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I have to hand it to Cooper. He’s scared the living daylights out of the boy, and without even lying to him. He is a detective… and the cops could arrest Doug for obstruction of justice. It’s just that Cooper isn’t a police detective, and wouldn’t be able to do any arresting himself.
Seeing the kid’s truculent expression go suddenly soft with fear, Cooper lets go of his wrist and stands back, folding his arms across his chest and looming quite menacingly. He manages to look as if he feels like breaking Doug Winer’s arm—and might still do it, if provoked.
Doug massages his wrist where Cooper grasped it, and looks up at him resentfully. “You didn’t have to do that, man,” he says. “It’s my room, I can smoke if I want to.”
“Actually,” Cooper says, with the same amiableness that, I’m sure, always misleads his less savory clients into thinking he was secretly on their side, “this room belongs to the Tau Phi Epsilon Association, Douglas, not you. And I think the Tau Phi Epsilon Association might be interested to learn that one of their pledges is conducting a lucrative business in dealing controlled substances from their property.”
“What?” Doug’s jaw drops. In the gray light, I can see now that the kid’s chin is peppered with acne. “What are you talking about, man?”
Cooper chuckles. “Well, let’s leave that aside for a while, shall we? How old are you, Douglas? Tell the truth, now, son.”
To my surprise, the kid doesn’t say,I’m not your son, the way I would have, if I’d been him. Instead, he sticks out his pimpled chin and says, “Twenty.”
“Twenty,” Cooper echoes, looking pointedly about the room. “And are all these beer cans yours, Douglas?”
Doug isn’t quite as stupid as he looks. His face grows dark with suspicion as he lies sullenly, “No.”
“No?” Cooper looks mildly surprised. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I suppose your fraternity brothers, the ones who are over twenty-one, I mean, which is the legal drinking age in this state, drank all these beers and left them in your room as a little joke. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the New York College campus a dry one, Heather?” Cooper asks me, though he knows the answer very well.
“Why, yes, I believe it is, Cooper,” I reply, seeing his game and playing along. “And yet, in this young man’s room, there are many, many empty beer containers. You know what, Cooper?”
Cooper looks interested. “No, what, Heather?”
“I think that Tau Phi Epsilon is perhaps in violation of that dry campus ordinance. I think the Greek Association will be very interested to hear about your room, Mr. Winer.”
Doug props himself up on his elbows, his bare, hairless chest heaving suddenly. “Look, I didn’t kill her, all right? That’s all I’ll tell you. And you guys had better stop harassing me!”
11
The “no” in “a
The “um” in “circumvent”
The “err” in “aberration”
The “con” in “malcontent.”
“Rejection Song”
Written by Heather Wells
Cooper and I exchange astonished glances. The astonishment, anyway, isn’t feigned.
“Did anyone here accuse you of killing anyone, Douglas?” Cooper spreads out his hands i
“Yeah, really.” I shake my head. “We were only accusing your fraternity of supplying alcohol to their under-aged brother.”
Doug scowls. “You leave my fraternity out of this, okay?”
“We might be able to do that,” Cooper says, stroking his whiskered jaw thoughtfully. “If you could be a little more forthcoming with the information my friend here requested.”
Winer flicks a glance up at me.
“Okay,” the kid sighs, leaning back against the pillows of his water bed and twining his fingers behind his head so that Coop and I both have a great view of the tufts of blond hair beneath his arms. Ew. “What do you want to know?”
Ignoring the armpits, I say, “I want to know how long you and Lindsay Combs were dating.”
“Dating.” Doug Winer smirks at the ceiling. “Right. Dating. Let me see. She showed up at a rush party in September. That’s where I met her. She was with that girl Jeff Turner’s seeing. Cheryl Something.”
“Jeff’s a Tau Phi?” I ask.
“He’s pledging. He’s a legacy, so he’ll probably make it, if he passes his initiation. Anyway, I thought she was cute. Lindsay, I mean. I offered her a drink.” He shoots Coop a defensive look. “I didn’t know she wasn’t twenty-one. Anyway, things kinda went from there.”
“Went how from there?” I ask.
“You know.” Doug Winer shrugs, then shoots Cooper such a smugly superior smile that I feel hard-pressed not to launch myself at the guy, tear a hole in the water mattress, and hold the kid’s head in it until he drowns.
Not, of course, that I would ever do something like that. Because then I’d probably get fired.
“No, I don’t know,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Please explain it to me.”
“She gave me head, okay?” Winer snickers. “Fucking homecoming queen, my ass. And she was a pro, let me tell you. I never had it like that from any girl—”
“Okay,” Cooper interrupts. “We get the picture.”
I feel my cheeks burning and curse myself. Why do I have to respond like such a Goody Two-shoes to words like head? Especially around Cooper, who is already convinced I’m “a nice girl.” By going around blushing all the time, I’m just reinforcing the image.
I try to make out as if I’m not blushing, just flushed. It is warm in Doug’s room—especially since, judging from the sound of water coming from his bathroom, his girlfriend (or whatever she is) appears to be showering. I start unwinding my scarf.
“Never mind,” I say to Cooper, to show him I’m all right with the gritty language. To Doug I say, “Go on.”
Douglas, still looking smug, shrugs. “So I thought it’d be a good idea to keep her around, you know? For emergencies.”
I’m so surprised by the coldness of this that I can’t think of anything to say. Cooper’s the one who inquires, calmly examining his own cuticles, “What do you mean, keep her around?”
“You know. Put her number in the little black book. For a rainy day. Whenever I was feelin’ down, I’d give ol’ Lindsay a call, and she would come over and make me feel better.”
I really can’t remember the last time I’d felt so much like killing someone—then recall that only an hour or so ago I’d wanted to pummel Gillian Kilgore with almost the same intensity as I now longed to throttle Doug Winer.
Maybe Sarah is right. Maybe I do have a Superman complex.
Cooper glances at me, and seems to sense that I’m having a difficult time restraining myself. He looks back down at his fingernails and asks Doug casually, “And Lindsay didn’t have any complaints about this kind of relationship?”
“Shit, no,” Doug says with a laugh. “And if she had complained, she’d’ve regretted it.”
Cooper’s head turns so fast in Winer’s direction that it’s nothing but a blur. “Regretted it how?”
The kid seems to realize his mistake and takes his hands away from his head, sitting up a little straighter. I notice that his abdomen is perfectly flat, except where it’s ridged with muscles. I had abs that tight once. When I was eleven.
“Hey, not like that, man.” Winer’s blue eyes are wide. “Not like that. I mean, I’d’ve stopped calling her. That’s all.”
“Are you trying to tell us”—I’ve found my voice at last—“that Lindsay Combs was perfectly willing to come up here any old time you called and give you—ahem—oral sex?”
Doug Winer blinks at me, hearing the hostility in my voice, but apparently not understanding where it’s coming from. “Well. Yeah.”
“And she did this because?”
The kid stares at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that girls do not generally perform oral sex for no reason.” At least, no girl with whom I was acquainted. “What did she get out of it?”