Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [49]
Over the years, Jack’s interests had expanded from watches to clocks. His father said he’d moved backward, because clocks were larger and easier to repair, but Jack loved the sound of the bells when they struck on the half and on the hour.
Winding one particular wall clock seemed to reset his mind. It was his favorite, a walnut German Berliner made by Kienzle in 1880. The brass face was embossed with a winged angel, the pendulum driven by an eight-day spring-wound movement that played the Westminster chimes on the half hour. Jack often smiled at the irony of being banned from entering Britain as he listened to the harmonious gongs.
He kept that clock in his living room now, and made sure to rewind it every time he came here. Like a diligent child, he listened attentively, counting the rings each and every time, careful not to overwind or run past the stops.
And every time he reset it, he thought about the internal clocks inside each of us. A clock for the heart. Another for the mind. And the final chime—was it set by fate or by circumstance?
After his father died, Jack had taken custody of the old man’s worktable and tools. The day he moved into this apartment, he’d brought them here as a kind of shrine to his old man.
Nights like this were rare, but when he had them he always found comfort sitting here in this darkened room under the glow of his father’s magnifying lamp, Eddie curled at his feet, as he quietly worked on the Hamilton “Gilbert” he’d inherited.
Like the Berliner, it was an exquisite timepiece, circa 1952, with a rectangular face and a solid fourteen-karat yellow gold case with nineteen jewels. He always kept it serviced, cleaning and replacing parts as necessary, and in all the years he’d owned it, he’d never once let it wind down.
Jack’s relationship with his father had been a difficult one, but he’d loved the man fiercely and this was the only way he knew to keep his spirit alive.
He sat at that worktable for several hours, laboring quietly as he thought about the events of the past week. He was carefully buffing out a small scratch in the watch’s crystal when his cell phone rang.
It was nearly three A.M. and the sound startled him.
Who would be calling him at this time of morning?
Setting the watch down, Jack fumbled the phone from his pocket, checked the screen, and saw that the number was blocked. He pressed the receive button, put it on speaker, and placed the phone on the desk. “Hello?”
There was static on the line, followed by a moment of silence, then a slurred but familiar voice said, “… Hatfield? ‘Sat you?”
Bob Copeland. He sounded as if he might be drunk.
“… Hatfield?… You there?”
It was unusual for Copeland to be calling him directly like this. With his penchant for secrecy, their normal mode of communication was a text message—like earlier tonight—and Jack had no doubt that those messages went through half a dozen encryption filters before they reached his phone.
“Yeah, Bob, it’s me. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“… What?”
The static flared up again and if Copeland said anything more, Jack missed it. “Bob? Did you hear me?”
“… Can’t find my other shoe … Where the hell is my shoe?”
Definitely drunk, or even drugged—although Copeland had never struck Jack as a big fan of pharmaceuticals.
“Listen to me, Bob. Tell me where you are. Are you at home?”
More static.
“Bob?”
“Upstream, Jackie boy … Definitely upstream … Gotta get out of here … Gotta look after the twins…”
Jack had no idea what Copeland was talking about, but if he wasn’t at home, he definitely shouldn’t be driving.
“Whatever you do,” Jack told him, “don’t get behind the wheel. You hear me? Leave your car where it is and call yourself a cab.”
“… What?”
“Call a cab, Bob. I mean it. Promise me you won’t drive.”
“… No driving,” Copeland murmured, his voice sounding distant, as if he’d lowered the phone. “… Can’t find my goddamn shoe…”
Jack was about to insist he let him pick him up,