Black Pomegranate Page 6

  I wasn’t about to argue the matter with her. By then I had learned Catarina Perez Valdez was almost always right.

  It took but a few minutes to complete the wire transfer. After I was reasonably sure the money had been shifted electronically to the Bahamian bank, I hacked my way into their computer and verified the funds were in Mario Perez’s account.

  “It’s done,” I said, a satisfied grin on my face. “If the rebels force your father to withdraw his money, they’ll be in for a big surprise. I don’t think they can buy much ammunition with five dollars.”

  Nine

  Fired

  TIMBERLINE COLLEGE is on the outskirts of Timberline Village, a tiny recreational community in the mountains north of San Bernardino, California. Campers, hikers, mountain bikers, boaters, and fishermen fill the town when the weather is warm. During winter months, skiers and snowmobilers make their annual invasion. The area is isolated from the bustling metropolitan Los Angeles basin by a half-hour drive up a narrow, two-lane, twisting, macadam road with a steep grade in some sections and near-vertical drop-offs of several hundred feet in others.

  The college campus consists of forty log cabins and a two-story administration building, also constructed of logs, a quarter mile from the main road in a grassy alpine meadow surrounded by a forest comprised mostly of sugar pine, white fir, and a few tall lodgepole pine trees.

  Originally called Timberline Lodge, the property was developed in the early 1920s as a retreat for movie stars, celebrities, politicians, and the idle rich, who brought their girlfriends and mistresses to the lodge for week-long drunken orgies. Despite prohibition, liquor was plenteous, much of it distilled right on the premises. Barbed wire and armed guards repelled the merely curious and any revenuers who could not be bribed, of whom there were few.

  Then came the crash of twenty-nine. Soon the lodge had but a fraction of the number of guests enjoyed during its heyday, and the lower occupancy forced the owners to close the doors. The property lay fallow for years and eventually reverted to the state because of unpaid taxes.

  During World War II the United States Army commandeered the site and used it as a survival-training facility. Officers lived in the cabins and noncoms in the communal lodge. Privates pitched pup tents in the meadow. During that era, the property was known as Camp Timberline.

  In 1950 a closely-knit, ultra-religious group of laypersons bought the property at auction and established Timberline College. The cabins were converted to classrooms and the lodge became the administration building.

  Perhaps because of the founders’ beliefs, or perhaps in retribution for the property’s debauched origin, the use of alcohol and tobacco was prohibited on campus. Absolutely and completely. The possession of even one unopened can of beer was grounds for expulsion of a student or dismissal of an employee, and heaven help anyone who had the audacity to light up in a restroom.

  Despite its remote location—or perhaps because of it—many like-thinking parents sent their offspring to Timberline College to complete their educations. Over the years, Timberline had acquired a credible reputation for academics, though it had an exceedingly weak athletic department and never competed with other schools on the playing fields. That satisfied the egghead students—who were in the vast majority—just fine.

  Thus, Timberline College always enjoyed full enrollment, and the relaxed life style and moderate cost of living in Timberline Village attracted a well-qualified faculty.

  No housing existed on the campus itself and the arduous commute from San Bernardino was a hardship few opted to endure, so most of the students, faculty, and staff lived off-campus. Real estate opportunists had built numerous tacky apartment buildings in the village, such as the one in which Cat and I lived, designed expressly for the college set—that is, people of limited means.

  I’m a light drinker. I do enjoy a cold beer on a hot day and an occasional glass of wine with dinner, but that’s about all—so the college’s ban on booze didn’t bother me. But I was a two-pack-per-day smoker. In order to make it through the workday without a cigarette, I’d chain-smoke from the moment I got out of bed in the morning until just before I arrived on campus; and when I left campus in the late afternoon, I’d have to puff three or four cigarettes down to the filter before I’d sufficiently replenished the nicotine in my system. By mid-afternoon, especially if I’d had anything to eat for lunch, I was practically climbing the walls with a nicotine fit.

  Once, after a particularly grueling morning of exchanging thinly veiled insults with an incredibly stolid set of students who couldn’t comprehend the difference between a CRT and a CPU, the college’s executive secretary, Heidi Hazelhorst, cornered me midway between the coffee room, where I had downed three cups of the brew, all the time longing for a cigarette, and the men’s room, to which the coffee was impelling me.

  “I’m glad I found you, Hobson,” Heidi said, resting an unwelcome bony hand on my arm. More than once she’d tried to seduce me, but I’d always managed to avoid falling into her mantrap. Heidi was a plain, skinny old maid in her late thirties, linguine-limbed, oversexed and underprivileged. Definitely, not my type of woman.

  “What do you want now, Hazelhorst?”

  “It’s not what I want—we can get into that later,” she hinted in a sotto voce, testosterone-tinged baritone. “Luther wants to see you. Immediately after your last class today. Don’t bother going to the faculty meeting. Go directly to his office.”

  “Yeah, I know the routine,” I muttered. “Do not pass GO. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  “What’s that you said?” she asked, cupping her hand to her ear. I knew Heidi had heard me perfectly. Her ears were always on a stick.

  “I said I’ll GO. I wouldn’t miss a meeting with Luther for two hundred dollars.”

  “Oh, good,” she smiled wickedly. “I’ll tell him you’ll be there.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Stop by my desk when your meeting is over. I baked a sinful chocolate lava cake last night, and I’d like to give you a big piece,” she said seductively.

  I grunted. I knew the kind of piece she really wanted to give me.

  Luther Martin was the college dean, a shrimp of a man with a pea-sized brain. He had an aquiline nose on a salamander face. His JCPenney suits were at least three sizes too small and he habitually wore a stiffly-starched white shirt with a bow tie. The dean must have been in his early fifties and wore makeup in a vain and futile attempt to hide his prominent wrinkles. In other words, Dean Martin was a remarkably accurate replica of Pee Wee Herman; or, perhaps more accurately, Herman’s father.

  Martin was universally despised by the professors at Timberline College; not for his bizarre appearance, but for his pompous, pedantic, pious manner. I had no idea what he wanted to see me about, but realized that whatever it was, he was already reveling in the mental torture he was preparing to inflict—first, while I spent the entire afternoon in anticipation of the torturous meeting; and then, at the meeting itself, where he would berate me mercilessly while I fawned helplessly before him. An associate professorship at a small college is a lousy way to earn a living.

  My afternoon did not go any better than my morning, and I would have almost sold my soul to the devil for just one cigarette before the dreaded meeting with Martin, but I accepted the fact that I was fated to see him sans nicotine.

  And then a miracle occurred. I remembered a student who was trying to quit smoking by chewing nicotine gum. I bartered As on his next three assignments for three sticks of the gum, which I chewed vigorously, all at one time.

  Unfortunately, the gum made me hiccup.

  “Good afternoon, Hobson. Please sit down.”

  “Thank you, (hic) sir.”

  “I suppose you want to know why I called you to my office this afternoon.”

  No, you dumb shit. I really don’t give a damn. Just hurry up and get this torment over with so I can get out of here and go home. I didn’t say that, of course. I just nodded. And hiccupped.r />
  “There’s been a rumor going around campus …”

  I waited for him to continue.

  “… a rumor about you, Hobson,” he added venomously.

  I deliberately arched my eyebrows to feign surprise on my countenance. “Oh? What kind of a (hic) rumor, sir?”

  “A rumor about you and one of your students.”

  Uh-oh. He’s talking about Cat. I took on a very concerned look. “Go on, sir.”

  Martin picked up a wooden ruler that had been lying on his desk. I wondered if he was going to strike me across the knuckles, like a nun in a parochial school might rap a recalcitrant student. A coiled rattlesnake baring its fangs, he stared me down. His beady eyes never strayed from mine. I wasn’t sure Dean Martin even had eyelids. I’d never seen the man blink.

  “Is … it … true … that you’ve been COHABITING with one of your female students?” he demanded. He punctuated the words by repeatedly striking his desk with the ruler.

  I made the effort to achieve a furrowed brow. “Cohabiting? I (hic) don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.”

  “Hobson … are you DRUNK?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I have the hiccups. I’m sorry. I’ve had them ever since (hic) lunch. It must have been the (hic) salami sandwich,” I alibied. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to (hic) offend you. It’s just that I can’t (hic) help …”

  “Very well, Hobson. I’ll take your word about the drinking. This time.”

  “Thank (hic) you, sir. May I go now?”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Hobson.” Martin rapped the ruler rhythmically on his desk, like a metronome—or, more accurately, the timer on a bomb ready to detonate at any moment.

  Now for a look of wide-eyed, child-like innocence. “Which question is (hic) that, Dean Martin?”

  Apparently, I didn’t pull off the innocent look.

  “I asked you if you were cohabiting with one of your students. Specifically, I’m referring to Miss Catarina Perez Valdez.”

  Big smile and a gesture of realization. “Oh, Catarina! My fiancée!”

  Martin’s brows furrowed in puzzlement. Maybe I had him.

  “Your fiancée? How long has this been going on, Hobson?” he asked solicitously. Was he trying to lead me into a trap?

  “It seems as if we’ve been (hic) engaged forever. I can’t recall the exact date, but …”

  “Are you trying to tell me you and Miss Valdez were engaged before she enrolled at Timberline?” he baited.

  Maybe I could talk my way out of this, after all.

  “Oh, yes, sir. In fact, it was specifically because I teach here that Catarina decided to enroll at Timberline.” That was a blatant lie and we both knew it, but it was his word against mine.

  Martin set the ruler down and steepled his hands piously. “You’ve put me in a very awkward predicament, Hobson. A very awkward predicament, indeed. In fact, you might say you’ve given me a Hobson’s choice.”

  He chuckled like a turkey gobbler and grinned maliciously at his lame metaphor. I’d heard ones just like it a thousand times before and even used a few of them myself, when the circumstances warranted.

  “I don’t understand what you (hic) mean, sir.”

  “First, let’s consider the moral aspect of your acts. What kind of an example do you think you’re setting for impressionable young men and ladies by openly and notoriously fornicating?”

  We don’t fuck on my desk in front of the class, you stupid asshole! is what went through my mind. “But sir, an extremely unique situation developed …”

  He cut me off. “Hobson, stop right there. You know better than to say that!”

  “Sir?” I was truly confused.

  “The word unique is an absolute adjective. It cannot properly be subject to modifiers of degree, such as very or quite or extremely.”

  The fog lifted. The jerk was correcting my grammar! “I’m sorry. You’re quite (hic) right, sir. A unique situation has developed. Please let me (hic) explain.”

  Martin postured like a Supreme Court justice. “Very well, Hobson. But make it brief.”

  “I will, sir. When Catarina—my fiancée—first came to Timberline, we decided it would be prudent for us to maintain separate residences, so she rented her own apartment. But, an incident occurred that changed our thinking.

  “As you may know, her country—Granada (hic) Negra—is in the midst of a violent upheaval. A revolution. Catarina was sent here for her personal safety; her mother has been exiled in France since the revolution began. It now appears that Catarina’s father—the president of Granada Negra—has been captured by the (hic) rebel forces. Were it not for the forced separation of her family, Catarina and I would be married today. But we cannot (hic) wed until the conflict has ended and her family is reunited. I’m sure you can understand that, sir.

  “Catarina’s own life has also been threatened. When her apartment was ransacked recently, we both believed—with good cause, I must add—that a member of the (hic) rebel band had followed her to Timberline with the intent of murdering her.

  “Operating on that belief, and for no other (hic) reason, I insisted that Catarina move to my place of abode so I could protect her. What else could I do? Nothing (hic) immoral was ever intended, nor has anything (hic) immoral ever taken place in that domicile.”

  “I suppose you’d like to know how this matter came to my attention,” Martin taunted.

  Damn right I want to know who ratted on us. “Yes, sir, I certainly would.”

  “One of your stalwart students happened to observe Miss Valdez in the local pharmacy purchasing a home pregnancy test kit. Curious, he followed her to your apartment, and deduced—properly, it appears—that the two of you are living together in sin.”

  I went into shock. If Cat thought she was pregnant, why hadn’t she said anything to me? (hic) (hic) (hic)

  “Are you all right, Hobson?”

  I removed a tissue from the box on Martin’s desk and wiped my brow. I could feel the sweat pouring out, as if I’d downed an entire porringer of habanero salsa. “Just the hiccups, sir. Perhaps I should get a glass of water …”

  “Please do.”

  If I find out the name of the nosy snake-in-the-class who squealed on us, I’ll fail him for certain. And that’ll just be for starters. I went to the water fountain and took a long drink, then returned and stood in front of Dean Martin’s desk.

  “Is that all, sir?”

  “Sit down, Hobson. I’m not through with you yet,” he said sadistically.

  I did as he demanded.

  “As I pointed out, you’ve thrust me on the horns of a dilemma, which I find to be a most uncomfortable position.

  “You’re well aware, Hobson, that Timberline College has a very strict rule against fraternization between faculty and students. But, setting the moral aspects of fornication to one side for the moment, there is the matter of undue influence which I must address.

  “Before summoning you to my office, I took the time to review Miss Valdez’s grades. In all other classes, her scores have been average. But, in your class, she has received straight As. To me, Hobson, that smacks of favoritism!”

  “But, sir, there’s a (hic) valid explanation. I’ve been tutoring her (hic) extensively, and she has earned …”

  “Enough balderdash, Hobson. It isn’t necessary for either of us to prove or disprove whether she was entitled to the As. What matters is the fact that she received high grades in your class only, and that provides the appearance of impropriety. You’re a reasonably intelligent man. I’m sure you can see that,” he said patronizingly.

  “Yes, but …”

  Martin crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve reached my decision, Hobson. I believe you will find it to be fair and equitable to all parties—to you, to Miss Valdez, and to the students, faculty, and administration of Timberline College. As I said earlier, you’ve given me no choice.”

  Behind his stony facade, Martin was grinning
diabolically. I could see it in his eyes, in the color of his skin, and in the twitching of the right side of his lower lip. He was ready to bring me to my knees.

  “Miss Valdez may continue with her studies here at Timberline, but not in your class. She will be given an ‘incomplete’ in Computer Science. If she desires, she will be allowed to retake the class next semester with another instructor.

  “Which brings me to my next decision. You may continue teaching your classes this semester, but, after the semester ends, your services will no longer be required here at Timberline. If you perform adequately for the rest of the semester, you will be given a suitable letter of recommendation. If not …”

  He did not complete the threat. There was no need for him to do so.

  “Frankly, Hobson,” he continued, “I’d like to relieve you of your duties immediately, but, as you know, it would be extremely difficult for me to find a suitable replacement mid-term. In that respect you have, as they say in the vernacular, lucked out.

  “That is all. You are dismissed. You may go now.”

  Dean Luther Martin had stuck the knife all the way in and twisted until the blade broke off at the hilt.

  Ten

  Quitting the Habit

  CATARINA STOPPED ME at the front door with a big hug and kiss. “Don’t go into the kitchen just yet, Alfredo. I’m making a surprise for dinner.”

  “Let me guess. Steak Granada Negra, right?”

  Her brows raised. “How did you know?”

  I laughed. “I could smell the wonderful aroma as soon as I pulled into my parking space. You’re going to have our neighbors’ mouths watering.”

  “Does it really smell that good?” she asked, her nose wrinkled.

  “Better than the finest perfume. If you could bottle the scent, we’d make a fortune.”

  Cat never fished for compliments, but she was always very, very pleased to receive them. In that regard, she was exactly like every other woman.