Don Michaels spread his hands away from his body.
"Leave that weapon alone," he said sharply. "I came as a friend, and I'd hate to have someone shooting at me."
"But who are you?"
"I'm Donald Michaels. I want to talk to Pete ... Petoen, I should say."
"My son is seeing no one. There has been——"
"I know," interrupted Don. "Trouble. Listen, I've had trouble myself in the past couple of days. It all started when I prevented a bunch of roughnecks from slapping Pete around." He frowned.
"Since then, things haven't been too pleasant." He held up a finger.
"I got accused of falsifying my report on the affair in the locker room. Pete didn't show up to testify, and everyone was looking at me." He extended a second finger.
"Pressure was put on me to sign a statement saying Pete used mental influence to make me put in a false statement. And I got into it with the school psychologist." A third finger snapped out.
"Next thing, I was being accused of accepting a money bribe from Pete. And I really got into it with the faculty advisor. That's not good." He dropped his hands to his sides.