The Cypress House (37 page)

    He
led them to the dead tree along the shore, walked off the paces, and began to
dig. It didn't take long to find the box. Owen spoke once, asking what the hell
they were looking for, and Rebecca just told him to be quiet and wait. When
Arlen had found the box, she said, "Owen can open it."

    Owen
took the shovel. There was a vague unpleasant smell coming from the box, but it
was nothing like that of the body in the creek.

    "This
is what Solomon Wade delivered to me," Rebecca said. "In person. This
is the sort of care Solomon Wade showed me while you were away. Now open
it."

    Owen
wet his lips and turned back to the box and used the shovel blade to pry the
lid off. He gave it a final toss and flipped the lid away entirely, and what he
saw made him stumble backward and lift a hand to his mouth. He kept his body
turned sideways when he looked again, as if he couldn't face it directly.

    "Solomon
Wade brought that to me," Rebecca repeated. "Those hands belonged to
Walter Sorenson. You remember Walter?"

    Owen
nodded, still staring at the box, still with his hand at his mouth.

    "I
thought you would. He was a nice man. Kind. Wrong sort of man for this sort of
business, just like Daddy was. Just like
you
are."

    Arlen
took the shovel from Owen's hand and knocked the box and the lid back into the
hole and began to cover it with sand.

    "You've
known this for so long," Owen said, looking at Rebecca.

    "What
was I supposed to do, write you a letter and say it? Tell you on one of my
visits to Raiford, the ones that you ordered me to stop making?"

    "You
could have told me."

    She
shook her head. "Not while you were in that place. I couldn't tell you
until you were out. And then you got out, and you wanted to go right back to
the life you'd led before, Owen.

    You
rode in here with Solomon Wade, told me what a great man he was. Can you
imagine how that made me feel?"

    Owen
stared out at the sea. There was a good breeze blowing, and the waves were
hitting hard, pounding the beach as if angered by its existence. The sun was a
smudge on the western horizon, and shadows lay all around them.

    "I'm
going to kill him," he said. His voice was cold. "I'm going to slit
the son of a bitch's throat." He tightened his hands into fists and said,
"I'm going to make him bleed, Rebecca. I'll take him slow. I'll take
—"

    "No,
you won't," she said. "This is exactly why I was waiting to tell you
the truth. I can't allow you to make the situation worse than it already
is."

    "So
what's your idea?" Owen said. "Call the sheriff? Think Tolliver's
going to arrest him?" He gave a disgusted laugh and shook his head.

    This
time, Arlen spoke for her.

    "We're
going to kill him," he said. "But we're going to do it right. You
need to be a part of it, and you need to have your damn head on straight when
it's done. You go off half-cocked, and you'll end up dead yourself and probably
take your sister with you. Don't shake your head at me; that's the damn truth
of it. You better understand that."

    Owen
stood and glared at him. Arlen finished tamping down the sand and then leaned
on the shovel and looked him in the eye.

    "You
want him dead? You want to settle up?"

    "Bet
your ass I do. I'm going to see that it happens, too."

    "Good,"
Arlen said. "Then let's you and I climb in that fancy car he gave you and
take a ride. We got some things to discuss."

    Owen
looked from his sister back to Arlen and nodded. Rebecca was staring out at the
ocean, her face grave. She didn't like the idea. Didn't want them to be
discussing such things. She'd have to deal with it, though. The only thing in
all this mess that Arlen was certain of had been told to him by the hands he'd
just buried for the second time.

    You
couldn't run from Solomon Wade. Not successfully.

    Paul
was out on the back porch when they returned. He watched them with a frown, and
Arlen saw he had a glass of gin in his hand again.

    "Family
meeting finished?" he said.

    "Yes,"
Rebecca said. "I'm going to make us some food."

    Arlen
set the shovel down beside the porch and then started around the side of the
house and toward the car with Owen.

    "Where
are you going?" Paul called after them.

    "Taking
a ride," Arlen said. "I want to see this silly buggy move."

    "I'll
go along."

    "You'll
stay."

    "That
isn't your decision to make."

    "It's
mine," Owen said. "We'll just be gone a bit." His voice was soft
and weary. Everything about him spoke of a sudden fatigue. He kicked along
through the sand with his shoulders slumped and his hands jammed in his
pockets, and he never even bothered to look at Paul. Paul didn't argue, but
when he sat back down his face was dark with anger.

    "First
thing you need to understand," Arlen said when he'd slid into the
passenger seat beside Owen, "is that we're going to keep that boy out of
this. Completely. You got that?"

    Owen
nodded. He'd put the car in gear, and now he looked at Arlen and said,
"Where am I going?"

    "Just
take it down the road," Arlen said. "You drive, and you talk. Tell me
about Wade's work. Tell me the things your sister doesn't know. Tell me how you
think he should be killed. Could be killed. And one more thing: tell me how we
can lighten his pockets before we kill him."

    Owen
stared at him, surprised.

    "Make
no mistake," Arlen said, "people will likely give chase. We'll need
money to run. On that score, Walter Sorenson was right."

    Owen
pulled out of the yard and onto the rutted road, the headlights capturing
ghostly shadows from the Spanish moss that dangled just above the car.

    "It's
going to be hard," he said. "He'll have a lot of men around for this
next deal. Men like Tate McGrath."

    "I
figured on that," Arlen said. "Now let's hear the whole
scenario."

    It
would be the sort of transaction that took place often at the Cypress House,
but never while Wade was present. He kept his distance from the actual cargoes.
The McGraths and the Cadys handled that task. Owen had started his work for
Solomon Wade as a driver, taking truckloads of orange crates out of Corridor
County and on to Memphis, New Orleans, and Kansas City. The crates contained
heroin smuggled in from Cuba.

    The
money would come from Wade and be given to Owen a day before a group from Cuba
was to arrive. They'd bring a boat up to the waters off the beach from the
Cypress House and wait for a light signal that showed them it was safe to put
in. Then they'd come all the way into the inlet, and the unloading would
commence immediately. Tate McGrath and his sons would handle the unloading. The
cargo would be crates and crates of oranges. Some of the crates would be marked
with a single hole drilled in a side slat. Inside those marked crates were thin
false bottoms, the grains of heroin packaged beneath. Owen didn't know how much
of the drug would come in, but it had to be plenty — the orange crates, once
unloaded, were taken in trucks. Owen was expected to drive one truck, and he'd
told Wade that Paul would be riding with him. It was supposed to be a sort of
test for both of them, giving Wade an opportunity to determine that nothing
about the prison stay had tainted Owen's loyalty, giving him an opportunity to
assess Paul's loyalty for the first time.

    Arlen
asked for more details about the money. Owen said he knew that Wade paid thirty
dollars for an ounce, and the next person in line probably paid sixty or
seventy per ounce at least.

    "How
much money will he give you, though?" Arlen asked. "What are you
going to pay these guys who bring it in?"

    Owen
said he couldn't be certain because he had no way of knowing the exact size of
the load, but if it held the pattern he'd seen before he was jailed, then
they'd be bringing in at least three hundred ounces.

    "Then
he'll be giving you nine thousand dollars," Arlen said. The sum
overwhelmed him. They were going to carry that much money down to a bunch of
Cubans in a boat and hand it off in exchange for orange crates?

    "That's
probably close to it," Owen said. They were out on the paved road now,
screaming along at close to seventy miles an hour, and with the wind whipping
in the car it was hard to hear. Arlen didn't want to tell him to slow down,
though. He figured the kid needed to be in motion right now, needed to have his
foot heavy on the gas.

    "He
just hands you that much money? He trusts you with that?"

    "Well,
everybody's awful careful about their counting," Owen said. "Come up
a few dollars short, and it's bad news, buddy."

    They
were going to come up many dollars short this time around, if Arlen had any say
in it. Tough for a dead man to miss the cash, though.

    "You're
in charge of the cash? Not McGrath?"

    Owen
nodded. "Tate and his boys stay back in the inlet. They handle the
unloading, but they never go out to meet the Cubans. I take our boat out and
meet them before they bring it in. I give them half the money then, while
they're still on open water. They get the second half after everything's been
unloaded. Tate will have all his boys down there, with three or four trucks,
and they go through the crates pretty quick. Time it gets finished, I hand over
the rest of the money, and everybody heads in a different direction."

    "How
much is your cut?"

    "He
said I'd get a hundred dollars for this one."

    A
hundred dollars was a good month's work for most men, but it also didn't seem
too hefty a cut when you considered the likelihood of a long prison stretch if
you were caught. Arlen figured Wade had a carefully constructed alibi if anyone
ever did take a bust and try to point back to him as the source of the money.
He also figured the fool who tried to do such a thing would have a mighty short
prison stay and wouldn't be walking out of the cell when he left.

    "You'll
have this money a full day ahead of time?" Arlen asked.

    "That's
right. He doesn't want to see me the day of the delivery. He won't see anyone
the day of the delivery."

    That
was good, though. It gave them some hours to work with, made this thing a hell
of a lot easier than it would be if

    McGrath
himself handled the money and they had to go through him and his pack of thug
sons to get it. Having Owen serve as the money handler made things much
simpler. They'd have the cash in hand from the start. All that remained to be
done was to kill Wade.

    Shadows
loomed in the headlights, and Owen slowed as they approached a group of black
men and women walking along the road. They were barefoot, their eyes white in
the headlights. One of the women was holding a child in her arms.

    
Looking
for work,
Arlen thought
. They're out here wandering in the night,
walking barefoot, looking for any form of work they can get. And Solomon Wade
is waiting to put nine thousand dollars in a case and send it out to some
Cubans on a boat in exchange for a drug that hides your pain—mental or physical
varieties. This world
.

    They
roared on past the walking family, two white men in a convertible out here in
the backwoods. He wondered what they thought of that. If they took one look and
knew that crooked money had bought the car.

    "What'll
he do on that day?" Arlen asked. "Wade, I mean."

    "I've
got no idea. Keep his distance, like I said."

    "Well,
I'm going to need to find him. You know where he lives, where he works, that
sort of thing? "

    Owen
gave a nervous nod. He looked over at Arlen, his face pale in the darkness, and
said, "You're really going to kill him."

    Arlen
looked away. "I can't let your sister end up like your father. I can't let
her stay here either."