"Tony's Story" Response

Hi, this is Carson.
I think the author's use of ambiguity in "Tony's Story" in Tony's descriptions of the big cop is very well done and creates tension without giving away the ending. Tony repeatedly drops hints about the cop's sinister nature: he says "if he were really what I feared," "I knew that I couldn't look at his eyes," and "I knew that the cop was something terrible." I read all of these as comments on what the cop actually is, a racist police officer with unjust power who has taken a dislike to Leon, but they make just as much sense with Tony's understanding of the cop as some sort of demon (I wasn't sure whether or not he was supposed to be a sort of witch or some other monster). As the tension escalates, the descriptions shift and the cop seems less human and more like a monster, until it becomes clear in the final scene that Tony is convinced that it isn't a man at all but some thing that is haunting them. This ambiguity blurs together reality and imagination and leaves the reader believing in Tony's version of the story until the very end when Leon asks Tony what's wrong with him.