by Jack L Knapp
She’d had a key to the house, so I changed the locks.
My finances had remained separate from hers so that was one problem I didn’t have to deal with. Had we remained together longer, I might well have made my account joint by adding her name…but time had run out, and my bank account was mine alone.
I wondered briefly how she was dealing with the Talent. Did she feel the urge to go somewhere private and practice lifting things or levitating? Our brief communications wouldn’t have given her much of an opportunity to exercise that Talent either.
The Chupacabra hadn’t resurfaced. The cartels were back in business now even if they were still wary. Before, they’d been confident enough to challenge the Mexican Army; now, they were operating from cover. A number of citizen organizations had sprung up, and the cartelistas appeared to be more concerned with their activities than they were with what the Army was doing.
For now, I wasn’t concerned about Ana Maria. I had other things to deal with; digging up the hoard in the Franklins, marketing the rest of the Maximilianos, trying to make sure I didn’t trigger an IRS investigation.
The coins were where I’d left them and I transported them back to the Volvo. The outer trash bag was dirty from being buried, so that got stripped away.
The coin dealer accepted the coins for marketing and would pay us as soon as he could get a short-term loan from his bank, a matter of a few days. I paid close attention to his thinking while we discussed this, but got no indication that he intended to cheat me.
His attitude might have come from my intimating that we’d found considerably more than I’d shown him and that I’d be depending on him to do the marketing.
Still, the cache of coins had now been sold and the dealer knew my name and the names of our companies. It was a concern.
I had been a student, technically still was, even though I’d not registered for fall classes. I had a bank account and an address. If anyone became aware of what I’d been doing with the coin dealer and decided to investigate where the coins had come from, the house and the bank account might need to be abandoned.
< But this isn’t how I expected my retirement years to go, T, running and hiding!>
We broke the connection and I headed for the Franklins. No wingsuit; I was only going a short distance in to bury the ingot. I was working on that when T called me.
There was nothing in El Paso that I had to do right now, so I agreed.
I was soon heading north. Interstate 10 runs generally west, but it takes a northward direction until it divides at Las Cruces. I took the northern fork onto Interstate 25.
By late afternoon I had parked T’s truck behind his cabin. I’d picked up chicken in Bernalillo from the Colonel, enough to feed a small army. We sat out front on his patio, just watching the peaceful landscape around us. Any problems seemed to be far away.
I took my wingsuit bag from the rear seat of T’s truck before we exchanged keys. The wingsuit went into the rear of the Volvo and we soon decided to crash for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ray:
The documents arrived packed into a cardboard box, insured US Mail. T’s contact had proved to be reliable, if expensive.
The driver’s license listed a Las Vegas address, thanks to a suggestion by T. Nevada hosts a large transient population and the address on the license was that of an apartment building.
Had there actually been a person who had been born with the name on this license? Had the document-provider been accumulating data into files, just waiting to sell it to someone with the money to buy? There was no way to tell. The driver’s license might have been faked, or a real license might have been changed somehow. It was even possible that a clerk somewhere in Nevada had slipped documents into official files and produced a license that he’d mailed off, the one that had eventually come to New Mexico. He or she had pocketed the payment from the document provider and now waited for the next opportunity.
I used the license for the first time to open an account in Albuquerque at a branch of Bank of America. I provided cash, depositing a bit less than a thousand dollars to establish the account. I also rented a safety deposit box, although there was nothing to put into it just yet.
Reporters in El Paso had found nothing new despite extensive research, so the story about the wingsuited rescuer had faded from the public’s memory. The dead man had been cremated and the ashes scattered over the trail where he died. The mother had taken the baby and moved to Michigan to be with her parents. New stories had taken over the front pages. Locals still watched the mountains but saw nothing unusual.
The drug cartels in Mexico had resumed activities, albeit much reduced. The Chupacabra had not resurfaced and many reporters in Mexico now thought he had been killed as the cartelistas claimed. The deaths that took place after were a bit strange, but they hadn’t been repeated. It was too bad, really.
Life went on.
The checks from the coin dealer arrived three weeks later. I deposited one into the New Mexico business account, gave it a week to clear, then withdrew most of the money. Some of the cash went into the new account at Bank of America but most of it went into the safety deposit box. This took several days to accomplish, taking two or three thousand dollars at a time. I rented a motel room in Albuquerque while I moved the money around.
I drove to El Paso and parked on Trans-Mountain long enough to recover the ingot I’d buried. I thought of visiting my house, but there was no reason to go there now. I no longer thought of it as home.
My identity as Ray Wilson had ties to the house, the university, and a few local businesses. My retirement check went to the bank I’d used after I retired from the Army, and the electric, water, and trash collection accounts for the house were paid automatically from that account. I might even be able to come back at some point once it became clear that no one was paying attention to a retired soldier.
Maybe someday; but not yet.
The ingot went into the new safety deposit box at B of A. A new credit card was established, not without some initial misgivings on my part, but no problems had surfaced. My new identity appeared to be as good as the seller had claimed. I used the card for gasoline purchases, paid the charges electronically from the new B of A account, then retired it for the time being.
T was in Arizona during most of this time. He would return for a few days, then be off again. We discussed his efforts to market the jewels and to find a reliable small mining company; he’d been successful in the former, less so regarding the latter. Mining was the province now of large companies, and tentative efforts to discuss financing a speculative venture hadn’t borne fruit.
A new account had been established in Arizona without ties to the identity T had used in New Mexico. Paranoia? Maybe. I think he was as relieved as I was when we had two run-for-the-hills identities ready in case they were needed.
I began watching Craigslist for listings of recreational vehicles for sale. Finally, I bought one, almost new, and paid cash. A bank would have reported such a transaction and a dealer might have done so. I paid cash to the owner in the lobby of his credit union and got the keys and signed title. He deposited the money immediately and I drove away in the RV.
There was a very nice RV park just off Interstate 40 and I rented a spot, paying a month’s rental in advance. I figured out how to hook up the sewer hose and water line, then plugged in the large electrical connector. The leveling system worked very well and I soon had a new home.
I picked up the Volvo where I’d left it before going to the credit union with the former RV owner. Checking out of the motel I’d been using took only minutes. At least I wouldn’t need to be dependent on T for housing now! And honestly, living in a tiny village in the mountains of New Mexico had reminded me too much of Afghanistan, living in a compound, avoiding contact with the locals, always cautious. There were places to go and new faces to see in Albuquerque, and I was ready for the change.
I was underemployed. There was nothing I needed to do now and sufficient money for any projected need. Other than meeting occasionally with T when he came back, my time was my own.
I was bored.
Santa Fe had even more to offer than Albuquerque and I explored both cities. Museums, historic sites, books, an occasional movie; I followed my interests wherever they led. But I also used the wingsuit occasionally when other activities palled.
I now wore insulated underwear under the wingsuit and the goggles had been replaced by a motorcycle helmet. It seemed a long time since I’d first learned to levitate.
An idyllic life, if boring.
Until I tried to fill up the Volvo in Las Vegas, a small town north of Santa Fe. The debit card, this one in the name of Ray Wilson, was refused. Not a problem; I paid with cash. But there was no reason for the card to have failed.
The usual greeting, but I had a different reply.
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Paranoid I was, but it was time to see if I could find out anything. Maybe it was only a temporary glitch with the debit card. I called the bank.
I got the usual voicemail. “Please enter your account number.”
I was using a prepaid cell phone I’d bought at Walmart for cash. I punched in the account number and waited. There were several clicks on the line, then a voice answered. I went through the usual identifying steps, name and account number.
