Hob Broun - Odditorium

“Hold on.”

“Take it easy. This is only for practice, a nice round figure. Now, you’ve got two cuts to make out of that before you clear this end—” Punching numbers on the calculator.

“Two cuts?”

“Right. The Swede I told you about and then your transshipping back. That’s going to be your second cut.”

“Isn’t there a simpler way to go?”

“Come on, where’s your sense of artistry? I mean, shit, we’re not in this for the money are we? We’re in this to keep from dropping dead with boredom.”

“Sure, sure. I’ve really been looking forward to a trip abroad. But what are we talking about? Maybe twelve and a half percent each way?”

“That seems like a solid figure. So you’re at seventy-five thou, and from there we go to your expenses, which are travel, and the car…. And some emergency fix-it money — we’ve got to allow for that.”

Tildy, with no appetite for shop talk, slipped out and went looking for a telephone. Incense aromas followed her through the thin, dank air outside the room. She stopped in the dim hallway, noticing the photograph of Pierce, his blond bowl cut melting into the pale background of snow and trees; he had on tinted glasses, the kind state troopers wore. Reminded her of Sparn, a youthful picture of him she’d once seen, all slick and slender, outside some Palm Beach movie house with straw hat tipped low and coat draped over his shoulders in the customary impresario pose.

She supposed there were other similarities between the two, both tacticians with unswerving faith in trappings of every kind, but she was already sufficiently depressed — no need to contemplate them further. Dipping her thumb in beer dregs she drew a large X on the frame’s glass.

Next to a ceramic crucifix in the next room Tildy found a wall phone. She pressed a button to activate one of the four lines and punched up a long-distance number; then she wound the cord in her fingers and counted the rings.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Your wife.”

“No shit. Where you at?”

“Still New York.”

“So how’s it goin’ up there, baby? That dude findin’ any work for you?”

“Finding work? I don’t …” Some line Christo must’ve given him the night they left; she couldn’t remember. “No, it’s been mostly window shopping and bar hopping, Karl. Not much news to tell. It’s only, I don’t know, I wanted to hear your voice and make sure you were getting by all right is all.”

“Well, ain’t you some sweetness. Tell ya, I been shaky some, but then I just sit still and talk to you out loud like you was right here and it calms me down. You always say the right things. And I know you would too if you was really here. See, while you been bar hoppin’, ole Karl’s been all sober. Ain’t had even one drop since you left. How ’bout that?”

“You’re serious, aren’t you.”

“Yes indeed. Like to drown in sweat the first couple days. But ain’t I makin’ that effort? I’m tryin’ to be a good boy for you, so why can’t you come back home?”

“I will, you know I will. Just not right now.”

“But I need some reward. Even a trained seal when he does his stuff right, they give him a fish. I can’t be doin’ like you want me to all on my own. You got to throw me a few fish about now.”

“I love you Karl and I’m glad I called. Don’t make me regret it.”

“Well, I’d sure like to know what it is up there that’s keepin’ you.”

“So would I.”

“Then why don’t you cut loose and come on down for the weekend. We’ll go up to Tampa and eat crabs and get rowdy.”

“Sounds good, and we’ll do it. Just not right now.”

“It’s just I been missin’ you so hard.”

“I know. Let me tell you where I’m at in case you need to call.”

Karl couldn’t find paper, so he wrote on his hand in ink. “I been thinkin’ all about you. See, it’s like that old song, baby. You’re the queen of my heart … Baby?”

He was talking to an empty line.

Tildy looked all around, everything so neat and squared off, like a dentist’s waiting room. There was a draft and the surfaces of furniture were cold. She cried without moving her face.

Down at the other end of the hall, ice motes oozed through septums and blood pumped thick from triphammer hearts.

WARM RAYS FILTERING THROUGH pine boughs fell at the edge of the marl pit where Ondray Keyes sat holding the last half inch of a cigarette between fingernails, trying to catch a last puff or two without burning himself. His shirt was buttoned to the throat, the collar turned up. It had been chilly all morning, icy dew on his bare feet as he ran to the outhouse, fog on the pop bottles.

A brown bird fluttered out of the scrubwood behind him. It hovered a moment, dive-bombed the pit, skimming over weed-choked water, then floated up into high branches across the way. Ondray kept his eye on the small shape, knowing that if he looked away for only a second he’d lose it in the leaf shadows. He slapped one eye shut and aimed through the clear, soft air. Hook that finger round the trigger, take a breath and hold it steady, then squeeze. Pop. Ondray was saving up to get a BB rifle.

He flipped the cigarette end, hardly more than a coal by now, into the water and walked back to the culvert by the road where he’d hidden his bicycle. He brushed dirt off the seat and adjusted the playing cards clothes-pinned to the rear spokes (they made a bad motor-buzzing sound when the wheel spun). Once he’d climbed on, Ondray unwrapped three sticks of bubblegum and wadded them together before filling his cheek. The flavor went so fast. Then he put his small weight on the pedals and took off down the crown of the road, alert for any gleam in the weeds.

Maybe ride all the way to the big highway. Maybe see what’s doing over at that Mr. Gables’ house.

Karl answered the door holding a blue towel around his waist. “Ondray, my little pal. What you doin’, son?”

“What you doin’?”

“Standin’ here gettin’ my butt cold. Come on in here so’s I can close the door.”

Ondray moved slowly, sucking on his pink wad. “You sleep all day, man,” he said. It was not a question.

“I was up late. Wife called me again from New York last night. Had to sit down and make some plans, you know, stuff I gotta be doin’. A few deals I want to be on top of when she gets back.” Karl grinned woozily and padded toward the bedroom. “Put some clothes on and I’ll be right out. Should be a Coke in the fridge if you’re thirsty.”

“Can I keep the bottle?”

“Sure, go ahead. Collectin’ ’em are you?”

“That’s what we be doin’ most every mornin’, me and my brother. And splittin’ the money half and half.”

“So that was Earvin I seen the other day snoopin’ along by here with a gunnysack?”

“Coulda been.” Ondray pulled open the big white door and found the Coke next to a bowl of something that had fur growing on it. “Coulda been,” he said, parking his gum by the sink before drinking.

“That’s real good. You boys got some enterprise.” Karl emerged in pants and a Louisiana Tech sweatshirt, sat at the kitchen table with socks and sneakers in hand. “If you’d told me before, I woulda been savin’ all my empties for you. That’s some enterprise all right.”

“No, uh-uh. We just be findin’ ’em, that’s all.” Draining the bottle, he jammed it neck first in the back pocket of his dungarees.

“So it’s all in the huntin’. Right. All in the huntin’.” Karl hummed experimentally while preparing his morning meal: instant coffee and crushed aspirin mixed with hot water from the tap. “You know those ads in the magazines that say ‘your song poems wanted.’ I was thinkin’ I might take a swing at it. Whatta you think, Ondray, you think I could get a hit record?”