Killer Geezer Page 2

  Mabel put down my usual coffee in front of me as I sat in my regular spot at a small table in a back corner of the café. Cream and stevia sweetener were close by.

  “That all you need, Jack?”

  I looked up at her. Mabel wore a beige brown dress and blouse that looked like a restaurant uniform, but wasn’t. Her pudgy face had a pink glow to it as she smiled down at me, her green eyes bright. A bit stocky but offering everyone a friendly smile. Like me she was Anglo and paler than most New Mexicans. Looking years younger than her late 50s, Mabel was a café veteran. Twenty-six years here. Raised her kids on low wages and good tips. Sent them off to UNM in Albuquerque. And showed everyone the pictures of her three grandkids. Including me, since I counted as a regular after ten years of showing up for early morning coffee. The spice of the gods and the rescue of ailing bones is coffee. I inhaled the aroma of fresh ground Columbian beans, felt my heart slow down to almost normal and told my mouth to be patient. Quenching my thirst would come soon enough.

  “Well, maybe one of those white-iced donuts would be a good chaser to this coffee.”

  She lifted her dark brown eyebrows. “Donuts are not the healthiest way to start the day, sugar. Maybe some bacon and—” she paused as she recalled how I hate eggs “—and maybe some toast? Lorenzo baked fresh loaves of bread last night.”

  My fingers were still shaking from the adrenalin rush aftereffects of the punk takedown. And I felt ravenous. Hungrier than I ever recalled at breakfast time. Was hunger a side effect of using psychic powers? Telling my fingers to be still, I lifted my right hand from my lap and reached for the cream. I returned her smile. “Sure. That sounds better than one of Lorenzo’s donuts. Thanks!”

  Mabel gave me a nod, winked at me and turned away to refill a nearby customer’s coffee cup.

  Her curly brown hair jiggled as she walked, confident in her ability to be the best damn waitress anywhere north of Albuquerque. Plus she knew the lingo spoken by the under-30 crowd today, a lingo I had tried to ignore despite hearing conversations as I walked through the Railyard to the Violet Crown theater, on my way to a movie. At least the folks at Jose’s barber shop were old enough to speak normal English, albeit with a Spanish accent. Jose’s place was next on my morning rounds. Getting a haircut and wet shave were two things to be enjoyed when you are older. Along with a few cups of the ambrosia of the gods!

  Sitting back in my chair I poured cream into my cup. Then added two packets of stevia. Then I stirred the concoction. Outside came the wail of police sirens.

  Looking through the large bay window of the café, I saw two black police cruisers coming down Canyon Road fast. No doubt they were heading for Delgado Street. Someone must have gone out early to pick up their copy of the New Mexican newspaper. Just my luck. Bad as always. Ever since I’d been laid off from my job as an outdoors newsman for the Santa Fe Reporter, my luck had been bad. With only Social Security to sustain me, and odd jobs painting someone’s fence or starting up their swamp cooler for the summer, I lived on the knife edge of survival. Well, this morning I had shown them. The punks. The bad asses. The nasty people who love to scam and take advantage of regular folks of any age. I’d shown them. Even if they had yet to hear the news of four gangbanger punks down and out just off Canyon Road.

  Mabel glanced that way. “Wonder what has their shorts in a bunch?”

  “Uh, my refill?” muttered Carlos, another regular who occupied one of the two-seat tables that lined the back wall of the café. He nodded at his empty cup. Which sat next to his empty plate of bacon and huevos rancheros that he had consumed before I walked in.

  Mable jerked her attention down to him. Her green eyes squinted. She moved the coffee pitcher to above his empty cup and poured slowly. “There you go, Carlos! Cup number three at no extra charge.”

  Carlos grunted. Four other regulars nearby smiled at Mabel’s small talk. They knew Carlos was a grouch, though a polite grouch. The man was in his late sixties, still had a head of black hair and he liked to twist the ends of his handlebar mustache. As if he were an outlaw from the 1880s. He wasn’t. In truth Carlos was a retired nuclear engineer who had worked at the Los Alamos lab. Hispanic he was and a smart Ph.D. he forever would be. The few times we’d chatted he had lost me when he got to talking about the different spin flavors of quarks.

  I looked over the four over as the siren wails faded. Those smiling at Mabel and Carlos were black as sin Angelina, bald-headed Leroy, sexy Christine who was a red-headed clone of Lucy from I Love Lucy, and overweight Petros the Greek. They knew me. I knew them. Knew their histories as much as they wished to share. I’d even taken Christine out on a date to Violet Crown. That was when I learned she was a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian who just liked hanging with a guy as she checked out the younger chicks. The date had ended with a friendly kiss, a smile and a swat on my butt as she walked past me, aiming to put the make on a young Hispanic gal who looked like a student at St. John’s College.

  These folks were my buddies. Almost friends after ten years. If anyone tried to harm any of them, I would protect them with every power at my disposal.

  But what were the rules for using the power to set someone aflame, to melt someone into a puddle of flesh and goo, to cause someone to fly away from you? Did they have to be bad people? Did I have to feel personally threatened, or could I use my new powers to protect good people, folks like my café buddies? Most vital, how had these powers come to me?

  I’d never had any mental abilities beyond a near photographic memory and the smarts obtained through hard study at college and at different jobs. I could drive a car even though I didn’t own one. I could speak a little French and Spanish. I had normal strength for a geezer of 70. And I never hurt small animals for fun, unlike some lunatics I saw on TV or heard about in the newspaper. While I made a point to stomp on spiders, that was the limit of my intentional harming mode. At least until this morning.

  What should I do with this mind power? And did it give me abilities I had yet to discover? Could I float in the air? Could I walk through walls? Could I heal instead of harming? Could I—

  “Here’s your bacon and toast, honey!”

  Shaking away guilty thoughts I smiled at Mabel. “Thanks, pretty gal. Oh, I’ll take a refill on my coffee, please?”

  Somehow during my watching and wondering I’d drained the first cup of coffee. Must be the Columbian aroma that had auto-piloted my right hand.

  “Sure babe!”

  As Mabel poured me a new cup of steaming black invigoration, I reached out for a piece of bacon. My left hand did not shake. Nor my right hand.

  Somehow I was back to normal.

  But it was a totally new normal.

  A new siren wail sounded. Looking up I saw an ambulance with the Santa Fe Ambulance logo on it. It was coming down from Peralta, headed to where three bodies lay dead and one guy was unconscious. It was followed by a white coroner’s van and three more black Santa Fe Police cruisers.

  I munched the bacon, reached for the piece of toast that was already buttered, and hoped I would escape official attention.

  I also hoped the local gangbangers avoided me. While I was willing to kill to protect my café friends, killing was not something that sat well with me.

  Leastwise, that’s what I told myself.

  The crispy bacon tasted good. The toast was still hot and buttery. The coffee even went down just fine all black and unsweetened.

  Now, how do I live the rest of my life knowing I have the ability to kill bad folks?

  CHAPTER TWO

  My walk to the Violet Crown bistro and movie theater just off Guadelupe Street and the rail tracks went calmly. Though I could have taken a city bus to get to the Railyard, exercise felt good. I’d thrown back the top of my blue hoodie and enjoyed the relative warmth of early spring. Today was a Tuesday, which meant I owed Lawrence a visit. He tended bar at the Violet Crown and was nearly as old as me. A Vietnam vet, he made clear to the younger crowd that he would not accept any disr
espect of the military. That said, he knew the tastes and flavors of just about any beer one could name. Plus the red and white wine choices that were offered. Sadly there were no mixed drinks like margaritas or rum shots. I pushed through the glass double doors and headed past the bistro side to the bar countertop on the left. Took a seat midways and glanced up at the flat screen mounted on the wall to the right of long racks of beer bottles and glass mugs. It was showing a daytime talk show. Nothing local. Yet.

  “Hey Jack! You’re early. Whatcha want to drink?”

  I looked lower. Lawrence had on a white apron and a blue button-down shirt with the Crown logo. No beard or mustache. His square jaw was clean shaven as always. His hazel eyes were alert as he took in the few people sitting at tables behind me. And his thick biceps flexed as he wiped dry a tall beer mug. His one concession to the younger crowd was the ponytail he wore. That matched the look often worn by the richies who lived up on the eastern foothills above Santa Fe. But his attitude had none of the fake PC tone I heard all too often these days.

  “A diet Coke. And a Ripper Pale Ale on the side.” I put my hands on the countertop, leaning forward.

  Lawrence nodded. “The ale will be draft of course. Coming right up.”

  Since there were no other customers seated at the counter, it being just 11 a.m., Lawrence had the pop and the draft beer in front of me in less than a minute.

  “Anything to eat?”

  I’d spent hours at Mabel’s place, feeling comfortable and safe at a place where everyone knew me. But since Tuesday was movie day, I decided to leave before the lunch crowd showed up. It got noisy then. Too noisy for me and too anonymous when the regulars were outnumbered by the younger PC crowd and some construction workers who totally ignored the PC types. Like the folks with sidewall-shaved heads and rooster tails of hair pulled into a gal or guy bun. Even a few guys with their pants dropped halfway down their underpants showed up for lunch. Though I had yet to see a non-binary type appear, dressed purposely in clothes meant to hide their birth gender, that might happen. Mabel would be nice to them. Not me. Not when I considered it such a fake pretension. I half-smiled at Lawrence, appreciating his patience with my mental wool-gathering.

  “Yeah. Burger and fries, ketchup on the side. Please.”

  Lawrence gave me a quick nod and a friendly look. “Your usual? Coming up. Enjoy the beer.”

  He turned away and began typing in the order for the kitchen staff who worked behind the beer wall that separated the countertop from the kitchen. Which allowed me a chance to check out the flat screen. The talk show image went blank then was replaced with a Breaking News text from KRQE-TV, channel 13 from Albuquerque. They covered Santa Fe pretty well. Their daytime woman announcer came on with an image behind her. The image showed the Delgado Street neighborhood, yellow tape, lots of cruisers and the coroner’s van and ambulance. There was no sound, just text lettering.

  “Lawrence, can you hit sound for the TV?”

  He looked surprised by my interest in daytime TV. Lawrence nodded. “Sure,” he said as he aimed the TV control at the screen and clicked on the sound.

  “Three dead bodies and a wounded young man were reportedly found on the northeast side of Santa Fe this morning, according to an anonymous police source,” said Kim Vallez, her long black hair looking a bit ruffled. “Our reporter on scene is Rachel Knapp. Rachel, what are you seeing? What’s happening?”

  The blond woman wore a light blue jacket with the KRQE logo. She held a hand mike and stood before yellow police tape placed a block down from where I’d been attacked. She gave a quick smile.

  “Kim, a neighbor I spoke to said her friend Alice, who found the remains early today, told her one young Hispanic male was dead from a knife wound to his stomach, one person had burned to a blackened corpse and a possible third person was a puddle of blood and lumpy flesh. A fourth young man was lying unconscious against a garage wall,” Knapp said, glancing over her shoulder as a two woman fire and rescue team loaded a stretcher into the back of the coroner’s van while another group of uniformed police huddled around a man I recognized as Juarez. Two cops were on either side of him, holding him up. “I’m standing on Delgado Street, not far from Canyon Road, where there are numerous art galleries.” Knapp looked down at her smartphone, then up. “The detective in charge is Howard Warren. He earlier said there would be a short statement later today.”

  Vallez frowned. “What caused the man to burn and another person to melt into a puddle?”

  “Nobody knows,” Knapp said, looking at her phone. Then up. “It is possible one person was doused in kerosene while another was hit by acid, but no one from the SFPD or the coroner’s office has agreed to speak with me.”

  Vallez nodded slowly. “The dead young man and the man who survived, could they belong to a street gang? Not long ago there was that wild shooting from one car at another at Santa Fe Place mall.”

  Knapp brightened. “Kim, yes, that did happen last year. My view of the young man suggests he is Hispanic and is wearing a purple belt, along with purple sneakers. Don’t know about the man dead from the stab wound. My sources tell me purple is the color of the Barrio West Side, West Side Locos and Main Street gangs, who are reportedly based on the west side of Santa Fe.”

  Vallez sat back. “Is there any word on a possible assailant?”

  Knapp shook her head, her curly blond hair swinging freely. “No word yet. This happened not long after 6 a.m. this morning. Most people in this older neighborhood are retired or not working. The woman named Alice told her friend she had to walk to the street edge to get her daily newspaper and that’s when she saw the bodies on the sidewalk opposite her, along with the unconscious young man. Maybe Detective Warren will have more detailed news when he holds a press conference at 2 p.m.”

  Vallez brushed back her long black hair. “Reporter Rachel Knapp, keep us informed.” The image of the attack site disappeared. Vallez looked straight at the camera. “Reports published in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper over the last few years have indicated a rise in gang activity on the south and west sides of Santa Fe. Perhaps that activity has now spread to the capital city’s artistic northeast side. KRQE will keep you informed. Join us for the two o’clock police announcement.”

  The wall screen switched back to the talk show. Lawrence shut off the sound, then looked at me. Concern showed on his face.

  “Jack, that stuff happened close to where you live. Did you see anything this morning?”

  I shook my head, hating the lie I had to give to one of my few friends. “Nope. I walked past that area before 6 a.m., then took my time walking up Canyon to get to Mabel’s place. Took a look at a couple of the gallery shops.”

  Lawrence looked past me. “Customers are wanting me.” He pointed at the far end of the countertop. “Your burger and fries have been delivered. I’ll get them to you before I visit the table.”

  I nodded casually. Or as casual as I could. The results of my morning death-dealing were now public. What would be the police reaction? What would the west side gangs do? Or not do? My hoodie was blue. Blue was the color of the Surenos 13 gang from the south side of town who were active along Airport Road. Maybe the two gangs would go after each other. But if any of them came into my neighborhood, well, I was prepared for them. Or so I thought. Could I kill again? One thing was certain about life—bad things happen and too often they happen to good people.

  The action-adventure movie had replaced the bloody images in my mind, but not their memory. I exited the Violet Crown, not wanting to be around for the 2 p.m. news conference. It would be repeated tonight at 4:30 and again at 6 on KRQE TV. I walked across the railroad tracks that allowed the Rail Runner Express train to home base in the Railyard before heading south to Albuquerque. The yard was a big tourist draw area, with an REI store, several Mexican food restaurants, a pottery gallery down one side of the tracks and a Saturday artists market that drew big crowds. Crowds I disliked. Which was why I visited the yard during t
he week. Smaller crowds and mostly nicer people. Looking ahead I decided to get to Guadelupe through the rear parking lot of one of stores that fronted Guadelupe. An alley gave access to the lot from both the Railyard side and from Guadelupe. I turned off the alley and entered the lot, aiming to exit at the far corner.

  “No!” yelled a woman’s voice from among the line of cars ahead. “It’s mine! Mine!”

  In an instant I saw her. A middle-aged woman dressed in a rich green brocade dress was holding on to her large purse, which was being pulled from her by a big teenage guy with black slash tattoos on both arms. He looked angry at her resistance. No one else was in the lot, and no one was on this side of the tracks. The mugger slapped her hard with his right hand. The brunette winced at the pain.

  “Bitch! Let go! Or I’ll hurt you!”

  I walked faster toward them. “Hey!” I yelled. “Let her go!”

  The big teen turned his narrow face toward me, brown eyes glaring. “Fuck off geezer!”

  The Anglo woman seemed surprised by my presence, then a little hope showed in her face.

  “Help?”

  I walked faster, and hoped there were no security cameras watching the lot. The Anglo teen had the build of a linebacker. And the red tracks of needle injections on his left arm. He pulled hard again on the purse, causing the woman to fall to her knees as she lost her grip on her purse.

  “Fuck off geezer or you’ll wish you had!” he screamed at me. Then he pulled a flip knife from his back pocket and waved it at me.

  There was three feet of space between him and the woman. Behind the mugger was a gray stucco wall of the gallery or store that owned the lot. Behind me was another row of parked cars, which partly hid us from Railyard view. I stepped between the mugger and the woman, thinking hard and fast.

  I held up my hands toward the bastard. “Drop the purse!”