The Cypress House by Michael Koryta Read Free Book Online

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.
    ----
        

Chapter 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