I thought it was the right decision. I thought it was the only way.
Inside, Owen said, “You said you run across Wade in the jail?”
“That’s right, but I haven’t done a thing to cause him trouble since.”
He’s caused you trouble, though, Arlen thought. He put smoke in your eyes, Paul. That man will be your death.
He jerked the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it in his palm and flung it into the yard.
“Let me talk to him,” Owen said. “I’ll put in the good word. I bet he goes along with it. I’m going to need a hand with this thing we’ve got coming in.”
“What is it?” Paul said.
Owen Cady laughed. “Not yet, Paulie. Not yet. You ain’t cleared.”
“Well, get me cleared,” Paul said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make some money. I want to get out of this place, and I don’t want to do it walking down the highway. Not again.”
“You get in with Wade, and you’ll leave this place in a Cadillac.”
They went on for another hour at least. Arlen sat where he was the whole time, listening to them and shaking his head, thinking that Paul sounded like an entirely different kid. Like someone Arlen had never met. He was trying to act hard, for one thing, and for another he was buying into Owen Cady’s bullshit. It didn’t seem like the same kid who’d been so hellfire determined to repair the generator and the clock, didn’t seem like the same kid who’d charged Tate McGrath in that barroom and nearly gotten killed.
That was on Arlen, though. Paul wasn’t the same kid, damn it. He’d left the Cypress House a different person, and his time on the road had done nothing to help, just allowed him to soak in his bitterness.
All I wanted was for you to leave, Arlen thought, because I knew what staying would mean. Why can’t you see that it was the truth?
He didn’t see it, though, and now he was back and planning to partner up with whatever Owen Cady had to offer. Arlen thought of the way Paul’s eyes had swirled to smoke during that handshake with Wade, the way it had vanished as soon as the man released his grip, and he knew what had to be done.
He was going to have to kill Solomon Wade.
37
OWEN ROSE EARLY and took off in the convertible, and Paul went with him. They didn’t leave word of where they were going or when they’d be back.
When Tate McGrath arrived, Arlen somehow had a feeling he’d known that it would be just Arlen and Rebecca at the inn. The old truck clattered into the yard, and Arlen took one look and then went upstairs and found the pistol he’d left under the bed. He checked the load and snapped the cylinder shut and then held the gun close to his leg as he walked down the steps. He stopped halfway down when he heard Rebecca at the door.
“Solomon wanted y’all to have this” was all McGrath said. Then the door swung shut and Arlen heard his boots slap across the porch. Arlen came down the steps and looked outside in time to see him getting into the truck.
“What are you doing with that?” Rebecca said, looking at the gun. She was holding a sealed envelope.
“I don’t like that son of a bitch. I’d rather have a gun in hand anytime he pays a visit.” He nodded at the envelope. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” She tore the envelope open and slid a folded piece of paper out. As she unfolded it, Arlen saw it was a newspaper clipping. He set the gun on the bar and came to her side, studied the picture with her. The face was familiar-it was the man who drove the black Plymouth.
The article was from the Orlando newspaper, detailing the discovery of two bodies dragged from a swamp in a desolate stretch outside the village of Cassadaga. Both bodies were male, both were homicide victims, but only one had been identified: David A. Franklin, a Tampa native and known underworld figure. The second victim’s identity was unconfirmed, police said, due to the fact that both of his hands were missing. Anonymous sources suggested that the corpse was Walter H. Sorenson, also from Tampa, and a close associate of Franklin’s.
“Sorenson?” Arlen said. “That’s whose hands we have? That can’t be.”
Rebecca slid slowly away, almost soundlessly, dropped until she was sitting on the floor and her back was against the bar. Her eyes were distant.
“I didn’t… I thought it was the other man,” she said. “Franklin. I didn’t understand what they wanted me to know.”
“Those can’t be Sorenson’s hands. He burned…” Arlen’s voice faded and he turned his head and looked out the window at the spot in the yard where Sorenson’s Auburn had exploded. He thought of how quickly the body had gone up, how the flesh had already been singed beyond recognition when Arlen reached the car.
I would have seen it coming, he thought. I would have seen smoke in his eyes, would have known before he stepped out this door.
“That wasn’t him in the Auburn,” Arlen said.
Rebecca shook her head.
“I thought the man in the Plymouth killed him,” Arlen said. “That man was David Franklin, probably. But he didn’t kill him. If he had, I’d have seen the signs. No, Sorenson had a chance when he left this place. He had a chance, and they tracked him down, and they took that chance away.”
Rebecca didn’t answer.
“Franklin drove that Plymouth down here to help him,” Arlen said. “Is that it? He came down to pick him up and set fire to that car so we’d be left thinking the man was dead.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her. “You knew this. You’ve always known it.”
“No. But I’ve wondered.”
Arlen got slowly to his feet. He left her sitting there on the floor and walked around the bar and poured himself a drink, though it was not yet nine in the morning. When he spoke again, he couldn’t even see her.
“I want to hear it,” he said. “I want to hear it all.”
For the first time since the hurricane, she drank with him. They sat at a table beside the fireplace and drank, and she told him about Walter Sorenson.
Sorenson was intrigued by Rebecca. He didn’t understand why she’d stayed at the Cypress House after her father’s death, and he didn’t buy the drowning story that had been offered. He inquired about it often.
“He was here about twice a month,” she said. “It would vary depending on whether there was money to collect. The way it worked was that he’d come by to pick up what was owed to Solomon. If you didn’t have the right amount, it wouldn’t be Walter who came back for you. It would be Tate McGrath and his sons.”
At first she resented him in the way she did everyone else affiliated with Solomon Wade. But over time, as he confided in her, as he told her how badly he wanted out of the enterprise he’d joined, she began to trust him.
“I told him the truth in July,” she said. “Told him what had really happened to my father and why I was still here, that I was waiting on Owen.”
Sorenson had been sympathetic but not shocked. He’d expected as much since Rebecca first replaced her father at the inn. He inquired about her plan to leave once Owen was free, and was unimpressed.
“All I knew was that I’d take Owen and we’d go,” she said. “That seemed like enough to me. He said we’d need money. That if we tried to leave without money, we’d end up seeking help from my family, and if we did that, Solomon would find us. So it was the breadline, he said. That was where we were headed. I told him that trying to steal money would only make Solomon search for us harder, and he disagreed. He said Solomon would do it anyhow, and that we couldn’t hide without money.”
“It won’t be easy for you if you’re broke,” Arlen admitted.
“That’s what Walter said. He told me that my father’s plan was almost right, just missing a few touches: money and witnesses.”