Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [37]
“Joey Reinhart called it crowding.” Decker took out his notepad.
“Yeah, they’d crowd you in school—the girls were worse than the guys because the girls would do things and when you’d, like, respond, they laughed at you, you know.”
Marge took out a notebook. “If it’s not too much for you, could you go into detail?”
“Well, they’d like grope you and try to get you . . . you know, aroused and then if you did react, they’d laugh and call you names . . .” He buried his red face in his hands. “Even so, I thought I could handle that. It’s when they started crowding you out of school, it became a little scary. No one was around to help, you know?”
“What’d they do?”
“They’d surround you . . . like a pack of wolves. The last straw was when one of them pulled a gun on me and stuck it into my balls. I . . .” Kevin bit his lip. “I pissed in my pants. I knew after that I was never going back.”
“Who was the kid?” Decker asked.
“I don’t even remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
Kevin said, “I remember which dudes crowded me, but I don’t remember who stuck the gun in my crotch. I blocked it out.”
“Who was in the group?” Decker said.
“Like names?”
“Like names.”
“You know if you started to question them, I’d deny it.”
Decker said, “I suppose if I were gung-ho enough, I could go into the school and start pulling out guys and start questioning them, because what you’ve described is aggravated assault. But I’m not going to do that because the incident happened months ago and you’re not going to be reliable. But I do want some names for my files. So give me names.”
Kevin said, “It’s like a whole stratified thing with the don at the top doing orders and his capos, like, carrying them out.”
“Kevin,” Decker said. “Who was there when the gun was pulled?”
Kevin looked at the ceiling. “I remember Kyle Kerkin was there.”
“Who else?” Marge said. “Give us some names.”
“Stance O’Brien, Nate Asaroff, JJ Little, Jarrod Lovelace—that’s the core group of capos. The don is a guy named Dylan Lashay. But he wasn’t there that day.”
“The don?” Marge said. “Capos. Do these boys fashion themselves after the Mafia?”
“Yeah.” Kevin nodded. “The B and W Mafia.”
“Great,” Decker said. “Tell me about Dylan Lashay, the leader.”
“I think he got in early decision to Yale.”
“Well, that’s just super,” Decker said.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Kevin said. “He’s got all the stats, you know. The high SAT, all the extracurriculars. He’s captain of model UN, captain of the football team, he directs all the school plays, he’s got all the girls; and if life isn’t fair enough, he’s really rich. His stepdad is, like, head of an oil company. He’s got everything that every kid wants, so he has to find different ways to get his kicks.”
“Does the school know about him and his posse?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “Dylan’s the poster boy for B and W.”
“So why do you think the group singled you out?” Marge asked him.
“I dunno. I mean, I tried to keep a low profile . . . we all did—Greg and Joey and Mikey and Brandon and Josh and Beezel. But I was the one with the target on my butt.” He appeared thoughtful. “Greg tutored some of the guys. I think that bought him a pass.”
“Did he tutor Dylan?”
“Dylan was pretty smart. I wouldn’t think he’d need much tutoring. Anyway, this is all beside the point.”
“Why’s that?” Marge asked.
“Because that’s not why I called you guys back.” A pause. “Is it okay that I called you, you guys?”
“It’s fine, Kevin,” Marge said. “What do you want to tell us?”
“Greg kept in touch . . . he’d call me every couple of weeks to find out how I was doing. Anyway, about two months ago, he called me up, like, all excited.”
Marge said, “About what?”
Kevin leaned forward. “This is the deal. Last year, Greg and I were in Journalism with Mr. Hinton. He was kind of a boring teacher, but he’s also administrative head of the school paper. Mr. Hinton was really hot on investigative journalism. He told us a great detail about the Nixon years and Woodward and Bernstein