Callisto (15 page)

“And you take it inside the prison.”

“Someone has to.”

“To give the prisoners relief. What kind?”

“All kinds. Weed, smack, cocaine, you name it, only no acid, not ever, that's too weird what it does and calls attention to itself when some guy does crazy things on it, so that's banned.”

“So you and me, we'll be drug smugglers.”

That got her mad. “It's not like that at all. Dean and me do a particular service that people want and get paid for it like a simple business transaction. Nobody gets hurt. I'm going way out on a limb telling you shit like this, Odell. You better not betray me now that I made myself vulnible.”

She was upset again, which I did not want. I wanted her smiling and happy, the way things are supposed to be before people that are attracted get down and make love, which is the ultimate aim here for me. Her too, I hope.

“It's a secret,” I said. “Our secret.”

“That's a good way to put it,” she says, cheering up. “When
people share a secret it's like a bond between them that ties them tighter. Is that going to be a problem for you, Odell?”

“Tighter the better.”

She laughed. Not too many women have laughed at something I said like that, which is a Sign that she and me are meant to be together, partners in crime. Lorraine is a drug smuggler and me, I'm a murderer although that was accidental. But I am definitely a body hider so cannot stand on my high horse about Lorraine's crime.

“That's all settled then,” she said, sounding relieved.

“Yeah. How do you get it inside the place?”

“Inside my bra and panties.”

“They don't check for stuff like that?”

“Of course they check. Callisto State Penitentiary is a high-tech containment facility which has got every kind of check and counter-check to make sure nothing happens that isn't supposed to happen. It just so happens that Wednesday morning a certain female guard is on duty for checking out female personnel for smuggling and she doesn't find anything. Then later on I slip her some cash after I get mine from a certain other person, no harm done. You just don't do any of the money handing-over where a camera can see you do it, which we all know where they're located so no problem. It's a good clean system.”

“Uhuh.”

“You're looking all doubtful. Maybe you don't think it's a good thing.”

“I don't know what kind of a thing it is. How many people there are mixed up in it?”

“That's classified till you join up, which you might not even
do unless Connors says you can. Maybe all you'll do is mow lawns and be here Tuesday nights to get the package from Donnie D, I just don't know yet. I'm trusting you ahead of time, Odell, because you tried to cover for Dean today even if that's a lost cause. You've got decent instincts in you so that's why I'm telling you.”

“Okay.”

“And look at it this way – by taking in drugs to keep the inmates happy we spare ourselves and them and their families a lot of grief that might happen if they're not so mellowed-out as they are thanks to what I do, me and others. Think what kind of a place prison would be if all those dopers and crack-heads couldn't get what they wanted. It'd be chaos in there with riots happening every other day and plenty of perp-onperp conflict happening. We couldn't control it, a situation like that, and everyone knows it.”

“So looked at that way, it's a good thing.”

“I like to think so.”

I thought about it and saw that it makes sense the way she puts it. “Okay then.”

She looked at her watch. “News time,” she says, so we went on through to the living room and she turned on the TV. There was the usual stuff, floods and forest fires made by global warming, plus terrorist bombs going off in all the usual places which got Lorraine mad all over again. “Those people,” she says, “they don't care who they kill, even their own Muslim kind, little kids and old ladies, they don't care. That's the one thing I won't forgive Dean about, him getting into that nasty shit. It's one thing to torture a cat, but this killing that they do over there it's just . . . it's un-American!”

“Got that right.”

“I will never, never understand that part of Dean.”

“He's a messed-up guy.”

“Well, he's gone too far this time. And I was fond of Bree too. What he did to her is unforgivable.” She started in sobbing a little bit, which gave me a good reason to slide over next to her on the sofa and put my arm around her shoulder for comfort but not sexual, not yet awhile, I'm thinking, not till she calms down.

Then there's stuff about Senator Ketchum who gave a big speech today about not backing down in the face of terror like some wishy-washy types would have us do, “furl the flag and go home with our tail between our legs,” is the way he puts it and it's something only quitters and cowards would ever think of, which means Democrats, I think. And another thing he says is about the terrorist threat right here at home in the USA, invisible terrorists that you can't say who they are because they don't wear that teatowel headgear like over there but we should all be watching out for them because for sure they are out there plotting to commit Terrible Deeds. Lorraine says Amen to what Senator Ketchum's saying. “I'll be voting for him next year”

Next it's some fat lady that won seven million dollars in the lottery and she can't quit smiling about it, but she says it won't change her at all and she'll turn up tomorrow for work at the meat-packing factory like always. “Yeah,” says Lorraine, “for five minutes to tell the boss where to cram it, then she'll be down the street to the Mercedes dealership. Look at her, she'll look so stupid behind the wheel of a fancy car, fat like she is.”

“What kind of a car's right for fat people?”

“I don't know, some old boat like that one you've got out there.”

“Well, thank you. I intend trading up when you get me that job.”

“Here it is!”

The newsreader is saying how in Callisto there has been a murder and the police are looking for Dean Leonard Lowry age twenty-seven. There's a mug shot of him with longer hair than he had and Lorraine says, “They got that from his record, I bet. I didn't give them any pictures. Oh, shoot, remind me I have to give Andy a picture of Bree that I've got, he needs it for the police report.”

“Okay.”

The news went on to say Dean is suspected of being part of a terrorist cell only the police are not commenting if that's related to his crime of murder or not. The way they said it sounds like maybe Dean killed Bree because she found out he's a terrorist, but maybe they didn't mean it that way. It makes no difference to Dean now anyway, only it's a shame he can't put them straight about that. They said he's to be considered armed and dangerous and must not be approached if seen, only reported to the police or FBI if you spot him out there hiding from justice.

Lorraine didn't say anything after the story's over so I kept my mouth shut too so she doesn't get all upset about having a killer-terrorist brother on the news. I wanted her calm and ready for love, which is pushing impatient at the front of my jeans, but you have to wait until the lady is in the mood. I read that in a magazine and it makes sense even if it is a hard thing to do.

“Well, that's that,” she said, then starts flipping through the channels till she finds a sitcom with laughter busting out of the can the way they do it to make you think it's hilarious and you must be an idiot if you're not laughing too. “You like this show, Odell?”

“Sure.”

“It's my favorite. Have you got anything to drink?”

I got the leftover Coors and Captain Morgan and scrubbed out some shot glasses, thinking Lorraine is most likely a drink-from-the-bottle kind of beer drinker, but you don't do that with hard liquor unless you're some kind of desperate alcoholic person. I set it all up on a tin tray in the kitchen there with blue pelicans on it and brung it back to the living room like a waiter or something and set it down.

“Now that's what I call service,” says Lorraine, appreciative, then, “You'll make some lucky soul a real good wife.”

Now that got me sore, being what they all say when a man does anything the least bit useful around the place that does not involve a power tool. But I bit my tongue because I don't want to be upsetting the apple cart here with regard to love-making later on, or better yet sooner rather than later. Lorraine picked up a Coors and popped it while I poured us both a shot of the Captain. It went down easy and I reached for a beer, then the phone rang. Lorraine and me both looked at each other, seeing as neither one of us truly lives at Dean's place, so who could the call be for?

“More reporters maybe?” I said.

“I can't handle reporters right now.”

“Only it's after hours so it most likely isn't.”

“I don't care who it is, my nerves are shot for today.”

So I got up and went to the phone. “Hello?”

Silence on the line, but it's open, you can always tell. “Hello?”

“Are you the guy?” says a voice. It's partway familiar but then again not.

“Yeah, I'm a guy.”

“The guy I gave the package to, that guy.”

“Yeah, that's me.”

It's Donnie D on the line.

“Yeah, listen, I just now saw the news, so what's that all about?”

“Dean did a bad thing.”

“I guess.” Silence for a few seconds, then, “So how does this work from now on?”

“No difference, same as usual, only now it's me, not him.”

“You're gonna be the guy there now?”

“That's right.”

“The sister, she knows about it?”

“She does.”

“So no difference then.”

“No difference.”

“So why'd he do it?”

“Hey, who knows. Dean was always a little weird.”

“Too true. So you're the guy now.”

“That's me.”

“Okay then, see ya.”

He hung up. I went back to the living room.

“Who was it?”

“Donnie D.”

“Donnie D?”

“He wants to know what's going down with Dean out of the picture, so I told him it's the same as usual only now it's me not Dean.”

“Was he cool with that?”

“Sure, he wants to deal with me, nobody else, to protect himself, he said. Too many links in the chain makes a weak chain, he said.”

“That's fine, only what'd he say about Dean?”

“Said he was weird.”

“I mean about how Dean went away with him that night. What happened there? Does he know where Dean is right now?”

“Well, not exactly . . .”

My mind is racing a mile a minute.

“Well, then, what? What happened? That Donnie, he's so paranoid he never gives out even a phone number or I would've asked him already . . . so what happened?”

“He says Dean asked him to get dropped off downtown after they went and got the package. Donnie didn't have the package with him because he had this sudden fearfulness about a trap or something, so he come out here without it and Dean went with him to get it, then Dean says to drop him off downtown, he's got to meet some people only he didn't say who . . . and that's what Donnie did and went on home with his two grand, and now tonight he saw the news and he's wondering who those people were that Dean waited downtown for.”

“The terrorist guys?”

“I guess. Anyway he's okay about me stepping into Dean's shoes about this, only like I said he doesn't ever want to see anyone else around the place or talk to anyone, only me.”

See, I didn't want Donnie and Lorraine talking together or she'll get told a different story than the one I just now made up, which would make her know stuff she doesn't need to know and be a roadblock on the road to romance. It's another big fiberoo that I truly regretted the need for it, but that's how it goes sometimes when life gets complicated like right now.

“So we still don't know where Dean went,” says Lorraine, looking upset again.

“Nope, still in the dark about that. Or the Darko.”

It was not a good joke and she didn't laugh, just took a big slug of the Captain and followed up with more Coors. She held that bottle neck between two fingers like she was born that way, so I'm right about what kind of a beer drinker she is. When you have been around the block a time or two you get to be a judge of human nature that way. But it isn't looking good for love after that phone call from Donnie, damn his ass, why couldn't he wait till tomorrow, but that's how it goes sometimes like I said before. Maybe if she stayed long enough and drank enough liquor she'd get smoothed over again, only she's looking agitated and unloving so the chances are not so hot.

We watched another sitcom but Lorraine didn't laugh. I started to think maybe I'm getting ahead of myself with this in regard to romance, I mean, she only got told this morning her aunt's been murdered and the one that did it is her psycho brother, who it turns out is also a Muslim terrorist. So I can understand her being upset, especially since Dean was mixed up with her and Donnie D smuggling drugs into the prison etcetera but at least that part has already been worked out okay thanks to me. It's a lot of things to be happening at
once, maybe too many to let her relax and think about me more like in a personal sense than just a business partner. Maybe that will take time. It'd be dumb of me to make a move that'll piss her off, so I just sat there drinking and watching these dumb shows she liked and saying nothing, her neither but I could tell she's thinking about all this bad shit that happened all of a sudden.

Then around nine o' clock she said she has to go, it's been a long day and so forth, and I told her I understand about all that. I walked her out to the car hoping for maybe a goodbye kiss but got nothing, only a warning. “Keep your head straight about all this, Odell. You're in it up to your neck, so don't relax. I'm trusting you here and you better earn it.”