Carlos laughed. Loudly enough to draw Mabel’s brief attention. She turned back to writing down an order from a new couple. My friend picked up a piece of buttered toast, bit it and swallowed. His mustache ends quivered with his eating.
“Nice story, Jack. But the article in today’s paper says the police forensic people found no residue of anything flammable on the ash and bones of the three who burned up.”
“Yeah, Jack,” called Christine from a few tables away. “What caused them to burn up? You just stood there, told them to leave Mabel and us alone, then pointed at them. After you pointed, they went up in flames. According to what Petros, Angelina and Carlos told us happened. That’s weird.”
Our clone of Lucy Arnaz looked honestly puzzled. Petros did not. Unlike her he had been present yesterday when the robbers hit during the noon hour. However, diabetic Leroy had his head turned so his left ear hearing aid was aimed at me. Clearly the five of my buddies had chatted about yesterday before my arrival.
I shrugged. “Don’t know about what the cops said. Just know it wasn’t right for that chief robber to slap Mabel. So I confronted him. He and two others caught fire.” I raised my hands in a So What? gesture. “It put an end to the robbery. And no one was hurt.”
“Except for the short robber who flew up and hit his head on the café ceiling,” Carlos said in a low tone, clearly trying to keep our conversation between us regulars.
While the retiree couples in the middle and front of the café were focused on drinking coffee and eating their breakfasts, they sometimes glanced around, as if surprised the café looked so normal after an all-out armed robbery yesterday. Course making the café look normal and ready for business was due to the efforts of Mabel, Lorenzo and the other two midday waitresses. I’d noticed a few fragments of yellow police tape in the parking lot as I’d walked up. Thankfully no TV reporter or TV van was sitting in the lot. Clearly our events were yesterday’s news. A new scandal de jour would surely occupy local and national news. Or so I hoped.
I stuffed two pieces of bacon into my mouth, then swallowed some delicious coffee. The silky flavor of the coffee, along with the light taste of cream and stevia sweetener, felt as rich as a double chocolate cake. Clearly being a Transcendent person was making meals very very enjoyable. But I couldn’t ignore my friends. “Carlos, I saw what you saw. Was weird to me too. Maybe the guy had a seizure. Something that affected his leg muscles. Epileptic seizures can get pretty violent.”
Angelina laughed, her tone far from the light voice of many women. Her voice sounded richly low. Not base or tenor, just feminine low. “Jack, today’s article made clear the man, a Jamie Victoza, had no illness in him. In it Victoza said he’d been recruited that morning to join the other three on a quick smash and grab. He had not expected to hold up a café with people in it. According to the detective.”
I nodded. “Well, then it’s good he wasn’t carrying flammable stuff. Whatever that might be. Though I bet his broken leg hurts.”
“I’m sure it did,” Angelina said, her voice low. “Jack, what you did was brave. I’m glad you stood up for Mabel.”
“I am too,” Mabel said softly as she stopped by my table. She held the coffee pot over my mug and refilled it, steam rising from the pot. “Jack, Lorenzo says he too thanks you for stopping that robber from hurting me more.”
My plate was empty of the waffle and bacon. I was done with breakfast. Though finishing off the refreshed coffee was essential. I reached into my sweater pocket and pulled out a bill. I handed it to Mabel. “Here’s the money for my check.”
Mabel took the bill. Then she stood stock still. “Jack! This is a $100 bill! You have never used something that big in the ten years you’ve been coming here. You get lucky on the lottery?”
Damn. I hated lying to my friends. And you don’t get paid $100 for hooking up someone’s swamp cooler copper tube to the cold water pipe in their hot water alcove. I really should get some of Ansgar’s bills changed into smaller amounts at a local bank. Though I did all my banking via USAA online, any bank will make change for a big denomination bill. Once they’ve UV scanned it and checked the security strip on the bill. Wal-Mart had not paid any attention when I’d used one of the bills to pay for my clothing purchases. But Café Loco was different. And Mabel was a smart cookie who noticed details. Details beyond someone’s food order.
“Mabel, yes, I won on one of those Pick Four lottery tickets. Got $500. Some of which I am using to fly to Denver. To see my ex, Sally. Been awhile since I’ve seen her.”
“Oh!” Mabel stood back, her coffee pot in one hand as her other hand held my money. Carlos and all my friends were watching our interaction. She gave me a quick smile. “Well, congrats Jack! I’ll make change and get back to you.” Mabel turned away and headed for the register up front.
Carlos tapped fingernails against the wood top of his table. “New clothes. Big money bills. Jack, did you earn a reward for yesterday?”
A reward? Whoever would give me a reward? Then I realized how out of norm my recent behavior had been. Time to exit before I got my friends wondering even more than they already were. Swallowing the last of my coffee I stood up, gave Carlos an easy smile and waved to him and my other morning buddies.
“Nope. No reward. Just the lottery ticket,” I lied. “I’m flying out on the afternoon non-stop flight to Denver. Taking American. United crams people in too tightly. See you all!”
As I turned away and headed for the café’s entrance, the voices of all five of my friends said ‘Good luck’, ‘Bye’ or ‘See you soon’.
It felt good. Having friends felt good. Very good. Having enough money to leave Mabel a tip was also nice. I grabbed my change on the way out, then pressed a $10 bill on her. To her clear shock. The tip was more than the breakfast bill. Well, I could afford to be money generous. For a while at least. Maybe for decades, if my trip to the Denver federal money shredder went well. And if I could really teleport a bundle of money to whatever hideout might be far from prying eyes and cameras.
At least I had a hiding place in mind, beyond my apartment. Years ago, I’d driven Sally and the kids up to a high peak in the southern Rocky Mountains. We’d gotten out, feeling a little breathless at almost 11,000 feet altitude. Then we’d wandered over piles of boulders until we reached a big flat rock that gave a view to the west. A view that seemed a hundred miles long. If I could teleport the money bundle out of the truck, then I’d trying teleporting myself and the money to that flat rock. While tourists often drove up the paved road to the peak, no one went looking for stuff under any of the boulders. Boulders that I now knew I could levitate up enough to stuff a money bundle underneath. Anyway, it would be nice to visit the top of the peak. Early morning should be empty of people. Just right for me!
Denver International Airport was the usual intersection of thousands of people, long corridors, lots of jet planes and endless intercom announcements. Plus it was noisy. Like ancient Babel supposedly was, what with a lot of foreign languages I heard walking from my arrival gate, down a moving walk strip and into the main terminal. Wishing I wore hearing aids that I could turn off, I made my way to the Payless car rental agency. Enterprise had a higher rating but they would not rent a car to someone without a credit card. Which I had yet to get. Payless accepted my bank debit card when I went online yesterday and made the reservation. The airfare of $300 plus another $100 for the car rental had made a dent in my tiny savings. Soon I’d have to mail a deposit to the USAA office in Texas. But I had brought $1,000 with me, mostly $100 bills but with some $20s and $50s, and the ones I usually carried in my billfold. Dressed the same as I had been for my breakfast at Café Loco, I figured I looked reputable enough for the live staff. Who, I learned when I approached the rental car aisle, were mostly offsite at a rental car yard. A Payless bus would take me there, a young woman informed me before she turned away and began doing something on a computer.
I ended up in a mid-size Subaru Crosstrek that was red as a toma
to. I didn’t care. It had the automatic GPS location finder on the front dashboard. Stuffing my large suitcase into the car’s trunk took no time. Starting it up was easy. Turing on the GPS screen happened automatically. After five minutes I figured out how to enter a street address so the car would take me where I needed to go. When I’d called Sally yesterday she had agreed to have dinner with me. At a ritzy restaurant she liked a lot. The Atelier by Radex was a fancy French-theme restaurant located on the east side of Denver, on East 17th Avenue.
Heading out of DIA I hoped the place did not require men to wear neckties. I had not worn one ever since being laid off from my job at the Santa Fe Reporter. Even there I only wore a tie in the office. Outside, in the field, I dressed in hiking boots, jeans and a red checkboard shirt, plus a hat to avoid sunburn. I liked being outdoors. I missed Nature. Getting back into Nature was on my list of future To Do things. Once I got that credit card I could rent a car and drive up into the mountains above Santa Fe. Plenty of campgrounds and hiking trails up there. And lots of solitude!
Twenty minutes later I arrived close to the Atelier. I pulled into a paid parking lot two blocks down from the place. Its own parking area was small and full when the GPS delivered me to its street address. Taking a time-stamped card from a machine as the sole live worker sat in his small cubicle playing RPG games on his iPad or similar device, I parked in a far corner of the lot. I liked being in corners or at the back of a restaurant. While I’d never been a cop, as a reporter I’d learned such locations gave you a full view of anyone approaching, and of any newsworthy events happening nearby. Cops liked such locations for the same reasons and for security, or so I’d heard from Petros, who was friends with two SFPD cops.
The red brick and glass walls of the eatery looked welcoming to me. I’d never eaten here, having lived most of my married life in Los Alamos with Sally and the kids. After the divorce 20 years ago I’d moved to Santa Fe when I realized how many more movie theaters there were in the state capital. Plus, I liked the job I got working on the Summer and Winter sections for the Reporter. Doing regular outdoor stories on endangered species, drought issues, fire worries and how the Santa Fe Ski resort had hurt for the last few years due to low snowfalls was also part of the reporting package. This past winter had been snow plentiful, which was one reason the early Spring in town was still cool. Here in Denver the weather was also cool. And stinky from car fumes. Which I now found I could only ignore by entering a store or food place. Which I happily did. It being past the Atelier’s 5 p.m. opening time for dinner, about a third of the red-topped tables were full. I looked to the woman who stood at the fine-grained oak wood check-in counter. She was Black, young and nicely dressed in a form-fitting yellow sheath dress. The contrast of her honey-brown skin with the dress was startling. She gave me a smile.
“Hello, sir. May I help you?”
Her words had an accent. Was it French? “Yes, you may. I’m Jack Hansen. I made an online reservation for two yesterday. Can you show me to our table?”
The greeter woman looked at her iPad, then up. Her smile was still there. “Yes! I found your reservation for 5:30 p.m. While it’s not yet that time, we have plenty of tables available. Can I take you to one of them?”
The back wall was hung with different sizes of shiny copper pans. Below the pans was a long table clearly meant for a large group. On either side were rows of red-topped tables meant for couples and foursomes. A table in the left rear, which would give me a clear view of the sidewalk entry, was empty. I pointed at it.
“Could you seat me there? In the back? It looks nice.”
“My name is Barbarella,” she said. “I’ll be happy to seat you there. Will your guest be arriving soon?”
I followed here down the middle aisle. “Yes. She will. She’s a middle-aged woman with short blond hair, a lively smile and surely she will be wearing something nicer than my clothing.”
Barbarella chuckled as she stopped at the table I’d chosen. “You are dressed just fine for the Atelier. While we specialize in French and European cuisine, our chef and owner has lived in Denver a long time. Casual dress-up is just fine here.”
I sat with my back against the white-painted wall. Then I looked up at the greeter. “Merci beaucoup! Comment votre nom Barbarella? Je suis curioseur.”
She laughed and smiled happily. “Oh, I like the Parisian accent of your French. As for my name, well, my mother was a fan of Bridget Bardot. Especially her early film role as Barbarella, the sexy space gal who had wild adventures!”
I recalled the movie. And the character. While the greeter woman was nicely feminine, she did not match Barbarella’s endowments. “Thank you, then. And thank you for being patient with my French. It’s been a long time since I was in Paris.”
“Pas de tout!” she said, putting a menu before me and one at where Sally would sit. “Can I bring you something light to drink? Before you order dinner?”
“Sure. Ice tea for me. Ice water and lemon for both of us. Please.”
“Mais certainment!”
She turned away and headed to get our drinks. I sat back, feeling glad I had not worn my brown corduroy professor coat. Downtown Denver felt warmer than the 70 degrees shown on my car’s temp gauge. I looked around. The early dinner crowd consisted of five young professional couples, each dressed to impress. Bottles of wine were already present on their tables. Two older couples, looking rich and retired, sat closer to my table. A single elderly man with white hair, white goatee and dressed to resemble Columbo the detective sat alone at a table near the front door. He was reading the Denver Post newspaper, turned to the Business section it seemed. A bowl of what smelled like French onion soup sat before him, steam still rising from the melted cheese atop the soup.
Barbarella brought me my ice tea and our water glasses. I took a sip of the tea. Then I inhaled slowly.
The odors of every food currently resting on any table in the restaurant came to me. The scents were like an avalanche to my nose. I even tasted the flavors on my tongue as air passed over it. I opened the menu and tried to match the listings with the smells. I sniffed again, then added vision to my scent detection. One plate held Raviolis de Homard, or lobster raviolis. Another plate held Cassoulet d’Agneau, or lamb chops. A third held Poulet Grand-Mère, or roasted herb chicken. The taste flavors were delicious!
“Jack?”
I blinked and turned my attention toward the entrance. Sally had already entered and now stood just five feet from me, her expression both puzzled and curious.
“Oh! Sorry.” I stood up and moved to pull out her chair. “I was soaking in the smells of the dishes on the other tables. The food here smells delicious! Do you come here often?”
Sally gave me a nod, brightened a bit at my compliment and sat. I went back to my seat and sat facing her. She rested her hands atop the menu. Then she fixed a curious look on me. “I had not known you were so . . . so into French cooking that you paid attention to the smells of quality food.”
I sat a bit straighter, briefly wishing for a tie so I could come close to the embroidered white spring dress she wore. Her neckline looked tanned. Her hair was styled in a nice wave pattern. And a diamond ring showed on her right middle finger. While she also wore a white pearl necklace that I recalled her wearing from our marriage, the ring was new. I lifted my eyes and focused on the face I knew so well. Twenty years had not aged her much. She had very few wrinkle lines around her eyes. The mother of our two children did not look her 67 calendar years. Far from it.
“Well, twenty years gives one time to learn new things. And I have good memories from my college year in Paris. We met there, you know.”
Sally sighed. Then nodded, her expression turning guarded. “Yes, I do know. It was my year at the Sorbonne, studying photography. And you were attending the American University in Paris, focused on political science. Lots has changed since then,” she said, her tone brisk.
Well, clearly revisiting good old times was not on Sally’s list of
To Do for this evening. I gestured at the wine menu. “Shall we order some wine? For relaxing before the meal?”
Sally stared at me, as if trying to decipher my intent in inviting her out to dinner at a very expensive, very ritzy place. Then she shrugged. Next she grabbed the menu. At that moment a waitress with the name tag Amelia showed up. Wearing a jacket and dress with mixed red and black colors, she held a small smartphone and offered us a smile.
“Can I help with drinks? Before dinner?”
Sally reached out, grabbed the wine menu, glanced at it, then up at Amelia. “Please bring us a carafe of Chardonnay 2015, appellation controlle, please. And two glasses.”
Amelia smiled happily. “Most certainly, madame. I will return shortly!”
As the waitress rushed away to get our wine, Sally crossed her finely manicured hands and peered at me intently. “Jack, what is this all about? You are more dressed up than your Facebook page picture. The sweater and shoes look new, not field-worn. You know I do not impress easily. Nor does it really matter to me what you wear.”
I knew all that. In our marriage Sally had always been the stylish one while I had been the down-to-earth, get out and go hiking in the woods or skinny-dipping in a mountain creek type. But we had fallen in love. We’d spent 30 years together, raising Louise and Justin, then sent them off to college. And shown up for their marriages later on. Then had come Sally’s announcement to me that she wanted a divorce. She’d said I was never going to change emotionally. That I was too distant. That I did not share my inner feelings. And that she was tired of being the social lead in any group we met. I’d thought she was too extreme. I like meeting new people and chatting with them on what matters to them. Still, I’d grown up in a family where my sister and I felt distant from our parents. Clearly the upbringing had had an impact. My sister Jane was divorced and living in Paris. She had no kids. And she only now and then replied to my emails. Which was more than the zero replies I got from mine and Sally’s kids.
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