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deliver you to the station. I also told him you had never been in trouble and were a good kid. You owe me a big favor.”
    â€œWhat’s a cop want with me?”
    â€œThat is not the issue. The issue is the conversation we had with the four hoods in the souped-up Ford. I told them they were on school property without authorization. I told them to get off campus. That was the entire substance of the conversation. Right? ”
    He was nodding while he spoke, waiting for me to agree with him, his eyes as hard as marbles, locked on mine. There was no window in his office; his body odor seemed to eat up the oxygen in the room.
    â€œYou made out I was a snitch. You set me up, Mr. Krauser. Has something happened?”
    â€œDon’t you dare lay this on me, you little son of a bitch.”
    â€œYou told Loren Nichols you’d rip out his package and wrap it around his throat. Has somebody hurt him? Is that why you’re so afraid?”
    â€œI hope that cop sticks a baton so far up your ass, you’ll be coughing splinters.”
    A T THE SUBSTATION, a patrolman ushered me into a small room and left me alone with a huge thick-necked man gazing through the window at the high school campus across the street. He wore cowboy boots and a brown suit and white shirt and a tie with a swampy sunsetpainted on it. Behind him, a fedora rested crown-down on an army-surplus metal desk that was otherwise bare. He turned around and stared into my face, his eyes the color of lead. A snub-nose chrome-plated revolver and a badge were clipped on his belt. “I’m Detective Merton Jenks. Sit down,” he said.
    â€œAre my folks here?”
    He pawed at his cheek, his gaze never leaving my face. The skin around his eyes was grainy, like scales fanning back into his hairline. I thought of a reptile breaking out of its shell, perhaps millions of years ago. I sat down and looked up at him. He had not answered my question. I tried to hold his stare.
    â€œYou carry a shank?” he asked.
    â€œA knife? No, sir.”
    â€œTurn your pockets out. Put everything on the desk.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œDid I tell you to stand up?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    My hands were shaking as I removed my belongings from my pockets. He sat on the corner of the desk and watched me. “What do you call this?” he said.
    â€œIt’s a penknife. I use it to cut string at the grocery.”
    â€œYou sack groceries?”
    â€œI tote them outside, too. Sometimes I work at a service station.”
    â€œThat’s a good job for a boy. Pumping gasoline, fixing tires, and all that,” he said, half smiling. “That’s what you do, right?”
    â€œYes, sir, oil changes, too.”
    â€œWhat were you doing last night?”
    â€œNot much. I took a walk.”
    â€œWhere’bouts did you walk?”
    â€œI can’t rightly say. I have spells.”
    â€œWhat kind of spells?”
    â€œLike down in the dumps. They pass. They run in my family.”
    â€œKnow who Loren Nichols is?”
    â€œA guy I had trouble with up in the Heights. He came to theschool with his friends yesterday.” I straightened my back and took a fresh breath. Maybe this was about Loren Nichols and his buddies, not me.
    â€œWere they in a 1941 Ford that belongs to Loren and his brother?”
    â€œIt was a ’41 Ford. I don’t know who owns it.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t have vandalized his car, would you?”
    â€œNo, I don’t do things like that. Are my folks on their way?”
    â€œYou mean ‘no, sir’?”
    â€œYes, sir, that’s what I meant.”
    â€œLoren says he saw you in the Heights last night, not far from his house. Were you in the Heights?”
    â€œI never bothered those guys. They came after me. I don’t know what’s going on, Mr. Jenks.”
    â€œDetective Jenks. You didn’t answer my question. Were you in the Heights or