The Cypress House(14)

“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.”

Arlen held his eyes for a moment and then turned without a word and grabbed the first bag and hauled it out with him. He tugged them all free from the Auburn and then hailed Paul to help carry them in, and while he worked he pretended not to notice that Sorenson had retrieved a small automatic from beneath the driver’s seat and tucked it into his jacket pocket.





6


WHATEVER ILL FEELINGS Sorenson had about the Cypress House were not justified by their entrance into its humid, shadowed interior. They were standing in the middle of a long, narrow room without a soul inside. There was a fireplace on their left and a bar on their right. Behind the bar, liquor was displayed on thick wooden shelves, and atop the shelves was a massive brass-ringed and glass-faced mantelpiece clock that went about two feet in diameter and was clearly broken—according to the hands it was noon. Or midnight.

Between the bar and the fireplace were scattered a handful of tables, and the wall opposite them was composed of wide windows that looked out onto another porch and beyond that the ocean.

“Hello!” Sorenson bellowed once they’d stepped inside. Arlen set his bags down beside the door, and Paul followed suit. A minute after Sorenson’s cry, they heard footsteps and then a figure rounded the corner from some unseen room Arlen took to be the kitchen and faced them across the bar.

It was a woman. Her silhouette stood out starkly against the light from the beach, but the front of her was lost to darkness.

“Walter,” she said, in a voice that seemed to come from behind a gate with many locks.

“Becky, baby, how are ya?” Sorenson approached the bar with his big black case in his hand, and Arlen and Paul followed a few paces behind.

“Grand,” the woman said in a tone that implied just the opposite. As they drew close enough to see her, Arlen felt the boy draw up taller at his side and understood the reason—she was a looker. She wore a simple white dress that had been washed many times, but beneath it the taut lines of her body curved clear and firm. Her face was sharp-featured and smooth, framed by honey-colored hair, and she regarded them with cool blue eyes.

“Who are your companions?” she said.

“Road-weary travelers, and parched,” Sorenson said. His standard grandiose demeanor seemed to have risen a notch.

“I see.”

“Might I have a pair of beers and one Coca-Cola?”

She didn’t answer, just turned and slipped into the kitchen and then returned with two beers and a bottle of Coca-Cola.

“Thank you,” Paul said, and even in the shadowed room Arlen could see red rise in the boy’s cheeks. She was that kind of beautiful. The crippling kind. Arlen himself said not a word, just took a seat at the bar. She gave him no more than a flick of the eyes before returning her focus to Sorenson.

“You need to finish your beer, or can we handle our business?”

“No need to rush,” he said, and was met with a frown that suggested she saw plenty of need.

“Well, when you’re ready, I’ll be in the back,” she said. Arlen had the sense that she was unhappy Sorenson had brought strangers along.

“Aw, stay and talk a bit. I’ve neglected to make introductions. This here is Arlen Wagner, and his young companion is Paul Brickhill. They’re CCC men.”

“How lovely,” she said in the same flat voice.

“And this,” Sorenson said, “is beautiful Becky Cady, the pride of Corridor County.”

“Rebecca,” she said.

“Ah, you’re Becky to me.”

“But not to me,” she said. “Walter, I’ll be in the back.”

She turned and went through a swinging door into the kitchen, and then it was just the three of them in the dim bar.

“Another dry county?” Arlen said.

Sorenson shook his head.

“Then what are you doing here?”