“I swear,” he said, “it was an easier fix I had at Raiford.”
“From the sound of it,” Arlen said, “your return there can be arranged easily enough.”
Rebecca gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged. She got up from her chair and went to the window and stared out into the darkness as if the agents were already circling through the woods, watching. Hell, maybe they were.
“We can leave now,” she said. “We’ve got the money. We can leave now, and then they can all tangle together tomorrow and forget we ever existed.”
“I don’t reckon they’ll forget,” Arlen said. “Not a one of them, on either side. They’ll be at our heels by sundown. And when it comes to that, we’d best hope for the law to catch us first.”
“You go, then. You and Paul. You’ve done nothing wrong. This trouble belongs to no one but Cadys.”
Arlen said, “No.” Quiet but firm. She turned to look at him, and Owen did the same, and he looked from one to the other and shook his head.
“All right,” Owen said, “then what in the hell do you propose?”
He’d been thinking on that for the whole hour’s silent drive back from the train station. None of the options was appealing, but only one made any real sense to him.
“We’ve got to go to Barrett,” he said, “and offer to help.”
“According to Paul, we’re the ones he’s intending to arrest,” she said.
“That might be the case right now. But he’s not entirely ignorant—it’s Wade he’s really after. He thinks removing the two of you might help him get to Wade. We’ll have to convince him you don’t need to be jailed to do that. In fact, you’re a hell of a lot more help to him out of jail than in it.”
Rebecca looked at Owen, uncertain.
“I’ve helped them,” she said. “I’ve handled his money and allowed my property to be used for any number of horrible things, and I’ve not said a word.”
“Because you feared for your brother,” Arlen said.
“You understand that,” she said. “Will they?”
“I expect they might.”
“So then we end up working for them against him.”
“That’s right.”
She didn’t answer.
“You don’t think they’re good enough, do you?” Arlen said.
“They’re not,” Owen said. He’d been listening with a distant stare and that untouched glass of whiskey near his hand.
“You can’t say that for sure.”
“The hell I can’t. You know how long Solomon’s been running this part of the state? You don’t think the law’s taken some shots at him before this? Taken some shots at the Italians he’s in with down in Tampa, and at the boys in New Orleans? Shit, that’s all they do, take shots at men like that. And year after year some of them go under. Wade, though? Wade gets stronger.”
“Well, maybe,” Arlen said, “this is his year.”
They were all quiet again. The rain had finally ceased altogether, and the wind was flat and all that could be heard was the ticking of the mantelpiece clock and, very soft, the breakers out on the beach.
“He’ll listen,” Paul said.
They all turned to look at him.
“Barrett,” he said. “He’ll listen to you. He’ll understand.”
“You haven’t been around long enough to guess at who can be trusted and who can’t,” Owen said.
“I think I have. And I can tell you this: Arlen was right. Barrett and those that he’s working for, they want Solomon Wade. All you and Rebecca are to them is a chance to work toward him. They’d do most anything to arrest him, I think. The way Barrett told it to me, Wade’s near impossible to get at because of the way he isolates himself. Both by living in a place like this and by having people like…” He hesitated, then finished, “… people like you do his dirty work.”
“You know that’s true,” Arlen said. “That’s the way he runs his show, sure enough. And if they understand that much, then they ought to be able to believe what we have to say. Hell, they may have seen it before.”
Owen blew out a held breath and leaned over and picked up the whiskey glass for the first time, drank until it was half gone.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s give it hell, then.”
Arlen nodded. “We’ll go in the morning. First thing.”
“To Barrett?”
He nodded again.
Rebecca said, “Owen should wait. I’ll go alone.”
Arlen cocked his head and frowned. “I expect they’re going to want to talk with him, too. You can’t do his bidding for him.”