Nobody's Fool
he sighed. âIâm tired of arguing with you.â
Officer Raymer was standing guard outside the OTB when Sully and Will pulled up in the £1 Camino, ignored a perfectly legal parking space and backed into the striped triangle clearly marked NO PARKING . The policeman sighed visibly. In the past couple weeks heâd written Sully half a dozen parking tickets even though the El Camino wasnât his car, even though the policeman knew it belonged to Carl Roebuck, who was in tight with the chief of police and could fix any tickets that Officer Raymer wrote. By ignoring the legal parking space, Sully was taunting him. And it was only the beginning.
âLetâs have some fun,â Sully said to Will as they got out of the El Camino. Then, louder, âSay hi to that big ugly fellow in the uniform.â Will smiled weakly, said hello.
The policeman did not look at the boy or acknowledge that heâd been spoken to. Instead he glared at Sully murderously. âDonât start in,â he warned.
âHey,â Sully said, holding up his hands, as if in surrender. âI just want you to clarify something for me. Thereâs one little thing that confuses me.â
âDonât start.â
âNo, really. I just want to understand. Correct me if I get the details wrong, okay, because I wasnât there.â
Officer Raymer turned away, looked up the street in the other direction. Two men on their way into the OTB stopped to listen.
âSo,â Sully went on. âYouâre asked to go see about a disturbance. You drive up, and what do you see? Thereâs a man standing in the middle of the driveway with a deer rifle and heâs shooting out windows on a residential street. Now correct me if Iâm wrong, but â¦Â thatâd be against the law, right?â
Officer Raymer turned back to study Sully, noticed that the two passersby had stopped to listen, said nothing.
âA good-looking girl comes up to the guy with the rifle, so he clubs her with the gun, breaks her jaw in about fifteen places, then kicks her once or twice for good measure. Thatâd be against the law, wouldnât it?â
âHe done that before I got there,â the policeman said. âI never saw him hit her.â
Some more men on the way into the OTB also stopped now.
âOkay,â Sully said agreeably. âThatâs what I mean. I just want to understand how it happened. So you pull up, and the guy with the gun is standing over the girl with the broken jaw whoâs lying on the ground. And heâs pointing the rifle at her and saying what he ought to do is just blow her brains out. Thatâd be against the law, wouldnât it?â
âDefinitely,â said one of the two men whoâd stopped first.
The policeman glared at the man whoâd spoken for a moment before turning his attention back to Sully. âIâm going to give you about ten seconds to get the fuck away from me, Sully.â
Sully consulted his watch. âSo what do you do? You let the guy with the rifle take a little girl, get back in his truck and drive away.â
âIt was a domestic dispute. A judgment call. They picked him up ten minutes later, for Christ sake.â
âA judgment call,â Sully repeated.
Officer Raymer knew his mistake now. It was allowing himself to be drawn into this discussion. âYou should try being a cop for about one day, Sully,â he said weakly.
Sully was grinning, and so, slyly, were the men whoâd gathered. âA judgment call,â he repeated as he turned to head into the OTB. âYou take care now, Officer.â
âI hope you donât ever catch fire and have me standing nearby with a hose,â the policeman said to Sullyâs retreating form.
âThatâs where youâd be, all right,â Sully said over his shoulder. âOff at a safe distance, holding your hose.â
Inside the OTB were clusters of the windbreaker men, though most of these were now wearing their post-Thanksgiving heavy outerwear, and Sully spotted Otis right away due to the white bandage behind his ear.
âOh, God,â Otis said when he became aware of Sully standing in the doorway and grinning at him maliciously. Instead of having to deal with Sully once, midmorning, at the OTB, now, since Sullyâd started working mornings at Hattieâs, he got a double dose. Sullyâd warned him against
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