The Devil's Copper by Jamie Crothall (ink ebook reader .txt) 📕

nice to be stressed out by minor things for a change, rather than literal life-or-death scenarios.  Normally, I felt nothing but relief when it was time to leave the office. But today, I simply did not want to leave.  I made my way back into the city.  I contemplated stopping at the store, but remembered I had no working cards, and no cash on me, so I just drove straight home.

Walter was waiting for me outside.

In fairness to him, he could have gone inside – it’s not like the door was securely locked – but he waited for my return instead.  Did I treat him too harshly before?

“What are you doing here?”

“I tried calling.”

“I was busy.”

“Can I come in?”

I gestured towards the door.  “You know how to do it.”

He opened the door and entered, giving the place a quick look over to make sure no one was waiting for me.  Good call, I never considered that.

“Looks safe,” he said.  “Hey, so I was doing some thinking today.  I did a little digging around too.  Talked to a few people I know to be involved in sketchy things.  Just trying to get a few feelers.  Not too much to get excited about, but I did hear a few tid-bits about a few racist cops on the take.  Then again, what cop isn’t racist around here?  Not sure how valuable that information is, but…”

“So you’re a time traveler, are you?” I asked.

Why not cut to the chase?

“Well…”

“Are you from the future?”

“No.”

“Are you from the past?”

“No,” he said, a little more impatiently this time.

“So, do you travel forward through time or back?”

“I’m…not sure to be honest.”

“You can see how that’s unconvincing.”

“Look,” he said, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, “I’m not sure if I travel in time or if time travels around me.”

“Well that clears things up.  Thank you.”

He laughed, as though the idea of clarifying it was absurd.  It probably was.

“I can see ten seconds into the future,” he explained. “And if I don’t like it, I can snap myself back and do something different.”

“ ‘Ten seconds,’ ” I stated flatly.  I wasn’t verifying it so much as repeating it.

“It used to be more, but…y’know…things don’t last as long when you start to get older.”

“I’m glad you think this is funny.”

“Flip a coin,” he said.

I didn’t hesitate, and took up the challenge.

“Call it,” I said as I flipped it and cupped it on the back of my hand.

“Heads.”

I peeked.  It was heads.  I did it again.

“Heads.”

Again.

“Tails.”

Again.

“Heads.”

I won’t write out how many times we went through this.

“Starting to seem like less of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

It would explain why I often heard him counting to himself.  But I wasn’t going to acknowledge that.

“You know why I trust you now?” he asked.

“…no.”

“I had you pick a number.  I ran through every number from one until seven, and you agreed it was seven.  I then ran through it a few more times to see if you’d change your mind.  It always came back to seven.  You could have changed your answer to be contrary.  A lot of people do.  You kept your answer though.  Even if it meant conceding to me when you really didn’t want to.  That meant I could trust you.”

Huh.  “Wait…so how many times did we go through that then?  Assuming it was true.”

“About twenty times.  You didn’t realize it though, ‘cause I always snapped back to the same point.”

“Or it could have been a coincidence.”

“Like the twenty coin tosses I called?”

“We only did ten.”

“Yeah, but I got it wrong a few times, and had to re-do it.  It felt like a lot more.  I lost count.”

“I still don’t buy it,” I stated.

I mean, I have to admit that part of me did.  But I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction.

“Tell me a story,” he offered.  “Something I wouldn’t know.  Something Jack wouldn’t know.  Something personal, but something short.”

“Why would I tell you if I never told Jack?” I asked.

But I knew why.  It would prove it wasn’t something Jack told him.

“Keep it short though,” he said somewhat impatiently, like it wasn’t the first time he told me.  “Ten seconds, remember?”

I thought for a moment.  His lips moved as he started counting, but when I didn’t immediately offer a story he started from ‘one’ again.

“Okay then,” I said, taking a deep breath.  What did I have to lose except a little self-respect?  “When I was eight years old I was…”

“Kissed by a boy unexpectedly and you hit him.  A week later he died in a car accident and you secretly blamed yourself for it for a lot longer than you should have.”

Okay, that freaked me out, not going to lie.  “How…”

“I told you how.”

“All in ten seconds?”

“Well, you kept taking too long, so I had to re-start a few times.  To be honest, I’m only guessing you stopped blaming yourself at some point.  Tell me you don’t still think it was your fault somehow.”

“This is very invasive.”

“I can also tell you that you’re wearing a red bra and matching underwear.”

I gasped and I held my arms to myself, as though he were about to pull my clothing away.

“Ha, see?  You do believe me!” he said.  “Relax, I saw your strap and guessed the rest.”

“You’re an ass.”

“Think about the security guard then,” he offered.  “I had no idea who he was.  I just asked him a question, got an answer, snapped back, asked him further questions, snapped back, and in the end, I had him fully believing I’d known him for years.  Barry, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of time and effort went into that.