The Cypress House (7 page)

    Arlen
held his eyes for a moment and then turned without a word and grabbed the first
bag and hauled it out with him. He tugged them all free from the Auburn and
then hailed Paul to help carry them in, and while he worked he pretended not to
notice that Sorenson had retrieved a small automatic from beneath the driver's
seat and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

    Whatever
ill feelings Sorenson had about the Cypress House were not justified by their
entrance into its humid, shadowed interior. They were standing in the middle of
a long, narrow room without a soul inside. There was a fireplace on their left
and a bar on their right. Behind the bar, liquor was displayed on thick wooden
shelves, and atop the shelves was a massive brass-ringed and glass-faced
mantelpiece clock that went about two feet in diameter and was clearly broken —
according to the hands it was noon. Or midnight.

    Between
the bar and the fireplace were scattered a handful of tables, and the wall
opposite them was composed of wide windows that looked out onto another porch
and beyond that the ocean.

    "Hello!"
Sorenson bellowed once they'd stepped inside. Arlen set his bags down beside
the door, and Paul followed suit. A minute after Sorenson's cry, they heard
footsteps and then a figure rounded the corner from some unseen room Arlen took
to be the kitchen and faced them across the bar.

    It
was a woman. Her silhouette stood out starkly against the light from the beach,
but the front of her was lost to darkness.

    "Walter,"
she said, in a voice that seemed to come from behind a gate with many locks.

    "Becky,
baby, how are ya?" Sorenson approached the bar with his big black case in
his hand, and Arlen and Paul followed a few paces behind.

    "Grand,"
the woman said in a tone that implied just the opposite. As they drew close
enough to see her, Arlen felt the boy draw up taller at his side and understood
the reason — she was a looker. She wore a simple white dress that had been
washed many times, but beneath it the taut lines of her body curved clear and
firm. Her face was sharp-featured and smooth, framed by honey-colored hair, and
she regarded them with cool blue eyes.

    "Who
are your companions?" she said.

    "Road-weary
travelers, and parched," Sorenson said. His standard grandiose demeanor seemed
to have risen a notch.

    "I
see."

    "Might
I have a pair of beers and one Coca-Cola?"

    She
didn't answer, just turned and slipped into the kitchen and then returned with
two beers and a bottle of Coca-Cola.

    "Thank
you," Paul said, and even in the shadowed room Arlen could see red rise in
the boy's cheeks. She was that kind of beautiful. The crippling kind. Arlen
himself said not a word, just took a seat at the bar. She gave him no more than
a flick of the eyes before returning her focus to Sorenson.

    "You
need to finish your beer, or can we handle our business ?"

    "No
need to rush," he said, and was met with a frown that suggested she saw
plenty of need.

    "Well,
when you're ready, I'll be in the back," she said. Arlen had the sense that
she was unhappy Sorenson had brought strangers along.

    "Aw,
stay and talk a bit. I've neglected to make introductions. This here is Arlen
Wagner, and his young companion is Paul Brickhill. They're CCC men."

    "How
lovely," she said in the same flat voice.

    "And
this," Sorenson said, "is beautiful Becky Cady, the pride of Corridor
County."

    "Rebecca,"
she said.

    "Ah,
you're Becky to me."

    "But
not to me," she said. "Walter, I'll be in the back."

    She
turned and went through a swinging door into the kitchen, and then it was just
the three of them in the dim bar.

    "Another
dry county?" Arlen said.

    Sorenson
shook his head.

    "Then
what are you doing here?"

    "I
told you last night, Mr. Wagner, business isn't about booze these days."

    Sorenson
took a drink of his beer, and now Arlen could see that sweat was running down
his face in thick rivulets, more sweat than the heat deserved. He looked over
his shoulder at the door, had another drink, and then looked again.

    "You
expecting company ?" Arlen said.

    "Huh?
Um, no."

    Paul
said, "Why's it called Corridor County?"

    "The
waterways," Sorenson answered. "There are inlets and estuaries all
over the shore here, and they wind around and join the river about ten miles
inland. It's a crazy tangled mess, though, and every storm that blows through
shifts things around and puts up sandbars where there didn't used to be any.
Nobody but a handful of locals can navigate the whole mess worth a shit."

    He
got to his feet. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen."

    He
picked up the heavy black case and walked around the back of the bar and
through the swinging door where Rebecca Cady had gone. Arlen looked at Paul,
saw the question in the boy's eyes, and shrugged.

    "Go
look at your ocean," he said, hoping to distract the kid until Sorenson
came back out and they could get on the road.

    Paul
got to his feet and walked over to the windows, gazed out at the sea, waves
rolling in with their tops flattened by a freshening wind, and then went out on
the porch. After a moment Arlen picked up his beer and followed. The smell of
the sea rode toward them in warm, wet gusts, and seagulls screamed and circled
the beach. South, there was nothing but sand and short dunes lined with
clusters of grass, but to the north the shore seemed to curve inland and
thickets of palms and strange green plants that looked like overgrown ferns
traced what Arlen assumed was one of the inlets Sorenson had mentioned. He
could see the roof of another structure through the trees. Some sort of
boathouse, probably, sheltered from the pounding waves of the open water.

    Paul
stepped off the porch and walked down to the beach. He slid his shoes off and
rolled his pants up to his knees. Arlen leaned on the weathered railing and
felt a smile slide across his face as he watched the kid pick his way over the
sand and down into the water, wade in until the waves broke over his knees and
soaked his trousers. Paul seemed to have forgotten anyone else existed, just
stood in the water, staring out at the line where sea met sky.

    The
wind was blowing steadily now, and that was probably why Arlen didn't hear the
car. As it was, he caught a lucky angle. He'd turned back to glance in the bar,
checking to see if Sorenson had reappeared, and saw a flash of movement through
the windows at the opposite end of the building. It was gone then, and he took
a few steps to the side and still couldn't see anything. After a glance back at
Paul to make sure he was still standing in the surf, Arlen set his beer down on
the rail and walked off the porch and around the side of the building. There,
parked at the top of the sloping track that led down to the Cypress House, a
black Plymouth sedan had pulled in beside the trees. The sun was shining off
the glass and Arlen couldn't see anyone inside, but the car hadn't driven
itself here.

    He
pulled back, leaning against the wall to get himself out of sight. Felt foolish
doing it, but all the same he didn't want to be seen staring. Sorenson had been
acting damn strange since the moment they'd arrived, and now someone had parked
up at the top of that hill and stayed in the car as if waiting on something. It
didn't feel right.

    Paul
was walking along the shore now, shin-deep in the water, his eyes still on the
sea. Arlen went quietly back up the porch steps and then stepped inside the
bar, taking care to move sideways, keeping out of view of the front windows.

    "Hey,
Sorenson," he called, voice soft.

    Nobody
answered. The place was empty.

    "Damn
it," he muttered, and then went around the bar and rapped his knuckles on
the swinging door. "Sorenson!"

    "Hang
on, Wagner."

    There
was something in the man's voice Arlen hadn't heard before, and it gave him pause.
For a few seconds he stood there on the other side of the swinging door, and
then he said the hell with it and pushed through and stepped into the tiny
kitchen. There was a grill and a stove on one side and a rack of shelves on the
other and nobody in sight. Another door stood opposite, closed. He crossed to
it and knocked again.

    "Damn
it, I said give us a min —"

    "I
think somebody's looking your car over," he said. "Or maybe Miss
Cady's used to guests who park at the top of the hill and don't come
inside."

    There
was a long silence, and then the door swung open and Sorenson stood before him
with the black case wrapped under his arm. All the good humor and genteel
demeanor had left his face.

    "Where?"
he said.

    "Just
where I said — top of the hill, above where you parked."

    Sorenson
shoved past him and walked through the swinging door. He kept the case wrapped
under his left arm, pressed against his side, but let his right hand drift
under his jacket. Arlen paused just long enough to look back into the room, a
cramped little office where Rebecca Cady stood with her hands folded in front
of her and a blank look on her face, and then he followed. When he got out to
the barroom, Sorenson was standing with the front door open, looking out.

    "There's
nobody there."

    "Was
a minute ago. Black Plymouth."

    Sorenson
reflected on that for a moment, then manufactured an uneasy grin and said,
"Good thing I had you bring your bags in, see? This area is fraught with lazy
crackers who'll steal anything they can lift."

    
Lazy
crackers don't drive new Plymouths,
Arlen thought
.

    "Where's
the kid?" Sorenson asked.

    "Down
on the beach."

    He
nodded as if that pleased him, then said, "Why don't you bring him in? I'm
going to drive the car down a little closer in case our visitor returns, and
then we'll have another drink and head south."

    "I
don't need another drink. Let's just head."

    "Not
quite yet," Sorenson said, and then he stepped outside and let the thick
wooden door bang shut behind him.

    Arlen
swore under his breath, wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand,
and then went onto the porch and hollered for Paul. The kid was nearly out of
sight now, well down the beach, but he turned and lifted a hand and started
back. Arlen picked his beer up off the rail and drank the rest of it while the
boy returned and pulled on his socks and shoes. He jogged up to the porch.

    "We
leaving already?"

    "Soon
as we can," Arlen said. "Sorenson wants to linger, but I'm in favor
of pushing on and —"

    On
the other side of the building, something exploded. A bang and a roar that came
so fast they were just a heartbeat from simultaneous, and for a moment the
beach disappeared in front of Arlen's eyes and he saw instead the dark forests
of Belleau Wood, snarls of barbwire guarding the bases of the trees, corpses
draped over them, grenades hurtling through the air. Then he blinked and found
himself staring at Paul Brickhill, whose mouth hung agape.

    "What
was —"

    Arlen
ignored him, turned and ran back through the bar to the front door, opened it
and then took a half step back and whispered, "Son of a bitch,
Sorenson."

    The
Auburn was on fire. All of the glass had been blown out, and twisted, burning pieces
of the seats lay on the hood. As Arlen watched, there was another explosion,
flames shooting out of the engine compartment and filling the air with black
smoke, and the thought of running back to the bar for a bucket of water died
swiftly in his mind. He let the door swing shut and walked out onto the sandy
soil and approached the Auburn with an arm held high to shield his face.

    He
was still fifteen feet from the car when he saw the body in the driver's seat.
Black flesh peeling from white bone, hair curling with smoke above a suit
jacket that lay across the body in smoldering strips. On the passenger seat
beside the corpse, a black case with silver latches melted and dripped onto the
floorboards.