I wasnât going to, but I wondered if I was supposed to. He paused, and I sort of looked around. Throckmarten was looking out into the front parking lot through the slits in the blinds. He was wearing a suit, which he didnât always, and I figured that meant he knew the sheriff was going to be there. It was a dark suit and it made me think of my grampsâs funeral. The light was coming in through the blinds and cutting him up into slices as he sat there on the windowsill. He wasnât looking at me but you could tell he was listening.
I looked back and Throckmorton was looking at my left eye. He looked down at his papers quick, shuffled them a little, but Iâd caught him.
âSo I guess you know why youâre here,â he said, raising his eyes back up.
âTommy, I guess,â I said.
âYes, sir,â he said, but he said it in that hip-hop way, like: yezzurr, and I was thinking: Did he just say that? Because even though that slang was like two years old, it was still slang. I mean, I used to say that. So now I was thinking, What is this dudeâs deal? Is he trying to be cool and like ârelateâ to me, or does he really talk like that? He was sitting behind the desk, so I could only see half of him. He had a button-up white shirt on, and it couldâve been part of a uniform, but it could also justâve been a plain white shirt. I tried to remember other times Iâd seen him around town, like in the pharmacy or wherever, and tried to picture what heâd been wearing. Was it a uniform, and if it was, would they take it away if he lost the election? I donât think Iâd ever seen him in anything else. All I could remember was his face, his gun, and his jacket.
His face was square and fleshier than the rest of him, sort of bulldoggy, and his hair was dark brown, almost black. He still had all of it and I didnât see much gray, but you could tell he was real old, maybe even forty. I always thought of him as kind of a big guy, but up close, I could see that wasnât really the case. The jacket was slung over the chair behind him. It was dark blue and medium weight, and whatever it was made of reflected the light just a little bit.
His gun was out of sight at the moment, but I knew it was a revolver and a little too big, like heâd be shooting at something larger than a person with it. He walked right byMixer and me once when we were hanging out in front of the town hall, this was maybe three years ago, when we were still basically kids, and Mixer said, âMagnum.â I figured he was right, even though Iâd never shot one of those. Iâd never shot a pistol at all, come to think of it, just rifles and my uncleâs shotgun once.
âYou and Thomas, Tommy, are friends, right?â
âYeah,â I said.
âHow long have you two known each other?â
âSince start of freshman year,â I said. âGoing on two years now. Two school years, I mean.â
âHe didnât go to elementary school with you?â
âNah,â I said. âHeâs from North Cambria. I went to Central.â
Central was Soudley Central Elementary School, which is the only school in Soudley, so I donât know what the central is for.
âYeah, course,â said Throckmorton. âIâve seen you around town.â
And there was nothing weird about him saying that, Iâve seen you around, because like I said, he lived in Soudley, but I sort of interpreted it as halfway between neighborly and an Iâve-got-my-eye-on-you sort of thing. I guess I mightâve been reading too much into it; I couldnât tell. His eyes were muddy brown and sort of sleepy. People always say, like in the movies, that police have piercing eyes, that they look right through you, but that wasnât the vibe that Throckmorton gave off. Hedidnât give off any vibe at all. It was like a poker face, which is supposed to be for the
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