Step to the Graveyard Easy by Bill Pronzini

there’s a lot more to it than a simple con game.”
    “Such as what?”
    “Your sister suggested kidnapping.”
    “My God! With her as the victim?”
    “Or her husband. High ransom demand, either way.”
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “I didn’t either, but now I’m not so sure.”
    “Why would they pick on Stacy and Andy, of all people? And Vince?”
    Cape said, “The local angle again. If Rollo’s nobody they know, then there has to be somebody else involved. Somebody close enough to one or both of them to have access to those photographs.”
    “Come on, salesman. No way.”
    “It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
    “Brrr. Now you’re giving me the creeps.”
    “You know of anyone who might want to harm your sister?”
    “You mean like an old boyfriend or somebody else with a grudge? No. Andy, though… he’s made his share of enemies.”
    “Anybody in particular?”
    “Not that I know about.”
    “Someone who has it in for both him and Mahannah, maybe.”
    “You’d have to ask Vince. Don’t bother with Andy—he wouldn’t tell you.”
    “Well, it’s not up to me,” Cape said. “Police are the ones who should be doing the asking.”
    “Andy won’t take your advice and call them. Vince, either.”
    “No?”
    “They don’t want anything to do with the law, not if they can help it. Neither of them is what you’d call above reproach in his business dealings, if you catch my drift.”
    “I catch it.”
    “Andy’s worked more angles than a geometry professor. That’s how he made his pile.”
    “None of my business.”
    “Stacy says the same thing. Little Miss Ostrich.” Lacy sat up, swung one long leg off to the floor. “I need a drink,” she said. “You want one?”
    “Not just now.”
    “Be right back.”
    In the soft lampglow Cape watched her get off the bed, walk languidly across the room. Naked, she had an unusually interesting body. High, up-thrust breasts, fleshy hips, those long slender legs, the largest and thickest patch of pubic hair he’d ever seen on a woman. She liked to show herself off, too. Sultry walk, pause in the doorway, half-profile and then a full frontal view, turn again to exhibit the fluid thrust of her ass as she went through into the living room. Anna had had few inhibitions; Lacy had none. Pure sex, dressed or undressed, vertical or horizontal.
    Pretty soon she came back, stood beside the bed looking down at him while she sipped her drink. “No more heavy stuff, okay? Not tonight.”
    “It’s your house and your bed.”
    She set her glass down, stretched again so her breasts lifted even higher, then lay down and fitted her body against his. Immediately her hand probed between them, clutching, fondling.
    “These things fascinate me,” she said, “the way they go up and down. As if they have a mind of their own.”
    “Penis envy.”
    “Hah. I don’t want to own one, just borrow one now and then.” Her touch was having the desired effect. “I was nine years old,” she said, “the first time I saw one hard.”
    “Whose was it?”
    “My loving daddy’s. He raped me with it.”
    “Jesus, Lacy.”
    “It happens. More often than you might think.”
    “You tell anyone?”
    “No. He cried afterward, said he was sorry and begged me not to tell anybody. Cry, apologize, beg—he did that every time. Nice as pie when he was sober, a slobbering pig when he was drunk. And he drank a lot, Pops did.”
    “How long did it go on?”
    “Until I was twelve.”
    “What ended it?”
    “He did. With his army forty-five. I guess he hated himself as much as I hated him. I still remember that day—happiest day of my life. If he hadn’t done it, I would have myself when I got older. I used to think about killing him all the time, when he was crying and apologizing and begging.”
    Cape said nothing.
    “I don’t know if he went after Stacy, too,” Lacy said. “Probably, but she won’t talk about it. Flat-out refuses.”
    Still silent.
    “Uh-oh,