I got on the phone and called Ryan. “When’s the meet?”
“Half hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
Ryan had set up a meet with the president of the lacrosse club. I didn’t know him very well. He was a senior and some kind of philosophy major. I had to wonder what kind of sociopath he was to take philosophy and not think for a moment about the repercussions of his actions. I hated philosophy classes for just that reason.
“SO WE’RE HERE TO PARLAY.” Brent Davidson rubbed his hands together in anticipation, as if we were playing a game of Risk. We had agreed to meet in the basement of the Alpha Phi house, which apparently violated a thousand sorority house rules, but Lana had decreed it was the perfect place. Neutral territory for both of us, or that’s how she sold it to Davidson. We stood facing each other in a dank room, the water heater of the house not ten feet away.
I wondered if he thought that this would be some great chess game, with his wits matched against mine. I had a lot to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours, so I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time stroking this guy’s ego. Actually, I was going to spend zero time. Today was the day for a beatdown, and not one meted out by my fists.
“You’re weak, Davidson,” I informed the lacrosse club president. “That’s why you’re here playing a club sport instead of an Ivy out east. You lack real talent and suck as a leader. Your club is a cancer and needs to be excised.”
My bluntly spoken words penetrated Davidson’s backward baseball cap, and he looked about as pale as the color of his polo. He glanced nervously at Ryan, who stared back impassively. I continued. “Here’s what’s happening. There is no bargain. Your house is being searched right now, as we speak, by campus police. They will find in your kitchen pantry a grow light and ten weed plants. Now that’s not so bad, right? A few recreational drugs aren’t going to put you down, but in Clay Howard’s room they’re going to find a hundred grams of GHB. That’s a lot of date rape drugs. See, either Clay’s raping every girl on campus, or he’s dealing. Which do you think it is?”
Davidson’s mouth opened and shut like a fish sucking for air. I waited for his little brain to catch up. “No one’s using GHB in the house.”
“Is that right? I’ve heard it’s already being called the rape house. Good ol’ Central campus rumor mill is working extra hard today. Turns out that Clay keeps a little ledger next to his pill stash. There are initials in it, and a lot of those initials match the guys in the club. Initials like BRD. That wouldn’t be you, would it?”
I didn’t think that Davidson could have gotten paler than he already was, but the whiteness of his skin made his eyes look like they were going to pop out. I moved back a bit so that I’d have a decent amount of room to swing, in case it came to that.
“You aren’t going to get away with this!” Davidson cried. “Everyone will know you’re behind it.”
“You mean everyone like the students? Because that’d be a good thing. They’ll know not to fuck with me or mine. If you mean campus admin, how would they ever draw the connection? Unless you’re going to admit to a violation of Honor Code ten, Section A, which says that if you knowingly spread false and malicious statements about another student, you’ll be up for expulsion. BRD, dude, you’re only a month or so from graduation. Do you want to jeopardize that?”
Whether it was because of the use of his initials or the threat of delaying his graduation, Davidson decided to stop protesting. I admired the effort he employed to keep from screaming at me. “What do you want?” he asked dejectedly.
“That ledger, which points fingers at over half the club, goes away if you agree to two things.”
“I’m listening.”
“First, you clean house.” I handed him a piece of paper and, when he refused to take it, I reached over and picked up his listless hand. Shoving the paper into his palm, I closed his fingers over it. “This list contains the names of the girls who were the target of the revenge rumors. You have until tomorrow to file charges against the appropriate men in the house in front of the Honor Code committee. With the filed charges, you will have affidavits filled out from members of the lacrosse team speaking in favor of the victims and against the accused. If this isn’t done by five P.M. tomorrow, the ledger stays with Campus Security and will eventually be transferred to the county for investigation by real detectives. You want them sorting through your e-mails and browser history?”