Odd Hours

continued to stare at me.
    He had ugly green eyes colder than those of a snake, although I would not have made this observation to his face or, for that matter, within one hundred miles of his jurisdiction.
    I am not a stickler for etiquette, but I did not feel that it was my place to initiate our conversation.
    After a while, I could not bear to stare into his venomous eyes any longer. Either I had to look away from him, which he would take as a sign of weakness, or I had to say something that would force him to speak.
    “I imagine,” I said with a relaxed affability that surprised me, “you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
    He neither replied nor broke eye contact.
    “I have never been in trouble with the law,” I told him.
    He remained fixated on me and was so still that I could not be sure that he breathed—or needed to.
    If there was a Mrs. Hoss, she was either psychological wreckage or one tough mama.
    “Well,” I said, and could think of nothing to add.
    At last he blinked. It was a slow blink, as if he were an iguana dazed by desert sun.
    He held out his right hand and said, “Take my hand.”
    I knew what this was about, and I wanted no part of it.
    His hand remained above the table, palm up. He had hands big enough to play professional basketball, although the most sporting thing he had probably ever done with them was bash suspects’ heads together.
    Over the years, I had read thrillers in which the authors wrote things like “the air was full of violence” and “the pending violence hung over the scene like black thunderheads.” I had always judged this to be clumsy writing, but maybe they should have won Nobels and Pulitzers.
    “Take my hand,” Hoss Shackett repeated.
    I said, “I’m already dating someone.”
    “What’s the point of dating if your pecker’s broken off?”
    “It’s a platonic relationship, anyway.”
    My hands were folded on the table. Viper-quick, he struck, seizing my left hand, folding it tight enough in his to make me wish I’d had my knuckles surgically removed.
    The grim concrete cell vanished, and I stood once more on Armageddon Beach, in a tempest of crimson light.
    Chief Hoss Shackett was not a man who lightly revealed what he was feeling or thinking. But when he dropped my hand, returning me to reality, and leaned back in his chair, I could tell from a slight widening of his pupils that he had shared my nightmare vision.
    “So,” I said, “what was that about?”
    He did not reply.
    “Because,” I said, “that has only happened to me once before, and it freaks me out.”
    He had a hard strong face that Stalin would have envied. His jaw muscles were so knotted at the hinges that he appeared able to crack walnuts in his teeth.
    “Nothing like this—sharing a dream—has ever happened to me before,” I assured him. “It’s every bit as awkward for me as it is for you.”
    “Sharing a dream.”
    “I had this dream, and now people touch me and I’m thrown back into it. What is this—the Twilight Zone?”
    He leaned forward, a small move, but it was like being in a Jurassic meadow when the T. rex that has its back to you casually looks over its shoulder.
    “Who are you?” he asked.
    “I have no idea.”
    “I won’t keep asking nice like this.”
    “Sir, I appreciate how nice you’ve been. I really do. But I’m serious. I have amnesia.”
    “Amnesia.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s pathetic.”
    “It really is. Not knowing my past, my name, where I’m from, where I’m going. It’s totally pathetic.”
    “You told Reverend Moran your name was Todd.”
    “Sir, I swear, it was just a name to tell him. I could have said Larry or Vernon, or Rupert, or Ringo. I could be anybody. I just do not know.”
    He did the staring thing again. It was as effective as it had been previously. Second by second, I became increasingly convinced that if I didn’t spill everything about myself, he would bite off my nose. For starters.
    Although he would infer weakness if I looked away from him, I had to break the stare before his eyes sucked out my soul. I examined my left hand to confirm that he had returned it with all my fingers.
    With the solemnity of Darth Vader, the chief said, “You aren’t carrying any identification.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s right. If I had some identification, I’d know who I was.”
    “I don’t like people in my town not carrying ID.”
    “No, sir, you wouldn’t like that, you being a man of the law. I wouldn’t like