The Cypress House (34 page)

    "Listen,"
he said after the pause had gone on awhile, "I thought you were waiting
here until he got released. I thought the only reason you were staying at this
place was to keep Wade happy until your brother got released."

    "That's
exactly why I stayed."

    "Well,
Rebecca, he's been released. And he says he's going to stay."

    "He
won't. He'll leave."

    "Going
to take some convincing to get him to do that. I talked to the boy last night.
He thinks he's the next Al Capone."

    "That's
just talk."

    "Hell,
yes, it's just talk. What isn't talk, though, is the idea that it's what he
wants
to be. He thinks Wade is aces. So if you want him to be hitting the
road with you, you're going to need to tell him the truth of it. Your father
didn't drown; he had his throat cut. That kid needs to know."

    She
nodded. "I'm going to tell him. I don't want to do it here, though."

    "What
do you mean you don't want to do it here?"

    "Owen
is . . . rash," she said carefully. "Foolish at times. He's so
young."

    "I
don't follow."

    "I
can't tell him the truth when he is around Solomon Wade and Tate McGrath,"
she said. "Don't you understand that? He won't want to leave; he'll want
to settle scores. He doesn't know enough to see that you can't settle scores
with men like that. I'll tell him once we're gone from this place. First,
though, I need to get him away from here."

    "You're
trying to protect him from Wade," Arlen said, "and from himself. You
might be able to do one. I can guarantee you'll never be able to do the other.
The kid's going to chart his own course. Seems like he's already well under
way."

    "I
just need to get him away from here."

    "Well,
why aren't we going, then? Every day we linger is another day he falls in
deeper with Wade."

    "I
can't . . . I'm waiting on something."

    "Waiting
on something?"

    She
looked away.

    "This
is how it goes," he said bitterly. "I'm trusted only so far. You
still keep your secrets, though. The ones that matter most."

    "Arlen,
it's not an issue of trust. It's not. And I'll talk to Owen. You'll see — as
soon as he comes back, I'll talk to him."

    He
didn't come back that day, though. When the knock on the door came just after
sunset, they both assumed it would be Owen. It wasn't.

    It
was Paul Brickhill.

    He
looked tired and thin, with a face streaked by road dust and sweat. His shoes
were caked with mud and split on one side from miles of walking. Rebecca held
the door open and stared at him and didn't move. Arlen was sitting at the bar
and he could see over her shoulder to the boy, who looked back at him without a
word or a change of expression.

    "Maybe
I could step inside?" he said at last, addressing Rebecca.

    "Yes,
come on, get in here."

    She
moved aside and let him pass, and he dropped his bags to the floor and walked
over to the bar and looked at Arlen. Neither of them spoke. Arlen's first
thought, the one that had cut right through him at the sight of the kid, was
relief. He was glad to see him again. Then he remembered the smoke he'd seen in
Paul's eyes, remembered the purpose for the whole damn terrible thing, and
thought,
No. You weren't supposed to come back
.

    Paul
gave him that steady gaze and then went around the bar and pulled a bottle of
gin off the shelf. He poured a glass of it, took a sip, and then came back and
sat on a bar stool a few down from Arlen. He looked up at the clock.

    "Still
working," he said. There was no note of pride in his voice. Not like there
had been with the generator.

    "Yes,"
Rebecca said. "Thank you so much for that. Paul, let me get you something
to eat. You look like you need it."

    "I
could stand to eat."

    "I'll
fix something right away." She'd walked over to him and laid her hand on
his shoulder, and he turned his head and stared down at it and then lifted his
eyes to hers, cold eyes, and she removed her hand.

    "Right
away," she murmured again, and then she left.

    It
was quiet, nothing but the sound of the kitchen door swinging slower and slower
until it came to a stop, and then all that could be heard was the ticking of
the clock.

    Arlen
said, "You all right?"

    "You
care?" Paul lifted the glass and drank a little more of the gin.

    "Of
course I do," Arlen said. "And you know that."

    Paul
shook his head wearily. "Sure, Arlen. Sure."

    "Look,
son, the way it happened —"

    "I
don't want to hear it. Not ever again. Just don't speak of it."

    Arlen
went silent. They could hear Rebecca moving around in the kitchen, laying a pan
on the stove and sparking the burner.

    "Where
you been?" Arlen said. "Where'd you go ?"

    "I
went to Hillsborough County. The CCC camp down there. Ones that are working on
the park, where you wanted us to go after we got off the train?"

    Arlen
nodded. "I remember it."

    "Yeah?
Well, if I wanted to have a chance with the CCC again, I should've gone down
earlier." He turned the gin glass in his hands, his face dark and sullen.

    "They
wouldn't let you re-up ?"

    "No.
Want to know why? Because they'd heard about the trouble I got into up here.
That's what I was told. Evidently Solomon Wade called down there. Him or the
sheriff."

    "When
did he call? Day we were jailed?"

    "I'm
not sure. But somebody from up here called and spoke to them and warned them we
might show up looking for work. Told them we weren't wanted in Florida, so they
should send us packing if we did show."

    Arlen
felt the squeeze of anger in the back of his neck. That was the best job the
boy could have found, and Wade had shut it down.

    "I
thought about trying to get back to Flagg," Paul said, "but my
company left in the summer anyhow. Besides, Wade called up there, too, checking
on our story. I doubt they'd be any happier to see me."

    Arlen
didn't say anything. He would have liked to argue, say that the supervisors
back at Flagg knew Paul too well to believe that sort of shit, but he knew it
probably wasn't true. The only supervisor who'd really gotten to know him well
was Arlen.

    "I
stayed around Hillsborough for a few days. Hitched a ride into St. Petersburg.
There's this fancy hotel there called the Vinoy, right on the bay. Heard they
were hiring porters, but I couldn't catch on. So I headed back." Paul
finished the gin and added, "I don't want to be here. Hope you understand that.
I don't want to be here, but I got nowhere else to go."

    Right
then the front door banged open and Owen Cady stood before them. He was wearing
a suit and polished shoes.

    "How
y'all doing?" Owen said. "We got ourselves a guest, eh? I hope he's
paying for that liquor."

    "He's
not paying for it." Rebecca had stepped back out from the kitchen at the
sound of her brother returning. "He's
my
guest. Where have you
been?"

    "Seeing
the free world again. Don't you think I deserve that?" He crossed the room
and put his hand out to Paul. "I'm Owen Cady. I own the place."

    "Paul
Brickhill." Paul shook his hand and passed a curious glance at Rebecca.
"This your brother?"

    She
nodded.

    "You've
heard of me?" Owen said, retrieving a cigar from his jacket pocket and
clipping the end.

    "I
worked here for a time," Paul said. "Came down with Arlen."

    "Yeah?
Why'd you leave?"

    Paul
looked at Arlen and then Rebecca and said, "I was hoping to catch some
work down near Tampa. It didn't go well."

    "Ain't
that the way anymore?" Owen lit the cigar and took a puff. "Well,
welcome back to the Cypress House, Paul Brickhill. Stay as long as you'd like.
We're not busy, as you've probably noticed."

    "He's
not staying," Arlen said.

    Everyone
gave him a hard look at that.

    "Actually,"
Paul said, "I think I will be until I get things straightened out."

    Arlen
shook his head. "It isn't safe for you here. It —"

    "I
told you that I don't want to hear any more about that. It's a pack of damned
lies, and I won't listen to it ever again. I'm not intending on staying here
long, trust me. But I need a bed for a few days while I figure it out. You'd
refuse me that?"

    He
stared at Arlen with challenging eyes.

    Owen
said, "What in the hell are you all talking about?"

    Nobody
answered.

    "Listen
here," Owen said, tapping some ash free from his cigar, "I'll not
have anyone else laying out the rules for who stays here and how long.
Rebecca's not the owner. I am. When our daddy died, he left it to me. And I'm
damn sure" — he pointed at Arlen with the cigar — "that he didn't
leave it to you."

    He
waited for somebody to object. When no one did, he smiled, satisfied, and said,
"So, Paul Brickhill, you stay as long as you'd like."

    "Thank
you."

    Arlen
said, "You keep the hell away from Solomon Wade while you're here.
Understand me? You keep the hell away from him."

    "Oh
shit, my sister's got you singing her song, does she?" Owen said, giving a
theatrical groan as he walked around the bar in pursuit of booze.

    Arlen
ignored him, looking hard at Paul. The boy turned away from the stare.

    That
night Paul sat up with Owen Cady and listened to the latest round of gangster
stories. Rebecca had gone upstairs in a cold silence, and Arlen went outside
and circled back to the front porch, where he was beside an open window and
could hear what they were saying. He slid down until he was sitting on the
porch floor with his back against the wall, then put a cigarette in his mouth
and listened.

    Owen
Cady was singing the praises of Solomon Wade.

    "Man
doesn't look like much, and doesn't sound like it either. Just a judge in a
backwater town nobody's ever heard of, right? Well, I'll tell you this: you go
around the country, you'll find men who know the name. New Orleans, Miami, New York.
They've heard of him, and they respect him."

    Arlen
waited on one of two things: Paul's rebuttal, or his silence. What he heard was
Paul's encouragement for Owen Cady to keep running his mouth.

    "You
been working with him for long?" Paul asked.

    "Few
years, ever since I was old enough to be worth a damn to him. See, he and my
father used to run liquor through here, back in Prohibition days. Bring boats
into the inlet or keep them off the coast and go out and meet with them."

    "Rebecca
was around for this?"

    "No,
she was in Georgia. She never understood my father anyhow. He was a good man,
but he was also a smart one. Knew what had to be done to make it in this world.
Rebecca's never gotten that. Be better for me if she left again."

    "You
want to stay here?"

    "Hell,
no, but I need to for the time being. Solomon Wade, he's holding my ticket for
wherever it is I want to go, understand? I can make more money in a month of
working with him than I could in two years doing anything else. I'll build my
nest egg and then head out of this place."

    "Where
would you go?"

    "New
York, maybe. Chicago? Hell, I don't know. Someplace where there's always things
going on. It's a big world, brother, and I intend to see it."