The Cypress House (5 page)

    Arlen
got some dollars out, and Paul started to reach in his own pocket but Arlen
waved him off. He wasn't sure how much money Paul had on him, but it couldn't
be much; the juniors in the CCC were required to send twenty-five of the thirty
dollars they made each month directly home to help their parents. Pearl
wouldn't even accept Arlen's money, though.

    "Friend
of Walt's," she said.

    "Lady,
we just met him ten minutes ago. Nobody owes us anything."

    "Friend
of Walt's," she repeated.

    Paul
was gawking around the bar. It was a rough-looking crowd. One man wore a long
knife in a sheath at his belt, and another had a raw red gash down the length
of one finger, the sort of thing that could be left behind by a tooth. It
wasn't an old injury. At a table just inside the door, a man with a cigar
pinched in the corner of his mouth was talking to a woman in a green dress that
was cut so low the tops of her large white breasts were exposed completely. She
had red hair and bored eyes.

    Pearl
led them up a set of stairs so narrow that she had to turn sideways to wedge
her way along. She jerked open the first door they came to, then lit an oil
lamp and waved her fat hand out over the two cots.

    "Privy's
outdoors," she said. "Wasn't the Astor family that built this, you
might have noticed."

    "It'll
do fine," Arlen said.

    She
clomped back out the door and down the hall, and they could hear her let out a
grunt as she started down the stairs. Paul caught Arlen's eye and grinned.

    "Don't
be getting any ideas," Arlen said. "She's too old for you."

    "Oh,
go on."

    "I'm
going downstairs to buy that fellow a drink. Thank him for the ride. You get
some shut-eye."

    Paul
nodded at the wall and said, "Hear that? It's raining."

    Yes,
it was. Coming down soft but steady, would've soaked them to the bone if they'd
still been out walking on the dark highway.

    "Good
thing we caught that ride," Paul said.

    "Sure."
Arlen pulled his bag up onto his bed and sorted through it until he found his
canteen, unscrewed the cap, and shook the contents down, tugged a few bills
out. He had
$367
in it, savings accrued over the past twenty months. No
fortune, but in this driven-to-its-knees economy, where men bartered heirlooms
for bread, it felt close.

    Outside,
the rain gathered intensity.

    
Yes,
Arlen thought
,
it was a good thing we caught that ride
.

    The
bar was dim and dusty, with a crowd of men Arlen could smell easier than he
could see bunched at one end, keeping conversation with Pearl. The guitar
player had given up for the night, but the redheaded woman in the green dress
was still at the table with her cigar-smoking companion, and Walt Sorenson sat
alone at the far end of the bar, counting out small white balls with black
numbers and placing them into a burlap bag. Arlen dropped onto a stool beside
him and said, "Mind telling me what you're doing?"

    Sorenson
smiled. "You ever heard of bolita?"

    "I
have not," Arlen said. The woman in the green dress stood up and walked to
the bar, her breasts wriggling like something come alive. Her hips matched the
act, but the eyes stayed empty. She disappeared up the stairs, never casting a
look back at the man with the cigar who followed her.

    "Bolita,"
Sorenson said, "is a game of wagering. You should put in a dime, Mr. . . .
what's your name? Wagner, was it?"

    "Arlen
Wagner, yes."

    "Well,
Arlen Wagner, I've developed what some might call an unusual ability — I can
feel luck in the air. I mean, just taste it, like when you walk into a room
where something good's been on the stove. And I'm telling you, sir, that luck
rides with you tonight. There's no question about it. Luck rides with
you."

    Arlen
thought of the station platform again, all those men with bone faces and bone
hands climbing back onto the train. His mouth was dry.

    "All
right," he said. "Sure. I'll put in a dime."

    "There
you go. Now, pick yourself a number. One through one hundred."

    He
waited with a wolf's grin.

    "One,"
Arlen said. "As in, how many times I'll try this game."

    "Very
nice, very nice." Sorenson chuckled and sorted through the balls until he
found the number one. He held it up so Arlen could inspect it, then leaned it
against his whiskey glass, which was now mostly ice. "I'll rest it right
there so you can keep an eye on it."

    "I'm
going to expect such a game is illegal in this state," Arlen said.

    "A
good many of the best things are." Sorenson spent some time studying his
betting sheet, cleared his throat, and called, "All right, boys, gather
round, the losing is about to begin for most, and the winning for but a single
soul."

    He
scooped the balls off the bar and into the bag. By now the crowd had gathered
around Sorenson, and he wrapped the top of the bag until the balls were hidden
from view, then gave it a ferocious shake.

    "Here,"
he said. "Someone else take a try."

    A man
with skeptical eyes stepped forward and took the bag. He shook it for a long
time. Sorenson took the bag back, opened the neck, and slid his right hand
inside. He closed his eyes and let out a strange humming sound. This persisted
for a moment as he felt around the inside, and then he snapped open one eye and
told the crowd, "I've got to tune into the winner, you know. It's not so
simple as just pulling one out. There's one man here who deserves to win
tonight, one whose destiny is victory, and I must be sure that I hear his
selection calling my name."

    "You're
so full of shit," one onlooker said, "I'm surprised it don't come out
your ears."

    Sorenson
smiled, then snapped his hand out of the bag, his fist closed. "Gentlemen,
I give you our winner."

    He
unfolded his hand and twisted the ball so the number was visible:
1
.

    "And
who had number one?"

    Arlen
lifted his hand, and a few of the men grumbled.

    "He
come in here with you," the one who'd shaken the bag said. "It's a
damn swindle you're running."

    "Ah,
but you're wrong," Sorenson said, unbothered. "I've not met this man
till this evening, and he'll tell you the same. But if that's how you feel,
then I suggest another round, only this time our current winner must sit out."

    There
was no interest in further wagering.

    "Hard
to believe it here," Sorenson told Arlen, "but there are places where
this little game is treated with respect. I've known men who became
millionaires off this little game."

    "Running
it," Arlen said, "not playing it. And thanks for cheating me into the
profit."

    "Cheating?"

    Arlen
nodded at the glass of melting ice near Sorenson's hand. "You left the
ball up there long enough to hold the cold. Then you could pick it out of the
rest. It's a neat trick, but it may get your arm broken with the wrong
crowd."

    Sorenson
gave a low chuckle. "You've got a sharp eye, Mr. Wagner."

    Arlen
lifted his hand and got Pearl's attention, asked for two whiskeys. When she'd
shuffled off again, he said, "So is this your business, Sorenson? A
traveling entertainment, that's what you are?"

    "Oh,
no. This little game is nothing more than a pastime."

    "So
what is it that you do?"

    Sorenson
smiled as Pearl set their drinks on the bar. "You're an inquisitive man.
What I do has evolved a bit, but these days I'm an accounts manager."

    "Accounts
manager?"

    "That's
right, sir. I check in on clients all over the hellish backwoods of this
forsaken Florida countryside. And once in a while, I get to the coast to do the
same. I'll assure you, the ladies are of a finer breed on the coast." He
nodded at Pearl's enormous rear end. "Ample evidence, you might say."

    "Quick
with a pun, Sorenson. Mighty quick."

    "Quick
with so many things."

    He
laughed at that, so Arlen laughed, too. Arlen's whiskey glass was empty, and
Pearl had disappeared, so he slipped his flask out and poured his own. The
flask was nearing empty now itself. Sorenson watched him and gave a soft sigh.

    "It
hasn't been so long since such an act was illegal."

    "You
don't appear to be a teetotaler, yet you say that with some sorrow."

    "Sorrow
for what's been lost, Mr. Wagner."

    "And
what was lost? Purity?" Arlen said with a snort.

    "Purity,
no. What was lost when Roosevelt kicked Prohibition in the ass was a business
environment the sort of which we may never see again."

    "Ah,"
Arlen said. "A bootlegger. That's what you are."

    "Now?
No, Mr. Wagner. You can't bootleg something that's openly bought and traded. So
a new commodity must be found and . . ." He shrugged. "I just miss
the simplicity of booze. But let's talk about you for a change. You and the
young man departed a train in the middle of the night and lit out down an
abandoned highway in an unfamiliar place. Due to a bad feeling, the boy said.
It strikes me as a most exceptional decision."

    "Paul
said all that needed to be said. I had a bad feeling. End of story."

    "I
like it. Sounds ominous. A feeling of what? Impending doom?"

    "I
didn't see a black cat walking under a ladder or any such foolish shit,"
Arlen said, feeling anger rise, Sorenson watching him with calm interest.
"If you had any idea . . ."

    He
let it die, and Sorenson said gently, "What
did
you see ?"

    Arlen
shook his head. "Let's leave it at a bad feeling."

    "And
so we will. Make no mistake, Mr. Wagner, I'm a man who appreciates the art of
the premonition."

    "Mine
are a little different than yours. Less manufactured."

    "Than
mine, sure. I've known others, though . . . there's a village not far from here
in which every resident claims to be a medium. The place is called Cassadaga.
Anytime I pass close to the area, I pay a visit. A friend introduced me to a
fortune-teller there. She's remarkable."

    "What
does she tell you? Winning numbers for your games?"

    "Yesterday,
she told me there was death in the rain."

    "In
the rain?"

    "That's
what she said. I asked her if it was my own death, and she said it was not.
Then she told me, as she has before, that I worry too much about death. All
that
dies,
she said, is the body. That's all. And she believes, quite
firmly, that she can continue to communicate with those whose bodies are no
more. Do you believe in such a thing?"

    "Absolutely
not," Arlen said, thinking
,
I'd better not. Because if I do,
then I've got something to answer for
.

    "You
say that with conviction," Sorenson said. "Yet you abandoned a train
you needed to be on due to your own unusual perception."

    "There's
a world of difference there," Arlen said.

    Sorenson
had set his hat down on the bar and shed his jacket, revealing a sweat-stained
white shirt and suspenders.

    "The
lad who travels with you was not in favor of the change of plans. He did not
support the . . . bad feeling."

    "He
supported it enough," Arlen said. "He got off the train."

    "Hell,
man, you're
serious
about this, aren't you?"

    Arlen
turned to face him, the whiskey wrapping its arms around him now in such a way
that he didn't fear the man's mocking.

    "You
think your fortune-teller can sense death coming?" he said. "Well,
brother, I can
see
it. Tell you something else — I ain't ever wrong.
Ever"