Callisto (22 page)

“No, what I meant to say . . .”

“Were there other people out there Sunday night, Odell? People that prayed to Allah and had bomb-making equipment maybe? Are you covering up for them?”

“No way, there was just me and Dean and we got drunk on Captain Morgan. I could've sworn it was Saturday but maybe I'm wrong...”

“Damn right you're wrong.” He put a finger in my face. “And don't think this won't get reported to Homeland Security. The lies you tell to me get passed along, Odell, and at Homeland they don't take kindly to liars that try and steer them away from the truth. Those Homeland people, they're like bloodhounds in pursuit of the facts. No way you're gonna tell lies and get away with it, not with those puppies on your trail.”

“Okay.”

“So you're officially changing your story now, is that what you're telling me? Because to change your story officially you need to come down to the station and make a statement on
camera. They need everything captured onscreen at Homeland for their records.”

“Could I do that after the funeral home?”

He gave me another long stare to make me afraid, which it succeeded to do that. This guy is crazy mad at me over nothing at all that I can figure out.

“Okay,” he says. “You present yourself at the station two hours from now and we'll just see how you want to change the facts around.”

“I don't want to change the facts, Chief, I'm just saying maybe I was mistaken.”

“Two hours,” he says, stabbing at me with the finger again.

He gave me this disgusted look and went on back to his cruiser which all this time has had the flashers going, so cop cars must have heavy-duty batteries to support all that extra electricity needed. It made people that are passing look across at us too with those lights flashing that way getting their attention, which would have been embarrassing if I knew anyone that's passing by, which fortunately I don't.

Chief Webb blasted past me and turned the corner. I started up and drove the rest of the way to the funeral home place feeling very bad about things. I wished Chief Webb could be swallowed by an earthquake or something so he would quit bugging me like he is, acting like he thinks I'm a criminal. That was real annoying, that part, because I didn't do anything.

It's already 12.14 when I found the place and pulled up and went inside, and there's Lorraine dressed real neat talking with a fat guy in a dark suit. She was mad at me too, I could tell, but she kept on smiling at the guy while they talked, then
she come over to me and the guy went away into his office or someplace.

“What time of the afternoon do you call this?” she wants to know.

I looked at my watch to tell her but she slapped my wrist, which is peculiar behavior, I think, then she says, “I had to do it all by myself, the selections.”

“Well, I'm sorry...”

“You had plenty of time to get here. I suppose you got lost.”

“No, I got pulled over.”

“You mean by cops?” She looked unbelieving about that.

“Chief Webb, he thinks I'm a liar.”

“What?”

I explained about what happened between Andy Webb and me, including the part about having to go down to the station and record a statement about if it's Saturday or Sunday I was with Dean because of the DVD made at the karaoke place.

Lorraine didn't like any of this. “Stick to the drunk story, it sounds better than anything else might. People always fuck things up when they're drunk, even telling time and what day it is if they're drunk enough.”

“Okay.”

“That's bad, though, about the Okeydokey Karaoke. That's a gay joint. I told Dean never to go there and now some gay guy has gone and DVD'd him singing some stupid song and acting gay . . . Christ, think what the networks would pay for
that
to show on TV ...I think I'm going to throw up . . .”

I didn't know what to do. If I had a hat I would've offered it to puke in, but in the end she didn't need a hat, kind of pulled herself together and says, “It's Andy, he's hassling you to get at me.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why. There's been bad blood between us a long time now.”

“But he's your old friend, you said.”

“Forget it, Odell. What's gone under the bridge is long gone. Take me to lunch. No, wait, I want you to see the casket Bree picked out for herself.”

“But ...how did she do that if she's dead?”

“She had a funeral plan, forty dollars a month. She had it forever.”

Lorraine led me over to a display of coffins all set out in rows. Some of them were real big with gold handles and so forth and plumped-up cushioning on the inside, not that a dead person needs cushions to lie on, but I guess it helps fill out the coffin if it's one of the big ones. “That one,” she said, pointing. It wasn't a big one and the polish on the wood wasn't so bright. “Five grand, including service and burial.”

“Wow, that's a lot.”

“Bree's policy is paying for it. Do you like it?”

“It's okay. She was only small.”

“Do you want to see her? She's laid out in the other room. They fixed her up real nice.”

“No.”

“Why not? You're the one that found her, Odell. You're involved in this. Are you scared of dead people?”

Well, I wasn't because just this morning I manhandled a dead person and wasn't scared one bit, only disgusted and mad about all that spadework. But you can't say that to your intended, so we went in the other room and there she is all right, on a table wearing a dress, even had her shoes on which
she didn't when I found her, I remember those little wrinkled old lady's feet she has got, so this way is better. “Come closer,” says Lorraine so I did. Bree has got makeup on her face to make her look alive, not that cold white look she had first thing out of the freezer, so that is an improvement, only they put too much red in the cheeks, I'm thinking.

Lorraine sighed, choking back some tears. “She almost looks like she's sleeping, don't you think?”

“No.”

“Of course she does. They can do miracles in this place, it's the best in town. Look at her skin, look at her hair, it's so real I could swear she's breathing.”

“Uhuh.”

Bree was the deadest-looking person I ever saw. She even looked deader than Anfer Sheen back in Yoder, and he had a blue face he's so dead. But Lorraine didn't want to hear that. “She looks real peaceful,” I said, “like she's resting or something.”

“Doesn't she. Poor Bree, she deserved better than what Dean dished out. That's just a disgrace what he did to her. Preacher Bob got that right. He'll get the death penalty when they pick him up, there'd be a public outcry if he didn't, especially if he goes ahead and kills Senator Ketchum. My own brother, and he's gone and done these terrible things . . .”

“It's not good,” I agreed, wanting to get on the right side of her.

She put her hand on my arm and I got those electric tingles again. This woman has definitely gotten under my skin. “Thank you, Odell. I need someone to lean on a little bit right now. Ordinarily I don't, but for right now it's a burden.”

“My pleasure.”

“I don't think that's right, Odell. It's not a pleasure to take care of someone in their time of need, it's a duty.”

“Okay.”

“Especially when there's murder and terrorism all mixed up in it. Where's there any room for pleasure?”

“Excuse me, I meant duty.”

“Okay, take me to lunch.”

She made us go in her car even if it's so small I had a hard time squeezing inside and had to put the seat way back. She won't get in the truck because it's Dean's truck and she is very down on Dean at the moment, also she doesn't want to be seen inside of a lawnmowing truck that has still got the lawn-mowers in back and Dean's evil name on the door. Lorraine drove very fast and I kept wondering if maybe Chief Webb wouldn't pick us up for speeding and spoil my day again, but we made it to the restaurant all right without getting a ticket. It's the same place she went to with Cole Connors the other night, she says, and the food here is just great.

We had to wait a little while for a table this place is so popular, Caprice, it's called, just that with no Café or Restaurant added on to explain what it is. Finally we got sat down and this girl dressed very pretty comes and handed us menus to read from. Well, I had not heard of anything they had there apart from the salad. All the other stuff might just as well have been wrote in another language, which it turns out half of it was, namely French. So this is a French Restaurant without the Restaurant part. I had heard about these places and how good the food is, but when I sneaked a peek at what folks are eating at the other tables there's nothing recognizable on their plates, but the little rolls in the little baskets were bread, I knew that much.

Lorraine asked what I liked the look of, which was a hard question. I asked her, “Have they got fries?”

“No they don't.”

“But it's a French restaurant, they must have French fries.”

“Well, they don't, so pick something else.”

That was harder, picking out what something on the menu might be, and about then the girl comes back to take the order. Lorraine rattled off something or other, most likely the same thing she had the other night with Cole Connors so she's familiar with it, but I just couldn't make up my mind between this mystery food and that mystery food, until Lorraine got mad and tells the girl I'll have the something-or-other, which after the girl has gone she says is potatoes done different, since I wanted fries so bad. I could tell I had not handled the situation right and went quiet from that experience, which put Lorraine in a worse mood than she already is. She says, “Can't you make conversation while we wait?”

“Okay.”

She waited, then rolls her eyes and asked me in this sarcastic voice if I read any good books lately. This was a big relief when she asked that, because it so happens I did read a good book lately. “
The Yearling
,” I said, “that's a real good book.”

“
The Yearling
? That's the one about the kid and the dog?”

“No, it's a fawn. He kind of adopts it after its mother gets shot and —”

“Yeah, I remember it, we had to read it in school and do a book report. What I liked about it, it wasn't very long. I didn't say that in my report, though.”

“That book they give to schoolkids,” I explained, “it's not the whole book. That's a shortened book for kids. The whole
book is twice as long and much better with no parts missed out. It's a Pulitzer Prize book. That's the book I read lately. Well, I'm halfway through right now. There's been a lot of distraction in my life this last week or so.”

“When things calm down around here maybe you can finish it,” she says, looking around at the other people eating or waiting for their food to be cooked up.

“I finished it before,” I said.

“You're reading the same book twice?”

“Sixteen times.”

I was proud of that. I bet nobody else ever read
The Yearling
sixteen times, that's some kind of a record, maybe one they can put in the
Guinness Book of Records
. I should ask somebody about that, then my name could be in the
Guinness Book of Records
as well as in the newspaper. That would be something to make Lorraine proud.

“Sixteen times?”

“Uhuh. It's the best book I ever read.”

“Sounds like the only book you ever read.”

“No, I tried two other ones but didn't like them.”

She looked at me a long time then down at the tabletop another long time. “Odell,” she says, “when you go out to the prison and interview with Cole, don't go telling him you read a book sixteen times, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because it sounds peculiar. They don't want peculiar people guarding inmates, it's too important of a job. The inmates are the peculiar ones, that's the way it's always been in prisons, so don't go rocking the boat. You look exactly right for the job being tall and big like you are. You look good in that shirt by the way.”

“It's my best one,” I said and it was, with big curlicues stitched over the pockets fancy style. If I had worn this shirt back in Kit Carson High they would have called me a Roper for sure, so back then I only wore the checked kind, which gets you called a Roper anyway, but the curlicued kind of shirt gets you called a Roper On Saturday Night, which I did not want.

“So it might be best if you tell Cole you don't read books at all. He'll be more comfortable with that. But tell him you read magazines. To get the job you have to be able to read. They've got this test. Do you do okay with tests?”

“I passed my driver's license test on just the second try. I missed out on the question about how far do you park from the curb, plus a couple others.”

“You'll do just fine. When you get the job there'll be a little bonus in it for me.”

“Bonus?” I'm thinking the bonus is that Lorraine and me will work in the same place and get to see each other all day, that would be a big bonus.

“Two hundred fifty dollars, that's what they give you if you bring in someone reliable that you can vouch for and they turn out fine, after the three-month probationary period that is. I think it should be more than that, say five hundred if the guy works out. Finding the right people isn't as easy as you might think. Anyway, don't tell about the sixteen times.”

“Okay, I won't.”

“All right then, now what else can we talk about?”

It so happened I had a topic of conversation on my mind that I wanted to converse about so now was my chance to do that. “Is the cat okay?”

“Cat?”

“The neighbor's cat that knocked something over the other night.”