The Coyote

By Pete Simons

A new superhero walks the streets of New York City.  
 
Don Quincy, a retired NYPD detective and comic book collector, leads a quiet life until the day that a rogue bowling ball drops upon his head. He awakens to find Captain Vehement, one of his favorite caped crusaders, standing over him. When the Captain invites Don to become a superhero, Don agrees and courageously sets off to battle evil as 'The Coyote.' Along the way, he teams up with a homeless man named Pancho Sanchez, and together they cause havoc in New York City while trying to do good.  
 
This superhero stuff is harder than it looks.  
 
Any resemblance to the tale of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is purely coincidental. Or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Simons
• Release date: Jun 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781540196989

Pete Simons

About the Author Pete Simons is a finance professional who worked in the petroleum and agricultural industries. After retiring, he joined the Teach for America program and attempted to teach physical science, giving him a whole new appreciation for high school professionals. The Coyote is his first novel.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I’d like to acknowledge the people who parsed through earlier versions of this book and gave me detailed feedback, including Elizabeth Carrico, Brian Cooper, David Karpinski, and Dee Lo. Thanks also to Sharon Honeycutt, who proofed and edited the final copy. I’ve tried to incorporate all of your valuable comments, except of course where I chose to completely ignore them. But I greatly appreciate your help.

Thanks to my wife Jean, who always said that someone in our family should write a book. I think she really meant for one of our kids to do it. But there’s still time for that.

Thanks also to my son Jimmy and his wife Courtney, who created my supercool author website at www.PeteSimonsAuthor.com. There you will find a number of videos and links that relate to the book that you are about to read. Please visit!

A special thank you to my daughter Rose who designed and executed the cover artwork.

I offer my gratitude to PT for inspiring me to re-read Don Quixote.

Thanks to Katie for her input on the cover. And for the iPad she gave me on my birthday 15 years ago. I still use it!

Finally I’d like to acknowledge my agent.  Except that I wasn’t able to find one, so I guess I’ll have to skip that part.  I’m sure that he or she would have been very helpful, had he or she agreed to sign a contract with me instead of sending me a form response rejecting my book query. But I’m not bitter about it. Not at all.

More Acknowledgements

I’d like to acknowledge that when you add one to infinity, it doesn’t get any bigger.

I acknowledge that you can spell ‘acknowledgment’ with only two ‘e’s, according to Merriam-Webster. But that seems like cheating to me and so I’ve chosen to include all three ‘e’s in the above title. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I really hope you appreciate the care and effort I’ve shown.

I acknowledge that the universe is expanding, which I assume explains my weight gain over the past several decades.

I acknowledge that death and taxes are inevitable, but with death at least you only have to experience it once. Unless you are a cat. But cats don’t pay taxes, so I think that’s basically a wash.

Lastly, I acknowledge that 1 + 1 = 2. Unless you’re talking about one infinity plus one infinity, because that still equals one infinity according to my high school math teacher Mr. McGarry.

Foreward, or Should It Be Forward?

I’m told that a book’s foreword is typically written by someone other than the author. Ideally, of course, the non-me person who would write the foreword would be somebody famous, preferably another novelist who has sold a lot of books, and whom you  would trust implicitly. This person would hopefully say something good about the book you are about to read. You would be suitably impressed before beginning to read the novel., and you would therefore be more inclined to think that my book was good, because if HE or SHE liked it, well, who would YOU be to suggest otherwise?

Alas, I don’t know anyone famous, much less any best-selling authors.  I did attend a conference once where Malcolm Gladwell was a speaker. He wrote Blink and The Tipping Point, among other books. But I didn’t even introduce myself to him. It’s probably just as well, since my book is nothing like his, and truth be told I didn’t like Blink at all. Sorry, Malcolm. I guess I can probably strike you from the list of potential authors for my next book’s foreword.

Thus, for this novel I don’t have a famous person to foreword me. I’m therefore limited to infamous people such as my family and friends. But I am alone in the house today and I’m fairly certain that if my wife were here and I asked her to write a foreword she would look at me strangely before saying no. I suppose I could ask one of my children to do it, but I rather think they would respond exactly the same way as my wife, except for the looking strangely part, because they would be on the phone or texting me (which I suppose still means they’d be on the phone) and I wouldn’t be able to gauge their expression, given that they all moved out of the house years ago - not because they didn’t like living with us, mind you – at least, I don’t think that was the reason, but they are probably too polite to say otherwise, having been raised that way, which is more of a credit to my wife than to myself, so I guess I’ll never know. Or I could ask one of my friends to write the darn thing, but only a few people have actually read the book as of today, and some of them read an early crappy version, and I wouldn’t want to ask them to read the latest one just so they could write a foreword. Plus, even if one of them said yes, I’m not sure what they would write about me, particularly if all they saw was an early crappy version. Their attempt at an essay could very well be the kind of thing that ends a friendship, since I’m not sure where they would land on the politeness-versus-honesty spectrum, having not have been raised by my wife. So all in all, for my first book’s foreword it’s probably better if I do it myself.

About now, you may be wondering if purchasing this book was a good idea after all, so I should probably wrap this up. At least, I assume that you purchased it. You might have borrowed it from a friend for all I know, in which case you really haven’t risked anything, have you? So there’s no point in getting all worked up about it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the book. Let us move forward.

Pete Simons

Preface to the First, and Quite Probably Only, Edition

Unlike the foreword, the preface is always written by the author himself or herself. I suppose there could be exceptions. For example, what if the author passed away before writing the preface? Then someone else would have to finish it, wouldn’t they? I’m really hopeful that doesn’t happen in my case. But if it does, then here is Malcolm Gladwell’s cell phone number: 212-555-7358. I know he probably won’t want to do it, particularly after what I said in the foreword. But my guess is that he’s more likely to do so than one of my family members. And I appear to have misplaced Stephen King’s phone number. I understand that the satellite reception in Bangor, Maine is terrible, so that’s probably just as well.

My apperception is that the preface generally talks about how the book came into being, and why it was written. That’s easy. I had nothing much better to do, having retired from Land O’Lakes, Inc. a few years ago. Well, in fact, writing wasn’t my first choice in retirement. I originally joined Teach for America (TFA) and taught high school physics and physical science, which is something I’d always wanted to do. Teaching, anyway - not necessarily teaching physics. After working with numbers for over thirty years in finance, I’d frankly expected and intended to teach math. But due to Minnesota’s overly-stringent licensing requirements I did not qualify to teach mathematics. Instead, because of my undergraduate coursework in engineering I somehow qualified to teach physics, of which I remembered damn near nothing. Go figure.

But I digress. I ultimately decided that I didn’t have the patience to teach at the high school level. Those brave souls who do have earned my undying admiration. I left TFA and now I’m planning to teach college-level finance. While I was waiting for an adjunct instructor position to open up, I thought, why not write a book? I mean, I’ve got all this incredibly relevant experience from writing corporate memoranda for thirty years. Not to mention my family’s annual Christmas newsletter.

I happened to ask my younger son, PT, what his favorite book was. He told me it was Don Quixote. Now I vaguely recalled reading that novel as a sophomore in college, and thinking it was boring. But I figured I’d give it another try, since my son loved it so much. Surprise! I really enjoyed it the second time around. Still, I grant that it’s probably not the most accessible work for modern readers, having been written in the early 1600s.

And then the light bulb turned on. Because my wife entered the room and decided I was straining my eyesight in the diminishing early evening light.

I shall bring Don Quixote to Manhattan! I jumped up and exclaimed. In my head, mind you. Not out loud, because that would have been weird.

And this book is the result. If you like it, please let me know on my website, www.PeteSimonsAuthor.com.  If you hate it, please leave me a detailed voicemail at 212-555-7358.

As Malcolm Gladwell once said, I try to be unafraid of making a fool of myself.

With no trepidation, therefore, I remain

Pete Simons

Introduction

Book, meet Reader.

Reader, may I present Book?

My job is done. It’s all up to you now.

The Obligatory Literary Quotations

which help set the tone of the book and demonstrate that the author occasionally reads books himself. Or at least, that he or she can do internet searches.

Too much sanity may be madness. And the maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be.

Miguel de Cervantes

But I don’t want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.

Oh, you can’t help that, said the Cat: we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.

How do you know I’m mad? said Alice.

You must be, said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.

Lewis Carroll

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Tom Waits

One more thing...

There are a number of footnotes throughout this book which are intended to be explanatory, humorous, or both. You can view the footnote by clicking on its number. Then click on the number again to return to the text.

Or just ignore it and read on.

You can also see pictures of the places described in the novel by visiting my Pinterest website, at  

https://www.pinterest.com/petesimons0323

OK, I guess that was actually two things.

When Is This Damn Book Ever Going to Start?

Right now. Cool your jets.

Prologue

Thursday, December 15

Madness reigns in all the world's most densely populated areas, but only in New York City is it a requirement for residency. At least, that's what Duke thinks. Today's schedule had been typically insane: breakfast with the mayor to discuss that zoning problem, then an all-day board meeting to review the audit results in excruciating detail, followed by a tedious dinner with the audit partner and the vice chairman—and everyone was so pushy and egocentric. Tom Wolfe got that part right in The Bonfire of the Vanities, he muses. People in New York are just out for themselves. What’s become of common courtesy? Whither goest thou, kindness? Thinking about it puts him in a bad mood. Plus, that restaurant was ridiculous: tiny portions, way overpriced. It left him hungry and slightly poorer. The manager should be shot.

    The hour is late, and Duke just wants to go home to have a drink and watch tonight's episode of Gotham, but unfortunately, business takes priority. The drug dealer sitting in front of him isn't going to question himself, and this interrogation is too important to delegate. He just hopes his wife remembers to tape the show for him. The Penguin had really gotten himself into a bind last week.

     Duke scans the drug runner's apartment. What a depressing place to live. Paint is peeling off the dirty, discolored walls. The hot water radiator is clanging, but as far as he can tell, it’s producing no heat. A broken window pane trembles in the wind. Looking into the small kitchen, he sees a stack of unclean dishes in the sink and pizza boxes piled in the corner as several cockroaches scamper around the floor and the countertops. It probably stinks to high heaven in there, but he doesn’t intend to find out.

     Duke turns back to the young man seated across from him. The guy is sweating despite the cold, which is only natural, given the circumstances. If this criminal had use of his hands, he’d surely wipe some of the sweat off his face. But, of course, his hands are securely cuffed behind his back, and his legs are tied to the chair. The man has been stripped down to his boxers, and the visible parts of him are badly bruised. His clothes lie in a pile in the corner. Some of his fingers are broken. Duke winces. It's sad, but he chose this lifestyle. It's simply an occupational risk, Duke thinks.

     Danny, Danny, Danny. Let’s go through this again. Where’s the package?

     I told you. Zeke has it. I don’t know what he done with it. He don’t tell me those things.

     And where, pray tell, is Zeke?

     I don’t have no idea. He disappeared after we took the package, and I ain’t heard from him since.

     And who had the bright idea to steal my property and my money? I’m a trifle miffed, you understand. I have a reputation to uphold in the underworld community.

     It was Zeke, like I said before. He said it would be an easy haul.

     I see. It was all Zeke’s fault. You had no opinion one way or the other.

     I … yeah.

     Zeke’s the boss, and he has the money and the package. That’s what you’re telling me?

     Yes, sir.

     OK. Maybe I should turn the conversation back over to Mr. Pantagruel. He has a far more eloquent manner of expressing himself than I do. Duke glances up at the two hulking forms towering behind Danny.

     No. Please.

     Ah. Perhaps you prefer the dulcet tones of Mr. Gargantua? The hulk on the left shuffles its feet and clears its throat.

     No. Please, God. NO.

     Then again, maybe we should include your mother in this conversation. She still live on Bleacher Street in the Bronx, Danny? Number 725, right? And your little sister as well? She's a real cutie. In fact, I think I have a picture of her somewhere, playing happily in the schoolyard. Let me see …  Duke pulls out his cell phone, fiddles with it for a moment, then holds it up to show Danny a photo of his sister.

     Danny’s face, which was already glowing in living Technicolor, becomes even more flushed. I swear on my father's grave that I told you everything I know! I don’t know where the package is! I don’t know where the money is! I don’t know where Zeke is! It’s the truth, so help me God.

     Duke sighs and pushes back his chair. Danny, I believe you. I really do. Mr. Gargantua and Mr. Pantagruel can be very persuasive. If they haven’t coaxed the answers out of you in the last ninety minutes, I have to believe that you really don’t know the answers.

     Danny slumps in his chair. What are you gonna do with me then?

     Duke glances at Mr. P and stands up. Well, Danny, I don’t see much point in killing you. I just want the package and the money. That won’t help me get it.  Duke puts on his coat. Pretty cold night, he thinks.

     Danny relaxes and starts to weep.

     Oh, but I’m afraid I can’t protect you from Zeke. He’s going to be pretty pissed off when he discovers that you ratted him out. I expect he’ll come after you with a vengeance.

     Danny raises his head.

     Duke turns to his minion and says, Mr. Pantagruel, do you happen to have that weapon we found in Zeke’s apartment? The one with Zeke’s fingerprints on it?

     Uh, yeah, I gots it right here, Mr. Allworthy.

     Thank you, Mr. P.  Duke takes the gun in his gloved hand, turns, and shoots Danny in the forehead, splattering the opposite wall with blood and small pieces of Danny's head. The corpse formerly known as Danny falls backward and a pool of blood collects on the floor. 

     Well, that’s done. We’ll let the cops find Zeke for us. Please don’t step in that, gentlemen. Duke places the gun on the table. I assume you’ll return that gun to where you found it, Mr. P. Mr. Pantagruel nods and pockets the weapon.

     I’m starving, says Duke. You guys hungry? There's a new … Wait! Duke holds up his hand and pauses for a few seconds, listening. Did you hear something in the hall just now? 

     Mr. G rushes to the door and flings it open, gun in hand. Nothin’ here, Mr. Allworthy.

     Must have been my imagination then. I hear that new Mexican fast-food place on 6th Avenue is pretty good. Jimmy Changa's, I think it's called. Maybe we can swing by there on the way home? Messrs. G & P grunt their acquiescence. Not the most eloquent pair, Duke thinks, but then again, that’s not what he pays them for. You can't expect people in their line of work to have massive intellects.

     Let's call it a night then, says Duke, looking out the window to the street. He sees a blonde woman exit the building and run for the nearby subway entrance as a train slowly approaches the station. Well, well. Hello, Cindi. I guess it wasn’t my imagination after all. Turning to the others, Duke says, I have another little assignment for you gentlemen.

     Little did they know that finding Cindi wouldn’t be that easy … and that soon they would have some unusual competition in their quest.

Book One

Chapter 1: In Which a Storm Descends and a Hero Ascends

Tuesday Evening, January 24

Herein dwells a tale of madness and windmills, of heroes and villains, of triumph and despair—not to mention the odd flying monkey and flamethrower. All of this actually happened. Except that the names, dates, places, dialogue, facts, and circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent and to avoid libel and defamation lawsuits.

     It’s a chilly, overcast January afternoon in Rockaway Beach, New York. For those readers not familiar with the local geography, Rockaway Beach is a neighborhood in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City.[1] Although most outsiders equate New York City with Manhattan, most of the city's people actually live in Brooklyn and Queens. In fact, if NYC's five boroughs were each considered a separate city, Queens would be the fourth-largest city in the U.S., after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn.

[2]

In a sixteenth-floor apartment in Rockaway, Donovan

Quincy is sitting at his dining room table next to Rob, his great-nephew. Donovan is fifty-eight and looks pretty good for his age. He’s tall, still has all his hair, and has kept his weight down to the point that he looks gaunt. Rob looks like a twelve-year-old kid.

[3]

     The apartment is clean and orderly. Don's furniture is attractive and well-maintained, albeit a little dated. There are four bedrooms, one of which has been converted into a library. The kitchen is a little small, but functional. The dining room table seats six, although if the table leaf is inserted, it can uncomfortably accommodate ten. Overlooking Jamaica Bay, the living room contains a couple small couches; the obligatory wall-mounted, flat-screen TV; and a pair of exceptionally tall, wobbly bookcases from IKEA, which took only three hours to construct following the easy-to-read yet impossible-to-comprehend directions. The wobble may have something to do with the four leftover parts, which may or may not have belonged in the box. But the Swedish meatballs were nice.

     Don and Rob are staring at a graphic novel called Lobsterman versus Megachef. Don turns to Rob and says, OK, your turn to read. We're almost done now. Rob looks down at the page.

     [Frame one: Lobsterman, in his usual skintight, bright-red latex costume, is suspended by several metal chains above a vat of boiling liquid. Megachef is staring at him maliciously with his hand on a long metal bar sticking out of the floor.]

     [Megachef says:] "Now won't you cooperate? I am prepared to pull this lever and lower you to your death! You're in deep now, Crustacean boy! But you can still save yourself! Just give me the recipe for the mind-controlling butter sauce and I will release you unharmed! I don't want to hurt you … We could work together! The world can be our oyster—or our lobster, if you prefer. What do you say?"

     [Lobsterman struggles against the chains as the steam washes over him. He replies:] "You are insane, Megachef! I will never give you the recipe and allow you to do evil through those you would control! I would rather die!"

     "Very well, Lobsterman! Fine. Be shellfish about it. Surfs you right then! When I pull this lever, you will become a tasty bisque, quick! Try not to scream like a lobster when I porpoisely lower you into the boiling brine!"

     "Lobsters do not scream, you moron!"

"What?!"

     "Lobsters don't have vocal cords, and they don't feel pain! That noise is just compressed air trapped in the stomach that is forced out! And do you want to know something else about lobsters?"

     "What might that be, Scampiman?"

     "Their claws can apply over 100 pounds of force per square inch! And I have built my claws with substantially higher pressure than that!" [Lobsterman cuts one of the metal chains, which causes him to swing toward Megachef. When he clears the rim of the boiling vat, he cuts the other chain and lands squarely on top of Megachef, capturing him between his claws.]

     "Spare me, Lobsterman!"

     "Just like you were going to spare me, Megachef?"

     "Yes! I wasn't going to kill you!"

     "You're full of it! But no matter. I won't lower myself to your level by murdering you! You'll have plenty of time to perfect your recipes—in prison!!" 

     [Sirens are heard, and the police enter. The end.]

     No offense, Uncle Don, says Rob, but that was kind of lame.

     Don frowns and says, Really? Then he relents. OK, maybe it was a bit lame. This wasn't one of my favorites either. But what did you get out of it? 

     Um … good triumphs over evil. No big surprise there.

     Good doesn't always win in these stories, Don replies. Sometimes evil does, just like in real life. And sometimes good people do evil. And vice versa. Don't assume that every story follows the same pattern.

     There's something else I've been meaning to ask you. What's with all the boldface print?

     Oh, that's just a convention used in graphic novels to emphasize certain words. It's one of a number of unwritten rules for how to write comic book dialogue. I call it comic-speak. Did you also notice that there were an awful lot of exclamation points? In many comics, exclamation points and question marks are used more often than periods. 

     "Uh-huh.[4] Well, thanks, Uncle Don, that was fun, but I need to start my homework now. I don't want to be late for the Scouts meeting tonight."

     OK. What merit badge are you working on now?

     Responsible social media.

     They have a badge for social media now? What do you have to do to earn that?

     The first part is easy. You have to pass a test about what cyberbullying is and how to prevent it.

     Well, that's admirable. What's the second part?

     You have to completely give up texting, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and a couple other social media sites for two whole weeks.

     Wow. How many of your friends have earned the badge?

     Nobody so far. No one’s made it past the first twenty-four hours without texting. Actually, I heard that the only Scouts to earn the badge live somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, where there's no cell phone coverage.

     Scouting’s changed a lot since I was a boy. Good luck with that. Let me know if you need any help with your homework, Don says, but Rob is already gone. 

     Just after Rob heads out, his mother walks in the room, and Don notices the resemblance between them: dark hair, lovely hazel eyes, and a beautiful smile (although Don has observed this less often lately). She appears to be tired. Her divorce has taken a lot out of her, Don thinks. 

     Graphic novels again? Uncle Don, I'm not sure he should be reading that stuff right now. Some of those books are really violent. They could give him nightmares.

[5]

     "Nancy, the books I share with him are like artworks. They teach about justice and the difficulty at times of distinguishing right from wrong. The heroes and villains in these books generally began their careers in justice or crime because of a personal tragedy that they had to overcome. There are some deeper ideas buried in these volumes. And you know what? Rob gets it. He picks up on the subtle