Callisto (17 page)

“Who's that?”

“What number are you calling?” he said.

“Lorraine's.”

“Oh, well, she's in the bathroom. You want to hold on or have her call you back?”

“I'll hold on. Who're you?”

“A friend of Lorraine's. Who're you?”

“A friend too.”

“Here she comes now.”

There's a double clunk as the phone gets set down then picked up again. “Hello?”

“It's Odell. Who was that?”

“Oh, that's Cole, Cole Connors from the prison. You
remember I told you about him. Cole's the one I'm talking to about maybe getting you a job interview, so I hope you were courteous and nice, Odell.” She laughed and I heard the guy laugh too, only more of a snicker the way I heard it.

“Well, what's he doing there?”

“Discussing you, like I said. What's wrong, Odell, you sound real peeved about something.”

“No.”

“Well then, what can I do for you?”

“I'm wondering about dinner,” I said.

“I'm wondering too, wondering if Cole's taking me out somewhere with table napkins that aren't made of paper or if it'll just be some greasy spoon. Cole, he's famous for being cheap.”

I heard the guy laughing again and wanted to strangle him, and Lorraine too.

“How come you're going out to dinner with him?”

“I
told
you, we're discussing work-related issues, that includes you. You're on the agenda for topics of discussion. Was there anything else?”

“No, I guess.”

“Well, all right then, talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay . . .”

And she hung up. I looked at the phone a long time without thinking anything in particular then I hung it up and went to the front door to go out on the porch for some fresh air. Stepping through the door I saw a card on the floor and figured Chet must have dropped it. But when I picked it up it says
Sharon Ziegler Channel 12 News
and underneath the two different phone numbers there she wrote
Must talk with you
anytime
. I must've stepped right over it when I come in with Chet. I near almost tore it up. Fuck Channel 12, they should've been out here yesterday along with those other TV people and they weren't, so who gives a damn. Only then I had this idea – if Lorraine's out with Cole Connors at some fancy restaurant then I can have some female company also and see how she likes it.

It's way long after business hours now so I punched in the second number, the cell, and after a couple rings it got answered.

“Hello?” She has got this very sexy voice which probably got her the job on TV.

“Uh, hello, is that Sharon?”

“This is she.”

“Well, you left me a card to call you anytime.”

“Who is this?”

“Odell Deefus.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Odell Deefus. You left me this card.”

“I leave a lot of cards. What's this about?”

“I'm the one out at Dean Lowry's place looking after things here.”

“Oh . . .” she says, sounding different now, “oh, okay . . . My apologies, I just didn't know your name. My colleagues said there's someone out there at the house but nobody seems to know your name. What was it again?”

“Odell Deefus.”

“Got it. Were you wanting to talk with me, Odell?”

“That's why I'm calling. Got an exclusive story if you want it.”

“Concerning the murder?”

“Concerning another one that might happen, only this time it's someone big.”

“Who might that be, Odell?”

“I guess you better come over and find out. Or I can call those other channels if you're busy right now.”

“No, no . . . I'll be right there! Just give me a little extra time to pick up my cameraman and we'll be right out! This isn't some kind of joke, is it?”

“No joke. This is exclusive and you can be the first one knows about it.”

Which was a lie, she'll be the second one after Chet Marchand, but she doesn't need to know that. Chet, he'll be talking to Preacher Bob not the Network News.

“Okay, don't you move.”

She hung up and I felt good. Cole Connors, what was the chance he'd be on the TV news like I'm going to be? No chance at all, I bet, so now Lorraine won't be having any more dinners in fancy restaurants with that guy. Maybe they're talking about a job for me at the prison and maybe not, but there is nothing a woman likes more than to be with some guy that is famous, even ugly guys, so long as they have got money or fame or both, that's all it takes. I read somewhere that the women can't help this because back when we lived in caves it's the guy that was the best hunter got the best-looking women because they wanted a guy that can feed them. Nowadays it's not hunting it's being famous, but the same thing with regard to attractivity.

It was less than a half-hour went by till I heard them coming up the drive. It isn't a news van like I was expecting, only
a private car, but that makes no difference, there's a skinny guy getting out the passenger side with a camera on his shoulder, and out from the driver's door steps a woman. Up the steps they come and the woman put out her hand very friendly with a smile and says she's Sharon and this is Huey. I took them along inside to the living room where we can be sat comfortable. Sharon is not so good-looking as I was expecting but that doesn't matter, it's me that will be on the screen telling what he knows. Me that Lorraine will be looking at.

Huey got set up for shooting and Sharon says to me, “Just so I won't be going into this cold, Odell, what kind of a story is it?”

“It's about what Dean told me before he disappeared with those Muslim brothers of his. They're not his real brothers, he's only got a sister, but that's what he called them, his brothers.”

“I understand. What did he say?”

“He said he's gonna shoot Senator Ketchum.”

“You're kidding.”

“No, he said it loud and clear. You can give me a lie-detector test about that.”

“Okay, I believe you. Just give me some background here, Odell, how you met Dean and what happened, in your own words.” She turned to the camera guy. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Sharon took a breath and says to me, “Odell, tell us about how you came to meet with Dean Lowry.”

And I did, I went through the whole thing, lies and truth all mixed in together the way I've been telling it to Lorraine and Andy and Chet. Sharon every now and then asked me a question to explain things better and I told her what she wants to
know, until at the end she says, “And there was a specific threat made before Dean departed for places unknown?”

“There was one of those, and it's this – he said he wants to shoot Senator Ketchum because the senator is so down on those terrorists that are hiding out in America. He made no bones about it, he's wanting to shoot the senator for saying that to everyone on the TV.”

“And you thought it was your duty to let the senator know about this personal danger that he faces?”

“Yeah, I did. There's too much shooting going on in the world and it all should stop right now, but I expect it won't.”

“Are you aware of any weapons he might have at his disposal?”

“No, the police took away his shotgun. I don't know what else he's got hid away. For a job like that you need a high-power rifle with telescope sights.”

“And did Dean Lowry give you any idea about a timetable for this assassination?”

“Probably between now and the elections would be about right,” I said, borrowing from Chet but he won't mind.

“How strong is Dean's commitment to the terrorist cause?”

“It's strong. He told me the Muslims have got the answers about everything, not us, so he changed over. He had books about it. He showed me them.”

“Did he try to convert you, Odell?”

“He tried, but I resisted his attempt. I don't need some book with a green cover to tell me what's right.”

“Did he get angry with you?”

“No, he was only angry with Senator Ketchum.”

She asked a few more things and then we're done. Huey went to another position in the room and aims the camera at
Sharon and she looks over at me again and nods her head a few times. I asked what that was for and she says, “Reaction shots, it just ties everything together. You'll see how it works when you watch the report.” She looked at her watch. “Okay, if we move fast it'll make the ten o' clock slot. Let's go.”

Huey folded away this little video screen on his camera and they're headed for the door. Sharon says over her shoulder, “Thanks for this, Odell. If you think of some other stuff, gimme a call.”

“Okay.”

And then they're gone, hauling ass out of the yard like an ambulance on its way to an accident. Now that it's all over I asked myself if I did the right thing here, getting people all agitated about something that won't ever happen, but then I got to thinking it's no harm done after all and might do me some good with Lorraine, you never know.

And I had got so distracted about all this I didn't even have dinner yet! A fast trip to the freezer and I flung another pizza in the oven. I was getting tired of pizza but there's no more of those TV dinners like Dean and me had that first night. If only I had known I was sitting down to sup with the devil as they say. Dean seemed like a good guy then, and it was a shame that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing about the whole terrorist thing, which only goes to show the truth about that old saying about the book and the book cover.

The pizza was okay, Deep Dish Meat Lover's, but I bet Lorraine and Cole had something better. That still was upsetting me even though after thinking about it I saw she was doing it for me, for that job at the prison. I was jealous I had to admit, and they do say that the green-eyed monster makes
you do strange things. But talking to Sharon was not strange, it was my duty to say what I knew so nothing happens to Senator Ketchum, the man who most likely will be the next President, so I had saved the life of the President! That's what it would look like anyway, which is the same thing almost.

I fretted about nothing while I waited for ten o' clock, channel-surfing through the crap. It's an exciting thing to be on the TV news if that never happened to you before, which it had not for me. There was one time in Yoder when the county newspaper reporter asked me about a teen suicide there. What it was, I was coming home and went through this old graveyard they have got there filled with pioneers and so forth, real old tombstones leaning this way and that without hardly a name you could even read anymore on them, and then I saw this boy on the ground with a blue face. I will never forget that part. His face was blue and he was dead, I could see it straight off because he's lying so still between a couple graves. I went on home and told my mother who's still alive then and she called the police officer we had, just the one it's so small of a town. What it was all about, the story come out, this boy Anfer Sheen, that was his name, he had gone and been in a big argument with his girlfriend who dumped him for some other guy and Anfer stole his mother's prescription medicine for I don't know what and swallowed the whole bottle of pills in a private place which the cemetery was, nobody ever went there. And then the reporter come and interviewed me about all of that. I was eleven, I think. But that was not the TV news so it does not compare to this. And they never did use my name in the story that time about Anfer Sheen, just called me ‘a local boy.'

At ten o' clock the announcer says stay tuned for a startling new development in the Dean Lowry murder incident. I called up Lorraine to tell her she better switch on the TV but there's no answer so she is still out with that guy talking about my job at the prison. I was expecting it to be the first big story but that was about an earthquake in China that has gone and killed thousands of Chinese people. They have usually got a flood problem over there to kill them off but tonight it's an earthquake. There was pictures of destruction and bodies, then some stories about other things that happened, then the commercial break, but they said again about the startling new development before it's all about shampoo and shit which I waited impatient for it to end. Then there's more stories about nothing to do with me. I started getting mad and wished I didn't call up Sharon after all, but then here it is, the startling new development.

I watched myself very careful to see if I made any mistakes but I didn't, not even looking away at the camera while I got interviewed like some people do and it makes them look like a real hick when that happens. But I didn't fall into that trap and come across very good, I thought, telling my story which had a few pieces missing here and there, edited out, but mainly it's all there like I told it, with Sharon nodding her head now and then while I talked, so I saw how that worked.

The phone rang and it's Lorraine, which I was not expecting.

“Odell,” she says, “I just saw you on the TV.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn't say you were gonna be on the news.”

“Well, they come over on a special trip to interview me about this new development that's happening.”

“About the senator? Did he really say that, Dean, I mean?”

“He really said it.”

“You didn't mention that to me before, how come?”

“It slipped my mind, then I remembered. Stuff that Dean told me is big news.”

“You didn't tell them anything about that other stuff, did you?”

“What other stuff?”

“About him coming on to you, the whispering-in-the-ear thing, you didn't tell them about that, did you? Because that would be a big embarrassment, especially to Bree. She was a very old-fashioned conservative person.”

“But . . . she can't hear about it now.”