Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [30]
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”
“Same way I always have. Keep whacking at the piñata until it finally breaks.”
“You may not like what you find inside,” Tony told him. “Or worse yet, it may not like you.”
“I’ve never let that stop me.”
Tony nodded. “Fair enough. So what’s your next step?”
Jack thought about it a moment. Then he said, “I think it’s time to call Bob Copeland.”
8
The Beat Café seemed like an odd place for a meet.
It was located next to a strip club in North Beach, and Jack thought of it as really nothing more than a hamburger joint with a gimmick. Done up like an old 1950s coffeehouse, its walls were adorned with huge photographs of beatniks, now long forgotten.
Pay a small fee and you could walk through the restaurant to the back, climb a set of wooden steps, and find yourself in a tiny “museum” full of more photographs, newspaper articles, and even furniture, all centering around the prehippie Beat Generation.
The museum had a kind of quiet, reverential charm, but was the last place Jack would have picked to rendezvous with a source. If anything, he would have chosen the Etna Café, which was just around the corner. At least you could get a decent drink there.
He checked his watch, a vintage Hamilton Gilbert he’d inherited from his father that could well have been part of this museum.
It was nearly nine P.M.
He stood staring at a stark, moody portrait of an attractive blonde when he felt a presence next to him.
Bob Copeland.
“It’s always about the girl, isn’t it?” asked the rough, smoky voice. “Carolyn Cassady. She was the real driving force, you know. Married to Neal Cassady and sleeping with Jack Kerouac.”
Copeland was a stout man with a bulldog face who had always reminded Jack of one of his heroes, Winston Churchill. Without the accent, of course.
“That must’ve made for an interesting home life,” Jack said.
Copeland waved an arm. “All this nonsense destroyed Kerouac. He was a true American literary giant who despised the so-called Beat Movement that hacks like Ginsberg ruthlessly promoted.” He looked at Jack. “Did you know Kerouac voted for Nixon?”
“I had no idea.”
Copeland shrugged. “It’s all ancient history. Which is what we’ll both be a few years down the line. Think anyone’ll ever erect a museum in our honor?”
“Doubtful,” Jack said.
A former Defense Department official, Vietnam combat veteran, and a leading proponent of cyberdefense, Copeland was a member of a conservative think tank who divided his time between Washington and San Francisco—Jack’s most reliable “anonymous” source back in the days of Truth Tellers. He had a direct line into the D.C. nerve center and Jack had been all too happy to mine that connection.
The man also had a love affair with clandestine theatrics, which was why he always chose their meeting places. That usually meant the Museum of Modern Art, or the Academy of Sciences, but maybe Copeland was looking for a change of pace these days.
Jack couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t seen or heard from the man in over two years.
“You’re looking pretty good, Jack. How you been?”
“Can’t complain.”
Copeland chuckled. “The hell you can’t. You still getting death threats?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“At least you’ve still got the old self-confidence. That and a pocketful of cash is all a man really needs. Everything else is dead weight.” He shot Jack a glance. “Speaking of which, you see much of the ex these days?”
“Not really.”
Jack didn’t exactly think of Rachel as dead weight, but he had no interest in seeing her. Jack met her while doing a segment for one of his shows, The World of the Runway Model. She was tall, almost five foot nine, with raven hair and green eyes. After interviewing her for the program, he took her for a quick coffee at a local café in North Beach. She immediately struck him as more than just a body.
“What did you learn from your parents?” she asked him—out of nowhere, it seemed, but that was the way she was. Inquisitive in ways he never quite fathomed. And she was direct. There was nothing she would not ask.
They quickly