“You’re Registry?” he said.
“I’m part of it.”
To Eddie, he said, “Tell Sanchez, rec room,” then pushed past me, into the House. Eddie and I fell in behind. Eddie spoke into a mobile phone: “Rec room, usual. Three of us. Yeah. Better be quick . . .”
Behind his father’s back, he winked at me.
There was something odd about Edward, something in his movements that grew more pronounced now we were indoors. He had a way of kicking out his legs. I’ve seen people with severe arthritis move in a similar manner, but this was different: sharp, abrupt. There was a curious disjunction here, as if each move, each step, were a thing all of itself, quite separate from what preceded or what followed it; as if each were being made for the first time.
That takes too long to say, but I was conscious of it almost right away.
The rec room was another movie set. It could have been the club where Holmes met Mycroft in a ’40s film, with its ancient leather armchairs, full-size snooker table, and the shadows hanging down like smoke. There were several tall tables placed around the room so that you could put your drink down while still standing, presumably intent upon your game. Windows halfway up the wall peeped out at ground level, through grass and shrubbery. It was like being in the trenches.
“Sanchez!” bellowed Edward.
“Hey, Dad. I’ll call him again.”
But almost instantly, a slender, gray-haired man came through a side door carrying a tray of drinks. There were three large whiskey tumblers, each one packed with ice and filled with spirit; so strong that I could smell it from across the room.
“About time.”
Edward snorted, kicking at the floor like an irritable bull.
On a tall table, Sanchez placed coasters and glasses. He was in and out in seconds, gliding with a dancer’s grace.
We each took up our glasses. It seemed the moment for a toast, but no; Edward gulped, then watched me sip.
“Local distillery,” he offered. “Kenton’s. Tell me what you think.”
I rolled it round my mouth. A taste of smoke and spices—cinnamon, perhaps?
“It’s good,” I said.
“I own it.”
“It’s very good.” Then, “Sorry to interrupt your game, by the way.”
He shot me a look, thick yellow eyebrows slanting at me.
“Tennis?” I said. “My girlfriend plays. I just assumed . . .”
“Tennis.”
He snapped the word out of the air.
“I don’t play games, Mr. Copeland. I don’t have time for games.”
“Ah. No.”
“I was training.”
Eddie-boy stood to the side, sipping quietly, a small smirk on his face.
“I was training,” said his father, “the same way I train every day, the way that I’ve been training all my life.”
I took a sip, nodded politely.
“I was training,” he said, “to be President of the United States of America,” and his look was long and slow, eyes hooded like a fighter’s, trying to judge my strengths, my weaknesses—and where my loyalties might lie.
The wall behind him rippled slightly, the old wood paneling seeming to twist and shiver for a second, as if something had just passed across my vision, something I couldn’t register, but only mark the way it bent the light around itself.
Eddie raised his glass. “To the POTUS,” he announced.
“The POTUS,” I said.
Edward knocked his back in one.
Then he refilled his glass.
Chapter 43
Transference of Forces
“Think of the physical demands.” The elder Ballington thrust out his arm and flexed his wrist, turning his hand as if to demonstrate some new, miraculous machinery. “The physical demands are brutal, unremitting. Unbearable for any normal man.”
“That certainly explains some things,” I said.
“Diplomacy, financial acumen, a grasp of international affairs—what use, what Earthly goddam use, when the man himself is weak, enfeebled, and too damn tired to do the job?
“You look at me. Look at me now.” He pointed a finger, as if challenging me. “I am sixty-two years old. I could knock you through that wall. I am fitter than most people half my age. I am a billionaire ten times over. I own leisure, I own hotels, I own health care, housing and insurance. There is nothing you can tell me I do not already know.” He fixed me with a hard stare. “I abhor ingratitude,” he said.
“I’m sure.”
He had moved closer. He looked up at me from under his brows, the glare of a boxer psyching out an enemy.
He said, “We did a favor for you. You were not responsive. I am asking you to put that right.”
“I don’t know any favor.”
He stared at me.
I said, “There was a health scare. Maybe it was engineered, maybe not. Either way—”
Eddie, behind him, shook his head, wagged his finger at me: no, no, no.
Edward looked away. I was conscious of a deep vibration, as if somebody were drilling, somewhere in the house. It put my teeth on edge.