Salamanders
by Pete Murphy
Chapter 9
Odie
By nine o'clock we'd told the handful of people to leave and locked the
door. Jessie washed glasses, wiped the bar and tables. I went up to the
apartment and crumbled into my closet. After half an hour, Jessie came in.
She slipped beside me and was quiet for a long time. I listened to her
breathing.
"You're gonna get into it, aren't you?" she asked.
I didn't answer.
She already knew.
#
Jack "Odie" Odenstrasse sat feet up in his little room behind
the check-in window of eight-twenty-seven Eames Avenue, alternately chomping on
his cigar and his corned-beef, staring at his thirteen inch black and white
Motorola. The old clock hanging behind him ticked loudly. He had absolutely no
reason whatever to believe this shift - eight-to-eight - March twenty-second,
would be any different than the other four thousand or so had been, no reason
to believe it would be the most memorable night of his life, and certainly no
reason at all to believe he would never remember any of it ever again.
Sure, this was only one of the many rooms-to-let houses near the
central business district of Philadelphia; but it was - if he had to admit it -
one of the cleanest. This was not a flop joint. Louise (Miss Dumphy, if you
please) had been coming here every other day for more than three years now to
clean up and change linens. He was proud of that.
It was quiet here.
And, like all the other rooming houses, he had the whores. And the
winos were here, along with the roustabouts and sea dogs. And the bargemen. The
tramps were here. Everybody had them all. You were good to ignore things and
not smile in this business. If they had the money, who was he to turn them
away? Seemed to him it was at least, well, sort of humanitarian: They could
rest up and clean up and get ready to punch away at life again with maybe a new
outlook, with maybe a little bounce in their bony feet that wasn't there
before. Or if they cared to they could just flat go out and get themselves
downright bent, blind and embalmed again.
He'd gotten used to that. He rarely had trouble. At fifty-seven he
could handle it if it came. He could always count on some of the regulars for
help. Some had lived there a year or more - at monthly rates - and he got along
with everybody. Everybody liked Odie. He could be counted on for a break if
anybody needed one. And free advice. Some of them needed advice now and then.
He was good for it.
Everybody liked Odie.
It was a clean and restful place.
The ten o'clock news was being rerun. He glanced at the clock. Two AM.
Six to go. Then he would sleep. Only a little. Four hours or so. He never slept
much in the daytime. Usually he'd wake up hearing Louise - Miss Dumphy - making
her rounds at noon in the hall.
The newscaster was talking about "one of the most bizarre and
grotesque killings in at least thirty years..."
He wondered why she hadn't accepted his offer of a free apartment.
"...discovered up river, in Buck's County, off of Tory Road in a
Tinicum Township state park known as High Rocks.."
After all, she lived alone and he didn't pay her much.
"...William T. Presser a Bristol resident, and Otto Frosch, from
New York City. Frosch had been..."
A lady her age really shouldn't be living alone. And since he owned the
house things could be, well, she could have some security. Presser. Didn't he
know a Presser? He'd heard that name. Seems like he knew a regular...No. Not a
regular. Somebody who knew somebody who dated a regular? Blah-Blah-Blah- He
smiled at himself.
"Police are releasing no further information, pending..."
He knew a lot of people.
Some of them had no names at all.
They all liked him. Everybody liked Odie.
The bell over the front door clinked lightly as it opened. The door to
his room was paneled, so he could not see the main entrance. He heard four
heavy steps and looked toward the check-in window.
The man had huge shoulders stuffed into a very expensive powder-blue
suit. They were bigger than the window. Odie could not see the man's head. The
wide muscular frame bent almost double and presented a face to him that belied
the body: gentle and cultured. Courteous. Polished. A baby. He smelled like Bay
Rum.
"Pebbles."
Something's wrong here.
"What?"
"Pebbles." He bounced his teeth on his tongue.
"You a cop?"
"Pebbles."
"Look. I dunno know what you're talkin' about. You a cop, show me
somethin'."
He leaned the face into the room.
"I'm not a police...CLICK...officer. I'm looking for a mister
Fredrick Pebbles."
Odie glanced at his gun under the window. He didn't get up. "It's
two o'clock in the morning, f'christ's sake!"
"Which room?"
"Mister, there's people sleeping here. This ain't no fucking
office building. Come back tomorrow."
The figure straightened and retreated toward the main entrance.
Odie shook his head, glanced back up at the Motorola, picked up his
cigar.
Freddie Pebbles.
Something was wrong.
Freddie Pebbles.
Something's really wrong...
William T. Presser. Freddie Pebbles...and...Billy Presser. Freddie and
Billy. Billy's dead?
No bell.
Odie glanced at his door. The lock was fastened.
No bell sound.
His head jerked to the window.
Silence.
Something's really wrong...
The door frame seemed to explode in on him. Parts of it hit him in the
face. The top hinge burst loose from the jamb and one of the panels spun like a
flat Frisbee into his shin.
Odie was quick.
He was at the gun within two seconds.
Within three he was standing spread-legged, arms outstretched, both
hands clasping the little .32, fingers on the trigger, scared shitless but
steady, wanting to shoot, now not wanting to shoot, bewildered by this gentle
infant face staring at him from the splintered wreckage, intoning all the while
in such a slow and solemn gentle way: "This will never do. This will never
do," that Odie found himself listening, not lowering the gun, listening to
the seconds move by him as the massive creature kept repeating:
"This will never do. This
will never do."
The creature lifted a big foot and stepped over the door.
"I'll shoot you, you bastard. You step in here, I'll shoot
you."
The other foot came into the room. "This will never do.
This..."
Odie fired. And the gentle baby face distorted, surprised, and changed
slowly to play dough. But there was no blood at the chest, no pain in the face.
The face bloated with anger. Rage. It loomed larger, closer to him now,
and the mouth, distended, screeched in a raspy rabid baby's wail:
"This will never do!...This..."
Odie fired again. And now the face was at his face and the one fat hand
at the gun and the other at his throat, fingers pressing hard, thumb squeezing
in to meet the fingers somewhere in his neck, and his wrist snapping, the gun
leaving him, and the idea there was no air and then there was no air, only pain
behind the eyes when the blood pounded in his brain. The other hand had left
his wrist and was up. Through the blur he watched its meaty heal jab toward his
eyes, and somewhere behind his ears there was a dull crunching like a peanut
crack, and for a little while he felt no pain at all, only something warm and
wet and peaceful flooding his brain, and then Odie did not feel anything ever
again.
#
Keifer and the Detectives
The phone rang about three in the morning. It was Kiefer. He needed my
ass down at headquarters. Now.
"Come on, Kiefer. Give me a break. Can't it wait till
morning?"
"Jack Odenstrasse's dead."
"Odie?...shit. So?"
"So his neck's broken. Come talk to me, Locke."
"I don't know anything about it."
"Come down here and tell me that. Or we come get you."
"Christ, Kiefer. Sometimes I worry about you."
I hung up and got dressed. In ten minutes I was on my way.
Jessie hadn't moved.
#
The sergeant looked at me over his half-lenses and smiled. "You
been bad, Oliver?"
"He wants to see me. Probably lost a shoe," I said.
He pressed the buzzer, jerked a thumb toward the office door and went
back to his reports, grinning bigger now.
Kiefer had his shoes off, both feet up on the desk, bending over,
gently massaging them, first one, then the other. Seemed like it should have
hurt his back.
"I don't know anything about it," I told him. "Can I go
now?" He didn't think that was funny. I decided not to get offended and
sat down.
"What's all this mean, Locke? We got Billy Presser dead. Delivered
newspapers and stocked shelves in a drugstore. Freddie Pebbles, they tell me,
fixes bicycles, lawn mowers and Volkswagens for a living. Everybody looking for
him. We got a dead Odie. And we got a dead Otto Frosch who counted hot dogs for
C.Z.Boggs. Three. We got three bodies in twelve hours. What's that mean,
Locke?"
"That'll mean forty-two by the end of the week."
He sighed and put his feet down. I told him thank you.
"Tell me what you know, Locke."
"I don't kill people."
We kept doing this for half an hour. Kiefer said at least four or five
others had been up there with Billy and this guy Otto Frosch.
"Somebody was spitting a lot of blood up there," he said.
They'd all - Billy and his killers - been at the icehouse a long time,
long past daybreak. One smoked Camels, another Winston Filters. Billy and Otto
Frosch both died sometime after noon. Fingerprints were hard to find. A couple
partials on filters that hadn't been stomped out. There had been two cars: a
limousine, pretty new, and a van of some sort. The van had a huge chunk missing
from one tread, a part of it probably flopping around. It leaked a lot of oil.
At the hotel, Odie's neck had been snapped and a bulldozer had come
through his door. One spent slug was found on the floor. It had hit something.
Two shots had been fired from Odie's .32 caliber Smith and Wesson Model 31, but
no blood at the scene. Whoever it was might have worn a good vest. The
bulldozer also went through Freddie Pebbles' door. Everybody saw the guy and
gave a pretty good description. Huge man. Blue suit. Face like a baby. Freddie
wasn't home.
That's what I found out.
Kiefer found out I didn't know anything about it.
#
The sun would be up soon. I felt stuck in time, like something had
ended.
I played the jukebox and tried to remember all the people in all the
apartments in all the streets in all the towns I'd lived. And all the cars I'd
had and all the girls and ex-jobs and my ex-wife and my ex-kids and my ex-dogs
and the parties and the big cons and bad hustles and the times we laughed and
the times we didn't laugh, and the music we played.
But I couldn't remember any of it. Weather Report was playing now with
Jaco Pastorius trying to make his bass sound like an oboe. Succeeding. I tried
to place the tune, the album. I couldn't. It'd been too long ago.
I could see Billy's face. And Josh. Freddie Pebbles. And Sully. And
Zack. Marshall. And Warren who could play guitar like Segovia. And Finn. And
Curtis. Cecily.
I watched my mind wander somewhere out over the street lamp and gaze
down at me, sitting on a barstool drinking milk. What are you going to be when
you grow up Oliver? Ya want a aaa-plebuuu-ter sammich
Olll-i-verrr? My mind came back and I looked at the milk and thought of Finn.
You were the best, Finn. I should have gone with you.
I tried to imagine myself diving for lobsters.
No. Seven years ago I'd gotten myself worn out wondering where the next
buck was coming from.
And I had a bar now. Sort of.
And a deaf, stupid-looking dog.
And maybe Jessie.
And still wondered where the next buck was coming from.
Crank looked at me through the door, wagged his tail. I let him in and
he skipped around a little, then hopped up the stairs to the apartment.
I'd always thought Zack would come back.
I went upstairs. Crank was in the closet at Jessie's feet.
Who am I, Jessie?, I thought. Forty years of hustle? Cigarettes and beer? Games don't play well
anymore. I'd hate dying and have no one to mourn.
Tribal loyalties, Pearlie. Just follow the head, Charlie Pearle. Know
what I mean? The body catches up.
The sun would be up soon.
"Fuck it," I said to Crank.
The worms don't care.
#
Earl Jitters, the plainclothesman, sat in Odie's chair and watched the
Motorola. Odie's house was sleeping. Freddie's door had been shoved back
somewhat in place and padlocked, the office door litter yanked off and thrown
into the alley. His partner stood watch, just outside Odie's house, close to the
alley, away from the street-lamp glow, smoking a cigarette. He wore jeans and a
tee-shirt. A light jacket hid the gun. Windchimes tinged occasionally somewhere
down the street. He'd heard nothing else for an hour. He wanted to scream. He
didn't belong here. He belonged on the West Philly stakeouts where you got
action, where you needed backup, where you could sweat a little, fingers on the
trap, pinch all the hairy grease off the top, pull all the game fish out, leave
the rest to eat themselves.
He hadn't smacked a mosquito all night.
He heard the chimes again.
Then the beam drifted by like a fog, and then the light itself, and he
heard the slow and steady plop...plop...plop...and the throaty growl of the
engine as the green van idled its way slowly to the house and stopped, sat,
engine rumbling, in the middle of the street as if looking for something,
waiting. He drew on his cigarette, cupped it in his hands. The green van
lumbered on as it had come -- limped with its plop...plop... plop... like a
wounded dragon leaking its oily blood along the way -- and disappeared around
the corner.
He dropped his cigarette, ground it out, leaned against the wall.
Again, he heard only the chimes.
He didn't belong here. This neighborhood was asleep, nothin' here.
No action.
Nothin'.
#