P Deutermann - Darkside

“He’s a classmate?” Liz asked.

“That’s right. Dyle Jones Booth. We don’t compete, of course-he’s on the men’s team. But Dyle is…different. As a competitor, as a team member. He’s big. He was big when he got here, and he’s bulked up over the past four years. He’s going Marine option. Always was. He plays the part. Tons of gung ho bullshit, but you get the sense he does it just to fool the officers.”

“Are they fooled?” Jim asked.

“Yes, I think they are. I mean, the Marine officers eat that stuff right up. Dyle’s loud and he’s big and he’s way enthusiastic about everything military-marching, drill, shooting, hand to gland, spit and polish, giving commands. All that ‘Hoo-ah’ noise. He’s effective because you wouldn’t dream of not doing what he says.”

“Because there’s always an implied threat?”

“Not implied, Mr. Hall,” she said. “It’s right out there. It’s in his eyes. In his body language. And you get the impression he’d almost prefer it if you crossed him. Like he lives for that. ‘Go ahead, punk, make my day,’ that kinda deal.”

“What’s your connection, other than through the swim team?” Branner asked.

“Well, he’s in my batt.”

“He a striper?” Jim asked.

“No, sir, he’s not a striper. There’s something about him that I think bothered the Navy officers. He’s too much. Too loud. Over-the-top. Plus, behind their backs? He scoffs at the whole striper scene. Thinks it’s childish, boys ordering boys around. When he realized he’d never be one, he made like it wasn’t important anyway. Goes around counting the days until he gets to go to Quantico and starts what he calls his ‘real life.’”

“You think the officers are afraid of this guy?” Jim asked.

“No, sir, not exactly, but they know he’s different. On the other hand, he’s been a big-time medal winner for Navy in swimming, he’s beyond physically fit, and he’s a poster boy for the uniform. I think they’re mostly anxious to graduate him and then let the Marines deal with him.”

“And the plebes? How does he deal with the plebes?”

“They’re scared shitless of him,” she said, slipping back into her chair. Tommy Hays nodded emphatically.

“The system here is different from when you went through,” she said, speaking directly to Jim. “Now they try to teach leadership from the ground up. It begins in youngster year, when every youngster is responsible for mentoring one plebe. Every second-class mid is responsible for supervising two youngsters, and the firsties supervise the whole thing in the company structure. The plebes learn to follow; the upperclassmen learn to lead, to take care of their people. It’s a good system. It’s a smart system. But Dyle plays outside the system.”

“How so?”

“Dyle quit running the plebes, directly, about midyear. Now he menaces them. Shows up in their rooms after hours. He shadows them. Gets on a plebe and stays on him.”

“Why don’t the other upperclassmen call him out over this-he must be disrupting the company chain of command.”

“You don’t call out Dyle Booth,” Hays said. Everyone looked over at him. “Nobody in his right mind would do that.”

“Where’s his company officer?” Jim asked.

“He’s a Marine captain,” Julie said. “He goes around full bore, too. He thinks Dyle Booth is superman.”

“What happened between you and Booth?” Branner asked Julie.

“Dyle wanted me to go out with him. Not here, but when we went to away meets at other colleges. He said we were the best of the Navy freestylers and we ought to get together.” She shivered. “When he came on to me, it brought to mind images of those Nazi super-race breeding programs.” She paused for a moment. “I told him no. I told him he gave me the creeps. Besides, he knew I was seeing Tommy.”

“But he persisted?” Branner asked, prodding her.

After another moment’s hesitation, Julie said, “Yes.” Her voice was now almost down to a whisper. “There was this one away meet, down at UVA. Tommy and I had been arguing-over the future. There was this big frat party. Believe it or not, I’d never been to one of those. They party pretty hard down there in Charlottesville. I…I got a little drunk.”

She stopped and looked over at Tommy, as if seeking some moral support. But then she continued. “Actually, I got really drunk. Tommy hadn’t gone down there, because he was still pissed off at me. But Dyle was there. He had a bunch of sorority girls hanging all over him, but he made it clear whom he wanted that night.”

“Okay,” Branner said brusquely. “So you had a one-night stand with supermensch. Big deal. Shit happens. What then?”

Julie blinked at the way Branner dismissed the significance of what she was saying. “Eventually, I told Tommy. He kind of went off. As he had every right to, I guess.” She looked sideways at Hays, who was red-faced now, staring down at the table. “But Dyle was so triumphant. I think it was always about that-another trophy for him. He kept making comments. Every time we ran into each other, he’d have to say something embarrassing. People were talking.”

Jim still wondered if they were hearing the whole story. Branner was right: A one-night hookup in your senior year ought not to be the end of the world. “Was he really trying to score again, or was he just crowing?” he asked.

“I thought it was just Dyle doing his Tarzan act, but then he got pushy, real pushy. I told him no way in hell. He kept it up. One day, I went off on him after practice. Very public scene. I said some things, the kind of things we all felt about Dyle Booth, although no one had ever come out with them before. Especially classmates. He got all quiet.”

“Did he threaten you?” Branner asked.

“I started to get these E-mails,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “No name line, but they were from Dyle all right. Lots of stuff about being the Shark. They’d just appear on my screen when I’d go on-line. I couldn’t do anything with my computer until I’d read them. And then they’d disappear, all by themselves. I’d try to delete them. No go. But once I clicked on them, they’d delete themselves. No path. No trace.”

“What’d he say?”

“He began to tell me stuff, stuff that he’d been doing over the past year. In Bancroft. Here in Crabtown. Stuff about the Goth scene over at St. John’s. Seriously weird shit. Sex parties. Some of their cult stuff. Things he called ‘vampire drills.’ Stuff I didn’t want to hear.”

“Did he talk about going into town and beating up townies?” Jim asked.

Julie nodded. “He called it ‘training,’ for when he got into Marine recon. He was always talking about going ‘ree-con.’ He said he uses the tunnels to come and go, whenever he feels like it. Says he owns them.”

Jim looked over at Branner. “When did all this happen?”

“The E-mails started during dark ages-January or thereabouts. It was like I was his best friend, so he could tell me all this shit. He’d even send pictures. There was this one, where he dressed up as Dracula or something. It just bannered on my screen one night while Mel and I were retrieving some papers. It even had sound. Mel damn near fainted, it was so real, so clear…and so Dyle.”

“You think he was getting into your room, messing with your computer?” Branner asked.

“No, I think he did it over the Brigade intranet. Dyle can make computers do anything he wants. He claims to have done shit on the faculty intranet, too. Like penetrate the faculty servers? He sent me a single history exam question once, and it was on the exam the next day.” She looked at both of them. “He talked about you two. That he’d done stuff to you.”