HE MADE AN appointment with Detective Dale Hopkins, the plainclothes investigator who had busted Saber and me for vandalizing Mr. Krauser’s home. We met with him in a tiny windowless room that contained no furniture except a wooden table and three chairs and a D-ring inset in the concrete floor. The door was made of solid metal. Through the crack, I could see officers in uniform walking back and forth in the corridor. Hopkins wore a suit the color of tin. He did not bother to shake hands with me or my father. The skin of his face was as taut as a drumhead. He carried a clipboard with him. Perhaps intentionally, he clattered it on the table when he
sat down. He had the worst nicotine odor I had ever smelled. “This is in reference to Vick Atlas?” he said.
“Vick Atlas and my son,” my father said.
“So what about Vick Atlas and your son?” He smiled as though trying to be polite and pleasant.
“We want to know if Vick Atlas is all right,” my father said. “We want to apologize. You’re the same gentleman I spoke with on the phone, aren’t you?”
“We’re not in the apology business, Mr. Broussard. Vick Atlas isn’t pressing charges. So all sins are forgiven.”
“I don’t think I’ve made myself clear,” my father said. “My son is sorry for what he did. If he’s not, he should be. That is only part of the reason for our coming here. We believe the Atlas family plans to do us harm. What my son did was wrong. But he was acting in defense of his animals. Can you tell me why people like Jaime Atlas and his son and their ilk are allowed to do anything they wish, including the murder of others?”
Hopkins’s eyes were like glass, the pupils like seeds. “I got no opinion on that.”
“That’s remarkable,” my father said.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“Isn’t it obvious something besides a teenage squabble is going on? The Harrelson and Atlas families are involved, a schoolteacher has committed suicide, my son lives in fear for his life, and you seem to see or hear nothing.”
“I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“Do you plan on talking to Vick Atlas or his father?”
“No.”
“Do you care to explain that?”
“No charges have been filed. There won’t be any, either.”
“Why not?”
“Vick Atlas and his father told me it was an argument and a fair fight. For them, it’s over.”
“Do you believe them?” my father asked.
“What I believe is irrelevant. If you want my opinion, the issue is your son.”
“Aaron is the catalyst?” my father said.
“The what?”
“Corruption has a smell. It’s an infection a man carries in his glands.”
The room seemed pressurized. I could see a pencil drawing of a cock and balls on the back of the metal door. Down the corridor, someone was yelling for a roll of toilet paper through the bars of a holding cell.
“I went out to the apartment building myself,” Hopkins said. “I talked to the desk clerk who called in the incident. He saw your boy go out the back door. He also saw him talking to a nigger woman by the garbage cans. Your son was giving her money. Know why he would be doing that just after he beat the hell out of someone?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Maybe they had a previous relationship. Is that a possibility?”
“Would you clarify that, please?” my father said.
“She used to work in a crib.”
“I have a hard time following your implication,” my father said.