The Cypress House (39 page)

    "You
read that letter from your father. You know what you'd gotten into with Wade.
Sure, your old man might've led the way, but it was you who helped put the
knife to his neck. Don't forget that. You want to blame Wade, go on and blame
him. Don't forget your own decisions, though."

    "You
got some brass, saying a thing like that. Just because I did some work for the
man doesn't mean —"

    "You
did more than work for the man," Arlen said. "You wanted to be him.
Wanted to run around in fancy cars with a gun in your belt and a pocketful of
money, dirty money, blood money, just so you could feel like you got some
power. Feel like you're a big shot. Came swaggering in the day you got out of
Raiford and never so much as thought about your sister, what she's been through
waiting on your worthless ass. No, all you wanted to do was tell tales about
the thugs and hoods you knew. Except you don't even know them. You got any idea
how sad that is, boy? You're
pretending
to be Solomon Wade. That's what
you want out of this life. To be just like the man who had your daddy's throat
cut."

    Owen's
jaw had gone rigid, and his hands were tight on the steering wheel.

    "I've
been places where words like that would get a man killed," he said.

    "Son,"
Arlen said, "you ain't been anywhere. You don't have so much as a rumor of
what this world's really like. You're getting a taste now, and it's your first.
All that tough-boy bullshit aside, this is your first taste, and you know
it."

    Owen
didn't answer.

    "Look
me in the eye and tell me if I'm wrong," Arlen said.

    Silence.

    "There's
only one thing that you
need
to do now," Arlen said, "and
that's take care of your sister. Try to make up for the mistakes you made and
your father made that got you all into this fix. I'll do your bloody work. You
just be a man for a change."

    That
night he sat awake with Rebecca on the back porch, and they listened to the
waves break and roll back and break again, and neither of them spoke much for a
long time. Owen had climbed the stairs as soon as they got back and shut the
door to his room, never appearing again. There was a lot going on in his mind.
Let him have his time, so long as he didn't set the fool's temper to work
again.

    Paul
had been in the barroom until Arlen entered, and then he stood and walked past
him without a word and went up the steps as well. Arlen let him go. How he
wished Paul had never come back. He had to make sure that he'd be gone soon,
long before anything went into motion with Solomon Wade. That would require
waiting on the money, though, and that would give Arlen only about twenty-four
hours to convince Paul to hit the road . . . and only about twenty-four hours
of distance between the boy and Corridor County. Arlen didn't figure they'd
pursue him, but there was a chance. Paul would need to travel smart, travel
with a plan, and that would require a conversation between the two of them.
Right now, the boy wouldn't even speak to him.

    Rebecca
laid her hand out in the darkness and put it on his arm, and the mere touch of
her skin on his own broke some of the blackness loose inside him. He closed his
eyes and felt the points of warmth where her fingertips lay, tried to focus on
that and nothing else for just a few seconds.

    "You
shouldn't have to do this," she said softly. "Shouldn't have to be
any part of it."

    "Stop,"
he said.

    "Well,
it's true." She squeezed his arm once and then removed her hand and said,
"I told Paul about your father."

    He
opened his eyes again. "What?"

    "He
holds such anger toward you, Arlen, and I can't stand to see it. I tried to
talk with him about it, tried to apologize for what happened and the way that
it happened and explain what you were trying to do. That you believed so deeply
he was in danger that you would drive him away from this place at any
cost."

    "Let
me guess," Arlen said, "he wasn't buying it."

    "No.
I told him that
I
believed you. He didn't care for that either. He
wanted to know how I could possibly believe you."

    "So
you told him."

    "Yes.
I hope you're not angry. I knew it wasn't a story you shared, but, Arlen . . .
I wanted him to know."

    He
supposed he should be angry. He wasn't, though. Just couldn't muster it, not
with her, and not over this.

    "I
won't see that boy die," he said. "I won't let it happen. It isn't
this place that threatens him, it's Wade. I'll put an end to Wade."

    "We
could just leave," she said. "I still think we could just —"

    "No,"
he said. "You will leave. You and your brother and Paul. And I expect to
catch up with you at some point. I fully intend on doing that. But not while
Solomon Wade remains to follow."

    Time
was short, and moving fast. Tolliver was to bring the money down that evening,
and on the next the Cubans would arrive with their boat packed with orange
crates. They would, if everything went without a hitch, sit out on the Gulf and
wait for lights that never came and then they'd turn around and return to their
own country, still with the orange crates on board. Paul would be on a train,
perhaps, and Rebecca and Owen driving north, and Solomon Wade would be dead.

    All
of this had to be done in less than forty-eight hours.

    Arlen
went down to the boathouse that morning and cut boards and sanded them down
same as he would on any other day, thinking that if McGrath or Wade happened by
it would be best for them to see things as they always were, no indication of a
change in plans.

    He
spent most of the morning considering what he'd say to Paul. He wanted to
prepare him for what was to come but didn't think the boy would hear him out.
He would have to wait until Owen had the money, break off a portion of it for
Paul, and drive him to a train station. If Paul wouldn't listen to Arlen, he'd
listen to the money. He was looking for a way out. They'd give it to him.

    That
was what was in Arlen's mind when he walked back up from the boathouse shortly
before noon and discovered that Paul was gone.

    "Said
he was walking into town," Rebecca told Arlen. "Owen offered him a
ride, but he said no, he wanted to be alone and wanted to walk."

    Arlen
didn't care for that.

    "What
in the hell does he want in town? He doesn't have a dime to his name. What's he
going to do?"

    Rebecca
spread her hands. "I don't know, Arlen. He wasn't holding discussions over
it. He just left."

    He
thought about borrowing Rebecca's truck and going after him but decided against
it. He was probably the reason Paul had wanted to get out of here; it would
serve no purpose to chase him down.

    The
day dragged by, and Paul didn't return. The heat had gone unbroken for a full
week, but there were thin, swift-moving clouds skidding over the sun today, and
Arlen thought there was the promise of rain in the air. The sea was riding
stronger swells than normal, the Gulf carrying a green tint, the gulls
shrieking and fighting the wind currents above him. All the things that had
become standard to Arlen now, the smell of the salt breeze and the feel of that
intense, near-tropical sun on his neck and arms, the rustle of palm fronds. It
should have been a beautiful place.
Was
a beautiful place, were it not
for the men who'd invaded it. Reminded Arlen of the Belleau Wood, once he got
to thinking about it. That had been a pretty parcel of land in its own right,
field and forest. Damned gorgeous spot until the wrong men came across it, and
then it was tangled with bodies and barbwire and the cries of the wounded.

    By
four Paul had still not returned, and the clouds had thickened and begun to
move slower, like troops massing for an advance. When the first fat drops began
to fall and the woods around the inlet took to swaying and rattling in the
wind, Arlen gathered his tools and retreated to the house. It was really
starting to come down by the time he got inside, and he joined Rebecca and Owen
at the back window and watched the rain lash down and pelt a gray, tossing sea.

    The
rain fell different here than in other places Arlen had been, thicker and
faster, turning the yard into an ankle-deep pond in a matter of minutes. The
beach drank it in easier for a time, but then it began to form puddles even on
the sand, and the waves raced up and chased the rain as if they intended to
work together and turn the whole world to water.

    It
had been raining this way, Arlen recalled, the day they'd returned from the
jail. He remembered how he and Paul had broken into a run on their way up to
the porch, laughing like children, bursting through the door feeling like
they'd just stepped out of the worst of it in more ways than one.

    That
seemed a mighty long time ago.

    He
was lost in that memory when he realized Rebecca and Owen had turned and gone to
the front windows, were looking out at a car parked at the top of the hill, its
headlights glowing against the gray gloom of the storm. The sheriff's car.
Tolliver was parked up there in the exact place where he'd let Arlen and Paul
out that day before the hurricane.

    
He's
come with bad news,
Arlen thought, a sudden certain clench going through
his gut, images of Paul stretched out in the back of that car with a white
sheet over his body.
He's come to tell us —

    But
right then Owen said, "He's here for me. He's here with the money."

    They
all turned and looked at one another as a gust of wind shook the inn and
lightning sparked almost on top of them, filling the dim barroom with one
blinding flash. Thunder crackled, an angry, aggressive sound.

    Arlen
said, "You best go get it, then."

    There
was another silent pause, all of them realizing this was it, the starting
point. The moment that money passed from Tolliver's palm into Owen's, the plan
was under way, no longer about ideas and possibilities and only about
execution. They'd need to do it as they'd planned, and do it right. Most of
that burden rested with Arlen and the Smith & Wesson upstairs under his
bed.

    Owen
blew out a breath and started for the door. Arlen called, "Hey," and
brought him up short, his hand on the doorknob.

    "You
got to look relaxed," he said. "Same as any other day. You ain't
doing anything but helping. The sheriff up there, he's your buddy, and so is
Wade. Don't show them anything else."

    Owen
nodded.

    "The
rain'll help," Arlen said. "Sheriff will be in a hurry. He doesn't
like driving in the storm."

    Owen
gave another nod and then pulled open the door. The wind was blowing hard out
of the south, and it caught the door and wrenched it from his grasp and banged
it off the wall. A spray of rain showered in and soaked the floorboards before
he got his hand on the door again and slammed it, and then both Arlen and
Rebecca moved closer to the bar so they could watch him.

    He
ran across the yard with his shoulders hunched. Watching him go, Arlen had the
bad feeling again, dark images flickering through his mind — gunfire opening up
from inside the car and dropping Owen out there in the mud and the rain; the
window sliding down as Owen approached and a knife blade glinting ever so
swiftly as it snaked toward his throat.

    
I
wish I'd checked his eyes closer,
Arlen thought
.
I didn't see
anything, he was looking me full in the face and I didn't see anything, but
maybe I didn't look hard enough
...

    Nothing
happened, though. The door to the sheriff's car swung open and then Owen had a
black case in his hand, same sort of case that Walter Sorenson had carried. He
stood beside the car, head ducked against the rain, and said a few words. Arlen
couldn't see Tolliver from behind the door, but Owen looked relaxed enough. The
rain was a help. Made any tension on his part easier to explain, as if he just
wanted to get the hell back inside and out of the downpour.

    It
wasn't but thirty seconds before Tolliver slammed the door and Owen turned and
began running back toward the house. Rebecca let out a breath, and Arlen looked
over his shoulder at her and realized she'd been sharing his dark thoughts. He
managed to get a grin on his face.