The Cypress House

by Michael Koryta

  Arlen swore under his breath, wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, and then went onto the porch and hollered for Paul. The kid was nearly out of sight now, well down the beach, but he turned and lifted a hand and started back. Arlen picked his beer up off the rail and drank the rest of it while the boy returned and pulled on his socks and shoes. He jogged up to the porch.

  “We leaving already?”

  “Soon as we can,” Arlen said. “Sorenson wants to linger, but I’m in favor of pushing on and—”

  On the other side of the building, something exploded. A bang and a roar that came so fast they were just a heartbeat from simultaneous, and for a moment the beach disappeared in front of Arlen’s eyes and he saw instead the dark forests of Belleau Wood, snarls of barbwire guarding the bases of the trees, corpses draped over them, grenades hurtling through the air. Then he blinked and found himself staring at Paul Brickhill, whose mouth hung agape.

  “What was—”

  Arlen ignored him, turned and ran back through the bar to the front door, opened it and then took a half step back and whispered, “Son of a bitch, Sorenson.”

  The Auburn was on fire. All of the glass had been blown out, and twisted, burning pieces of the seats lay on the hood. As Arlen watched, there was another explosion, flames shooting out of the engine compartment and filling the air with black smoke, and the thought of running back to the bar for a bucket of water died swiftly in his mind. He let the door swing shut and walked out onto the sandy soil and approached the Auburn with an arm held high to shield his face.

  He was still fifteen feet from the car when he saw the body in the driver’s seat. Black flesh peeling from white bone, hair curling with smoke above a suit jacket that lay across the body in smoldering strips. On the passenger seat beside the corpse, a black case with silver latches melted and dripped onto the floorboards.

  Arlen turned and looked back at the bar and saw Rebecca Cady watching from the doorway.

  “You got a phone?” he said.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head. She was staring past him at the car, and her hand was tight on the door frame.

  “Who does?”

  She made a distracted gesture up the road and didn’t answer.

  “Well, let’s go call the police,” he said. His voice was so steady it seemed to come from another place, and he knew that it did. It came from over an ocean and within a field of wheat dotted with poppies red as roses, red as blood.

  “Shouldn’t we get some water or—”

  “It’s past the time for water.”

  She wet her lips and glanced backward, where Paul stood in the middle of the barroom, peering out, and said, “You two go on down the road and call for help, and I’ll—”

  “No,” Arlen said. “We’re all going together.”

  7

  REBECCA CADY HAD A TRUCK with a small cab and a bed surrounded by homemade fence rails. Arlen told Paul to climb in the bed and then he got into the passenger seat as the woman started up the truck without saying a word. She had her lips pressed in a grim line and never glanced at the still-smoldering Auburn as she drove past. At the top of the hill, Arlen saw a place where the beach grass was matted down and tire tracks showed in the sand.

  “Who around here drives a black Plymouth?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Rebecca Cady’s tone was as flat now as it had been during their introductions in the bar. If the idea of a man being incinerated just outside her place of business was a concern, it was hard to tell.

  “Well, you might want to be thinking on it,” he said. “I suspect the sheriff is going to have plenty of questions, and that’s only going to be one of them. He’ll also want to know what Sorenson was doing at your place to begin with.”

  She was silent. The breeze blew in and fanned her hair back, showing a slender, exquisite neck.

  “You own the place?” Arlen asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “People die out there very often?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you sure don’t look rattled. And again, if I’m the sheriff, I’m going to be—”

  “You’re not the sheriff,” she said, “and if I could offer any advice, it would be that you let me talk to him alone and you two go on your way.”

  “Go on our way? That man is dead and—”

  “Dead he will stay,” she said. “Whether you talk with the sheriff or not.”

  “Hell, no. There’s not a chance, lady. I’ll be talking to the law before I head out of this place.”

  He watched her for a long time, but she never looked over at him. They’d left the dirt road for the paved now, but there wasn’t another vehicle in sight. It was isolated country, forested once you got away from the coast. They’d gone at least two miles down the paved stretch of road before a gap showed in the trees and a single gas pump appeared in a square of dusty earth. Rebecca Cady slowed the truck, and then they were past the trees and Arlen could see a service station set well back from the gas pump. There was a two-bay garage and a general store, with crates of oranges stacked beside the front door. Rebecca Cady pulled the truck in next to a delivery van and shut the engine off. Only then did she turn and look at Arlen.

  “I’ll go in now and call the sheriff, since that’s what you want me to do.”

  “You’re damned right it’s what I want you to do. A man was killed!”

  “Yes,” she said. “Welcome to Corridor County, Mr. Wagner.”

  * * *

  The sheriff told her to return to the Cypress House, and he was waiting on them when they arrived, standing beside the ruins of the Auburn while a young deputy with red hair poured pails of water onto the wreck. The flames were gone, but the metal steamed when the water touched it.

  The sheriff had the look and charm of a cinder block—a shade over six feet but 250 at least, with gray hair and small, close-set brown eyes. His hands dangled at his sides beneath thick wrists and sunburned forearms. When they got out of the truck, he didn’t say a word, just watched the three of them approach as the deputy emptied another pail of water onto the car in a hiss of steam. The sheriff didn’t break the silence until they were standing at his side.

  “Becky,” he said then, “what in the world happened to your guest?”

  “His car blew up,” Rebecca Cady said. She was standing at Paul’s side, facing the sheriff with her arms squeezed tightly across her chest, as if she’d found a cold breeze hiding in the ninety-degree day.

  “So it did,” the sheriff said. “So it did.”

  Arlen was struck by the man’s voice. He’d expected the heavy southern drawl that seemed common in these parts, but the sheriff’s accent had a touch of the Upper Midwest in it, Chicago or Minnesota or Wisconsin.

  “Who are you boys?” the sheriff said, acknowledging their existence for the first time.

  Arlen told it. Said they were CCC, had missed a train heading down to the Keys and caught a ride with the dead man.

  “You’d never seen him before? Strangers, you say?”

  “That’s right. We’d just met him last evening, Mr…. what was your name?”

  “Tolliver,” he said after a pause and a darkening of the eyes that suggested he didn’t like Arlen treating the conversation as a two-way street, “but all you need to call me is Sheriff. Do you know Becky?”

  “Just met her. Again, we’d come this way only because we hitched the ride. I’ve never set foot in this county before, and neither has Paul.”

  Tolliver pursed his lips and looked at his deputy, a freckle-faced kid with a sour scowl. He stared at him for a long time, like he was musing on something, and then he said, “Burt, put them in handcuffs and get them in the car.”

  Arlen said, “Whoa. Hold on, there. I just told you—”

  Tolliver dipped one of his big hands to his belt and came out with a .45, held it loose, along his thigh.

  “I know what you told me. I also know that
Walt Sorenson, poor dead son of a bitch that he may be, was not the kind of man who took on riders he’d never met. So I’ll give you two a chance to work on adjusting your story until you come out with the truth. Take another try right now if you’d like. Why were you riding with Sorenson?”

  For a moment there was only silence, a light salty breeze blowing in, and then Arlen said, “A fortune-teller told him to be aware of travelers in need.”

  The sheriff nodded as if this were what he’d expected to hear. “It’ll go that way, will it?” he said, and then snapped his chin at the deputy. “Burt.”

  The redheaded kid shook out a pair of handcuffs and advanced on Arlen. Paul Brickhill said, “Arlen, what… we didn’t… Arlen,” as the deputy grabbed on to Arlen’s wrist and twisted it, and the big sheriff stood with the gun in his hand and a dare in his eyes. Rebecca Cady squeezed her arms tighter and stared past them all, over the top of the demolished car and off to the horizon, where clouds hung low over the water. She stood that way until both Arlen and Paul were in handcuffs and in the back of the sheriff’s car.

  8

  PAUL TRIED TO TALK to Arlen when they were under way, but Tolliver said there’d be no conversation in the back unless someone wanted a skull-cracking. Arlen didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt cuffs close around his wrists, and he knew the drill by now—you’d eat some shit, wait till they tired of feeding it to you, and then they’d kick you loose.

  They drove past the service station where they’d called for Tolliver originally and on down the road. A few miles south they arrived in a small town laid out on a square, buildings lining a total of four roads and lasting for two blocks in each direction. A few of the signs indicated the place was called High Town, which was intriguing considering it was as flat a place as Arlen had seen. There were cars parked on the street but also two horse carts in view. The modern world had touched this place, yes, but it had made limited headway so far.

  The deputy parked in front of a single-story building with clapboard added on to an older stone section in the rear. They went up the steps and into the station, and Tolliver said, “Keep the boy out here,” and then led Arlen through a narrow hallway and out into a room where three small cells lined the back wall. He took a key from his belt and unfastened one of the doors and swung it open. Arlen went in without comment or objection.

  “You walk around here like you been in a jail before,” Tolliver said, facing him with his legs spread wide, a hint of a grin on his face.

  “I’ve seen ’em.”

  “Prison, too?”

  “Not a one. And I’ve never been charged with anything in my life except having a drink in my hand when it wasn’t legal to do so.”

  “You say.”

  “It’s the sort of thing can be checked on.”

  Tolliver cracked his knuckles, slowly and deliberately, and then said, “You call yourself Wagner.”

  “It’s my name. Check on that, too.”

  “I believe it’s pronounced Vagner,” Tolliver said. “I believe I shot some men who may well have had the same name. I shot a lot of Germans in my day.”

  “So did I,” Arlen said. “Probably more than you. And where I’m from, the name is Wagner.”

  Actually, it hadn’t been. Arlen had pronounced it Vagner until his second day on the transport ship, when he determined it would be wise to alter that German sound, distancing him not only from the enemy but from his father. The latter felt like a more valuable gain than the former.

  “Where might that be?” Tolliver said.

  “All around,” Arlen answered. “I’ve done some drifting.”

  Let the sheriff make his calls to Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, or any of the other places Arlen had spent time over the years. Let him make calls to everywhere except Fayette County, West Virginia. The only secrets Arlen had worth hiding had been left there many years ago. The first blood on Arlen Wagner’s hands hadn’t come in the war.

  “You want to keep drifting,” Tolliver said, “you’ll need to be on the other side of these bars. And for that to happen, I’m going to need to know the truth.”

  “Sheriff, you’ve already heard it.”

  Tolliver shook his head, the smile showing clearer now, as if this were what he’d expected, and it pleased him. He opened the door of the cell and stepped out, then swung it shut and locked it.

  “I’ll talk to the boy first. You think you’re a hard case. He doesn’t.”

  “He’ll tell you what I will,” Arlen said, “because it’s all we can say. Let me tell you something else, Tolliver—you lay into the boy, I’ll see it dealt with. You’re the law here. You ain’t the law all over.”

  “Nothing I enjoy more,” Tolliver said, “then a handcuffed man who offers threats. I’ll see you shortly.”

  Arlen leaned back on the cot until his head rested against the stone wall, wishing for his flask. This journey had been a mistake from the first. You didn’t leave a good place to go to an unknown one. He’d let the kid talk him into it, and more than a year of comfort and steady work had lulled him, allowed him to think it was a fine time to move on, and the Keys a fine place to go. What he knew now was that from almost the moment they’d crossed the state line, trouble had swirled around them like an angry wind.

  The sheriff wasn’t with Paul Brickhill for long—twenty minutes, maybe—and when he came back he wasn’t alone. There was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a suit and a white Panama hat at his side. He wore glasses that glittered under the overhead lights and turned his eyes into harsh white squares. Tolliver glanced at the man twice as they approached, and the look held a quality of deference. Tolliver was no longer in charge of the show.

  The sheriff unlocked the cell and held the door so the new man could enter first. Then he stepped in behind him and banged the door shut.

  “Arlen Wagner,” the sheriff said, pronouncing it with the V again. “This here is Solomon Wade. He’s the judge in Corridor County.”

  “You going to charge us?” Arlen said.

  Solomon Wade blinked at Arlen from behind the glasses. They didn’t seem to suit his face; he looked too harsh for them. He was young for a judge, but the youth didn’t suggest a lack of assurance. Rather, every step and glance bespoke a man who was used to having command.

  “What brings you to Florida?” he said as if Arlen hadn’t spoken. His voice was thick with southern flavor, and soft, but still had a timbre that would hold men’s attention, and hold it fast.

  “I expect the sheriff has told you,” Arlen said. “I came for work. We were bound for the Keys.”

  “This isn’t the way to get there from Alabama.”

  “We had a detour.”

  “Bad time to head to the Keys,” Wade said. “Bad time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Storm coming. It’s all they’re talking about on the radio. They’re going to have a hurricane down south, down Miami way.”

  “A damned hurricane,” Tolliver said under his breath, and a frown creased his broad face. He seemed genuinely distressed.

  “All due respect,” Arlen said, “but if we’re going to talk about the weather, I’d like to be on the other side of these bars.”

  The sheriff looked at Solomon Wade and gave a rueful shake of his head, a What did I tell you? gesture.

  “I’d likely imagine you would,” Wade drawled. “But that’s going to take some cooperation on your part.”

  “I’ve been cooperating.”

  “Al here disagrees,” Wade said. “He suspects you of dishonesty.”

  “Al is wrong.”

  “Al is not often wrong. In my experience he’s been a fine judge of character. And you, sir, will address him as Sheriff. I believe in a culture of respect in my jail. You don’t show much of it.”

  “Everybody has an off day now and again,” Arlen said.

  Solomon Wade looked at Tolliver but didn’t say anything. Tolliver ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. His s
houlders were relaxed, his demeanor casual, as if they were all strangers on a train, pleasant but unfamiliar. He didn’t appear to do so much as tense a muscle before he swung one of those meaty hands and caught Arlen flush on the side of the head. It was more slap than punch, but it rang Arlen’s bell, knocked him sideways and put a flash of color in his eyes. He caught himself sliding off the cot, stood, and allowed a smile.

  “Aw, hell,” Tolliver said, “you’re one of those kind. Enjoy being hit.”

  “No, Sheriff, I’m not.”

  “Just a cheerful son of a bitch, then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He expected another blow, and Tolliver seemed prepared to administer one, but then Solomon Wade raised a hand.

  “The boy sticks to his tale,” he said. “And he’s too damn green to be a good liar. I’ve got an expectation that the part about you all coming down from Alabama will check out well enough. What will not check out is the notion that Walt Sorenson drove you for a full day out of the goodness of his black heart. I’d be willing to believe, maybe, that he gave you a ride a mile up the highway. But the story the boy tells? Of you riding with him all day and making stops along the way at establishments that are well known to me? That don’t carry water.”

  “It’ll have to,” Arlen said, wondering why in the hell the county judge seemed to be heading up the investigation.

  Solomon Wade said, “Al,” and at the one soft word, the sheriff put his right fist into Arlen’s belly. A snake of cold-to-warm pain rippled through Arlen, and his knees tried to buckle, but Tolliver kept him upright and smiled in his face.

  “So we begin,” he said.

  It went that way for an hour at least. Wade asked questions, and Arlen answered them, and when he couldn’t, Tolliver swung. He was ox strong and knew all the soft spots, and it wasn’t long before breathing was difficult and Arlen’s kidneys were coiled flames.

  Mostly Wade wanted to know where they’d gone and what had been said. He showed no interest at all in the explosion that had taken Sorenson’s life. No mention was made of the Cypress House or of Rebecca Cady. No, just questions of what Sorenson had said and where he’d stopped and whether he’d had any money on his person. Arlen answered what he could, and he didn’t resist the blows. Tolliver had a gun on one side of his belt and a hickory billy club on the other and a deputy waiting outside. Giving him even a taste of the fight he wanted was going to work out poorly in the end, and so even as Arlen marked the weaknesses in the larger man’s approach, saw the openings and envisioned the bloody shattering of that broad nose, he kept his hands down and took what was offered.