Arlen thought that might snap her. Thought she might turn and go running up the stairs and come back with a Smith & Wesson in her hand. Instead she just swiveled to stare at her brother and said, “He didn’t pull strings to keep you out.”
“That isn’t his fault! It’s mine. I don’t know what-”
“It’s fine, son,” Solomon Wade said, his voice awash in generosity. “If your sister wishes this to be a family occasion, a family occasion it shall be. I just wanted to welcome you back to Corridor County myself.”
He gave a little bow, said, “Y’all have a fine afternoon.” Then he turned and walked back to his car and drove away, one hand lifted out the window in a neighborly wave. A dark red flush rose in Rebecca’s face as she watched.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Owen said. “I wanted to surprise you. Can’t you be happy to see me?”
She looked back at him, blinked, and tried to force some cheer.
“Of course I’m happy.”
Owen looked up into the doorway at Arlen and said, “Who’s this?”
Arlen stepped forward and put out a hand as Rebecca said, “Arlen Wagner. He’s helping me rebuild things after the hurricane. We lost the dock and boathouse and most of the back porch.”
“Good to meet you,” Owen said. He gave Arlen a measuring stare, though, some suspicion in his eyes.
“Likewise,” Arlen said. “Your sister has been eager for your return.”
“Half as eager as me, that’s for sure. Raiford isn’t a fun place to be. Tough fellas in there.” He gave that grin again, and there was a cockiness to his eyes and bearing, as if he considered his prison days a point of pride.
Arlen said, “I’m sure it isn’t fun.”
“Let’s go on inside,” Owen said to Rebecca. “I want to pour a drink, a good one, and then I’ll tell you some stories. Tell you what it was like in there.”
Rebecca frowned, and Arlen understood why. The kid was talking like he’d just returned from a holiday trip. Wanting to tell stories? Shit. It reminded Arlen of men he’d known who always wanted to tell stories about what the war had been like. Inevitably, they were the ones who hadn’t seen any real combat. He had yet to meet a man who’d emerged alive from the Belleau Wood with any desire to tell tales about it.
As Owen Cady swaggered into the barroom, bellowing about how beautiful the liquor bottles looked, Arlen missed Paul with a sudden, deep ache.
He told his stories. They sat around for an hour while Rebecca made him a thick sandwich and brought him a cold beer. Owen ate, and drank, and talked. And talked some more. Everything was designed to impress. He told of how tough the Raiford bulls had been, how quick with their billies and their fists, but he didn’t sound chagrined about it. He told about one man the guards had beaten so badly he’d been taken out with a fractured kneecap and broken ribs, and when he finished that story he laughed and shook his head, as if recalling some moment of horseplay. He bragged about the other inmates as if they were a collection of mythical heroes instead of a cell block full of cruel bastards and swindlers.
“Thing about it is, you got to fall in with the right crowd early, or they’ll eat you for lunch in that place,” he said. “I found some boys who knew those I’d run with, and that was the start. You find somebody to back you when it’s needed and you do the same for them and that’s how you make it. If there’s going to be fighting, you better not be alone.”
Rebecca was listening quietly but unhappily. Owen had turned most of his attention to Arlen, gesturing and pointing with his beer.
“There was a fella who ran with Dillinger,” he said. “Did you know that Jack-that’s what Dillinger was called by them that knew him-came down to Florida for a time when things got hot back in Indiana? It’s the truth.”
“Dillinger was killed last year,” Arlen said.
“I know that. Everybody knows that.”
Arlen shrugged.
“So were Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson,” Owen said. “All in one year. And Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. No, thirty-four was not a good year to be in the rackets.”
“No year is,” Rebecca snapped. “I wish you wouldn’t say that like you think it’s a sad thing. Those people were criminals. They were killers.”
“I know, sister, I know.” But he winked at Arlen as he drank the beer.
After a time he ran out of stories or tired of making them up, and told Rebecca he wanted to go upstairs and get some rest.
“You got no idea how sweet a real bed will feel,” he said. “A beer and a bed in one day? Must be heaven. Now all I need to do is find myself a girl.”
He gave Arlen another wink, and Arlen tried to plaster a grin on his face in response as the kid strutted toward the stairs. Rebecca showed him the bedroom she’d made up. Paul’s old room.
When she came back down the stairs, neither of them spoke at first.
“He’s a good boy,” she said eventually.
“I’m sure he is.”
“All this talk, the way he’s going on, he’s just trying to seem tough. I imagine that’s a skill you learn pretty fast in a place like that.”
Arlen nodded. “I’m glad he made it out, and made it out so quickly. A lot of guys who go into a place like that don’t come out so cocky. Since he did, I’m guessing the months went easier on him than on some of the others.”
“I hope so,” she said.
He didn’t say the other things he was thinking, like there were some men who jailed well because, frankly, they liked the credibility it gave them in certain circles, same as men who valued scars because of what they told the world: I’ve been to rough places and seen rough things, and, buddy, I’m still standing here.
Arlen had his share of scars. He kept them hidden the best he could.
“He’s a good boy,” she repeated. “Just give him a little bit of time.”
“Sure. Can I ask you something, though? When do you intend to lay out your plan with him? About leaving this place and heading to Maine.”
“A few days,” she said. “I want him to adjust, settle down. I want Solomon to see that we haven’t run yet. I want everyone to relax.”
“All right.”
“In the meantime… be patient with him. I know the way he sounds right now, but it’s not him. It’s not really him.”
“Hell, he can talk however he wants,” Arlen said. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“I know, it’s just that I… I want you to like him.”
He saw the sincerity in her eyes and said, “I like him, Rebecca.”
It was one of the easiest lies he’d ever told.
34
OWEN WAS BACK AT it that night, telling more of his stories, speaking of Karpis and Barker and Dillinger, any number of other well-known gangsters he’d certainly never met but wanted Arlen to believe he had. He spoke of bank robbers and killers and hustlers, spoke of them with a voice of adoration. He was twenty years old now, a big, good-looking kid, with deep blue eyes and a smooth smile that no doubt would draw in plenty of women. Rebecca, clearly growing more frustrated by the minute, didn’t wait as long as she’d suggested before explaining that they’d be leaving the Cypress House.
“Now that you’re back,” she said in the midst of one of his tales, “we need to find some time to talk things over. Doesn’t have to be tonight, but soon.”
“Talk about what?” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Where we’re going. What comes next.”
He frowned. “Going? I don’t need to go anywhere. Hell, I just got home.”
“This isn’t home,” she said. “There’s nothing in this place for you except trouble. The same trouble you got into last time.”
He gave her a grin and a dismissive wave. “Aw, I’m fine.”