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A tiny smile of satisfaction formed in the corner of the cop's lips. She nodded. “Sure.”

“You ever ask him any personal questions about the girl's bush?”

Her face flushed. “What?”

“You ever ask him any personal questions about the girl's bush?” he repeated.

“Why should I?”

“Girl said she was raped at the fraternity Christmas party, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And before the rape, she passed out on the bed from drugs and/or liquor. Right?”

“So?”

“Well, Watson told Mr. Stafford here, and all the other suspects, that he, Watson, had intercourse with the same girl that same night after the party at his apartment.”

“What is this crap?” the cop snapped.

“You ever ask Watson if she was shaved?”

“Your client's favorite way, I hear,” she said icily.

“Bullshit! It's a total turn-off,” I blurted out.

“Shut up!” Nuppi ordered. Then he looked back at the cop. “You ever ask Watson if she was shaved?” Nuppi piped up again, but in a more polite voice.

“No.”

“Or if it was bushy?” I hurriedly added before Nuppi could tell me to shut up again.

“No.”

“Or manicured into a shape?” I pressed, taking over for Nuppi.

“Like what?”

“A heart. A landing strip. Or anything else?”

This bitch suddenly got defensive. “No. Why should I?”

“Because Watson told me and the rest of the pledges that this girl had the thickest bush he ever saw. Even hairier than what you see in sex magazines. Ask him. Ask the rest of the pledges. They'll tell you he said that.”

Nuppi suddenly figured that he'd better earn his grand. “This Watson guy admitted having intercourse with the girl after the Christmas party later that night. So ask him if the girl was shaved when she voluntarily consented to have intercourse with him. If he says she wasn't shaved, it proves she's a liar. That she shaved herself afterward and that my client's cousin or somebody else put the girl up to falsely naming my client for a rape that never happened.”

A sour expression suddenly appeared on this bitch's face. “Why bother, counselor,” she said, pronouncing the word counselor like she really wanted to say asshole. “Watson's already history. He'll lie for your guy.”

“No he won't,” I interrupted. “He hates me.”

“Why's that?” Her thin smile didn't hide her fangs. “Can't imagine anybody hating you.”

“Because when I was in jail on my DUI, he and some other pledges were in the cell with me for being drunk in public.”

“So?”

“I told the jailer that Watson was the guy who supplied all the minors with liquor and that I'd testify in court against Watson if he let me go.”

“Did Watson provide the liquor?”

“No.”

“So you were going to commit perjury to get out of it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Nuppi and the lady cop clicked eyeballs.

“When was this?” she asked.

“Halloween.”

“What jail was this?”

“West L.A.”

“You remember who the jailer was? Or what he looked like?”

“Don't know his name but he's probably on the cover of most bodybuilding magazines.”

At least she was taking notes. Then she checked her watch.

“Something else,” I added hurriedly. “Watson's roommate Holmes, his real name's Breckshire, he told me that he had sex with the girl plenty of times in the past at his apartment.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“After you left that day. After you talked to all of us.”

“What's his first name?”

“Cyril. And something else,” I asked. “Is it illegal to sixty-nine a college girl who consents who's 17?”

“What?”

“Watson told me that their other roommate, Lyman Pomeranz, was sixty-nining the same girl when he accidentally walked in on them one day.”

“Is this the same cousin Lyman who you're fighting over for the will money that you told me about?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.” She stood up and smiled snidely. “One other thing. I'd been meaning to run your address with Santa Monica PD to see if anything came up on their computer. Your phone call this afternoon reminded me to do it.”

“So?” Nuppi asked.

The cop smiled and opened a tan folder that her purse rested on. “Here's an INCIDENT REPORT dated a few days ago that states that two officers came to your apartment to arrest you on a warrant and a young-looking girl with shaved private parts answered the door and said she ‘fucked you all night.'”

I didn't answer.

“Anything else?” this bitch asked me, smiling broadly.

Nuppi shook his head and looked over at me. “Anything else you want to say.”

I looked at the cop. “Just one thing about your rape victim.”

“What?”

“I never fucked her because she's too fucking ugly.”

_____

I felt jittery when I left Nuppi. The meeting didn't go as planned. That INCIDENT REPORT with Tiffany, shaved and
naked at the doorway, really alarmed me. Amber or somebody else must've shaved her. It sure as hell wasn't me within the last month.

I headed over to school to try to talk some sense into my Econ teacher. I need a high grade desperately; not the goddamn D she gave me. Ali Reza's work was much better than that. It was unfair to mark it way down just because some asshole robbed me and the papers got turned in late.

I lightly knocked on the glass part of the door of Dr. Baylitt's office and heard a woman's deep voice say, “Come in.”

News of the California smoking ban in public buildings hadn't arrived here yet since cigarette smoke thicker than fog clouded the air.

Sitting at the professor's desk was a frumpy, sixty year-old, obese woman with bluish-gray hair who was smoking an unfiltered cigarette, holding it in her right hand between yellow-stained fingers. Her other hand was busy cutting grocery store coupons out of the newspaper.

“Sorry, wrong office,” I said.

“Who you looking for?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“Professor Baylitt.”

“I'm his wife. I took over for him last month.”

“Why?”

“He had a heart attack. He's home recuperating. Who're you?”

“One of his students.”

“What's your name?”

“Kurt Stafford.”

She opened a small, narrow notebook and checked it for a few seconds. “No wonder you didn't recognize me. You missed the last month and a half of classes.”

“Oh,” I mumbled helplessly.

“Are you the guy who turned in your work late because you were a hostage in that check-cashing hold-up?”

“Yeah. I called you and you called the NEWSTIP people.”

Her cigarette was burned down to the last tenth of an inch. She took another drag and inhaled the smoke so deeply that I
thought she swallowed it. Then she let the smoke escape from both nostrils before she stubbed out the butt in a huge, black, ceramic ashtray that had last been emptied during the Civil War. No doubt about it; she'd be joining her husband on a respirator any day now.

“What do you want?” she wheezed.

“It's important.”

“Obviously.”

“It's about my grade.”

“Naturally.”

“I don't deserve a D.”

“Certainly.”

“It's not fair.”

“Undoubtedly.”

This adverb game was annoying.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Normally?”

“Yeah. You gave me a D by mistake.”

“Erroneously?”

“Yeah.”

“Luckily.”

This fat bitch must've wanted to test out for herself the hospital food in the cardiac ward the same as her husband did. She opened a desk drawer and removed a cellophane-wrapped, six-pack of tiny glazed donuts. She stuffed one after another in her mouth like vitamins and chewed them with such delight in her half-opened mouth like she was sharing the taste with me.

She topped off this great snack with another cigarette.

“How much did you make from the news tip on me?”

“Fifty bucks is all,” she snickered. “It wasn't much of a story. They said the only reason they paid me anything was because everybody they played the video for at the station laughed like hell at what a fool you sounded like.”

“I need that D turned into an A or a B, “ I said lamely. “Listen. Please. Unless you change my grade to a B I'm flunking out of school.”

Her only reaction was a loud, deep exhale. She handed me
her business card. “You got any more news tips, call me. Cell phone number's on the bottom.”

“What kind of story do you need to give me an A or B?”

“A thousand dollar story.”

“Like what?”

“O.J. confessing to both murders.”

2:00
P.M
.

“S
TAFFORD, YOU'RE GOING TO PRISON FOR RAPE
,”
Watson said, seething in the front hallway of the fraternity house. He walked in with Lyman as I stood there talking to Vysell. “I finally fucked you over. Big time.”

I flinched. “What're you talking about?”

“Remember last Halloween,” he continued, now in a near-trembling voice, “when you tried to blame me in jail for giving everybody liquor?”

I shrugged my shoulders innocently. “No,” I lied.

“That woman detective on the rape case,” he said unevenly, as my insides tightened into a familiar knot, “she called me a few minutes ago. While I was parking the car.”

He stopped talking. I couldn't answer. I was too tense.

“She asked me what I thought of you,” he continued.

“So?” I muttered.

His lips wore a sadistic grin. “So I told her.”

“What?”

“That you're a ruthless bastard. That you'd stab anybody in the back to help yourself.”

I didn't answer so he continued, obviously enjoying the discomfort I'm sure my face showed.

“She asked me if I'd lie for you. I told her, ‘Hell no! I hate the fucking guy! And so does almost everybody else here, too. I hope you convict him of rape and he winds up some guy's girlfriend in prison!'”

“Thanks for the great reference.”

“She say why she called you?” Vysell asked.

“No.” Watson's attitude was a lot friendlier talking to Vysell. Suddenly Watson laughed. “But the call got me hotter than a lot of 900 numbers I paid three bucks a minute to listen to.”

“What do you mean?”

“All we talked about was Heather's muff?”

“What?”

“She told me that Heather admitted that she consented to having sex with me. Thank God.”

“So what about her muff?”

“She asked me if there was anything unusual about it.”

Now the acid in my stomach really shot through the lining.

“What'd you say?” Vysell persisted.

“I told her if there was something unusual, I didn't notice it.”

“She prompt you with any suggestions?”

His face leered at me. “Yeah. Like if it was trimmed into a shape. Like a heart or an airport landing strip or anything else.”

“What'd you say?”

“That it wasn't.”

“Then she asked me more questions about it.”

“Like for instance?”

“Like was it in its natural state or cut short like a bikini cut?”

My body felt tingly and I almost doubled-up with abdominal pain waiting for his fucking answer.

“What'd you say?” Lyman blurted out nervously.

“Thick bikini cut. Hairiest I ever saw.”

Lyman's face immediately paled.

“She ask anything else?” Vysell persisted.

“Yeah. She asked me if I was absolutely, one hundred percent positive of what I just told her.”

“What'd you say?”

By now a smile lit up his whole face. “I remember my answer verbatim. I told her, ‘Hell, yeah, I'm sure. For fifteen minutes I had three fingers in her before my mouth took over.'”

_____

I was sick to my stomach about all the mess I was in: the putrid grades, the actives who planned to blackball me, the rape investigation, and even the constant TV news flashes that the stock market, where most of my grandfather's money was, was like an out-of-control, downhill ski racer. By some miracle if I got a 2.0 average and got in the fraternity, what if there was no money to pay me with? And even if there was money and I didn't make the fraternity, would I be able to last through boot camp in the Marines? Never! I don't even think I'd have the nerve to sign up. Who the fuck wants to go to Iraq? This fraternity was my only shot at getting the money. Thinking about all this made me need to smoke a joint to relax so I took a break and headed downstairs and into the back yard.

_____

3:00
P.M
.

It was Open House at the Shelter and people were constantly coming and going; mostly girls checking the joint to see where they'd sleep after their old man punched them out again when he couldn't get them to shut their fucking mouth.

A few minutes after I started painting again, some pitiful white girl came in with dark bruises on her face that was her admission ticket to this dump. She had long braids and was facing the mirror on the back of the bedroom door. Her rock-hard tits should've won her plastic surgeon the blue ribbon at last year's County Fair. She was pasting her face with heavy makeup, probably to hide the bruises.

“What's your name?” I asked.

She was looking at me through the mirror. “Marissa.”

“Hi. I'm Kurt. Who beat you up?”

“My boss.”