Callisto

by Torsten Krol

  “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 she
ep’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.”

  “Well, I know that, Odell, but I’m saying other people don’t need to get told about that part of him, it’s got nothing to do with him being a terrorist, so it’s private and doesn’t need to get discussed about in public. This is a favor I’m asking, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So you’ll keep that under your hat?”

  “If I had a hat,” I said, making a joke, then I remembered I have got a hat, my Hawaiian straw hat for lawnmowing. I thought about telling Lorraine that but she’s already talking again.

  “Hey, I talked about that job for you with Cole. He says come on out to the prison tomorrow week, that’s Friday next week, and you can talk it over. I’m real hopeful about it, Odell.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  “Do I get a big thank-you?”

  “You sure do.”

  “Okay then. You think Dean’ll really try to kill Senator Ketchum?”

  “He might do, he’s crazy enough to try.”

  She give out a big sigh. “That’s gonna be such a blot on the family if that happens. It’ll put Dean’s name in the history books for everyone to hate like the guy that killed JFK and the guy that killed John Lennon. I’d have to change my name to get away from that, get married maybe, that’d solve the problem.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “Well, anyway, I just wanted to say I saw you on the TV.”

  Behind her voice there’s a crash as a glass or bottle breaks.

  “What was that?” I asked her.

  “What was what?”

  “That sound, like a glass or something went and broke.”

  “Oh, it’s that cat, it’s gone and pushed something off the kitchen counter.”

  “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

  “It’s the neighbor’s, I’m looking after it.”

  Behind her I could hear the cat swearing like a drunk man.

  “So long, Odell,” says Lorraine and hung up fast.

  I set the phone down gentle so’s not to smash it against the cradle. Maybe the neighbor come over to collect the cat back to his own place, and the cat didn’t want to leave a nice person like Lorraine so it got skittish and bumped against something which got smashed. That was most likely what happened there, so no point in thinking more about it. Thinking about stuff is not necessarily the best thing to do, I have found, otherwise you get all tangled up thinking this and that and the other thing and you don’t even know which one is true, so forget that.

  Which I did. With the help of the Captain.

  Then the phone rang again and I snatched it up thinking it’s Lorraine and now that the neighbor has taken the cat away and the mess has been cleaned up she’s lonesome and wanting company for the rest of the evening. Only it wasn’t her.

  “Odell?”

  “Uhuh.”

  It’s a guy.

  “Andy Webb here, Odell. I just got told you were on the late news with some story about Dean Lowry getting set to kill Senator Ketchum, that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, now, I have to wonder why it is that you didn’t tell me that highly important piece of information yesterday, Odell, or maybe you think the TV news is the right place to be giving out important pieces of information and not the Chief of Police that happens to be investigating the case. Is that what you thought, Odell?”

  “Uh...”

  “Is it even true? How come you didn’t tell the TV news about it yesterday, they were out to the house, I heard.”

  “I forgot...then I remembered about it.”

  “Well, the next time you remember an important piece of information like that y
ou call me up and give me the news, Odell, I don’t want to hear it second-hand from someone that saw it on the TV. I’m the guy that’s supposed to know all the angles. I could’ve given that information to Homeland Security yesterday, and now they’ll be wanting to know why they didn’t get told about this information you just now remembered and gave to the wrong people. Those Homeland folks are serious people that do not like to get fucked with, Odell, so when they get on the case you better not fuck with them the way you went and fucked with me, you got that?”

  “Uhuh . . .”

  “Damn!” he says, and slams the phone down, or maybe he just hung it up gentle, you can’t tell, but I bet he slammed it down. I have gone and pissed off the Chief of Police, which is never a good thing, so then I had to turn again to my old friend the Captain for condolement about that.

  EIGHT

  Along about noon next day I quit for lunch and saw on a newsstand that the information has gotten around big time, on the front page with a picture of Dean and a picture of the senator which has got a circle with crosshairs put over it, and the headline reads TARGET! I got a copy to read while I ate my burger, and it’s all pretty much how I told it to Sharon Ziegler, who had her name there in the article as well as me. That is the first time I ever saw my name in the newspaper and it brung a strange feeling to my chest that made me quit chewing till it went away. Now I am famous!

  After I finished eating I went and got a couple more copies of the newspaper, six or eight, then I went back to mowing lawns, which did not feel right somehow after I’m on the front page. I guess I would have to be the most famous lawn-mower guy in the entire history of lawnmowing, and I only started the job this week, so that is Progress.

  I was putting the mulching mower back on the truck after job number four when a car pulled over to the curb behind me, a beige Caddy with Chet behind the wheel. He got out and strolled over. He has got his jacket off so you can tell it’s a hot day because Chet is the kind of guy keeps his jacket on till someone says okay he can take it off. He still strikes me as the businessman type and not the religious kind, but maybe that’s just the suit and the Cadillac.