The Cypress House (6 page)

    Sorenson
gazed at him without reaction. Arlen held the stare for a time and then turned
away, at which point Sorenson finally spoke.

    "I
am most taken with games of chance and those who purport themselves as capable
of beating them. And life, Mr. Wagner? That's the best game of chance in this
world. You think you can beat it."

    "No,"
Arlen said. "I do not think that."

    "Sure
you do. We'll see if you can. The fate of that train will tell the tale."

    "It
may not be the train," Arlen said, his voice starting to thicken with
drink. "Could be something will happen that has nothing to do with the
train. But the Keys aren't safe, damn it, and I want to keep that kid from
going."

    "You
say that as if you suspect it will be difficult."

    "He's
determined. I'd like to get to Hillsborough County, to the CCC camp there. The
boy doesn't belong down in the Keys."

    "I
see." Sorenson twirled his glass on the bar, watching the warm amber
liquid devour his ice. Arlen had a passing notion that he was surprised such a
bar even had ice; perhaps this was what Sorenson provided in these days of open
liquor trade. "Well, Wagner, what I said during our game holds true — luck
rides with you tonight. Not only did you win the game, not only did you escape
the train to the Keys, not only did you hitch with me just in time to avoid the
rain, but you've found a ride to Hills- borough County. I'll make a few stops
along the way, but by sundown I'll be within twenty miles. Can't pass on a free
ride."

    "Generous
offer, but all the same, I think we'll stick to the trains."

    "You
wound me," Sorenson said. "Think logically — it's a five-mile hike
back to the station and then you'll have to piece together a day of travel at
considerable expense. You will also have to convince the lad to change his
plans. He likes that car, Mr. Wagner. I imagine he'd like to drive it."

    Arlen
looked up at him and frowned. "Why so interested?" he said.
"What's it to you, Sorenson ?"

    "There
are plenty of reasons. For one, I find you a most fascinating man, you of the
bad feelings, you, the seer of death. For another, I could use the company.
These highways get lonesome, Mr. Wagner. And a third reason? My fortune-teller
in Cassadaga, the one who warned me of death in the rain? Her guidance for me
on this visit was quite limited — all she said was that I needed to be aware of
travelers in need."

    "You
expect me to believe that, you're crazy."

    "On
the contrary," Sorenson said, "if you're anything close to the man I
suspect you are, I know that you
will
believe it. Because it's the
truth."

    Arlen
held his eyes for a time, then looked away without speaking.

    "All
right," he said. "We'll ride with you tomorrow."

    He
did not sleep well. In the room beside them, an ancient bed creaked a sad,
hollow rhythm beneath first one man's grunting efforts and then another's. The
redheaded woman who had once worn a green dress did not make a sound. Arlen lay
in the dark and listened and wondered if Paul was awake. If he was, he didn't
speak. By three Arlen's flask was empty and then so was the room beside them,
the door swung shut one final time as the voices downstairs fell silent.

    He
dozed off sometime around four but slept in uneasy fits, jerking awake often to
the sound of an unrelenting rain. It was sweltering in the constricted,
windowless room, and Arlen's sweat soaked into the sheets as the night carried
on and finally broke to dawn.

    "Get
on your feet," Arlen said, giving Paul a shake. "We've got a ride.
Sorenson's going to take us south."

    "To
the Keys?"

    "He
isn't going that far. All I know is he's going south, and we can ride with him
in that fancy car you liked so much. Beats waiting all day for a train."

    Arlen
felt a twinge at his own words. It wasn't a bald lie — Hillsborough County was
indeed south, but it was also west, when the train lines that would carry them
to the Keys were on the state's eastern shore.

    They
drove away in a gray, windy dawn, the Auburn gleaming as if freshly washed
after the night of steady rain.

    "Shouldn't
take but five or six hours," Sorenson said. "I've a few stops to make
along the way, but they'll be swift enough. I appreciate you joining me on this
short sojourn."

    Arlen
winced, and Sorenson noted it. "What?" he said.

    "Nothing,"
Arlen muttered. "You just . . . it reminded me of something my father used
to say."

    
They're
only dead to people like you, Arlen. Truth is they're carrying on, bound to a
place where you can't yet follow. This life is but a sojourn.

    "A
story you'd like to share?" Sorenson said.

    "No,"
Arlen said.

    Their
stops were roadhouses similar to Pearl's. At each of them, a large black case
with two metal locks entered and exited the establishment with Sorenson. The
stops were swift indeed, short disruptions as they drove through a green,
saturated land. The ditches on either side of the road were swollen with muddy
water. Arlen's father used to caution about dreams of muddy water, claiming
they warned of impending trouble. Arlen wondered if his father had such a dream
toward the end, or if dreams had failed him.

    They
pushed west as the heat continued to build and with it the thickness of the
air. Sorenson had the windows cranked down on the Auburn, and out on the back
roads he opened the engine up and let the big car run, Paul grinning as the
speedometer hit seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. Sorenson let it fall off
then but kept it closer to ninety than eighty for most of an hour. Their next
stop was at a place called the Swamp. Unlike the previous roadhouses, this one
seemed to be booming — the building was outfitted with electric lamps and
glossy wood on the front patio, and cars filled the parking area already, new
Plymouths and Chryslers and one Essex Terraplane that turned Paul's head.

    "That
one would blow your doors off, Mr. Sorenson," he said.

    "You
say."

    "Oh,
it's a fact."

    "Busy
place," Arlen said. "And one with some money."

    "Casino
inside," Sorenson said. "They do it right, too."

    "Let's
have a look," Paul said, but Arlen shook his head.

    "We'll
wait on him."

    "Oh,
it can't hurt to wander around in there a bit, Arlen."

    "We'll
wait."

    They
leaned against the Auburn and watched people come and go through the doors,
women in dresses and heels, men in suits with drinks in their hands.
I guess
we drove out of the Depression,
Arlen thought.
Be back in it another
mile down the road, but somehow it doesn't exist right here. Must be nice.

    "This
is what Key West is supposed to be like," Paul said. "Saloons all
over the place, people having a good time just like here. That writer's down
there, Hemingway, and I saw a picture of Dizzy Dean, taken on his vacation. All
sorts of famous people pass through. Why, we could have a drink with
them."

    Arlen
regarded him with surprise. He wouldn't have imagined a kid like Paul would
give the first damn about saloons and Dizzy Dean. In his mind, the only thing
the boy had been after in the Keys was work on the bridge. Well, that had no
doubt been a naive, idealized notion. Paul was nineteen, probably wanted
himself a taste of many things. All this time Arlen had seen the kid eyeing his
flask, he'd assumed Paul was antiliquor. He was probably just curious.

    When
Sorenson returned, Arlen said, "Say, weren't you going to let the kid
drive?"

    "He
probably won't want to if it isn't that Terraplane he's so sweet on."

    "I'll
drive," Paul said, and Sorenson grinned.

    The
funny thing was, once he got behind the wheel, he was scared to let the big
motor run. Wouldn't take it beyond forty until Sorenson said, "Boy, if I'd
wanted my mother to drive, I'd have brought her along." Then the kid
finally laid into it, got them as high as sixty. Arlen wondered when Paul had
last driven a car. Hell, if he'd
ever
driven a car. He handled it well,
though, seemed comfortable behind the wheel even if hesitant of the engine's
power.

    "Mr.
Sorenson?" Paul said after they'd gone about ten miles. "I thought we
were going to head south today. We're driving due west."

    Sorenson
flicked his eyes over to Arlen, then looked back and said, "Didn't know I
was required to stick to a specific compass point when I agreed to give y'all a
ride."

    "That's
not what I'm saying, I was just wondering —"

    "We'll
be southbound shortly. Only one stop left. And it's on the beach."

    "The
beach? Now that's better. I've always wanted to see the ocean."

    Arlen
frowned. "Thought you grew up just south of New York."

    "That's
right."

    "Hell,
the ocean can't be but an hour from there at most."

    "It's
not," Paul said, and there was something different in his voice, an edge
Arlen had never imagined him capable of. "I just never saw it, okay?"

    "Okay,"
Arlen said. It struck him then how little he knew about the kid. His name, his
age, his home. He knew those things and the undeniable fact that he was the
closest thing to a mechanical genius Arlen had ever encountered.

    Forty-five
minutes later they caught a flash of blue, the expanse of the Gulf of Mexico
ahead, and for the first time Paul seemed unsteady with the car, drifting
across the center line for a blink before he brought it back. Sorenson told
Paul that if he wanted to gawk at the water, he'd best give up the wheel.

    It
did look pretty. The sun had broken through — though there were dark clouds in
the mirrors and more massing to the north — and the breakers glittered. There
wasn't a boat in sight, the water an unbroken vastness of prehistoric power.

    "Wow,"
Paul said. And then, softer, "That is something. It really is."

    The
road curled away from the coast again. There wasn't much development out here,
wasn't much at all except for the road, in fact. Once, they crossed a set of
train tracks — Paul going over the rails so gingerly Arlen thought he might get
out and try to carry the Auburn across — but then those were gone and nothing
showed ahead. Eventually they came to a four-way stop, pavement continuing south,
dirt roads to the east and west, and Sorenson told Paul to turn right, west,
back toward the Gulf.

    They
went maybe a mile down this mud track before the trees parted and the road went
to something sandier, shells cracking beneath the tires. A moment later the
water showed itself, and in front of the shore was a clapboard structure of
white that had long since turned to gray. It was a rectangle with a smaller
raised upper level, steep roofs all around. At the top of the second story was
a small deck with fence rails surrounding it. A widow's walk. A porch ran the
length of the house, and an old wooden sign swung in the wind above:
The
Cypress House.

    "Tell
you what," Sorenson said, "let's all go in here."

    Paul
passed him the keys and popped open the door, eager to step out and gawk at the
sea. Arlen started out, too, but Sorenson put a hand on his arm.

    "You
might want to bring the bags in."

    Arlen
tilted his head. "Why?" They'd never been so much as invited in at
any previous stop, and now Sorenson wanted the bags out of his car, too?

    "This
area," Sorenson said, and let the words hang.

    Arlen
looked around in every direction, saw nothing but the shore ahead and tangled
trees and undergrowth behind.

    "Looks
peaceful to me," he said.

    "Mr.
Wagner," Sorenson said, and there was a bite in his words, "you ever
been here before?"

    "I've
not."

    Sorenson
nodded. "Then perhaps you should reconsider my advice."