S. A. Gorden

by The Duce of Pentacles

  He paused for his next thought. “Makinen is on the edge. This thing with the girl doesn’t sound right with him. He has been just hanging on since his wife left with his kids. Be careful with him. If he goes over the edge, he could be very dangerous.”

  Gallea looked at Hakanen in shock. What in the world was he talking about? They continued down the empty hall in silence. When they came to Makinen’s room, they found him with his head bowed, sitting at his desk. Henry motioned Gallea to back away from the doorway. Going back a few steps, he said in a loud voice, “This is Makinen’s room.” When they got to the doorway again, James was piling books on the desk. As they stepped into the room, Al seemed to catch a glimpse of something feral and lost in James’ eyes. It scared him.

  Again Henry started the conversation. “Hi, Jim. Talked to Kawalski.”

  There was a slight break in Makinen’s voice, “I know. I’m leaving. I told him I’m taking everything I own with me. You know he can’t fire me.

  Suspend, yes. Fire, no.”

  “I know, Jim. Could I help?”

  James looked up in surprise and in gratitude replied, “Yes.”

  The two deputies helped take down posters and pile books. Hakanen asked, while taking down a poster, “Jim, what are you going to do tonight?”

  James paused and looked Henry straight in the face. “The same thing I’ve done every night for the last six months, go home. Unless, of course, it is Wednesday or Saturday, sauna night at Dad’s.”

  It took awhile for Gallea to catch on to what was said. By the time Al caught up with what was happening, Makinen was sitting in front of his computer deleting programs and files. He was telling Henry, “This school district is so cheap, I had to buy most of the programs I use in class.” James got up and picked up a stack of books with the computer still working in the background.

  Gallea had to ask, “What are you doing now?” nodding at the computer.

  Makinen gave him a conspiratorial smile and said, “I’m defragmenting the hard drive.” Seeing the confused look on Al’s face, he continued. “I deleted the main program files, resident programs, and data I owned on the hard drive, but with a utility you can bring back the files. You see, all that happens when a file is deleted is that the address is erased. The file will stay there until it is written over. Defragmenting a disk rewrites all the information on the disk drive and stores it at the end of the disk. That means all my files will probably be written over and cannot be used again.”

  By the way James continued smiling, Gallea knew he had done more than what he said, but he had no idea what. He left the room with an armload of books, feeling that he had participated in something. It was the same feeling he’d had when he was in high school and he and his friends went out during Halloween to soap some doorknobs. Later in the day riding back to the station with Henry, he asked, “What really happened with the computer files?”

  Henry laughed, “Just what he said. He just didn’t tell you that the computer would probably have to have the system reloaded, which is a real pain. You see, a computer program that you buy is really a set of programs.

  Jim just erased one of those programs. The remaining programs are just sitting in the machine and will probably start running the next time you turn the computer on, but without the whole set of programs, the computer will lock up and quit working. With what Jim did to the computer, the easiest thing for them to do will be to erase everything on the computer disk and reprogram it as if it was new.”

  “Why did you let him do it?”

  “He needed a break, a release. Besides, I owed him one. He did tell us where he was Tuesday night.”

  Kawalski gave the deputies the list of names. He left for home still fuming about the disrespect given him. Nobody had treated him the way the deputies and Makinen had since his first year in college. The rage simmered through the night. He planned his moves for tomorrow and savored the thoughts of what he would force Lori Waithe to do during tomorrow’s follow-up review meeting in order to get her tenure. He packed in his briefcase duct tape, sex lubricant, an assortment of drugs, and a Polaroid camera. He had great plans for his meeting after classes with Lori. He knew that there were no meetings scheduled after school hours this Friday and that the janitors would be gone after six o’clock from the wing of the school he planned on bringing her to.

  He squirmed uncomfortably in his car seat while driving to school Friday morning. His penis had hardened as he thought about his torturing of the girl. The irritation of the sensitive skin against the fabric of the pant leg and the thoughts of a possible stain caused the squirming.

  Kawalski started the morning by visiting every teacher in his or her room. In double talk he’d spent the night rehearsing, he told them he wanted Makinen out and anyone who didn’t help him get rid of Makinen would have their lives become a living hell. His years of intimidation and torture had honed his phrasing to an art form. What he didn’t realize was that except for the few he was already blackmailing, his intimidation strengthened the resolve to oppose. An impromptu faculty meeting formed of its own accord at noon. A union rep from the State was called and plans were made to force him and Shermon out.

  Kawalski’s next stops were to the support staff. Here he met with greater success. All but one of the janitors buckled under his intimidation.

  When he was finished, he felt he had in place enough slander to easily justify Makinen’s dismissal. His power assured, he went next to a personal attack on Makinen. He wanted Makinen to feel pain.

  It was noon. Kawalski left the building. He walked down the street toward downtown. Halfway to the business district, he turned down an alley. He worked his way back toward the school building. Only a block and a half from the school behind the Lutheran church next to a dumpster, he found them, Pike Borland and his two strong-arm flunkies, John Whitefeather and Arne Johanson.

  Pike was the slick ‘pretty boy’ who, in some high school classes, becomes the permanent class president. He personally introduced a dozen girls to sex and passed on ten of them to John and Arne before they could pull their panties up after he was done with them. He was never the best athlete but, somehow, always was mentioned first at the pep fests. He always arranged to make the final decision on the prom theme or the homecoming float. He took the credit for everything that worked and accepted none of the blame. If anyone had a problem with that, John and Arne were always there to change their minds.

  Every day at lunch, the three boys would meet behind the Lutheran church. Smoke a little pot. Drink a little beer. On occasion, an eighth or ninth grade girl would be with them to be introduced to the joys of drugs and sex. The old Lutheran preacher never knew the hasp holding the padlock on the gardening shed was broken, let alone that under the shelf in back of the shed was a stash of drugs, booze, and a couple of blankets for a quickie.

  Kawalski had followed the boys to their hideout a year and a half ago.

  Instead of busting them, he used them for information and a source of income.

  They were more than willing to buy their liquor and pills from him … at a reasonable mark up, of course.

  “Pike, got enough of everything?” The nod in return was enough. “How about anything for me?” Again a shake of the head was the response. “You know, it is too bad someone doesn’t take care of Makinen. The way he laid his hands on poor Jenny … and getting away with it! All that will ever happen to him is getting laid off for a day or two.

  “Now, boys, you should head back to school soon. You don’t want to be late for your next class … Do you? It would be better not to go back at all if you are late.” Kawalski left.

  The boys knew that Kawalski was hinting at something when he mentioned not being late for classes. On that cue, the boys went into the shed. They found a case of beer and a bottle of whisky that they hadn’t put there. Party time went through their minds. Arne left to get some girls. John went for his car. Within five minutes, the boys and two girls were driving out of town to a fir
e trail ten miles north of town. By the time John pulled the car off the highway and into the State Forest, one of the girls had a can of beer in her hands and Pike pounding between her legs. The other girl was pushing Arne’s hands away from her breasts with one hand while pulling on a can of beer with the other. She would belch out between gulps of beer, “You don’t get anything till I’m drunk.”

  Pike sat by the bonfire John had made, sipping beer. He could hear John and Arne with the girls, back by the car. He liked his life, girls, booze and money. He knew that after high school he would have to clean up his act. He knew that as long as he was careful and only pimped and sold drugs in school he would be safe. He was under age, protected by Kawalski. Besides, no one thought anything bad could be happening in their nice quiet rural school. He wanted the five to ten grand he knew he would make off the students in the area schools before he graduated. He would have Arne set up something for Makinen to satisfy Kawalski. What he needed now was another beer.

  Lori Waithe waited as long as she could after the buses left with the students before going to her scheduled meeting with Kawalski. It had been an open secret that he would try to get her to sleep with him. At the noon meeting, the two women teachers who had been hired since he became principal confessed that he had blackmailed them with tenure to get them to have sex.

  She had, with the help of the other teachers, developed a plan. She would enter his office with two voice-activated tape recorders. One would be hidden in her handbag and the other would be in her jacket pocket. At least one of the recorders should record Kawalski’s blackmail. The faculty would then use the recordings to force the removal of Kawalski and Shermon. To protect her during the meeting, two teachers had volunteered to wait outside his office for her, Bonnie Franklin and Mike Garrison.

  Lori knocked on Kawalski’s office door. She opened it after hearing a muffled ‘come in.’

  She started the conversation, “You asked me to come in for a follow up on my evaluation for tenure?”

  “Yes, yes. Sit down. I have just a couple of things to finish up.”

  Kawalski pretended to file some paperwork. He took his time. He knew that forcing people to wait was intimidating. It immediately set the rules on who was in charge. His next step was even more intimidating. After putting a file in the cabinet across the room, he walked back to his desk. Instead of sitting in his chair, he sat on the edge of his desk. His huge bulk towered over Lori.

  “Now, during our last meeting, I listed some problems I felt you had with discipline and communication. I know there hasn’t been time for you to develop any changes in your teaching style yet. What I want to talk to you about today is ‘Why should we give you more time to develop your teaching skills?’ You have been here a year already. Why should I give you more time to learn how to teach? What makes it worthwhile for the school to continue paying your salary while you learn, and not just hire someone else?” At the same time Kawalski said those words, he shifted his position on the desk. His foot now rubbed the outside of Lori’s thigh. He slowly drew his foot back and forth across her thigh.

  Lori looked up at Kawalski and crinkled her nose. When she was younger, vanity had kept her from first getting glasses and then wearing them. She had learned to squint to see the chalkboard or a friend’s face. Her mother had bought contact lenses for her to try, but her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the lenses, so another year passed squinting at the chalkboard. By the time she started wearing her glasses, the squinting was an ingrained habit. With the weight of the eyeglasses now resting on the bridge of her nose, the squint had changed to a crinkling of the nose adjusting the position of her glasses. What no one had ever told her was that the scrunching of her face was more than a little distracting, it was down right erotic. Her lips would pout and open slightly. The wrinkling of her cheeks and focusing of her eyes gave her the same expression of someone lost in passion. The reason the arousal was so intense was that the look would flash across her face and then be gone. It was a little like subliminal suggestion, a flash of sex then nothing. She knew that there was something about her being close to anyone talking that would break their train of thought. She had even overheard an old boyfriend describe her as being distractingly cute when she was near. But she never learned what it was.

  Unconscious of what she was doing, she looked up at Kawalski crinkling her nose and saw in his face his confusion as he forgot what he had planned to say. She took the opportunity the hesitation caused to quietly, but firmly, say into say into the recorder, “Please stop touching my leg.” She then gently pushed his foot away.

  Kawalski, unfamiliar with being refused and confused at having his seduction interrupted, leaned closer to Lori’s face and reached down to put his hand on the inside of her thigh. “You need to make it worth my while to let you stay.”

  “Mr. Shermon won’t let you get away with this.”

  Kawalski laughed, “Shermon? He wants to fuck you too. Let’s cut this crap. You want to keep your job-you put out. No fucky, no money. Get it?”

  Lori reached between her legs and pulled on his hand. “I get it-but you’re not!” she gasped as she pulled at the resisting hand.

  Still laughing, Kawalski said, “And just who is going to stop me, sweetie?”

  “I am, dearie, and Bonnie and Mike, who are waiting for me just the other side of that door.”

  “What?” Kawalski removed his hand and stood up. He looked at Lori, still sitting but trying to arrange her clothes. “You’re fucking with me.

  There’s no one out there.”

  “See for yourself?”

  Kawalski opened the door. Bonnie and Mike were sitting at his secretary’s desk. They looked up when the door opened. Bonnie said, before Kawalski’s opened-faced astonishment, “Mike, it looks like I was right. We will have time for a meal before the first showing of the movie.

  “Hi, Mr. Kawalski. Don’t you just hate being stuck working on a Friday night?”

  Lori pushed past Kawalski. “Goodbye, Mr. Kawalski,” she spit out as they left.

  Kawalski stood in the doorway his fingers turning white as he clenched the doorframe as they left.

  The door opens. Click. The light is on. The hands seem to be slow and deliberate as they turn over the next card.

  An angel pouring water between two cups is the figure on the upside down card.

  The shrouded figure gazes for a time at the card before reaching for the light.

  ––—

  CHAPTER 5: Temperance reversed

  People who have not taken heat baths cannot believe how good they feel.

  The Native Americans consider it a religious experience. Finlanders reject that idea for very practical reasons. If it is religious act, then you can only take the bath at certain times or with certain ceremonies. Finns want their saunas whenever they can.

  James Makinen was sitting in his father’s sauna for his regular Saturday night bath. He loved his father’s sauna. His father had worked for years to get the size of the room to match the size of the stove. Too large a stove and the heat could get too intense and ruin the tranquility of the bath.

  Too small and the room could become cold-under 100 degrees-by Finnish standards during the bath. James had only been in the sauna for five minutes barely able to get acclimated for the normal one-hour bath. His father sat next to him. Neither man talked. They let the dry heat soak into their bodies.

  Used to the heat, James poured some water on the top bench to cool it and climbed up to the hotter ceiling temperatures. As the heat penetrated his body, he considered what had happened to him that week. By the time he reviewed in his mind the phone call he placed on Friday to the union lawyer, he had relaxed enough to calmly analyze everything she had said. She had told him that over the last three years, seventeen teachers in the state had formal sexual complaints filed against them. Only two had been proven. Out of the remaining fifteen, five teachers had kept their jobs. Those five districts had not made any public announcements and had let
the professionals investigate their cases. Six of the others had won their cases and had received back pay but had not been given their jobs back. The remaining four had won every case in court, but instead of paying any money, the districts had kept appealing the awards. She felt that the remaining four teachers would never receive any back pay. The districts had already paid more in lawyers’ fees than the court awards.

  The more James thought about the conversation, the more he became convinced he would not take it anymore. He heard his father fill the dipper at the faucet near the cement floor. He handed his wash cloth to his dad to wet.

  James covered his face with the cold wet cloth. He heard his father throw the water on the rocks covering the stove. He listened to the rocks sizzle, then felt the hot steam roll down off the ceiling. Needles of heat penetrated his body as the steam transferred its heat. Finally, James had to go to the lower bench. Careful to sit where his feet had been resting so his bottom wouldn’t be burnt, he let the heat slowly soak through his body, dropping the blood pressure and relaxing the muscles. In the calm of the heat-induced lethargy, he let his mind plan his moves for the coming week.

  He heard his father wet some cedar boughs and briefly heat them on the rocks. He took one and gently slapped his body. The heat had relaxed his muscles and dropped his blood pressure to close to dangerous levels. The gentle slaps would tighten the muscles and bring the pressure back up.

  James and his father cycled the heat up once more, then doused themselves with cold water and went into the cool dressing room. There they stayed until the steam stopped rising from their bodies. They repeated the process.