The Cypress House

by Michael Koryta

  “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. “Th
e man’s trying to help, he comes here to give us a—”

  “We don’t need gifts from him.”

  “It’s not a gift, it’s a loaner,” Owen said. “Something to drive, is all.”

  Arlen looked out the window and saw that there were two cars beside Rebecca’s old truck: Solomon Wade’s gray Ford coupe and a blue convertible with whitewall tires.

  “To drive for what?” Rebecca said.

  “I’ve found the boy some work,” Wade said.

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, he will not work for you.”

  “Now, Rebecca. Times are hard, and I’ve found Owen an opportunity. Him fresh out of prison? I’d think you’d be more appreciative. Why, you’ve done some work for me yourself, have you not?”

  She didn’t speak.

  Solomon Wade said, “I’ll leave y’all to sort this out. Owen, you be in touch, hear? I need you, and there’s dollars in it. Stacks of them.”

  He walked through the door and out to his car. Tate McGrath was waiting in the passenger seat; evidently he’d driven the convertible down.

  “I don’t understand you,” Owen said to Rebecca. “I don’t understand you a bit.”

  “Owen, you’re not to work for him. I won’t allow it.”

  “You won’t?” He had a challenge to his voice, his eyebrows raised.

  “That’s right. That man is—”

  “Is the only person in this county who sees anybody gets paid,” Owen said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s a Depression on, Rebecca. And Judge Wade sees that people get paid. What’s he ever done to you?”

  “What’s he done?” she echoed. “What’s he done?”

  “That’s what I asked.”

  Her whole body was trembling. “He’s a criminal. He hurts people and he steals from them and—”

  “No worse than most of the world.”

  “And he kills them. He’s a murderer.”

  Owen laughed. “Oh boy. You been hearing some tall ones. Who’s telling them? This guy?” He pointed at Arlen.

  Rebecca stood there and stared at her brother, who gave a mocking smile in response, and she didn’t say a word.

  “I’m going for a drive,” Owen said. He walked past Arlen and through the door, and a minute later the convertible was roaring away.

  “Why won’t you tell him?” Arlen said. “Damn it, he needs to know.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I will. It’s just… not the right time.”

  “Well, it better be the right time soon,” Arlen said. “Because I’ll tell you something—that brother of yours isn’t some confused kid who got himself into trouble. He thinks he’s going to be a gangster, and he likes the idea.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “No?” Arlen said, and they exchanged an unpleasant stare.

  “Listen,” he said after the pause had gone on awhile, “I thought you were waiting here until he got released. I thought the only reason you were staying at this place was to keep Wade happy until your brother got released.”

  “That’s exactly why I stayed.”

  “Well, Rebecca, he’s been released. And he says he’s going to stay.”

  “He won’t. He’ll leave.”

  “Going to take some convincing to get him to do that. I talked to the boy last night. He thinks he’s the next Al Capone.”

  “That’s just talk.”

  “Hell, yes, it’s just talk. What isn’t talk, though, is the idea that it’s what he wants to be. He thinks Wade is aces. So if you want him to be hitting the road with you, you’re going to need to tell him the truth of it. Your father didn’t drown; he had his throat cut. That kid needs to know.”

  She nodded. “I’m going to tell him. I don’t want to do it here, though.”

  “What do you mean you don’t want to do it here?”

  “Owen is… rash,” she said carefully. “Foolish at times. He’s so young.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I can’t tell him the truth when he is around Solomon Wade and Tate McGrath,” she said. “Don’t you understand that? He won’t want to leave; he’ll want to settle scores. He doesn’t know enough to see that you can’t settle scores with men like that. I’ll tell him once we’re gone from this place. First, though, I need to get him away from here.”

  “You’re trying to protect him from Wade,” Arlen said, “and from himself. You might be able to do one. I can guarantee you’ll never be able to do the other. The kid’s going to chart his own course. Seems like he’s already well under way.”

  “I just need to get him away from here.”

  “Well, why aren’t we going, then? Every day we linger is another day he falls in deeper with Wade.”

  “I can’t… I’m waiting on something.”

  “Waiting on something?”

  She looked away.

  “This is how it goes,” he said bitterly. “I’m trusted only so far. You still keep your secrets, though. The ones that matter most.”

  “Arlen, it’s not an issue of trust. It’s not. And I’ll talk to Owen. You’ll see—as soon as he comes back, I’ll talk to him.”

  He didn’t come back that day, though. When the knock on the door came just after sunset, they both assumed it would be Owen. It wasn’t.

  It was Paul Brickhill.

  36

  HE LOOKED TIRED AND THIN, with a face streaked by road dust and sweat. His shoes were caked with mud and split on one side from miles of walking. Rebecca held the door open and stared at him and didn’t move. Arlen was sitting at the bar and he could see over her shoulder to the boy, who looked back at him without a word or a change of expression.

  “Maybe I could step inside?” he said at last, addressing Rebecca.

  “Yes, come on, get in here.”

  She moved aside and let him pass, and he dropped his bags to the floor and walked over to the bar and looked at Arlen. Neither of them spoke. Arlen’s first thought, the one that had cut right through him at the sight of the kid, was relief. He was glad to see him again. Then he remembered the smoke he’d seen in Paul’s eyes, remembered the purpose for the whole damn terrible thing, and thought, No. You weren’t supposed to come back.

  Paul gave him that steady gaze and then went around the bar and pulled a bottle of gin off the shelf. He poured a glass of it, took a sip, and then came back and sat on a bar stool a few down from Arlen. He looked up at the clock.

  “Still working,” he said. There was no note of pride in his voice. Not like there had been with the generator.

  “Yes,” Rebecca said. “Thank you so much for that. Paul, let me get you something to eat. You look like you need it.”

  “I could stand to eat.”

  “I’ll fix something right away.” She’d walked over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder, and he turned his head and stared down at it and then lifted his eyes to hers, cold eyes, and she removed her hand.

  “Right away,” she murmured again, and then she left.

  It was quiet, nothing but the sound of the kitchen door swinging slower and slower until it came to a stop, and then all that could be heard was the ticking of the clock.

  Arlen said, “You all right?”

  “You care?” Paul lifted the glass and drank a little more of the gin.

  “Of course I do,” Arlen said. “And you know that.”

  Paul shook his head wearily. “Sure, Arlen. Sure.”

  “Look, son, the way it happened—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. Not ever again. Just don’t speak of it.”

  Arlen went silent. They could hear Rebecca moving around in the kitchen, laying a pan on the stove and sparking the burner.

  “Where you been?” Arlen said. “Where’d you go?”

  “I went to Hillsborough County. The CCC camp down there. Ones that are working on the park, where you wanted us to go after we got off the train?”

  Arlen nodded. “I remember it.”

  “Yeah? Well, if I wanted to have
a chance with the CCC again, I should’ve gone down earlier.” He turned the gin glass in his hands, his face dark and sullen.

  “They wouldn’t let you re-up?”

  “No. Want to know why? Because they’d heard about the trouble I got into up here. That’s what I was told. Evidently Solomon Wade called down there. Him or the sheriff.”

  “When did he call? Day we were jailed?”

  “I’m not sure. But somebody from up here called and spoke to them and warned them we might show up looking for work. Told them we weren’t wanted in Florida, so they should send us packing if we did show.”

  Arlen felt the squeeze of anger in the back of his neck. That was the best job the boy could have found, and Wade had shut it down.

  “I thought about trying to get back to Flagg,” Paul said, “but my company left in the summer anyhow. Besides, Wade called up there, too, checking on our story. I doubt they’d be any happier to see me.”

  Arlen didn’t say anything. He would have liked to argue, say that the supervisors back at Flagg knew Paul too well to believe that sort of shit, but he knew it probably wasn’t true. The only supervisor who’d really gotten to know him well was Arlen.

  “I stayed around Hillsborough for a few days. Hitched a ride into St. Petersburg. There’s this fancy hotel there called the Vinoy, right on the bay. Heard they were hiring porters, but I couldn’t catch on. So I headed back.” Paul finished the gin and added, “I don’t want to be here. Hope you understand that. I don’t want to be here, but I got nowhere else to go.”

  Right then the front door banged open and Owen Cady stood before them. He was wearing a suit and polished shoes.

  “How y’all doing?” Owen said. “We got ourselves a guest, eh? I hope he’s paying for that liquor.”

  “He’s not paying for it.” Rebecca had stepped back out from the kitchen at the sound of her brother returning. “He’s my guest. Where have you been?”

  “Seeing the free world again. Don’t you think I deserve that?” He crossed the room and put his hand out to Paul. “I’m Owen Cady. I own the place.”

  “Paul Brickhill.” Paul shook his hand and passed a curious glance at Rebecca. “This your brother?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve heard of me?” Owen said, retrieving a cigar from his jacket pocket and clipping the end.