Стивен Кинг: The Institute

“Sued the department?”

“Yes. It’ll go on for awhile, but he’ll end up getting something.”

Sheriff John considered. “If he hung around to film the altercation, he may not get all that much, no matter how bad his headaches are. I suppose the department landed you with reckless discharge of a weapon.”

They had, and it would be nice, Tim thought, if we could leave it at that. But they couldn’t. Sheriff John might look like an African-American version of Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard , but he was no dummy. He was clearly sympathetic to Tim’s situation—almost any cop would be—but he’d still check. Better he got the rest of the story from Tim himself.

“Before I went into the shoe store, I went into Beachcombers and had a couple of drinks. The responding officers who took the kid into custody smelled it on my breath and gave me the test. I blew oh-six, under the legal limit but not good considering I had just fired my sidearm and put a man in the hospital.”

“You ordinarily a drinking man, Mr. Jamieson?”

“Quite a lot in the six months or so after my divorce, but that was two years ago. Not now.” Which is, of course, what I would say, he thought.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, now let’s see if I got this right.” The sheriff stuck up a fat index finger. “You were off duty, which means if you’d been out of uniform, that woman never would have run up to you in the first place.”

“Probably not, but I would have heard the commotion and gone to the scene anyway. A cop is never really off duty. As I’m sure you know.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, but would you have had your gun?”

“No, it would have been locked in my car.”

Ashworth popped a second finger for that point, then added a third. “The kid had what was probably a fake gun, but it could have been real. You couldn’t be sure, one way or the other.”

“Yes.”

Here came finger number four. “Your warning shot struck a light, not only bringing it down but bringing it down on an innocent bystander’s head. If, that is, you can call an asshole filming with a cell phone an innocent bystander.”

Tim nodded.

Up popped the sheriff’s thumb. “And before this altercation occurred, you just happened to have ingested two alcoholic drinks.”

“Yes. And while I was in uniform.”

“Not a good decision, not a good… what do they call it… optic , but I’d still have to say you had one insane run of bad luck.” Sheriff John drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. The ruby pinkie ring punctuated each roll with a small click. “I think your story is too outrageous not to be true, but I believe I’ll call your previous place of employment and check it for myself. If for no other reason than to hear the story again and marvel anew.”

Tim smiled. “I reported to Bernadette DiPino. She’s the Sarasota Chief of Police. And you better get home to dinner, or your wife is going to be mad.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, you let me worry about Marcy.” The sheriff leaned forward over his stomach. His eyes were brighter than ever. “If I Breathalyzed you right now, Mr. Jamieson, what would you blow?”

“Go ahead and find out.”

“Don’t believe I will. Don’t believe I need to.” He leaned back; his office chair uttered another longsuffering squall. “Why would you want the job of night knocker in a pissant little burg like this? It only pays a hundred dollars a week, and while it doesn’t amount to much in the way of trouble Sunday to Thursday, it can be an aggravation on Friday and Saturday nights. The strip club in Penley closed down last year, but there are several ginmills and juke joints in the immediate area.”

“My grandfather was a night knocker in Hibbing, Minnesota. The town where Bob Dylan grew up? This was after he retired from the State Police. He was the reason I wanted to be a cop when I was growing up. I saw the sign, and just thought…” Tim shrugged. What had he thought? Pretty much the same thing as when he’d taken the job in the recycling plant. A whole lot of nothing much. It occurred to him that he might be, mentally speaking, at least, in sort of a hard place.

“Following in your grandpop’s footsteps, uh-huh.” Sheriff John clasped his hands over his considerable belly and stared at Tim—those bright, inquisitive eyes deep in their pockets of fat. “Consider yourself retired, is that the deal? Just looking for something to while away the idle hours? A little young for that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Retired from the police, yes. That’s over. A friend said he could get me security work in New York, and I wanted a change of scene. Maybe I don’t have to go to New York to get one.” He guessed what he really wanted was a change of heart. The night knocker job might not accomplish that, but then again it might.

“Divorced, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Kids?”

“No. She wanted them, I didn’t. Didn’t feel I was ready.”

Sheriff John looked down at Tim’s application. “It says here you’re forty-two. In most cases—probably not all—if you’re not ready by then…”

He trailed off, waiting in best cop fashion for Tim to fill the silence. Tim didn’t.

“You may be headed to New York eventually, Mr. Jamieson, but right now you’re just drifting. That fair to say?”

Tim thought it over and agreed it was fair.

“If I give you this job, how do I know you won’t take a notion to just drift on out of here two weeks or a month from now? DuPray idn’t the most interesting place on earth, or even in South Cah’lina. What I’m asking, sir, is how do I know you’re dependable?”

“I’ll stick around. Always assuming you feel like I’m doing the job, that is. If you decide I’m not, you’ll can me. If I should decide to move on, I’ll give you plenty of notice. That’s a promise.”

“Job’s not enough to live on.”

Tim shrugged. “I’ll find something else if I need to. You want to tell me I’d be the only guy around here working two jobs to make ends meet? And I’ve got a little put by to get started on.”

Sheriff John sat where he was for a little while, thinking it over, then got to his feet. He did it with surprising agility for such a heavy man. “You come around tomorrow morning and we’ll see what we’re gonna do about this. Around ten would be about right.”

Which will give you plenty of time to talk to Sarasota PD, Tim thought, and see if my story checks out. Also to discover if there are other smudges on my record.

He stood himself and stuck out his hand. Sheriff John’s grip was a good strong one. “Where will you be staying tonight, Mr. Jamieson?”

“That motel down the way, if there’s a vacant room.”

“Oh, Norbert’ll have plenty of vacant rooms,” the sheriff said, “and I doubt if he’ll try to sell you any of the herb. You’ve still got a little of the cop look about you, seems to me. If you don’t have a problem digesting fried food, Bev’s down the street is open until seven. I’m partial to the liver and onions, myself.”

“Thanks. And thanks for talking to me.”

“Not at all. Interesting conversation. And when you check in at the DuPray, tell Norbert Sheriff John said to give you one of the good rooms.”

“I’ll do that.”

“But I’d still take a look for bugs before you climb into the rack.”

Tim smiled. “I already got that advice.”

Dinner at Bev’s Eatery was chicken-fried steak, green beans, and peach cobbler to follow. Not bad. The room he was assigned at the DuPray Motel was a different matter. It made the ones Tim had stayed in during his ramble north look like palaces. The air conditioner in the window rattled busily, but didn’t cool things off much. The rusty shower head dripped, and there seemed to be no way to stop it. (He finally put a towel under it to muffle the clockwork sound.) The shade on the bedside lamp was burned in a couple of places. The room’s one picture—an unsettling composition depicting a sailing ship crewed entirely by grinning and possibly homicidal black men—hung crooked. Tim straightened it, but it immediately fell crooked again.