The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari Read Free Page B

attention-getting.
    John walked back into the house and put the magazine down on Gabriel’s desk. He would have to go through the interview again, word by difficult word, and make sure there were no screw-ups between his last review and publication. But he really couldn’t face it quite yet. Maybe he’d go get a haircut.
    John had been going to Bud’s for years, and late Monday afternoon was his usual time. It was an old barbershop, with big barbershop chairs that could be moved by Bud to get a good angle, and a tiny TV in the corner playing a ball game, and dusty, faded mirrors opposite a line of mismatched chairs along the wall.
    Bud looked up from the neck he was shaving, nodded at John with his usual frown. He’d never smiled that John could remember. John thought his dentures probably made him feel uncomfortable, or maybe he was just a bad-tempered asshole. It could go either way and John didn’t know him well enough to guess. John took a chair and opened his tablet on his lap. He was working on an outline of an article for Civil War Magazine . People could not seem to get enough of Robert E. Lee.
    He got up when Bud waved him over to a chair, but the man’s eyes were on the TV screen. “That’s been running for the last hour.”
    John looked up at the TV. It was the local Albuquerque news, and the cover of Out was on the screen. Then they flipped to Gabriel being interviewed outside his office. The sound was down, though, so John couldn’t hear what he was saying. He looked pissed, though, and busy, his tie blowing in the wind and a briefcase in his hand. He must have been on his way to court or a client meeting. John closed his tablet and got in the chair, sat still when Bud wrapped tissue around his neck. “I didn’t know you were one of them.”
    John looked up and met his eyes in the dusty old mirror. Bud stared back for a moment, and then dropped his eyes. John sat very still while the old man clipped around his ears and his neckline, dusted his collar, then he paid him his usual, with the usual tip, and walked out the door without speaking.
    “I’m going to have to find a new place to get my hair cut,” he said, when he was out on the sidewalk, looking up into the candy-colored sky.
    He called Gabriel’s cell. “You in your office? I thought I’d stop by and take you out to dinner.”
    “We have something to celebrate?” He could hear the smile in Gabriel’s voice, the smile and the tension.
    “Celebrate, commiserate, something like.”
    “Sure, come on. I’ve got a few more minutes if you don’t mind waiting.”
    “Of course.”
    “I always tried not to keep the general waiting. I had my fuel ups and preflight checks perfectly timed so you could just walk out of trouble and into my bird and never even slow down.”
    “I noticed,” John said.
    John sat in the lobby when he arrived in Gabriel’s office downtown. There were offices for three lawyers and a circular desk for reception and admin in the middle of the floor. One law clerk was manning the desk. He was young, with a complicated hairstyle that John knew Kim would love, and a monochromatic outfit: gray tweed slacks, a charcoal-gray cashmere V-neck sweater over a white shirt and a charcoal-gray tie. When he came around the desk to bring some papers to one of the offices, John noticed he was wearing tennis shoes, also in tweedy charcoal gray.
    Gabriel came out of his office escorting an elderly Mexican woman. She had a flowered scarf over her head and a shopping bag full of papers. She had a long-suffering look on her face, something ancient and unmovable. John had the feeling she had brought every page out of the shopping bag for Gabriel to examine during their meeting. He shook hands with her and handed the woman over to the young guy at the desk. Gabriel held up two fingers, and John nodded, went back to his tablet. When he looked back up, the boy behind the desk was studying Gabriel’s long legs and curvy butt as he stood next