Killer Geezer

by T. Jackson King

  “Whoosh!”

  And he was gone back to his roomy condo that occupied the entire top floor of a residential high rise in NYC, a place that, due to its location directly overlooking Central Park, was valued at $14 million. That was another detail lying just below the shredder info. Along with the value came the code to tell the building’s private Resident elevator to get to his floor. He already knew I had once visited Central Park with my parents, long ago. So now I knew where his tower was located and how to get up to his place. Clearly he preferred for me to visit him in the future. So be it.

  But now, I had to think on how I wished to live the rest of my life in Santa Fe. And how I would deal with future muggers and killers. They would not chase me out of my town. Nor would a snoopy detective. Maybe I’d been too stubborn to live with while married. Well, I could rein that in when around Sally. But I was damned determined to not change the ‘real me’ just to avoid future confrontations. Which left me with a quandary. Should I go looking for trouble with the other gangs active in Santa Fe? Or should I just pretend to be newly rich and take care of any threat with a thought? Maybe I could do both, become a richie arts donor and funder of the cop hangout while telling my ‘don’t you dare!’ side of me to tamp down my urge to confront the nasties in life.

  Lunch with my friends at Café Loco was going well. The green chili cheeseburger with fries and a pop had partly filled me. Now I was facing the choice of another burger, or a piece of pecan pie. The pie had super amounts of sugar in it, which should help me have backup energy for psychic activities. If that became necessary today. Teleporting to the airport and then back home had left me feeling ravenous. Which was one reason I had again braved the biz customers and PC matrons who usually showed up for lunch. Those folks were here, despite the Thursday hold-up. Actually, more folks were here than were present during the week. Maybe the café was now notorious and a place the high society types felt they had to visit? I shrugged as I sipped my pop. I didn’t care why anyone came to the café so long as they left me alone. My visit with Ansgar had left me with too much to think about. Since I had ruled out leaving Santa Fe and not murdering detective Harold Warren, I now had to think up a future course of action. Being rich was a fact now. Putting paper money into my bank would be easy when I visited the Walgreens that was at the De Vargas Mall, not far from the café. But becoming part of the arts crowd was—

  “Hey Jack!” called Leroy from where he sat next to my table.

  I looked up and met his friendly gaze. Beyond him sat Petros, Christine, Angelina and Carlos. All of my morning friends. They were now here for lunch. Which was unusual. While the café was our favorite hangout spot, my friends did other things during the day besides hang with fellow geezers. Angelina took modern dance lessons three nights a week. Christine painted Art Nouveau oils, some of which had made it into galleries on Canyon Road. Petros assembled handmade sailing ships in the quiet of his apartment. Carlos wrote letters to the editor pushing for building more nuclear power plants as a solution to climate change. And good Leroy hand knits shawls for homeless folks. He gives the shawls to his Lutheran church for distribution. Now, he was looking at me with a curious expression.

  “Hi Leroy! What’s up?”

  He held up his copy of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. Leroy always brought his daily copy to read during our morning breakfast and coffee confabs. Today he’d brought it to lunch. Which was unusual. My buddy turned the paper to show me its front page.

  “Have you seen the picture of you on the front page?”

  I blinked. My heart sped up. The sounds of other people chatting, eating, entering and leaving the café, the brush of air from the three ceiling fans, plus the color ranges so visible in everyone’s personal aura now swelled over me. It was like a tsunami of emotions, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings. I told my psychic self to calm down. No one in the café showed the black tornado of evil intent. The few lies being told were split among the biz professionals and the matrons, as each exaggerated something they were telling their guest or friend. But the auras of my five friends all showed large halos of yellow, in addition to their usual colors. Yellow indicates many emotions, among them curiosity. Clearly they all had seen today’s paper. I reached out for it.

  “No, Leroy, I have not seen it. May I?”

  He handed it to me. “Be my guest.”

  I pulled the paper over and held it above the remnants of my fries. There was a photo of me standing and pointing my finger at the masked robber with the shotgun. The view showed my face clearly and the head tops of the four robbers. Clearly this was an image from Lorenzo’s security camera above the entry door. But I’d told the camera to melt down just after the three robbers had flamed out. How was this possible. I looked at the story text. Reading quickly I caught a quote from Warren.

  “While the security camera inside Café Loco was melted internally, perhaps from the heat of the three robbers being incinerated, the café owner had set his wifi system to always upload all imagery to a cloud storage site,” the detective said in the article. “Our unit was able to obtain the entire visual record of the robbers entering, making their demands, hitting one waitress, being confronted by a Jack Hansen, a regular café visitor, then becoming engulfed in flames. Shortly thereafter the imagery ends with a view of people running out the back door of the café.”

  I sighed. Then met Leroy’s eyes. His black eyebrows were raised. Clearly he expected me to react to being on the front page. I handed the paper back to him.

  “Thanks.”

  When I said nothing more Leroy frowned. “Well? You are now famous as the guy who faced down the four robbers. Have the Albuquerque stations contacted you? The article says several of them, including Channel 13, tried to contact you.”

  I knew that. Yesterday while in Denver and this morning while shopping I had listened as my phone rang and rang, then dinged five times as callers left messages. Since the numbers were not ones linked to Sally, my two kids, Mabel’s number, Lawrence’s number, Ansgar, Fernando the chauffeur’s number, or my bank’s number, I had ignored the messages. Being famous is not something I have ever wished for.

  “I guess so. I have several phone messages since Thursday. Haven’t listened to any of them.”

  Behind Leroy dear Christine gave a loud “Really!” and shook her red bouffant hair. “Jack! Come on. What do you think of the article? And being famous?”

  I ate a fry, then drank pop. All my friends, and Mabel who came over to refill my pop glass, were watching me. Everyone else in the café was doing their thing. Noisily and with loud gusto. I shrugged at her. “Christine, the article seems factual. I’m a bit surprised the cops put the effort into pulling video off the cloud internet. Detective Warren does seem agitated about the robbery and the flame-out of three robbers.”

  At the far back of the row of rear tables was Carlos. Our nuclear engineer who had not told Warren anything about me. He was holding up his hands in a ‘Explain yourself’ gesture. Which was the expression showing on the faces of my other friends. None of them had blabbed details about me to Warren. But surely they expected me to confide in them.

  “Leroy, Christine, Carlos and everyone, I’m just a retired reporter.” I pointed at Leroy’s paper. “It is normal for any local paper to put an armed robbery on page one, especially if there are pictures of the event. That image shows you folks and everyone in the center and rear of the café, in addition to me. Guess the TV stations want to make a big deal out of the event. I’m just glad no one was seriously hurt.”

  Leroy tilted his head to aim his left ear and hearing aid at me. “Jack, no one got hurt bad ‘cause you stood up to the bastards. You confronting them caused them to . . . to go up in flames. And one guy to knock himself out against the ceiling. All that makes for an impressive confrontation.” He gestured behind himself. “We’re your buddies. None of us blabbed to the detective during his interviews of us. And Mabel only said what publicly happened.” Our lead waitress ga
ve me a nod, then turned to take an order from a young couple who looked like college students. “Don’t you owe us an explanation?”

  What explanation could I offer that did not reveal I had suddenly developed psychic powers? No way would I tell detective Warren. Nor the TV stations. But what about my five buddies? Perhaps I could share something. Something the five of them would value. “Leroy, come over to my place tonight.” I looked past him to the others. “Petros, Christine, Angelina and Carlos, you also are invited. I’d like to discuss last Thursday with you in private. I’m sure those of you with evening obligations can make excuses.” I told them my street address. “Will you five come see me?”

  “Sure,” said Leroy, folding his paper and sitting back with a thoughtful look.

  “Yep,” muttered Petros.

  “For sure,” chirped Christine.

  “No way will I miss this!” called Angelina in her bright soprano.

  “Nor will I,” grumbled Carlos, his handlebar mustache lifting as he spoke.

  I pulled a $20 out of my hoodie pocket and put it on the table, with a wink to Mabel. Then I stood up.

  “Great. See you all tonight around 7 p.m. I’ve got wine. And beer. Anyone who wants something stronger should bring it to my place. Bye!”

  And with that I walked out of the Café Loco.

  Just what I would share with my buddies tonight I did not know. I just knew they were the only people I knew I could trust. In addition to Mabel. Who might well show up even though I had not invited her. Well, tonight would be eventful. And before my friends showed up I would visit the local Radio Shack to buy a bug detector device. They had signs saying they carried such devices the last time I had walked past the place. And now I had the funds to buy one. Hopefully the device would locate any bug left behind by Warren. And detect any bug left in my place by anyone else. Ansgar was right. Time to use my money to ensure my privacy. And to become known as an arts connoisseur. Maybe making donations to arts councils and to the local cop hangout would deflect Warren’s intense focus on me. If not, maybe my friends would have some ideas.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The first bullet hit me in the ribs. The second bullet bounced off my barrier field. The third through seventh bullets bounced up into the sky as I thought them upward, giving thanks the second bullet had hit a tree lying in the front yard of the home I was walking past as I headed for my place on Calle Corvo. I’d just turned down Corvo, looking forward to seeing Pancho, counting the money in the suitcase and planning for tonight when a screech of tires had sounded behind me, then the first bullet hit me as my psychic senses brought me the mental image of four black tornados inside a speeding sedan that now roared past me. I felt to my knees, one hand going to my left ribs, where blood now soaked through my t-shirt and hoodie. Pain hit me sharply. My heart beat fast. My mind moved faster.

  My normal sight view of the sedan showed four gangbangers dressed in blue neckerchiefs or t-shirts, black tattoos covering their necks and arms, and one gangbanger’s face. The front passenger guy was on my side of the car. He held a rifle that he now pulled in since it had stopped firing. A .22 rifle, part of me noted. A deadly scowl filled his face. Beyond him the driver grunted something at him. I also saw the faces of two bangers in the back seat, both of whom aimed pistols at me from the open rear window of the sedan. A Honda CR-V, late model, my brain saw in a blur. The imminent threat of more bullets coming at me put me beyond rage at the drive-by shooting.

  “Bastard!” screamed the rifle holder as he shook his rifle, which had now jammed, thanks to my lightspeed thoughts. “No one wears blue except for us Surenos 13! Try being famous with bullet holes in you!”

  The sedan was full of gangbangers from the Airport Road gang on the south side of Santa Fe. And the backseaters clearly meant to kill me. With barely a thought I melted the firing pins of their five-chambered .38 revolvers. The rear gangbangers cussed loudly when the pistols didn’t fire. Then I saw past them and noticed a large oak tree lying to the left of the driver, toward where Corvo dead ended into Acequia Madre street. It was over two feet thick and 30 feet high. Green leaves covered its thick, gnarled branches. With a thought I melted the sensors in the front airbag units. Then I visualized a giant wind pushing the car off the road and toward the tree. And I added a levitation push to the rear of the sedan so it sped up to 70 miles an hour. Far beyond the 25 mph speed posted for my residential neighborhood.

  “Wham! Crunch!”

  The sound of the front end of the Honda impacting on the thick trunk of the oak came to me like a blasting horn. Even though the sedan was now 300 feet from me, still, I heard everything with my greatly improved normal senses. And smelled the dry rubber scent left on the asphalt road by their tires. Since none of the gangbangers were wearing a seatbelt, the front two went through the windshield, the breaking glass slicing through their necks and carotid arteries. Red blood gushed out, spattering the wrinkled brown bark of the tree. The front steering wheel impaled the driver in addition to his arteries being cut.

  The rear pair slammed against the back of the front seat, their noses getting broken and their collar bones breaking from the impact. The pistols flew out of their hands. But they still breathed. Two black tornadoes full of hate, anger, jealousy and snorted meth. That would not do. While my hand held my left ribs, my right hand lifted to my side, then curled into a tight grip as my psychic vision located the fast-beating hearts of the rear gangbangers. Those hearts now squished in on themselves. Blood stopped flowing. The bangers cried louder from shock, adding to the cries from pain. Then their minds faded away as the lack of blood sent them into unconsciousness. I squeezed my right hand harder, imaging a ruptured heart. It would not do for them to revive after I unclenched my fist. They had tried to kill me. Now, they were paying with their lives for that effort.

  “Hey mister! You okay? Hey! You’re bleeding!”

  Pulling my psychic senses back from their focus on the sedan, I looked to my right. A middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a blue dress with white dots and holding a wash towel was standing in the front yard of the house with the tree that had absorbed bullet two. Her loose black hair was a bit frazzled, as if she’d rushed out from her kitchen. Or her living room, which I noted had a big bay window that gave a clear view of Calle Corvo. The chatter of others talking told me other neighbors had come out at the sound of the sedan hitting the tree. The .22 rifle popping off seven bullets was not all that loud. Witnesses. There was no way I was going to get to my place without notice.

  “Uh, no, I’m not okay. Someone in that car shot me,” I said, stating the obvious as my turning toward her had revealed the red blood atop my blue hoodie. Her eyes went so wide the whites were bigger than her brown pupils. “Uh, do you have a first aid kit? I don’t think it’s too serious.”

  “Senor! Nada!” she said, reverting to home Spanish. Then she walked swiftly up to me. “I’m a nurse at Christus St. Vincent hospital. Let me look at that wound!”

  The pain was receding. But my psychic vision of my own body told me the .22 bullet had broken a rib and entered the space between my left lung and my left kidney. The rib impact had slowed the bullet so it had not tumbled or gone in further. Almost by instinct I told the bullet to move outward, toward my ribs. My healing energy flowed after it, repairing the internal tissues and ruptured blood vessels. Thinking too fast I told it to lodge in the middle of the broken rib. Below the skin and easily locatable. At least now I would not require surgery. Just ER treatment. A siren told me some other neighbor had called an ambulance.

  “Sure ma’am. Thank you.”

  The woman knelt beside me. She pulled up my hoodie and t-shirt. She felt around the wound entry but did not touch it. “Looks like you’ve gotten a broken rib from the bullet’s impact. You’re lucky it did not go deeper. And the blood loss is slowing. Ah, here’s the ambulance!”

  I looked away from her and to the street. A dozen middle-aged or senior people, half male and half female, were in the stree
t watching this woman tend to me. The rear of the Santa Fe Ambulance swung open to a push from inside. Two green-dressed attendants came around to the rear, one holding a plastic body carrier. The woman in the lead looked my way.

  “You sir, what’s your name?”

  “Jack Hansen. I live around here.”

  She and her male helper knelt down on the street side of the sidewalk. On which I still knelt, both knees on the sidewalk. They pushed the plastic carrier up against my knees. Beside me the Hispanic woman moved slightly, holding up my t-shirt and hoodie.

  “He’s got a bullet wound through the seventh rib left side. Likely the bullet’s still inside him. Blood loss is slowing.”

  “Thanks.” The ambulance woman gave her a quick nod. “You are?”

  “Eloise Alvarado. I live in the house behind me. I heard the crash and came out. Found this man, Mr. Hansen, bleeding and kneeling on the sidewalk. I’m a nurse at Christus. You might—”

  “We might start an IV to prepare him for shock and to allow any needed blood transfusion, ma’am,” the ambulance woman said tightly as their driver walked up to help. “We’ve got this now. Mr. Hansen, please lie down on this carrier. We need to put you in the ambulance for transport to Christus.”

  I wanted to say ‘No, I’ll be fine, really’. But I knew I couldn’t. Nurse Alvarado had already made clear I’d been shot. And the drops of my blood on the sidewalk were easily visible to the gathered crowd.

  “He’s been shot!” said one woman softly to a woman who seemed to be a buddy.

  An elderly man with a buzz cut to his white hair put hands on his hips and stared at me. “I recognize him. He lives atop the Webster garage. He’s been here ten years or more. Terrible thing, the shooting.”

  Others in the crowd immediately bemoaned how their older neighborhood was becoming gang-infested. I looked up at the ambulance woman.