Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [111]
“Welcome back, Mr. Hatfield. Senator Wickham is looking forward to seeing you.”
Jack looked at Sara then glanced into the rear of the limo. “He’s not here?”
“He had another engagement,” the driver said. “You’ll be meeting him there.”
“Where?”
The driver smiled. “At the dog show.”
* * *
Jack had been to the Cow Palace many times in his life. Built on sixty acres of land in 1941 as a livestock pavilion, it was a San Francisco institution—although the only piece of it that actually stood on city land was a corner of the parking lot. The bulk of the property was in Daly City.
A large, indoor arena, the palace had been host over the years to the San Francisco Warriors, the San Jose Sharks, numerous rock concerts, wrestling events, two Republican national conventions, and a number of livestock exhibitions, including the Horse & Stock Show and the Grand National Rodeo.
Jack vividly remembered one trip here as a boy, when the palace was hosting an antiques exhibition. His father had known that a number of watch and clock collectors would be participating, and had brought Jack to show him some of their priceless wonders. They saw glass cases lined with watches from Rolex, Tudor, Lord Elgin, and Girard-Perrigaux, exhibit booths displaying grandfather clocks, Victorians, porcelains, cuckoo clocks, steeple clocks, and a variety of others, the rhythm of their ticking giving great comfort to young Jack.
It was a day he’d never forget.
The Cow Palace was an unimposing gray building from the outside, but once you set foot through the doors and moved past the concourse into the main arena, you were amazed by its size. A large oval, surrounded by high walls with satin curtains and gold and yellow seats, it boasted a capacity of up to sixteen thousand patrons, and often filled every single chair. Lights shone down from a maze of metal rafters overhead, reminding Jack of an alien craft hovering above the earth.
When they entered, Jack and Sara were guided by an usher toward a section near the arena floor. On the floor itself, men in blazers and women in conservative suits led dogs on leashes around a cordoned-off area, as the judges carefully eyeballed them, and the audience applauded. This was an all-breed conformation show, and there were a variety of purebreds in competition, including poodles, Irish wolfhounds, Boykin spaniels, German wirehaired pointers, Great Danes, mastiffs, Rottweilers—from large to small, fluffy to nearly hairless, all magnificent in their own way, the best of the best on display. An Irish wolfhound caught Jack’s attention—a breed he had always admired for its beauty and fearlessness. They were known to hunt wolves in packs. There were also Turkish sheepdogs, their gigantic, spiked iron antiwolf collars displayed beside them as they got to their feet. These Anatolian shepherd dogs hid among the sheep, giving an attacking wolf a huge surprise when they bit into their iron collars.
Jack had long been a dog lover, and seeing a gray poodle parade proudly across the floor made him instantly miss Eddie. But he knew the little guy was in good hands with Tony, and he’d be home soon enough to greet him.
He hoped, he prayed, it wasn’t to say good-bye. That was the thought that had haunted him from the moment they landed—that this city he loved, his home, would be harmed, possibly destroyed, by some lunatic with no regard for anything but his own, sick zealotry.
The usher led them to a pair of seats that were just a few yards from the arena floor. As they approached, Senator Harold Wickham