Published in Trip Sheet Magazine September 2004
Nambac was a character I created and had hoped to make him a super hero
Of sorts, kind of cross between Billy Jack and Roberto Duran. The second Nambac story was rejected
And just like that Nambac drifted off to cyber-space. Occasionally, I still mention his name in my column.
Nambac is Cabman spelled backwards and has no connection with the Cabman Steve Lennet
Nambac
My neighbor, “The King of conjecture,” said he once worked for Metro Police Department and it was back in the early 1970s when he first heard of Nambac. He asked me if I had heard the stories of an old cab driver who had took a man out to a brothel in Pahrump. And how the passenger killed him on the way back into Las Vegas on this dark stretch of highway.
What people never realized was that the dead cabby had a real close friend. A friend who was changed after this senseless act and set out to right the wrongs of this world.
The friend of the dead cabby was unknown, but in several police reports he was rumored to be the vigilante Nambac.
It was also said that the old cabby met his doom because he talked too much and his passenger liked his privacy. Some speculate the cab driver might have recognized his passenger as a wanted mob figure as identified by the hooker at the brothel. The reason the cabby was killed was unknown and that’s what made Nambac so mad, not knowing.
You see the old cabby had spent hours upon hours talking with Nambac about his days in World War II and how he dealt with the world after he returned from duty. Nambac had also served the army in Viet-Nam and was released from his tour when he had taken two shells in 1968. After six months in a Vet hospital, he’d moved to Las Vegas and began driving hack. The old cabby was more influential and helpful than his entire stay in the hospital.
Nambac was described as an ordinary fellow of Native American or Chicano heritage, but no one knew for sure. A big man over six feet tall, some said muscular others said lanky.
Back in those days cabbies were different from the way they are now. They were tough guys who weren’t afraid of nothing. They drove around Vegas without fear; in fact it was the passengers who were afraid of the taxi drivers. Some of them were just plain out psychos!
One in particular surely was, his name fearless Earl. A real hillbilly redneck from the South who ran a Confederate flag on his taxi and also on his personal car which was an old Plymouth.
One night old fearless Earl had dropped off some gambling fool over near the Moulin Rogue when a group radically charged men decided Earl was on the wrong side of town and regardless of the situation he met them head on. The psychopath in him emerged as the 5 angry men surrounded his taxi.
Earl was knocked out by a punch by one of the men who resembled Cassius Clay. That didn’t stop the walloping, one by one kicking and hitting in turn the groggy cabbie. They put a match to the taxicab and laughed as it burned. Earl might have even become human barbeque who knows, that’s about the time the shellacking suddenly stopped.
Earl told police a sketchy story; “Through the flames I saw a cab pull up and someone jump out. He started fighting the attackers taking them down one at a time using some kind of JUDO or KUNG FU. I don’t what it was, but he was fast. Kick; kick Punch like a Green Beret or something but one thing for sure, he beat those radicals ugly. He helped me to my feet and I asked him who he was and he said Nambac or wetback I don’t know for sure.”
There was a small write up in the newspaper, but they didn’t mention Nambac by name. They simply called him a Good Samaritan who came forth to help the taxi driver. He was never found or questioned about the incident.
It wasn’t until a few years later when his name popped back up in a Metro report. Same time the release of the “Godfather movie.” When that movie was playing in theaters every Italian from New York, Chicago, or Jersey became part of the mob, whether really from or not.
And so it was that a group of three Italian punks came to Vegas with the, Godfather movie wise guy attitudes. After leaving a Vegas Show filled with sexy long legged showgirls that they took a cab. The cabby drove them around the town in search of tail as the drunken wise guys put it.
They were loud and obnoxious propositioning any female walking the Strip or in close range. They encountered a young woman just off of work walking hurriedly to the bus stop. “Stop the cab,” one of the men ordered. The oldest of the three jumped out at the girl and pulled her into the cab. The cab driver sat there helpless, “What are you doing?” he said.
The girl fought back against the three but was subdued as the taxi came to a stop in a dark alley behind a casino. The driver got out of the cab and tried to help the girl when all three came out of the cab with the girl in tow. One of the wise guys pulled a gun and told the driver to shut up. He pistol whipped him right across the face and the driver fell to the ground. It was then the wise guy turned to focus on the young girl that someone had grabbed his arm and took the revolver from him. It was Nambac.
The other two saw this and let the girl loose and she ran off into the night. They both brandished pistols of their own. With one of them firing a shot at Nambac, hitting him in the shoulder. Nambac returned fire and hit all three of them in their legs and arms and stood over them as they fell to the ground.
The cab driver sat there and watched as the three punks lied on the ground bleeding. “Are you okay?” he asked Nambac.
Nambac was also bleeding, “Yes I’m fine,” is all he said as he ran to his taxi. He drove away mere minutes before the police arrived. The police were now searching for Nambac who they labeled the Vigilante Cabby. They went through records and company files, but never came close to finding him.
Who was Nambac? I thought as my neighbor concluded his tale. I looked into this case myself and found a discovery of my own, Nambac is Cabman spelled backwards!
(Note to TA and other law enforcement agency, Nambac is a fictional character created by Frank Lucero?)