“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.