  “Have it your way then.”

  “Why other women? Wasn’t I enough for you?”

  Cape turned to face her. Hurt and anger made her eyes as round and shiny as grapes. “You’re woman enough for any man,” he said.

  “Then why? Why fuck somebody else in our bed?”

  “I did it, that’s all.”

  “You did it, but that’s not all. Not by a long shot.”

  “The only answer I can give you is that I’m not the same.”

  “What does that mean? The same what?”

  “Same man you married. I’ve changed. You haven’t.”

  “Right, sure. That explains it.”

  “We’ve grown apart,” Cape said. “Things haven’t been good for either of us for some time. You know they haven’t. We don’t even have sex much anymore.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to use that as an excuse.”

  “I’m not making excuses.”

  “I can’t help it if I’ve had so much night duty, long hours at the hospital.”

  “Not blaming you, Anna. Just stating a fact. The marriage isn’t working.”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” she admitted, “but we could’ve worked things out. Twelve years… we made it through rougher patches…”

  “In the beginning,” Cape said. “We’re different people now.”

  “You keep saying that. You’re the one who’s changed, that’s for sure. The past few months… moody, restless… all that so-called business travel to Chicago or wherever… and now you bring another woman into our bed. I hardly know you anymore.”

  “No, not anymore.”

  “What’s the matter with you? Some kind of midlife crisis, is that it? You’re thirty-five, that’s not even midlife.”

  “Three score and ten,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Forget it.”

  “Forget it,” Anna said bitterly. “Am I supposed to forget what I just saw in the bedroom?”

  “I don’t expect you to, no.”

  “I couldn’t if I wanted to. In our bed, damn you!” She swallowed Scotch, coughed, tried to drink again, and choked this time. She hurled the glass against the couch. “You bastard,” she said. She was on the edge of tears now.

  “I’m sorry, Anna. I know you don’t believe it—”

  “I wouldn’t believe you anymore if you said the sky was blue.”

  “—but it’s the truth. I’m sorry for everything.”

  “Liar. All you’re sorry for is that you got caught.”

  “All right.”

  “All right, all right, all right.” She drew a long, shuddery breath. “We’re finished, Matthew. Once and for all, as of right now.”

  “I know.”

  “What you did today… it’s the one thing I won’t put up with.”

  “I know,” he said again.

  “You know, you know. You don’t know shit, that’s what you don’t know.”

  “You’re better off without me,” he said.

  “Well, that’s for damn sure.”

  “I’ll leave right now.”

  “The quicker the better. Pack up and get out. Go chase after that redheaded bitch, finish what you started.”

  “I’m through with her.”

  “You think I care? Screw her brains out, for all I care.” Wetness dribbled along her cheek. Angrily she wiped it away. “One thing you better understand right now. I want this house. I’ll fight you for it if I have to. That’s the first thing I’m going to tell the lawyer.”

  “You won’t have to. Everything’s your
s except half of what’s in the savings and the Emerson stock.”

  “Isn’t that generous of you. I suppose if we had kids, you’d let me have them too. You know something, Matthew? I’m glad we’re childless. I’m glad I had that miscarriage nine years ago.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t. Hurt me if you want—don’t hurt yourself.”

  She put her back to him, standing rigidly the way she had in the bedroom doorway. “Go on, get out of here. I can’t stand to look at you. I hope to God I never see you again after today.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  Cape said softly, “You’ll never see me again.”

  “I should be so lucky.”

  He returned to the bedroom. His half of the closet was filled with suits, sports jackets, ties, casual clothes, a dozen pairs of shoes, a five-piece set of Gucci luggage; his dresser was jammed with shirts, underwear, socks, jewelry. Material possessions. Things. He dragged out one medium-size suitcase, filled it with essentials and one suit, two sports jackets. Took him less than fifteen minutes—just long enough to dismantle twelve years of his life.

  Anna was gone when he came out again. Just as well. There was nothing more to be said.

  Except one thing. And he said that aloud to the empty house, because she wouldn’t have wanted to hear it anyway.

  “Good-bye, Anna.”

  2

  Bernie Klosterman was the only one of Cape’s half-dozen friends who wasn’t married. He lived alone in a two-bedroom high-rise condo near downtown. Cape found him home, astonished him with the news.

  “Sure, sure,” Bernie said, “you can stay here tonight. Longer, if you want.”

  “Just tonight, thanks.”

  “Listen, Matt, why’d you do it? You never cheated on Anna before, did you?”

  “First time.”

  “Taking that waitress to your house… man, what possessed you? If you had to bang her, why not a motel somewhere?”

  “Maybe I wanted to get caught,” Cape said.

  Bernie stared at him. “Why would you want that?”

  “The push I needed. Last push out.”

  “Out of the marriage? I knew the two of you weren’t getting along, but—”

  “Not just the marriage. Everything. Now there’s no turning back.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I made the date with Lonnie yesterday,” Cape said. “This morning I quit my job.”

  “You… Jesus, Matt. You’ve been with Emerson Manufacturing, what, fourteen years? Next in line for a promotion, isn’t that what you told me?”

  “District sales manager, yes.”

  “And you quit? Just like that?”

  “Just like that. I had three weeks’ paid vacation coming. Gave that up in lieu of notice.”

  “Oh, man. They must’ve been pissed.”

  “I’m not indispensable. They won’t have any trouble finding a suitable replacement. Neither will Anna.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I told you. I’m out.”

  “I don’t get it,” Bernie said. “What does being out buy you?”

  “Freedom,” Cape said.

  “Freedom to do what?”

  “Get the hell out of Rockford, first of all.”

  “You mean for good?”

  “For good. Burn the last bridge.”

  “And go where?”

  “Anywhere I want. Places I’ve never been, things I’ve never seen or done. People I’d never meet if I stayed here.”

  “What, like a character in a Kerouac novel?”

  “Not exactly, but that’s the general idea. Why not?”

  Bernie’s expression was two-thirds incredulous, one-third disturbed. And seasoned with a touch of awe. “‘Why not,’ he says. This isn’t the nineteen-sixties. It’s a new century, and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not a kinder, gentler world out there.”

  “I’ve noticed, all right. Whole damn world’s gone crazy. The lunatics have finally taken over the asylum.”

  “Well? You can’t run away from it.”

  “I’m not trying to.”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Cape said.

  “Famous last words.”

  “You think I’ve gone crazy, too.”

  “What else can I think? Throwing away everything you’ve built so you can go chasing around the country looking for—what? Adventure, excitement?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Trouble, that’s what you’ll find. Or disappointment or both. You’re not a kid anymore, you’re thirty-five years old.”

  “Thirty-five and stagnating. Vegetating. Suffocating.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Not for you, not for most people. It is for me. Boring job, stale marriage, golf on Saturdays, poker once a month, ball game every now and then, win or lose a few bucks on the Bulls and Bears and Super Bowl, drink a few beers with the same old crowd in the same old places—that’s been my entire adult life, Bernie. It’s a tight little box, a trap with only one door that keeps inching down a little farther every day. And the unstable world situation only makes it that much tighter. I’ve got to get out now, right now, while there’s still time—before the door comes down all the way. Simple as that.”

  “Simple, hell,” Bernie said. “How’re you going to live?”

  “My half of our savings. Money from my Emerson stocks.”

  “You can’t have all that much put aside.”

  “Enough to start with.”

  “What happens when it runs out?”

  “Get a job, what else?”

  “Sure. Lots of jobs out there for former industrial salesmen, all of them hard labor for low wages.”

  Cape said, “I’m not going to worry about that now. Hell, I might get lucky with cards or a horse somewhere along the line.”

  “Gambling? Man, if you start trying to run up your bankroll…”

  “Easy does it. I’m not a big risk taker, you know that.”

  “I did until now. What do you call this scheme of yours, if not a big risk?”

  “A fresh start,” Cape said.

  “… You’re really going through with this.”

  “I really am.”

  “Nothing else I can say, then. It’s your funeral.”

  “Could be.” Cape smiled with a corner of his mouth. “But at least I’ll be alive for a while. Really alive for the first time.”

  “I just talked to Anna,” Mary Lynn said. “My sweet Lord, Matthew. How could you have done such a wicked thing?”

  Cape said nothing.

  “God will punish you. You’ll feel His wrath one day.”

  “The wages of sin,” he intoned.

  “That’s right.”

  “We’re all sinners, Mary Lynn. Even you.”

  “Yes, but my conscience is clear.”

  “Sure it is. Never even an impure thought, right?”

  “Fornication is a mortal sin,” she said. “If you don’t beg God’s forgiveness, you’ll burn in the fires of hell.”

  “No sermons,” Cape said. “I didn’t call to listen to you thump the Bible. Any more of that, and I’ll hang up on you.”

  “Why did you call? I can’t offer you any comfort, after what you did.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Don’t know? Don’t know why you called?”

  “Predictable conversation, so far.”

  A baby began squalling in the background. Preschool voices rose querulously. His sister had four children, another on the way, and a husband who was overworked, submissive, and had the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old—another kid for her to handle, this one sorely in need of a vasectomy. Mary Lynn was thirty-two; she looked forty-five.

  “You’re just like Pop,” she said.

  “That’s a lousy thin
g to say.”

  “It’s the truth. A fornicator just like him. His drinking and fornicating sent Mama to an early grave.”

  “Oh, bullshit.”

  “Matthew. You know I can’t abide that kind of language.”

  “Cancer killed her, not Pop.”

  “She might’ve survived if it hadn’t been for his evil ways.”

  “All right. Have it your way.”

  Martyr’s sigh. “Where are you?”

  “Bernie Klosterman’s. Just for tonight.”

  “Then where will you go?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “To confession and then home to Anna, that’s where you should go. Get down on your knees and beg her to take you back.”

  “Beg God’s forgiveness, beg Anna’s forgiveness.”

  “Yes.”

  “She wouldn’t take me back, no matter how much I groveled.”

  “She might.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Well, not in so many words…”

  “She’s all through with me. I’m not going back anyway.”

  “Matthew…”

  “I’m leaving town tomorrow,” Cape said. “Going away.”

  “Leaving Rockford? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Found it. Made it up.”

  “My Lord, you can’t just leave.”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “You have responsibilities here—Anna, your work, your family—”

  “I’ll take care of my responsibilities. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “How can you say that? Don’t I matter to you? Don’t Ralph and the children matter to you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see any of you except on holidays. We have almost nothing in common, and you and I don’t get along half the time.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “It’s true. You keep trying to shove religion down my throat, everybody’s throat.”

  “What a godless thing to say!”

  “Right. Anyone who doesn’t think the way you do is evil and godless.”

  “You sound just like Pop.”

  “Pop again.”

  “The devil’s in you, Matthew, the same as he’s in Pop. Consorting with harlots, blaspheming, doing Satan’s work. If you don’t cast him out, embrace the Almighty, you’re doomed to eternal damnation—”

  Cape said gently, “Good-bye, Mary Lynn,” and hung up on her.

  He called the old man’s number in Vero Beach, Florida. Sudden impulse. Bernie went out to buy some groceries, and Cape was sitting there in the silence, and the phone caught his eye. The next second he was on his feet, using it.