[fiction] [orig] old-pro

They let him off at the corner, by the bus stop benches. Hermie held the door open long enough for him to get both feet out, then let go. The door banged him on the shins as he was leaning over the back seat trying to get his bag.

He got the scruffy leather bag out while he held the door off him with his rump. Then he leaned back, stepped back, and was about to slam the door when a fresh spit from Marshall's chaw hit the ground and splattered, next to his shoe, turning the shoe half red. Hermie reached over the front seat and gently but firmly took hold of the door again and shut it, and that was that. Big Joe just sat glowering on the passenger side, looking meaningfully at him.

He did a few little moves with his free hand, meaning maybe a little going- away present for them, but just as the cuff on his cheap suit was starting to smolder, Big Joe stared hard at him and he felt his hair start to rise in a tingly way. He looked up at little clouds that hadn't been there a moment ago, little clouds with little lightnings in them. He stopped gesturing. The smoldering stopped. The clouds dissipated.

Hermie reached out and tapped the ash off his cigar at him. "Just remember, Primo, this is just a halfway house and you're still on probation. If you blow it, well... that eagle still misses you."

Big Joe just glowered meaningfully. He never said much.

Marshall leaned out of the back window.

"No tricks, no nothing. Nobody knows who you are, and you don't do anything to tell them. Otherwise me'n the boys'll have you back on that rock before you can holler 'fire'. Remember, you're just a half-breed punk, just like everybody else here. We're the real thing. You watch it."

Hermie gunned the big car's motor, dropped the clutch, and the big car leaped from standstill to 40 or so with nothing in between. It nearly hit a wino as it turned the corner into the little side street, still accelerating. Somehow nobody but Primo, not even the wino, noticed that the car didn't make any noise at all, just vanished when it reached the other end of the dead end street. The wino just stood stock-still for a moment, mopping his brow with a paper bag, looked cockeyed at Primo for a moment, then turned to somebody twice as far the other way to tell about needing just one more nickel for cabfare home.

Primo stood there for a moment. Then he put his bag on the bus bench and assessed what he had. A lousy leather satchel that looked like it had seen service in the Trojan Wars; a cheap blue suit that looked the more cheap because it matched his eyes; and a billfold full of twenties and hundreds, enough to keep him out of mischief born of desperation and not a cent more. No toys, no souvenirs, nothing of the old days.

He stood there for a while, long enough for a bus to actually slow to a stop, open its doors, and close them again and leave when he didn't budge. He looked up at the wires that sifted the San Francisco sky, that hummed a little in the breeze. Wires that carried electricity.

He started to smile. The wrinkles on his middle-aged face crinkled and then faded a little as the smile slowly worked its way from one tight edge of his mouth to the other. His eyes, silver-blue, flickered and flashed a little more with every passing moment, joining in the smile. His hands tightened just a bit on the ropy handle of the satchel. Then he started thinking in words rather than memory pictures.

Just like before; I'm just one jump ahead of 'em, of what they expect. Just one jump. That's all I need. I've got a chance, and that's all I've ever had or needed. And this time I won't get caught.

He put one long forefinger on either side of the satchel's handle and then thought something quietly. There was a momentary blue arc between those fingertips, an arc that cut straight into the handle.

That was enough. He lifted the satchel up and hung its somehow much longer ropy leather handle on his shoulder. Then he started to walk down the street, homing in on a quiet neighborhood that wouldn't be known as the Haight-Ashbury for some years yet, already thinking about the things that might happen to the quiet fruit groves around San Jose if he dreamed the right thoughts to the right people.

Since I wrote it in the 80's, this story has seen publication in enough out-of-the-way places that I don't consider it saleable. Accordingly, I'm posting it here with my fanfic byline, sharing it around.

C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org