“Where?” he said.
“Just where I said—top of the hill, above where you parked.”
Sorenson shoved past him and walked through the swinging door. He kept the case wrapped under his left arm, pressed against his side, but let his right hand drift under his jacket. Arlen paused just long enough to look back into the room, a cramped little office where Rebecca Cady stood with her hands folded in front of her and a blank look on her face, and then he followed. When he got out to the barroom, Sorenson was standing with the front door open, looking out.
“There’s nobody there.”
“Was a minute ago. Black Plymouth.”
Sorenson reflected on that for a moment, then manufactured an uneasy grin and said, “Good thing I had you bring your bags in, see? This area is fraught with lazy crackers who’ll steal anything they can lift.”
Lazy crackers don’t drive new Plymouths, Arlen thought.
“Where’s the kid?” Sorenson asked.
“Down on the beach.”
He nodded as if that pleased him, then said, “Why don’t you bring him in? I’m going to drive the car down a little closer in case our visitor returns, and then we’ll have another drink and head south.”
“I don’t need another drink. Let’s just head.”
“Not quite yet,” Sorenson said, and then he stepped outside and let the thick wooden door bang shut behind him.
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.