Her blond hair drawn back in a loose ponytail, held by a silver clip. Fine-boned features, slim legs, her figure tomboy taut but unmistakably feminine. Her oversized glasses gave her a studious look. Figured she was waiting for an intense, long-haired type with wild eyes and wilder politics.
Wrong. She was looking for me.
“You’re Tommy Malloy, right? The ex-Marine?”
“Guilty,” I said, sliding a napkin under her glass. “Do I know you?”
“Sara Silver,” she said, keeping her voice down, making sure we weren’t overheard. “I’ve been asking around. I understand you tend bar for a lot of fraternity parties.”
“I do my share.”
“Have you ever worked a Delta Omega party?”
“Once. And not recently. Why? Do you want to hire a bartender?”
“Not exactly,” she said, meeting my eyes. “I need a date.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s a party at Delta Omega tonight. I need an escort to get in. Can you manage that?”
“Probably, but I’ve got a better idea. Let’s make it dinner and a movie instead.”
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend, Malloy, just somebody to get me into the Delta House party. Tonight. Are you interested or not?”
“Miss, I’d love to take you out. Sometime. But not to a Delta House bash, and definitely not tonight.” It was my turn to glance around to be sure we weren’t overheard. “It’s a pig party,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“Really? Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Of course.”
“I doubt that. Pig-party rules say the frat boys have to bring the ugliest chicks they can find. You don’t remotely qualify.”
“Thanks very much. I still want to go.”
“No, you don’t, damn it! Listen, it’s a really ugly scene, and I’m not just talking about the girls. It’s loud, lewd, and crude. Everybody drinks too much, the guys are jerks, the girls are desperate—”
“Sounds like you’ve been there.”
“No way,” I said. “It’s not my trip. But bartenders hear things, and some of them aren’t pretty. A pig party’s a rough, sorry-ass spectacle. It’s definitely not a party you want to crash.”
“I’ll pay you an even hundred bucks to get me in,” she said, digging into her purse, carefully counting five tens out on the bar. “Fifty now, fifty more afterward.”
I made no move to pick up the money. “Why? What’s so important?”
“I write for the Westover Wildcat, the college paper.”
“Sara Silver,” I said, nodding slowly. “I thought your name sounded familiar. You did a story last semester on fake IDs. Burned some local bartenders.”
“I hope you weren’t one of them.”
“Nope, I’m always super careful. But why bother with a story on a pig party? It may be sophomoric, but it’s a campus tradition. The Delts hold one every year. Most of the girls who attend know the score and it’s no crime to throw a bash.”
“Isn’t it? There’s a rumor that a girl was gang raped at a pig party. Have you heard anything about that?”
“I’ve picked up the same rumor. As wild as the pig parties get, I suppose it’s possible. Which is one more reason why you shouldn’t go.”
“I’ll be perfectly safe,” she said mildly. “I’ll be with a Marine.”
Touché. Couldn’t help smiling. She was not only pretty, she knew exactly which buttons to push. And I was already more interested in the girl than the money.
“Ex-Marine,” I said, picking up the fifty. “Where do we meet?”
We almost didn’t. Westover is a small suburban college outside Lansing. Enrollment’s twenty thousand, give or take. The main campus dates from the ‘sixties, red brick buildings designed to look older than they are, surrounded by student dorms, which are coed, plus a dozen fraternities and sororities which are not.
Silver lived at the Kappa Rho House, a converted Victorian box with a mansard roof that looked like something out of Jane Eyre. Kappa Rhos are ultra-bright, scholarship chicks, mostly shrill feminists. We don’t see many in Shannon’s and I nearly missed Sara Silver. She was sitting on a bench in the vestibule and I walked right past without giving her a second look.
“Hey, big fella,” she said, standing up. “Wanna go to a party?”
I did a double take. “Holy jeez Louise,” I said.
Most girls fix themselves up for a date. Sara had fixed herself down. Way down. She’d rinsed her fair hair dark, leaving it flat as a cat after a cloudburst, lank and skanky. Her makeup was backwards, too. No lipstick, no rouge. Instead, she’d darkened her brows till they looked like caterpillars perching on her zit-dotted forehead. Purple smudges beneath her eyes gave her a haggard, anorexic look.
Her smile was the finishing touch. Braces by Bela Lugosi, a tangled contraption of wires and rubber bands that gave her everted lips. Not the kissable kind. More like a carp.
“Well, how do I look?” she asked brightly, automatically checking herself in the hall mirror. “Think they’ll let me in?” And in that moment, she looked so vulnerable that I swallowed, hard. Women rely on their looks far more than men. What she’d done to herself took a ton of guts.
“You look... stunning, miss,” I said, offering her my arm. “My Jeep awaits. Shall we go?”
Delta Omega is a rich frat, mostly scholarship jocks and legacy residents. A four-story faux English manor with front and rear decks, it’s the largest house in Westover’s Fraternity Row. And it was pumping. As I pulled into the circular drive, the house and grounds were lit up like a movie set in the autumn dusk, the thump of music pulsing in the air like a party-hearty heartbeat.
The driveway and parking lot were already jammed. No problem. I just drove my CJ-7 up over the curb and parked on the lawn next to a half-dozen other jalopies.
“Come on,” I said, climbing out. “The major action’s around in back.”
Sara’d worn a loud, flowered blouse chosen for shapelessness, cutoff jeans, and garish wedge heels so tall she wobbled when she walked. I was dressed campus casual, golf shirt and slacks. Wore my hair shaggy in those days, a reaction to four years of buzz cuts.
Security for the party consisted of a single campus cop stationed at the gate of the picket fence surrounding the backyard. He knew me from Shannon’s, but he checked Sara’s ID, rolling his eyes at me as he waved us through.
Thunderous jams were thumping from a wall of speakers stretched across one end of the tennis court. Banquet tables on the veranda were stacked with finger food but most of the activity centered around the portable bar, where white-jacketed barmen were doling out beer and mixed drinks in paper cups with slick efficiency. Again, they knew me but checked Sara’s ID before serving us, a wine highball for Sara, a double scotch for me.
We both stood at the rail, nursing our drinks, taking in the scene.
At first glance, the party didn’t seem much wilder than the usual Delta House bash on a rough night. The tennis court was crowded with milling dancers, showing a lot more energy than grace. Most frat boys took the “pig” part literally, plenty of heavy-duty mamas shakin’ their chubby booties.
In the lighted swimming pool, a noisy water-volleyball game was in full splash. Strip volleybalclass="underline" Muff a point, shuck your shirt, blouse, shoes, something. A few players were already down to their underwear and the game was still in the low teens.
Following Sara through the crowd, I realized she had a mini camera concealed in her palm. She was surreptitiously taking candid photos every time she pretended to sip her wine.
A drunk goosed Sara’s butt as he passed. Annoyed, I reached for him, but she grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
“Cool it, Malloy. No trouble. Yet.”