Read Online Little Children by Tom Perrotta - Free Book Online

time to see the suspect heading up the escalator to the food court. The cop gave chase, cornering the suspect in front of the Taco Bell kiosk. The kid reached for his gun, and that was that. It was only after firing the fatal shots that the officer discovered that the kid was packing a toy, a cheap plastic six-shooter purchased at the Dollar Store.
    There were some protests from civil rights groups, who insisted that the kid—he turned out to be only thirteen, though already over six feet tall—never would have been shot if he’d been white, but a departmental investigation determined that the cop had acted in accordance with legal guidelines for the use of deadly force. After that the story pretty much faded from the local news.
    “Jesus,” said Todd. “That’s terrible.”
    “I still have nightmares about it,” Larry confessed. “Antoine Harris was his name. Turns out he was a good kid. Real skinny, class clown. Thought it was a big joke, waving around his cowboy gun.”
    “You didn’t know. It could have been real.”
    “I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome,” said Larry. “By three different psychiatrists. That’s why I retired. I couldn’t do the job anymore.”
    “Not after that.”
    “For a year or two, Joanie was okay with me hanging around the house. But now she thinks I’m getting lazy.”
    “Maybe you could do something else,” Todd suggested.
    “Like what?” Larry snapped. “Drive a forklift at Costco?”
    “Maybe go back to school.”
    “You sound like Joanie.” Larry looked like he was trying to control himself. “I loved my job. I don’t want to do anything else.”
     
    Todd had given clear directions to his house, but Larry must have misheard them. He turned off Pleasant a mile too soon, onto a network of curving streets near the Rayburn School.
    “This isn’t it,” Todd told him. “I’m farther down toward the park.”
    Larry ignored him. They were moving at a crawl through a sleepy enclave of Cape Cods and garrison colonials, a modest family neighborhood a lot like Todd’s own—tricycles abandoned on lawns, hockey nets tipped over in driveways, soccer ball flags flying proudly over front doors.
    “Can you believe they let the bastard live in a place like this?”
    “Oh shit,” said Todd. “This is Blueberry Court.”
    Larry released a bitter chuckle.
    “Why not give the pervert his own day-care center, too?”
    Larry pulled to a stop in front of a small white house, Number 44. An old-fashioned lamppost cast its light over a well-kept square of lawn outlined by a border of scalloped bricks. The flower boxes beneath the picture window and the horse-and-buggy cutouts on the shutters gave the place the quaint, frozen-in-time look of an old photograph. Larry pressed three times on his horn, shattering the late-night silence. It was almost like he was summoning the pervert, like he expected McGorvey to come out and join them in the car.
    “Why’d you do that?” Todd asked.
    “Just to let him know I’m out here.”
    Larry reached into the backseat for his binoculars and trained them on the picture window. This seemed like overkill to Todd; the backs of two heads were clearly visible through the glass, silhouetted against the throbbing blue light of the TV.
    “I want this scumbag to know I’m keeping an eye on him.”
    Time clicked by on the dashboard clock—five, ten, fifteen minutes. Todd just wanted to go home. Kathy would be worried; he had to take a wicked piss. But Larry seemed in no hurry to end his vigil.
    “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “Just sitting there watching Leno like a normal human being.”
    Todd could have spoken up, of course. But something held him back, the passenger’s code of conduct. He felt like he’d surrendered his control of the night the moment he’d stepped into the van. For better or worse, the driver called the shots.
    “You know that Girl Scout he exposed himself to?” Larry asked. “She was my buddy’s