Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [32]
“Tell me something I don’t know. Look, you’re giving me nothing but generalities. Help me out here. Who do I need to be looking at?”
“Anybody and everybody, would be my guess. Try throwing a rock and see who throws it back. But make sure you’re prepared to duck.”
“And what about you? You just gonna watch or—”
“Give me some credit, Jack,” Copeland said irritably. “I’ll keep digging, as discreetly as I can. I’m curious, too, but I’m not interested in a suicide mission.”
Jack nodded. “Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it.”
Copeland gestured to the portrait of Carolyn Cassady. “She was something, wasn’t she?”
Jack shrugged. “If you like the type.”
“Oh, I do. Hell, if I’d been around back then, I probably would’ve made a move on her myself.” He paused. “She wrote an autobiography, you know. I hear it’s pretty good.”
“Yeah?”
“I think Dark Nights still has a copy. You should grab it before somebody else does.” He gave Jack a curt nod, then walked to the stairs and turned. “It might just open your eyes.”
Then a moment later, he was gone.
Just Like Copeland to test a man, Jack thought.
Whenever someone’s actions puzzled Jack, he sought answers in the Bible. He had read and reread both Testaments, committing long passages to memory. And right now Job 18:2 came to mind, when Bildad said to his long-suffering friend: “When will you put an end to words? Reflect, and then we can have discussion.”
Jack grinned.
The roles were a good fit.
He would reflect, then they would talk.
* * *
The Dark Nights bookstore was a San Francisco landmark, located just down the street.
The young woman at the cash register had so many tattoos and piercings that Jack had to wonder what had motivated her to mark and mutilate herself. Some fashion statements are permanent, and chances were pretty good that one day this girl would be a sixty-year-old grandmother wondering what the hell she’d been thinking.
Then Jack realized he sounded just like his old man, complaining about “kids these days…” It was the natural progression of things, he supposed.
He found the book Copeland had recommended, paid for it, then nodded good night and went outside and across the street to the Etna, where he found a table in back and ordered a single malt.
When it came down to it, this place was the real Beat Café. Kerouac had spent many a night here, getting polluted with Neal Cassady and the woman they shared. Jack honestly couldn’t care less about these people, but Bob Copeland’s suggestion that he buy a copy of Carolyn’s autobiography had not been unmotivated.
So, as he waited for his drink, he opened the book—which she’d titled Off the Road—and carefully leafed through the fragile, yellowing pages, scanning them one at a time.
He got his first hit on page 94.
Halfway down, in an excerpt of a letter from Neal Cassady to Kerouac, a word had been neatly underlined in pencil:
operation
Jack knew full well that this wasn’t some random marking, but was Copeland’s handiwork, the result of his love for cloak and dagger.
He found the next one on page 98, at the end of another excerpt:
road
Then there was nothing for a few pages until he reached page 109, where the last word of the first paragraph was underlined:
show
His drink came, and he let it sit as he continued on through the remaining pages, one after another, all 355 of them. There were no more pencil marks to be found.
When Jack was done, he quickly went through it again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Then he closed the book, knocked back his scotch, and felt its heat roll through him as he quietly contemplated Bob Copeland’s message.
Operation Roadshow.
Jack immediately thought of a PBS television series that Rachel used to watch, where people brought in ancient household items to be evaluated by antiques dealers, in hopes of striking it rich.
He was pretty sure that Copeland’s message had nothing at all to do with antiques.
Not even close.
But what, then, did it mean?
* * *
Jack spent most of the night trying to find out.
He got on his laptop back at the boat and hit Google and