The Kingdom of Dog

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “That’s criminal assault,” I said. “You need to report that to the police.”

  “But then they’d say how I was writing papers for them and their buddies, and I’d get kicked out of school.”

  “I don’t think they’d finger you, because they would, too. They violated the honor code just as much as you did. Even more, because they did something criminal, too.”

  “But they’re football players. And like you said, they’re tight with the guy in the alumni office, too. He’ll protect them.”

  I could see his dilemma. Even at Eastern, which prided itself on academics, there was a double standard when it came to student-athletes. Professors were routinely asked to excuse students from class, or assignments, so that they could attend practice or away games. Jocks got extra tutoring to help them keep their grades up, and at many colleges they were pampered with all kinds of perks.

  Just like with Ike, I could relate to his problem in a personal way. I’d done some things I didn’t think were big deals, which ended up getting me in a lot of trouble. And I’d had a lot of trouble bouncing back. How much tougher would it be for Lou, if he were kicked out of Eastern in his last semester? He wouldn’t have the degrees or work experience I had to fall back on.

  What was I turning into? The Mother Teresa of distressed students? I sighed.

  Rochester gave up on being petted and went back to slump next to the French doors. I remembered Thomas Taylor, the homeless man who had been denied admission to Eastern, and how his life had fallen apart after that. The parallel wasn’t exact, because obviously there was more wrong with Taylor than just disappointment. But it was another example of how a life could go off the rails based on one decision.

  “All right,” I said, leaning forward. “So far this has all been background. What’s your current problem, and how do we get that taken care of?”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “If you tell me what you need.”

  He wasn’t taking on any new assignments or clients, he said. “I’m done with all that. It’s just too much trouble. But Juan and Jose, they say I have to keep writing for them until I graduate, or they’ll keep breaking other parts of my body.”

  “The way I see it, you’ve got two problems: criminal and academic. These guys have assaulted you and threatened you. That’s a criminal matter. The ghostwriting and the violations of the honor code, that’s academic. But they’re both tied together.”

  “But I don’t want to rat out all my clients, and if I tell anybody from the college about the papers they’ll want to know who I wrote for.”

  I sat back in my chair. “You write well, Lou. That’s a skill, and you could use that to help other students. Suppose I could negotiate a deal for you—you’d volunteer a certain number of hours in the writing lab, tutoring other students, until you graduate.”

  “I could do that,” he said.

  “There would have to be some kind of academic sanction as well. I don’t know what that would be, but something short of expelling you, for sure. You can’t fail any classes, because you’ve done all your own work. It wouldn’t make sense to put you on academic probation, because you’re about to graduate. And I can’t see making you stand at a blackboard and write ‘I will not write other students’ papers’ a thousand times.”

  I sighed. “Let me think about it, all right?”

  “And what do I do about Jose and Juan?”

  “I don’t know, Lou. I’m making this up as I go. Just try and stay away from them for a couple of days.”

  “Not easy. We all live in Birthday House.”

  Birthday House was one of Eastern’s largest dorms, donated by an alumnus named Hoare on his birthday years before—giving the college the opportunity to avoid having a dorm named Hoare House.

  I scribbled my cell phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Lou. “If you run into trouble, call me,” I said.

  He stood up, and he looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. “Thanks, Mr. Levitan. I really appreciate this. You’re a lifesaver.”

  As he walked out, Santiago Santos passed him. “Good to know you’re making an impact on young people,” he said.

  Rochester looked up, then slumped back to the floor. Santos didn’t interest him.

  I wondered how much Santos had heard of our conversation. I was sure he wouldn’t approve of my hanging around with a student who flaunted college rules, or conspiring with the kid to avoid punishment. “I’m teaching a class again,” I said. “A couple of days after I saw you last, the chair of the English department asked me to take over for an adjunct professor who passed away suddenly.”

  “Sudden death has a way of following you around. ” He pulled out his laptop, put it on my desk, then sat down across from me and turned it on. “How does your boss feel about you teaching?”

  “He’s pleased I’m doing a favor for the English department.”

  He clicked a few keys on the laptop, obviously opening his file on me, then began typing some notes. “I want to make sure you’re not over-extending yourself, Steve,” he said. “You know how hard it is to come by good full-time jobs with benefits in this economy. And you know you need to impress your boss, so that he’ll keep you on after this semester is over. I don’t want to see you do anything that can screw this gig up.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said, though of course I was. Every time I saw that paycheck automatically deposited into my bank account, every time I could pay the maintenance fees for River Bend, my electric and phone bills and credit card charges without sweating, I took a deep breath and said thank you to the gods of employment. I knew how easily I could lose everything that mattered to me, because I’d already been through that.

  “How are you doing being around computers so much?”

  I knew he was only looking out for me—but I was starting to get fed up. “Listen, Santiago, I’m forty-three years old. I made one mistake, and I paid for it. I’m still paying for it. I lost my job, my house and my wife. I know what’s at stake here and I’m getting tired of you assuming I’m some slacker who doesn’t think through his actions.”

  Even as I said it, I realized I was guilty of that—not thinking things through clearly enough. But I was damned if I was going to admit that.

  To his credit, he didn’t rise to the bait. I guess he was accustomed to parolees going off on him. He stayed calm, asking me questions about what I did every day, about how closely Mike MacCormac supervised me, and so on.

  I felt like I’d rather have my eyeballs scratched out than answer the same questions over and over again, but I took some deep breaths and tried to stay calm and pleasant. Then my cell phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

  “Excuse me for a minute,” I said, pulling the phone to me and punching in my code. “Need yr help ASAP,” the message read. “J&J locked me in closet in their room in BH.”

  “Shit. ” I stood up. “That kid who was just here? He’s in trouble. I’ve got to run over to the dorms.”

  “We’re not finished yet, Steve.”

  I handed him the phone, then grabbed my coat and Rochester’s leash. “That look like it can wait to you?” I asked. The dog jumped up and came over to me.

  “You’re not a security guard, Steve. Call the police.”

  I took the phone back from him. “I’m calling campus security,” I said, hooking up Rochester’s leash.

  “Steve.”

  “Can’t stay. Gotta dash. ” Rochester was already straining at his leash, so we ducked through the French doors and out into the cold.

  We hurried down the slope toward Birthday House, and I dialed the number for campus security and explained the problem. The operator said that she’d have an officer meet me in the lobby of the dorm.

  As if he knew time was of the essence, Rochester loped down the hill, tugging me behind him, not bothering to stop and sniff or pee. I was out of breath by the time we reached the dorm, where a student assistant sat
behind a wooden desk. Behind her were cubbyholes for packages, and stacks of forms for various purposes.

  I pulled my ID out of my wallet. “I need a student room number. Jose Canusi and Juan Tanamera.”

  “Those guys,” she said. “135. Down the hall to the right.”

  “When security shows up, send them down there.”

  Rochester led the way down the hall, the girl behind me calling, “Hey, that dog can’t come in here.”

  We got to room 135 and I knocked on the door. No answer.

  Fortunately, Eastern hadn’t upgraded the locks on dorm room doors since I was a student. I pulled an old credit card out of my wallet and slid it between the door and the jamb. It took some wiggling, but eventually I felt the bolt slip and the door swung open.

  Rochester pushed forward into the room. I dropped his leash and hurried over to the closet. Lou Segusi was slumped on the floor inside it, a piece of duct tape over his mouth. His good wrist had been bound behind his back with a belt, but he’d managed to use the fingers of his broken arm to text me.

  As I knelt to pull the tape off, I heard two voices coming from down the hall, and a moment later one of them said, “What the hell is going on here?”

  I looked around to see Juan and Jose in the doorway to the room.

  31 – Junior G-Man

  I pulled the tape off Lou’s mouth and stood up. “What did you guys think you were playing at here?” I demanded, in my best teacher voice.

  “We found a rat,” Jose said. Both wore their Eastern football jackets. And both of them were bigger than I was, with the added advantage of youth and training in physical combat

  “And now we found another one,” Juan said.

  Rochester had nosed open a drawer on one of the desks, and began digging furiously inside it.

  “Hey, make that dog stop that!” Jose said.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  All four of us turned around to see a security guard in the doorway, a midddle-aged guy in a modified police uniform with the Eastern logo on the breast. “I had reason to believe that a student was being held against his will inside this room,” I said, pointing to where Lou still sat on the floor in the closet.

  Rochester grabbed a plastic bag full of pink tablets in his mouth and held it up. “Hey, that’s mine,” Jose said. “Give it back.”

  He reached over to take the bag from the dog, and Rochester growled at him through clenched teeth. Jose jumped back.

  “This is crazy,” Juan said. “All you guys need to get out of our room.”

  I flipped out my cell phone and hit the speed dial for Tony Rinaldi. “I think it’s time for you to talk to the police,” I said.

  Juan lunged at me, trying to take the phone from my hand. Rochester rushed at him, still clenching the baggie in his jaws, and Juan stepped back. “I need your help up on campus,” I said to Tony as soon as he answered. “ASAP. Birthday House dorm.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Can’t talk,” I said, as Rochester barked up a couple of times.

  “Jesus, I hear the dog,” Tony said. “I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

  “We have a protocol for contacting the local police,” the security guard began. Suddenly everyone was arguing at once—Lou accusing Juan and Jose, the two of them alternately protesting and trying to get the baggie back from Rochester, the guard trying to get everyone to just shut and listen to him. Somewhere in there I helped Lou stand up, and untied his left arm from behind his back. Rochester dropped the baggie he was holding, but lay down on the carpet with the baggie protected between his paws.

  It took Tony Rinaldi to restore order. “Everybody shut up,” he said, from the doorway. With the two hulking football players, Lou, me, Rochester and the security guard, the room was pretty crowded. It was a good thing they gave football players the most spacious dorm rooms.

  “Steve. You first.”

  I told him about the text message from Lou, and how I had discovered him on the floor in the closet.

  “How’d you get in there?” he asked Lou, who stood with his back against the wall, next to the closet door.

  “I was walking back to my room after talking to Mr. Levitan when I saw Juan and Jose,” he said. “I told them I wasn’t going to write papers for them any more and they got really mad. They grabbed me and frog-marched me down here. Juan put that duct tape over my mouth while Jose tied my arm behind my back.”

  He flexed his left hand and arm. “It’s the way they work. Jose is the one who held me down while Juan broke my arm.”

  “How did you get the cast on if they broke your arm?” Rinaldi asked.

  “They did it the other day. After they caught me kissing Desiree.”

  Tony shook his head. “This just gets more and more complicated. I think we all need to go down to the station and work this out.”

  He called for a couple of uniformed cops to help with the transport. Then Rochester barked once. “What’s up, boy?” I asked.

  He stood up and picked up the baggie in his mouth, and walked it over to Tony, dropping it at Tony’s feet. “These are steroids,” Tony said, picking them up. I saw the pink tablets were thick and five-sided. “Where did he get these?”

  “That drawer over there,” I said. “Juan indicated in front of all of us that they belonged to him.”

  “It wasn’t enough that you caught a murderer yesterday? You had to get me a break in my steroid case, too? My cup runneth over thanks to you, Steve. And I’m not liking it.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Thank me. Be gracious about it.”

  Juan and Jose started arguing again as the uniformed officers cuffed them and led them away. I walked Rochester back out to the lobby, where the girl on duty reminded me once again that dogs weren’t allowed in the dorms.

  “Got it,” I said, waving my hand. “Thanks.”

  I took Rochester back up to my office, then drove down the hill to Leighville. As I was pulling into the police station parking lot, my cell rang. I saw from the display that it was Lili.

  “Do you like eggplant parmigiana?” she asked.

  “Love it. Used to make it all the time when I was young and broke. You want to go out to dinner somewhere?”

  “I thought I’d cook for you. If that doesn’t scare you away we’ll see where we go from here.”

  “Men with guns? Scary. Women who can cook? Not scary at all.”

  “We’ll see about that. You have Rochester with you today?”

  “He’s holding down the fort back at the office. I’m just about to go into the police station in Leighville.”

  “You need to give another statement?”

  “Different case. ” I gave her a quick rundown of Lou’s problems and the steroid bust.

  “You really are a junior G-man, aren’t you?” she asked. “I can see my life getting a lot more interesting. Anyway, bring the dog. I think I can rustle up some hamburger for him, if that’s OK.”

  “He’ll love you.” It felt funny, using the L word, even like that, when I hardly knew Lili. But I had a feeling we’d be getting to know each other better. I was glad she was willing to take Rochester in, too.

  She gave me her address and we made plans to meet at six. Then I walked into the the station, where Tony was taking a statement from the security guard. I waited until he came out to the visitor area with the guard.

  “Everything come together with Seville?” I asked, as the guard left and we walked down the hall to an interview room.

  He nodded. “I just might get some sleep tonight. Seville’s in custody. ” He ushered me into the room, and we sat down across from each other at a scarred metal table. “Now let’s talk about steroids and your friend Mr. Segusi.”

  I told him the whole story, beginning with hearing about Perpetua Kaufman’s death from Lucas Roosevelt, and being asked to take over the class.

  “How’d you know the kid was doing work for other students?” Tony asked.

  “I didn’t know for sure
. But it was suspicious the way he always had papers to write, and on all different topics.”

  “I’m going to interview him next,” Tony said.

  I gave him Dezhanne’s name. “She might be able to give you some more information on steroid use on campus,” I said. “She seemed to know something about it.”

  I hesitated. I wanted to tell him about Mike MacCormac, but I was worried. If Mike was dealing drugs to college kids, then he’d get fired, and the capital campaign would get in trouble, and I might even lose my job, if Babson shut everything down. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

  “You should talk to Mike MacCormac, too.” I told Tony how I had begun working for Mike in January, mentioning his occasional rages, the way Juan and Jose were always hanging around his office, and the prescription for Viagra I’d found.

  He took copious notes. “I take back what I said about getting home tonight,” he said.

  “Too bad for you. I have a double date tonight – with a dog and with a doll.”

  “Enjoy. ” He handed me a bandana for Rochester with the Leighville police emblem on it, and a badge that named me as an honorary member of the Leighville police force.

  “So I can show this when I get speeding tickets?”

  “Get too many tickets and we’ll take it away.”

  I picked up Rochester and we found our way to Lili’s house. She and I had a great dinner, and he was delighted with the hamburger she’d prepared for him. Late that night we took Rochester for a walk around her neighborhood. “You lead a busy life,” Lili said.

  “Not really. Usually it’s just me and the dog.”

  She put her gloved hand in mine. “You like it that way?”

  “Sometimes. He’s good company, but he’s not a great conversationalist.”

  She laughed. “I can see you and I will have a lot to talk about.”

  I leaned over and kissed her. Her lips were cold, but they warmed up quickly. Then Rochester sniffed something and tugged so hard on his leash that he jerked my head away from Lili’s. “Come on, Rochester wants to go home,” she said. “And so do I.”