“No, Owen. You’re not fine. And this isn’t home.”
“The hell it isn’t,” he said, dropping the chair legs back to the floor and looking at her with a hard stare. “I’m not going to Savannah.”
“Not Savannah, just… somewhere else. There’s no money here, Owen. No one ever comes except the people Solomon Wade sends. You can imagine what sort of people those are.”
Owen flicked his eyes over to Arlen, frowned, and said, “We don’t need to be saying harsh words about Judge Wade.”
Rebecca stared at him. There was a tremor in her jaw. “I’ll say what I feel, and that man is a plague. He’s evil.”
“He’s the only man who kept Daddy and me afloat in hard times.”
Now it was Rebecca’s turn to look at Arlen. She had a desperate quality in her eyes, and Owen followed the look.
“What’s he doing down here anyhow?” he said. “Talk like this is family talk. We don’t need your hired man involved.”
“He’s more than a hired man. He’s a friend, and I trust him. He’ll stay.”
Arlen was expecting resistance to that, but Owen just gave him a dark, knowing look.
“We’ll discuss this another time,” he said. “But I’ve got no desire to leave. There’s money to be made here, you just don’t see it.”
“Money to be made in the same way you were making it last time?” she snapped. “The same way you ended up at Raiford? Yes, I’m sure there is. Trust me, I’m well aware of the money. I’ve been asked to keep count of it while you were gone! That’s what Judge Wade has provided in your absence.”
“Well, thank Providence that he did,” Owen answered curtly. “Otherwise, you’d have been busted. Ever think about that?”
Rebecca’s mouth worked, and a wet shine took over her eyes. She laid one hand on the table as if to steady herself even though she was seated, and then she stood abruptly and walked to the steps and left them. Arlen rose, but Owen Cady waved him down.
“Let the women bed down early while the men stay up and drink, that’s what I’ve always said.”
That’s what you’ve always said? Arlen thought. What are you, twenty years old now? Yeah, I bet you’ve been saying that for a mighty long time.
But he sat down. It was her story to tell, and he would respect that. If anyone in this world understood such a burden, it was Arlen Wagner. He accepted the bottle. Owen had switched from beer to whiskey an hour or so earlier, and the change was showing, his eyes unfocused and his cheeks flushed.
“Damn, that tastes good,” he said when Arlen poured a drink and passed it back. “Been a long time, let me tell you. Sure, we had hooch, but it ain’t the same as real whiskey, I can promise you that. You ever been in prison?”
“No.”
“Jail?”
“Yes.”
Owen nodded sagely. “I knew it. You got a look about you.”
“Do I?”
“Sure. You know, one that says you’ve seen some things. You been around, same as me.”
Same as you? Arlen thought. You took a six-month fall for running dope. You haven’t seen shit, boy.
“I didn’t like jail,” Arlen said. “I don’t intend to return.”
Owen threw his head back and laughed as if that had been a joke, but when he dropped his face again, his eyes had narrowed, gone cold.
“You sleeping with my sister?”
Arlen took a drink. “Seems to me she’s sleeping alone right now. Unless she’s got somebody else hid up there.”
The kid stared at him, then said, “If you are, fine. Doesn’t have a thing to do with me. But something you best understand-I’m the one runs the show at this place. Not her, and sure as shit not you. My father left this place to me.”
He tapped his chest with an index finger, in case Arlen had any confusion.
“Fair enough,” Arlen said. “I just swing a hammer.”
“Better remember that.”
“I’ve not forgotten it yet.”
For a moment Owen stared at him as if those had been fighting words, but then he burst into another of his too-loud laughs.
“I like you,” he said, lifting the whiskey bottle and drinking straight from it. An unnecessary flourish considering his glass was still full.
“Glad to hear it.”
Owen dropped the bottle and leaned across the table. “You want to make some money? Some real money?”
“Depends how it’s made.”
Owen grinned. “Shit, don’t matter how it’s made, matters that it is made. I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know, old-timer-that judge who brought me down here from Raiford? He as good as runs this state. And I’m in solid with that boy. You want a piece of it, I could get it for you.”
“Don’t know that you could,” Arlen said. “Solomon Wade isn’t as sweet on me as he is on you.”
“Nah, I could get you in on some cash deals, no problem.” Owen leaned back, confident of his position in the hierarchy of Wade’s outfit.
“Thanks,” Arlen said, “but that isn’t for me. I’ll stick to carpentry.”
“Stick to being broke, you mean.”
Arlen shrugged.
“Have it your way,” Owen said.
Arlen took a drink. “You know, your sister doesn’t want Wade anywhere near here.”
“I give a shit? Tell you this-Rebecca ought to be back in Savannah. This place isn’t for her. I don’t know what in the hell she thinks she’s doing.”
Arlen looked at him and then away. “Might be she came here for you.”
“Me?”
“And your father. To help you.”
“Well, Daddy’s dead, and I don’t need any help.”
Arlen didn’t answer.
“Listen,” Owen said, “I’m not intending to spend my life cuttin’ boards or haulin’ feed sacks or pickin’ oranges or whatever it is you think I ought to do. I’m going to make a mark, old-timer, and I know the right folks to help me do it.”
“Solomon Wade.”
“Among others.” He nodded. “I know plenty of men.”
“Gangsters. Hoods.”
Owen grinned. “Call us what you like.”
Us. It took all Arlen had just to listen to this chucklehead. He tossed the rest of the drink back and stood.
“Rebecca wants out of this place,” he said. “She’s done some suffering, waiting on you.”
Owen gave another drunken wave of his hand, and Arlen felt his fingers start to curl up into fists at his sides. He looked at the kid for a moment, his jaw working, thinking of all the things that should be said. Wasn’t his place to say them, though.
“Welcome back,” he said, and then he turned and walked up the steps and went to his bedroom alone.
35
THEY’D SLEPT IN THE SAME BED since Paul left, but that night they did not, and she didn’t come down to his room in the darkness the way she once had. He tried not to let her brother’s presence rankle him, but it was hard not to. Her idea was that they were all going to run off to Maine together like some happy damn family? Arlen couldn’t see it.
He also couldn’t see leaving her, though. Ever.
When he awoke it was to the sound of loud, angry voices. He got out of bed and pulled on some clothes and went downstairs, feeling a vague, hungover sort of angry, as he often did in the mornings after sleepless nights. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, another voice had joined Rebecca and Owen’s chorus, though, and this one pushed away the mental fog. It was Solomon Wade.
“I told you to leave him alone,” Rebecca was saying. “I mean it, too. You stay away from this place!”
“I’m trying to help the lad get back on his feet,” Wade said in that drawl of his, a voice carefully designed to show no reaction, to create a constant sense of control. “I shouldn’t think you’d object to that.”
“You stay away from him.”
“Rebecca, quit hollering,” Owen said as Arlen stepped into the room. “The man’s trying to help, he comes here to give us a-”