Killer Geezer

by T. Jackson King

  “Jack?”

  I shook away old memories. I’d asked her out to dinner. It was time to be honest. As honest as I knew how to be. “Sally, I wanted to apologize for disappointing you twenty years ago. And years before that. I’m a better mixer now. Being a reporter for the local paper has helped me learn to emotionally relate with other folks.”

  Her blond eyebrows rose slightly. “Nice to hear that. But you could have told me that over the phone. Or by email. Why in person?”

  Truth. Time for truth. “I miss you. I miss your company. I miss your smile. Since I . . . since I recently won a small lottery in New Mexico, I had some extra bucks. I used some of them to fly up here. I’ll use some to pay for tonight. That’s it. Nothing complicated.”

  She looked at me as if I was a Chinese lock-box puzzle. Then she slowly shook her head. “Jack, I know you. I can read you. Like you could read me. We both know when the other is upset, happy, confused or angry. Right now there is more showing on your face than seeing me again. Something that is not negative. Something positive. Jack, what’s happened?”

  I bit my lower lip. A habit she was familiar with. Did I lie to her? Or did I tell her I was about to be rich thanks to mental powers that had arrived out of the blue this past Tuesday morning? Or should I do something else?

  “Sally, yes, I am here for more than seeing your smile. Whenever that happens. How are you feeling? Is your arthritis okay?”

  She showed surprise. Then confusion. Then intense focus. “My arthritis is the same as ever. Low back hurts now and then. No big deal. What’s worse are my hands. Both hands. I’ve developed rheumatoid arthritis in both of them. You may notice my pinky fingers are curving oddly. The meds reduce the inflammation. But the deformation is ongoing. My doctor says she can’t do more for me.” She looked down at her hands, grimaced, then faced me. “Why do you ask?”

  Amelia appeared then with the carafe of Chardonnay and two beautiful crystal goblets. “Here you are. May I pour for you?”

  I looked to Sally. She liked taking charge in some situations. Especially when she dealt with me. She looked up at the waitress. “Yes. Pour a taste for me. I’ll let you know if it satisfies.”

  Amelia looked briefly uncertain, then smiled amiably. She appeared in her early twenties and seemed to still be learning the etiquette of French wine tasting. “Of course, madame.” She poured a small amount of wine into Sally’s goblet.

  Sally lifted her glass, swirled it, clear liquid moving within the clear crystal of the goblet, then lifted it up to her pale pink lips. She tilted the goblet. Held wine in her mouth a moment. Then swallowed. She looked at the waitress. “The wine is satisfactory. You may pour for him and me.”

  Amelia did as instructed. Then she put the half empty carafe down on the table, gave Sally a small curtsey and hurried off toward the kitchen entrance. I smiled. Then looked to Sally.

  “I ask because I may be able to help you. May I hold your hands?”

  Sally looked surprised, then suspicious, then she shrugged. “Oh, well, all right. Holding hands is routine these days.” She held out her hands to me.

  I looked down and noticed the outward curve to the small pinky on both hands. I also noticed her index fingers were pointing downward slightly. And several of her knuckles were slightly swollen. It was still early in the disease progression. But having to deal with deformed hands to do the routine life things like cooking, serving food, showering with soap, drying off, dressing and pulling on nylons had to be hard for Sally. She’d always been an independent thinking and independent acting woman. Aspects of her that I appreciated. But it was clear that she thought me too passive in my relating to her, when in truth I’d just not needed to be the Guy In Charge very often. My college anthropology course had taught me the negatives of treating women as subservient vassals. As still happened today in many Muslim majority nations and in some African countries. In the West it was more covert, but the phrase ‘glass ceiling’ had a real meaning. Even in the 21st century. I reached out and took her hands in mine. Then I met her gaze.

  “Sally, just relax. I’ve learned a few things since we parted ways. Let me see if I can help your . . . your hands to heal.”

  She grunted. A skeptical scowl filled her smooth face. “Sure. Be a show-off. It won’t help. And I don’t care. But—what!”

  In my mind I sent healing energies down both arms and into her hands. The energy felt electric and warm and almost living in a way. It flowed for a few moments. Then it stopped. Her pinky and middle fingers had become normal straight. There was no swelling at her knuckles. In fact, all her fingers looked pinky healthy. But I still held her hands.

  Something new had happened. In addition to my view of her aura, which was quite beautiful, and her real self in normal sight, my mind now held an image of her whole body. Without clothes on. But it was not anything sexy. In truth the image my mind now held was as if a PET scan had combined with an MRI and a full-body x-ray scan. I saw her bones, her tendons, all of her blood vessels and arteries, her swiftly beating heart as she realized her hands were healed, the muscles of her body, her full breasts, her lungs, her stomach, her arm and leg joints, everything. It was as if she resembled an image from a medical textbook. One of those images where the skin is pulled away and you see everything underneath. Only this view included internal stuff, like her kidneys, her digestive track and her brain itself. All looked normal and healthy to me. All . . . ah! A nodule showed at the bottom of her left breast. I peered at her.

  “Sally, your hands are now healed. But ask your doc lady to scan your left breast. There’s a nodule there. It does not look—”

  “Jack!” she said loudly, then quieted as people nearby looked her way. She licked her lips, looked both happy and upset, then fixed on me. “Yes. I could feel my hands getting better. What did you do? As for my nodule, yes, I know it’s there. Doctor Christie told me it was benign, based on a sample she took. But how did you know it was there? How!”

  I let go her hands, picked up my goblet and took a sip of the white wine. It tasted divine. Or, well, close to it. Damn but my taste buds were excited! I set the goblet down. Then I met Sally’s impatient look. “Well, recently I have developed a different kind of vision. I can see your aura, which is beautiful. I can also sense someone’s injury or illness. I’ve found when I hold a hand, I can send healing energies into that person, energies that fix whatever is wrong.” Skepticism filled her face, doubt warring with the fact she could feel her healed hands. “Sally, it is not a scam. It’s not the fake psychic surgery you’ve seen on TV from the Philippines. This is real. And no, I do not know how or why I’ve developed this healing talent.” I gave a relaxed shrug. “I just know that I like helping other folks. And healing their injury, when they let me. Okay?”

  My question held more than a demand she agree with my attitude toward Healing. And she knew it. She lifted both hands up and looked at them closely. Then her right hand lifted up further and tapped at her styled hair. As if feeling the curves in a new way. She blinked, her pale brown eyes blinking away tears as strong emotion raced through her. I could see the emotion in her aura. It held the strong orange of vitality, vigor and stamina, the indigo of clear-mindedness, the yellow-green of passion and the bright pink of affection and compassion. She reached out and touched my left hand.

  “Jack, thank you for the healing . . . the healing of my hands. Whatever you did, it made a wonderful change. My fingers feel like they used to feel. They are flexible like when I was in college.” She smiled at me. Then her expression turned playful and intense. “Could you have healed the nodule?”

  Ahh. She believed me. “Yes. I could have healed it. Made it disappear. But I wanted you to have something to check with your doc lady. So you would know I was not scamming you.”

  Her expression became relaxed. “Jack, you could never scam me when we were married. I was the only one of us who could get away with a bald-faced lie. And I could always tell when you told me the truth, or were
evasive.” She looked me over, her expression becoming thoughtful. “I saw that you were feeling evasive when I asked why you wanted to hold my hands. Then I saw that change to open honesty. I’m glad you were honest with me. And long ago I put away my upset over those two high school kids who overdosed.” She paused, then smiled. “Now, let’s order dinner and visit. I’d like to learn more about this new healing ability of yours. And you seeing auras. What is that like? Seeing auras?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I parked the Subaru at the side of the graveled road that led to the federal shredder plant. Which lay a half mile ahead. Pressing a button shut off the engine and the headlights. The plant was located midway between Boulder and Denver, north of the federal highway. The address given me by Ansgar’s mind had led me past a cluster of townhouse suburbs, then out between fields holding green grass and a few horses yet to come in to stable for the night. It was 9 p.m. and I had hated leaving my dinner with Sally. I’d told her, truthfully, I still had to make a reservation for a stay at the DIA Westin hotel. She’d nodded, looked down at her hands, then had given me a big hug on the sidewalk outside the Atelier.

  “Let’s be friends,” she had whispered to me. “You have changed. In more ways than just being kind. I like that. Okay?”

  I’d agreed and walked her to her car, a white Audi sedan that surely was this year’s vintage. Then I’d gone to my car, paid the toll, entered the plant’s address on the car’s GPS and driven west.

  Now, outside, it felt colder than the 65 that showed on the car’s temp gauge. A light breeze brushed my face, coming from the northwest. The scent of dirt and dust felt real to my nose. Earthy. Not unliving hot concrete. Nor smelly hot asphalt. I looked up. The sky was blue-black clear, with only a quarter-Moon showing. But the light was enough for my energized eyes. I could see the road track quite clearly as it rose to a ridge, beyond which lay the plant. Or so my Google Earth research had shown. An overhead view of the plant from a satellite had been quite informative. Looking around I noticed there were no streetlights, no other buildings, nothing. But I could see a mesh fence atop the ridge ahead, the gate barely illuminated by a small lamp that shone on a pillar with a digital keypad. And likely a hand or eye scanner for use by the truck driver. I began walking toward the ridge and let my new psychic senses flow ahead. Time to find out if there were automated cameras watching the entry.

  Seeing with the sense that had allowed me to see Sally’s whole body was different than seeing her aura or seeing her in normal sight. The few trees along one side of the graveled track radiated life force like yellow-green lanterns. As did a few bushes near them. Beyond them on either side of the road were open fields, unplowed. Yet bunch grass grew in the fields, spotting them with small yellow-green bundles of life energy. Smaller than the bushes but bigger than grass were the tiny life dots of mice running here and there, gathering in a last bit of grass or root for the evening. A few larger dots were jackrabbits doing the same. Some distance away I spotted two coyotes on the prowl for an early evening dinner. They were red energetic with a yellow-green overlay.

  Wishing them luck I turned my attention ahead. To the powered gate that glowed red-orange in my view. On the left a small dot of red-orange showed atop one of the metal poles that supported the mesh fence. Another red-orange dot showed far to the right. The dots were active video cameras set to watch the entry and the space before it. I was just outside their viewing arc. With a thought I told them to go to sleep the way Ansgar had told the brewery camera to sleep when he’d mentally moved my beer glass. Touching his mind, even briefly, had shown me a few things. I resumed my walk.

  At the top of the hill, on this side of the gate, I had my first view of the shredder plant. It lay in a bowl valley, surrounded by low ridgelines. No delivery trucks were present. No worker cars were to be seen. My scan of the large, rectangular steel-sided building showed eight red dots on the roof corners, at a door entry and above the drive-up truck delivery entry, now closed off by a roll-down door. Pushing my energy sight past the metal walls, I felt the plant open up as if it were an origami sculpture unfolding. I saw every hallway, every office, the restrooms, a lunch room, a security room filled with rifles, gas masks and tear gas launchers, a computer room that hummed with red-orange energy. That room was clearly the home base for the inflow of cameras that watched both the inside and outside of the plant. With a thought I told the external cameras to go to sleep. They did. Now came the big deal.

  Keeping my eyes focused on the roll-down door on this side of the plant, I held that image in my mind. Then I closed my eyes, thought of moving myself and then imaged myself standing on the concrete ramp that led up to the big door.

  “Whoosh! Pop!” sounded softly in my ears as air rushed into the space where I’d been standing before the gate, then had expanded outward from my arrival spot. I opened my eyes.

  Yes! Oh yes!

  My stomach growled. It told me the mind energy I’d used needed refilling. Well, that was why I had some candy bars back in my car. Eating could wait. I opened my eyes to the dark night, letting in every spare photon that came from anywhere.

  The gray ribbon steel of the warehouse roll-down gate filled my view. Turing around I saw the mesh gate before which I had stood just seconds earlier. It lay a half mile away. Recalling my plan, I mentally told the two security cameras to wake up. They did, as shown by the increased flow of red-orange energy. I looked up.

  The spot where a camera looked down from the roof edge was almost as dark as the night sky. Only a little red-orange energy still showed. Likely it was the live power wire. But the small bulb of the camera showed nothing. It was asleep. As were the seven other cameras on the building’s outside. I walked up to the wall that lay to the left of the roll-down door. A small glass rectangle showed there, surrounded by heavy armor metal. Clearly this was a window meant to do a last visual check by a live human before some worker inside made the roll-down door rise up, and the delivery ramp with its motorized rubber belt extrude out to the back of the delivery truck. I walked closer and peered through the glass portal.

  A large rectangular room showed to my night-enhanced vision. I’d known the room was there from my psychic vision. But seeing in real life was what was needed. A few red security cameras glowed in the upper corners of the metal walls that enclosed the interior space. Several powered flatbeds sat lined up to one side, their engines off. In front of the roll-down door was the delivery ramp, now turned to rest alongside the front wall of the room. Against the back wall was a stack of cube bundles enclosed in white plastic. Or, rather, partly clear plastic. Peering closer I saw the inside of the bundles consisted of paper pads seen edge on. Paper money filled each bundle. Which appeared to be a cube two feet to each side. Using my psychic vision I told the room’s six security cameras to go to sleep. They did, as shown by greatly reduced red-orange glows. Then I closed my eyes but kept clear in my mind the image I’d just seen of the room’s interior. Thinking of a spot in the middle of the room, I imagined myself standing there.

  “Whoosh!”

  “Pop!”

  The sounds of my departing and arriving were soft.

  I knew I was there when I heard the soft echo of my boots touching the concrete floor as I materialized inside. Teleportation was neat! But my stomach growled more intensely. I opened my eyes.

  A door to an office showed on my left. I looked ahead. An interior roll-down door as wide as my apartment’s living room filled part of the wall. It led to the interior of the plant and the space where shredding machines worked during the day. While I could have come here tomorrow morning and just teleported a bundle from the back of the delivery truck, I’d figured visiting at night when no live person would be present was the best option. Fewer chances for something to go wrong.

  I walked over to the stack of money bundles. I reached out and grabbed the binding wires of two bundles. One in my left hand, one in my right. It was then my plan went to Hell in a hand basket.

 
; “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” came from the office. The sound entered the delivery room by way of the door sides and bottom.

  Clearly this room was not air-tight. Worse, I’d set off an alarm. How? Where?

  I extended my psychic vision to the entire plant. The powered up security cameras in the rest of the plant were still active. As I had intended. But the computer room had doubled in its energy flow. The alert was being repeated in other rooms of the plant, based on what I sensed. But how had I been detected?

  Focusing more closely I noticed every room had a small square box set next to the entry into that room. I’d thought they were palm readers when I’d first scanned the full plant. Not so. They had to be passive infrared detectors. They took little power and their red-orange glows were minuscule. Damn. Triple damn! I expanded my view to the space outside the plant.

  Bright yellow-white lamps had come on. They illuminated the entire open yard beyond the building. Parking lots, driveways, trash bins. Every place within the mesh fence was illuminated.

  “Oh, shit.”

  I tightened my grip on the two bundles, mentally imaged the outside of my car and closed my eyes.

  “Whoosh!”

  “Pop!”

  I stood beside the red Subaru Crosstrek, my arms easily supporting two money bundles. I dropped them, then pulled out the car entry key. Touching it unlocked the doors and opened the trunk. I stuffed one cube in the back seat, then went to the trunk. No room for both the suitcase and a bundle. Pulling out the suitcase I put the bundle in the trunk, then slammed the hood. The suitcase I laid atop the bundle in the back seat. I rushed to the front and got in. Turning on the engine went fine. I turned off the headlights manually. I did not need them to see with my psychic sight. Turning the car around on the graveled track I headed down the ridge and toward the distant escape of U.S. Highway 36.