“Gosh, I hope so.” Bobby stuck out a ham-sized hand. “How do you do, Mr. Barrington?”

Stone kept a poker face, shook the hand limply, but did not return the greeting. “Sit down,” he said, and it was an order.

Bobby sat, looking worried.

“Tell me about it,” Stone said, sounding bored.

“Sir?”

Stone turned to Eggers. “Jesus Christ, Bill, is the kid stupid, or what?”

“Bobby,” Eggers said gently, “tell Mr. Barrington what happened on the evening you went out with”—he glanced at a pad on his desk—“Janie Byron.”

“Oh, of course, sir. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what Mr. Barrington meant.”

“Just tell me,” Stone said.

“Well, there isn’t much to tell. We went to a movie—”

“What kind of a movie?”

“An old one; a John Ford western.”

“Downtown, shopping mall, drive-in?”

“Oh, a drive-in, right outside town.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, we got some popcorn, we ate it, we watched the movie, we made out a little.”

“Define ‘made out.’ Exactly.”

Bobby retained his earnest tone. “We kissed a few times.”

“Did you touch her breasts?”

“Well, yeah, she seemed to want that.”

“Oh, she said to you, ‘Bobby, please, please grab my tits,’ is that how it happened?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“Just how did she show you that she wanted you to touch her breasts?”

“Well, when I did, she didn’t object much.”

“But she did object.”

“Well, she played hard to get a little, I guess.”

“Then what happened?”

“We started to get heated up a little, and I—”

“Go on, boy, be graphic. We’re all grown up here.”

“Then she said she wanted to leave, she got all huffy and all, and so I took her back to her dorm.”

“Immediately?”

“As soon as I was sure she meant it.”

“How long did that take?”

“A few minutes, I guess.”

“How many minutes? Exactly.”

“Five, I guess.”

“Did you lie down on the seat of the car?”

“For a minute or two.”

“Did you get your hand in her pants?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you get your finger inside her?”

“Yes, sir, for a minute.”

“Did you get her pants off?”

“No, sir. I didn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Sir?”

“Well, it sounds to me like you were doing real well, there, Bobby; you got at her tits, you got your finger in her crotch, why stop?”

“I guess she didn’t want to.”

“If she didn’t want to, how’d you get your hand in her crotch?”

“Well, I—”

Stone leaned across to Eggers’s desk and picked up a legal pad. “It says here you forced her to have sex with you.”

“That’s a lie!”

“It says here, you ripped off her underwear, pinned her down with your weight, and fucked her against her will.”

“It wasn’t against her will!”

“So you fucked her, didn’t you?”

“No, I…you’re getting me confused.”