dropping dead one by one: businessmen sitting on benches in Johnson Square, young revelers carousing on River Street, slow-moving black women holding umbrellas aloft against the hot summer sun, butlers carrying silver trays in the Oglethorpe Club, whores in hotpants on Montgomery Street, tourists lined up in front of Mrs. Wilkes’s boarding house.
He took the bottle back. “It’s an odorless, tasteless poison,” he said. “It kills without leaving a trace—just a slight residue of fluoride but no more than you could attribute to the use of fluoride toothpaste. The victim dies of a heart attack. It’s the perfect murder weapon.”
Luther went to the front door and opened it. I took this as a sign that the evening was over. But as I stood up, he grabbed hold of the door and pulled it sharply upward. The door lifted completely off its hinges. Luther laid it down flat on the living-room floor. “This is more than just an ordinary door,” he said. “It’s what’s called a ‘cooling board.’ Cooling boards are for laying out corpses and preparing them for burial. It’s a typical feature of old houses. The front door doubles as a cooling board. My family’s houses have always had them, so I had one made for myself. When I go, they’ll carry me out on this.”
Luther sat cross-legged on top of the cooling-board door on the living-room floor with the bottle of poison in his hand. Yes, I thought, and when you go, how many others will you take with you? Luther closed his eyes. A smile spread across his face.
“You know,” I said, “some people in Savannah, or at least some people in Clary’s, are afraid you might dump that poison into the water supply someday.”
“I know,” he said.
“What if I were to grab that bottle out of your hands and run away with it?”
“I’d go back to Oatland Island and dig up some more, probably,” said Luther. Whatever his intentions, Luther clearly relished the speculation about his sinister power.
“When you were a kid,” I said, “were you the type who pulled the wings off flies?”
“No,” he said, “but I caught June bugs and tied balloons to them.”
The next morning at Clary’s drugstore, Ruth set Luther’s breakfast in front of him—his eggs, his bacon, his Bayer aspirin, andhis glass of ammonia and Coca-Cola. Then she went back to the end of the soda fountain and took a drag on her cigarette.
“Ruth?” Luther asked. “Do you think you can live without glowing goldfish?”
“I can if you can, Luther,” she answered.
Luther ate a mouthful of eggs and then some bacon. He took a swallow of Coke and proceeded to finish his entire breakfast. He had a mournful but peaceful air. Luther ate, he slept, and the demons within him were still. His deadly bottle of poison would remain a harmless curiosity. At least for now.
Chapter 6
THE LADY OF SIX THOUSAND SONGS
The stream of people going in and out of Joe Odom’s house seemed to pick up tempo in the weeks after I met him. That might have been because I had joined the flow myself and was now viewing the phenomenon from midstream, so to speak. I often dropped in after breakfast, by which time the aroma of fresh coffee would be gaining the upper hand over the smell of stale cigarettes from the night before. Joe would be clean-shaven and well rested on three or four hours’ sleep, and among the assorted company (bartenders, socialites, truck drivers, accountants) there would generally be at least one person who had spent the night on the sofa. Currents of activity swirled about the house even at this early hour. People entered and exited rooms, crisscrossing one’s field of vision like characters in
La Dolce Vita.
One morning, Joe sat at the grand piano in the living room having coffee, playing the piano, and talking to me. A fat man and a girl with braided hair walked through, completely engrossed in their own conversation.
“She tore up her mother’s car yesterday,” the girl said.
“I thought
He took the bottle back. “It’s an odorless, tasteless poison,” he said. “It kills without leaving a trace—just a slight residue of fluoride but no more than you could attribute to the use of fluoride toothpaste. The victim dies of a heart attack. It’s the perfect murder weapon.”
Luther went to the front door and opened it. I took this as a sign that the evening was over. But as I stood up, he grabbed hold of the door and pulled it sharply upward. The door lifted completely off its hinges. Luther laid it down flat on the living-room floor. “This is more than just an ordinary door,” he said. “It’s what’s called a ‘cooling board.’ Cooling boards are for laying out corpses and preparing them for burial. It’s a typical feature of old houses. The front door doubles as a cooling board. My family’s houses have always had them, so I had one made for myself. When I go, they’ll carry me out on this.”
Luther sat cross-legged on top of the cooling-board door on the living-room floor with the bottle of poison in his hand. Yes, I thought, and when you go, how many others will you take with you? Luther closed his eyes. A smile spread across his face.
“You know,” I said, “some people in Savannah, or at least some people in Clary’s, are afraid you might dump that poison into the water supply someday.”
“I know,” he said.
“What if I were to grab that bottle out of your hands and run away with it?”
“I’d go back to Oatland Island and dig up some more, probably,” said Luther. Whatever his intentions, Luther clearly relished the speculation about his sinister power.
“When you were a kid,” I said, “were you the type who pulled the wings off flies?”
“No,” he said, “but I caught June bugs and tied balloons to them.”
The next morning at Clary’s drugstore, Ruth set Luther’s breakfast in front of him—his eggs, his bacon, his Bayer aspirin, andhis glass of ammonia and Coca-Cola. Then she went back to the end of the soda fountain and took a drag on her cigarette.
“Ruth?” Luther asked. “Do you think you can live without glowing goldfish?”
“I can if you can, Luther,” she answered.
Luther ate a mouthful of eggs and then some bacon. He took a swallow of Coke and proceeded to finish his entire breakfast. He had a mournful but peaceful air. Luther ate, he slept, and the demons within him were still. His deadly bottle of poison would remain a harmless curiosity. At least for now.
Chapter 6
THE LADY OF SIX THOUSAND SONGS
The stream of people going in and out of Joe Odom’s house seemed to pick up tempo in the weeks after I met him. That might have been because I had joined the flow myself and was now viewing the phenomenon from midstream, so to speak. I often dropped in after breakfast, by which time the aroma of fresh coffee would be gaining the upper hand over the smell of stale cigarettes from the night before. Joe would be clean-shaven and well rested on three or four hours’ sleep, and among the assorted company (bartenders, socialites, truck drivers, accountants) there would generally be at least one person who had spent the night on the sofa. Currents of activity swirled about the house even at this early hour. People entered and exited rooms, crisscrossing one’s field of vision like characters in
La Dolce Vita.
One morning, Joe sat at the grand piano in the living room having coffee, playing the piano, and talking to me. A fat man and a girl with braided hair walked through, completely engrossed in their own conversation.
“She tore up her mother’s car yesterday,” the girl said.
“I thought
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