The Cypress House (35 page)

    "I'd
like to myself," Paul said. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

    "Where
you from?"

    "Jersey.
Be damned if I'll go back there, though. But I can't get back into the CCC, and
I've got no money. It's why I came back."

    "How'd
you boys end up here anyhow?"

    "Arlen's
out of his mind, that's how," Paul said. "I'm not fooling either.
He's crazy. We were on a train headed down to the Keys, and he pulled us off
because he thought he saw dead men aboard."

    "You're
lying."

    "Not
a bit. He pulled us off that train, and we got into a car with a guy named
Walter Sorenson."

    "I
know Walt."

    On
they went, Paul narrating the events that had led him to the Cypress House,
cursing Arlen at every turn, and Owen Cady offering grunts of disbelief. Arlen
still hadn't lit his cigarette. It dangled from his lip, going soft as he
listened.

    "I
want to get out of here," Paul said. "Go someplace brand- new, start
over. But I don't have a dime to my name."

    Tell
him why not,
Arlen thought.
Tell him what contribution the great Solomon
Wade has made to your fortune.

    But
Paul said, "Any chance you could find me some work? Maybe I could help
out, make a few dollars."

    Arlen
almost came up off the porch and went through the door. He wanted to grab the
kid by the neck and slam him around, slap him in the mouth and ask him what in
the hell had gotten into him, how stupid could a person be? He held his place
on the porch floor, though. He knew what had gotten into the kid — Arlen and
Rebecca. He was different now than he had been before, sullen and bitter,
hardened. It was no mystery what had made him that way.

    
I
thought it was the right decision. I thought it was the only way
.

    Inside,
Owen said, "You said you run across Wade in the jail?"

    "That's
right, but I haven't done a thing to cause him trouble since."

    
He's
caused you trouble, though, Arlen thought. He put smoke in your eyes, Paul.
That man will be your death
.

    He
jerked the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it in his palm and flung it
into the yard.

    "Let
me talk to him," Owen said. "I'll put in the good word. I bet he goes
along with it. I'm going to need a hand with this thing we've got coming
in."

    "What
is it?" Paul said.

    Owen
Cady laughed. "Not yet, Paulie. Not yet. You ain't cleared."

    "Well,
get me cleared," Paul said. "I'll do whatever it takes to make some
money. I want to get out of this place, and I don't want to do it walking down
the highway. Not again."

    "You
get in with Wade, and you'll leave this place in a Cadillac."

    They
went on for another hour at least. Arlen sat where he was the whole time,
listening to them and shaking his head, thinking that Paul sounded like an
entirely different kid. Like someone Arlen had never met. He was trying to act
hard, for one thing, and for another he was buying into Owen Cady's bullshit.
It didn't seem like the same kid who'd been so hellfire determined to repair
the generator and the clock, didn't seem like the same kid who'd charged Tate
McGrath in that barroom and nearly gotten killed.

    That
was on Arlen, though. Paul
wasn't
the same kid, damn it. He'd left the
Cypress House a different person, and his time on the road had done nothing to
help, just allowed him to soak in his bitterness.

    
All I wanted was for you to leave,
Arlen
thought
,
because I knew what staying would mean. Why can't you see
that it was the truth
?

    He
didn't see it, though, and now he was back and planning to partner up with
whatever Owen Cady had to offer. Arlen thought of the way Paul's eyes had
swirled to smoke during that handshake with Wade, the way it had vanished as
soon as the man released his grip, and he knew what had to be done.

    He
was going to have to kill Solomon Wade.

    Owen
rose early and took off in the convertible, and Paul went with him. They didn't
leave word of where they were going or when they'd be back.

    When
Tate McGrath arrived, Arlen somehow had a feeling he'd known that it would be
just Arlen and Rebecca at the inn. The old truck clattered into the yard, and
Arlen took one look and then went upstairs and found the pistol he'd left under
the bed. He checked the load and snapped the cylinder shut and then held the
gun close to his leg as he walked down the steps. He stopped halfway down when
he heard Rebecca at the door.

    "Solomon
wanted y'all to have this" was all McGrath said. Then the door swung shut
and Arlen heard his boots slap across the porch. Arlen came down the steps and
looked outside in time to see him getting into the truck.

    "What
are you doing with that?" Rebecca said, looking at the gun. She was
holding a sealed envelope.

    "I
don't like that son of a bitch. I'd rather have a gun in hand anytime he pays a
visit." He nodded at the envelope. "What's that?"

    "I
don't know." She tore the envelope open and slid a folded piece of paper
out. As she unfolded it, Arlen saw it was a newspaper clipping. He set the gun
on the bar and came to her side, studied the picture with her. The face was
familiar — it was the man who drove the black Plymouth.

    The
article was from the Orlando newspaper, detailing the discovery of two bodies
dragged from a swamp in a desolate stretch outside the village of Cassadaga.
Both bodies were male, both were homicide victims, but only one had been
identified: David A. Franklin, a Tampa native and known underworld figure. The
second victim's identity was unconfirmed, police said, due to the fact that
both of his hands were missing. Anonymous sources suggested that the corpse was
Walter H. Sorenson, also from Tampa, and a close associate of Franklin's.

    "Sorenson?"
Arlen said. "That's whose hands we have? That can't be."

    Rebecca
slid slowly away, almost soundlessly, dropped until she was sitting on the
floor and her back was against the bar. Her eyes were distant.

    "I
didn't . . . I thought it was the other man," she said. "Franklin. I
didn't understand what they wanted me to know."

    "Those
can't be Sorenson's hands. He burned . . ." Arlen's voice faded and he
turned his head and looked out the window at the spot in the yard where
Sorenson's Auburn had exploded. He thought of how quickly the body had gone up,
how the flesh had already been singed beyond recognition when Arlen reached the
car.

    
I would have seen it coming,
he thought
.
I would have seen smoke in his eyes, would have known before he stepped out
this door
.

    "That
wasn't him in the Auburn," Arlen said.

    Rebecca
shook her head.

    "I
thought the man in the Plymouth killed him," Arlen said.

    "That
man was David Franklin, probably. But he didn't kill him. If he had, I'd have
seen the signs. No, Sorenson had a chance when he left this place. He had a
chance, and they tracked him down, and they took that chance away."

    Rebecca
didn't answer.

    "Franklin
drove that Plymouth down here to help him," Arlen said. "Is that it?
He came down to pick him up and set fire to that car so we'd be left thinking
the man was dead."

    "Yes."

    He
stared at her. "You knew this. You've always known it."

    "No.
But I've wondered."

    Arlen
got slowly to his feet. He left her sitting there on the floor and walked
around the bar and poured himself a drink, though it was not yet nine in the
morning. When he spoke again, he couldn't even see her.

    "I
want to hear it," he said. "I want to hear it all."

    For
the first time since the hurricane, she drank with him. They sat at a table
beside the fireplace and drank, and she told him about Walter Sorenson.

    Sorenson
was intrigued by Rebecca. He didn't understand why she'd stayed at the Cypress
House after her father's death, and he didn't buy the drowning story that had
been offered. He inquired about it often.

    "He
was here about twice a month," she said. "It would vary depending on
whether there was money to collect. The way it worked was that he'd come by to
pick up what was owed to Solomon. If you didn't have the right amount, it
wouldn't be Walter who came back for you. It would be Tate McGrath and his
sons."

    At
first she resented him in the way she did everyone else affiliated with Solomon
Wade. But over time, as he confided in her, as he told her how badly he wanted
out of the enterprise he'd joined, she began to trust him.

    "I
told him the truth in July," she said. "Told him what had really
happened to my father and why I was still here, that I was waiting on
Owen."

    Sorenson
had been sympathetic but not shocked. He'd expected as much since Rebecca first
replaced her father at the inn. He inquired about her plan to leave once Owen
was free, and was unimpressed.

    "All
I knew was that I'd take Owen and we'd go," she said. "That seemed
like enough to me. He said we'd need money. That if we tried to leave without
money, we'd end up seeking help from my family, and if we did that, Solomon
would find us. So it was the breadline, he said. That was where we were headed.
I told him that trying to steal money would only make Solomon search for us
harder, and he disagreed. He said Solomon would do it anyhow, and that we
couldn't hide without money."

    "It
won't be easy for you if you're broke," Arlen admitted.

    "That's
what Walter said. He told me that my father's plan was almost right, just
missing a few touches: money and witnesses."

    "Witnesses,"
Arlen echoed.

    She
nodded.

    "That's
why he picked Paul and me up," Arlen said. "We served a role. So did
you. We'd all tell the story in the same way."

    "I
think you're right," she said. "But he also called you a good- luck
charm. Apparently he stopped to speak with David Franklin's girl in Cassadaga,
and she offered him some sort of advice. You even said that yourself; I
remember you told it to Tolliver. That she'd told him to watch for
hitchhikers."

    "For
travelers in need," Arlen said. He thought about that conversation, the
bolita game, the way Sorenson had let Paul drive the Auburn. His mood had changed
dramatically when they arrived at the Cypress House, when the next step of his
attempt at escape loomed large.

    "I
wish he'd made it," he said, and he was surprised at the sadness in his
voice for a man he'd hardly known. "I wish the son of a bitch had made
it."

    "Me,
too."

    He
looked at her. "You didn't know this. You truly did not?"

    "No.
I'm making guesses, and that's all. But I think they're good guesses. I didn't
recognize the hands, though. Wade must have thought I would."

    "He
also must have suspected you were involved."

    "I
know that he did. They confronted me about it, Solomon and Tolliver and
McGrath. I think the only reason they believed me in the end was that you and
Paul were telling the same story."

    "So
we were good-luck charms," Arlen said, "but not for Sorenson."

    "They
asked me a lot of questions about David Franklin," she said. "Whether
he'd ever been around with Walter, things like that. I'd never seen him. Had no
idea who he was. Not until the night . . . the night they brought him
here."

    "Gwen,
the one from Cassadaga, she was Franklin's girl," Arlen said. "They
used her to get to Franklin, and Franklin to get to Sorenson. But who in the
hell burned in that car? If it wasn't Sorenson, who was it?"