The Pelican Brief

The drinks arrived, and they ordered.

"We expect something in the Times in the morning." He would not mention the New Orleans paper because it had pictures of Callahan and Verheek. He assumed she'd seen it.

This didn't seem to interest her. "Such as?" she asked, looking around.

"We're not sure. We hate to get beat by the Times. It's an old rivalry."

"I'm not interested in that. I know nothing about journalism, and don't care to learn. I'm here because I have one, and only one, idea about finding Garcia. And if it doesn't work, and quickly, I'm out of here."

"Forgive me. What would you like to talk about?"

"Europe. What's your favorite place in Europe?"

"I hate Europe, and I hate Europeans. I go to Canada and Australia, and New Zealand occasionally. Why do you like Europe?"

"My grandfather was a Scottish immigrant, and I've got a bunch of cousins over there. I've visited twice."

Gray squeezed the lime in his gin and tonic. A party of six entered from the bar and she watched them carefully. When she talked her eyes darted quickly around the room.

"I think you need a couple of drinks to relax," Gray said.

She nodded but said nothing. The six were seated at a nearby table and began speaking in French. It was pleasant to hear.

"Have you ever heard Cajun French?" she asked.

"No."

"It's a dialect that's rapidly disappearing, just like the wetlands. They say it cannot be understood by Frenchmen."

"That's fair. I'm sure the Cajuns can't understand the French."

She took a long drink of white wine. "Did I tell you about Chad Brunei?"

"I don't think so."

"He was a poor Cajun boy from Eunice. His family survived by trapping and fishing in the marshes. He was a very bright kid who attended LSU on a full academic scholarship, then was admitted to law school at Stanford, where he finished with the highest grade point average in the school's history. He was twenty-one when he was admitted to the California bar. He could have worked for any law firm in the country, but he took a job with an environmental defense outfit in San Francisco. He was brilliant, a real legal genius who worked very hard and was soon winning huge lawsuits against oil and chemical companies. At the age of twenty-eight, he was a highly polished courtroom lawyer. He was feared by big oil and other corporate polluters." She took a sip of wine. "He made a lot of money, and established a group to preserve the Louisiana wetlands. He wanted to participate in the pelican case, as it was known, but had too many other trial commitments. He gave Green Fund a lot of money for litigation expenses. Shortly before the trial started in Lafayette, he announced he was coming home to assist the Green Fund lawyers. There were a couple of stories about him in the New Orleans paper."

"What happened to him?"

"He committed suicide."

"What?"

"A week before the trial, they found him in a car with the engine running. A garden hose ran from the exhaust pipe into the front seat. Just another simple suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning."

"Where was the car?"

"In a wooded area along Bayou Lafourche near the town of Galliano. He knew the area well. Some camping gear and fishing equipment were in the trunk. No suicide note. The police investigated, but found nothing suspicious. The case was closed."

"This is incredible."

"He had had some problems with alcohol, and had been treated by an analyst in San Francisco. But the suicide was a surprise."

"Do you think he was murdered?"

"A lot of people do. His death was a big blow to Green Fund. His passion for the wetlands would've been potent in the courtroom."

Gray finished his drink and rattled the ice. She inched closer to him. The waiter appeared, and they ordered.

The lobby of the Marbury Hotel was empty at 6 A.M. Sunday when Gray found a copy of the Times. It was six inches deep and weighed twelve pounds, and he wondered how much thicker they planned to make it. He raced back to his room on the eighth floor, spread the paper on the bed, and hovered over it as he skimmed intensely. The front page was empty, and this was crucial. If they had the big story, it would of course be there. He feared large photographs of Rosenberg, Jensen, Callahan, Verheek, maybe Darby and Khamel, who knows, maybe they had a nice picture of Mattiece, and all of these would be lined up on the front page like a cast of characters, and the Times had beat them again. He had dreamed of this while he had slept, which had not been for long.

But there was nothing. And the less he found, the faster he skimmed until he was down to sports and classifieds, and he stopped and sort of danced to the phone. He called Smith Keen, who was awake. "Have you seen it?" he asked.

"Ain't it beautiful," Keen said. "I wonder what happened."

"They don't have it, Smith. They're digging like hell, but they don't have it yet. Who did Feldman talk to?"

"He never says. But it was supposed to be reliable." Keen was divorced and lived alone in an apartment not far from the Marbury.

"Are you busy?" Gray asked.

"Well, not exactly. It's almost six-thirty on Sunday morning."

"We need to talk. Pick me up outside the Marbury Hotel in fifteen minutes."

"The Marbury Hotel?"

"It's a long story. I'll explain."

"Ah, the girl. You lucky stiff."

"I wish. She's in another hotel."

"Here? In Washington?"

"Yes. Fifteen minutes."

"I'll be there."

Gray nervously sipped coffee from a paper cup and waited in the lobby. She'd made him paranoid, and he half expected thugs to be hiding on the sidewalk with automatic weapons. This frustrated him. He saw Keen's Toyota ease by on M Street, and he walked quickly to it.

"What would you like to see?" Keen said as he drove away from the curb.

"Oh, I don't know. It's a beautiful day. How about Virginia?"

"As you wish. Did you get kicked out of your apartment?"

"Not exactly. I'm following orders from the girl. She thinks like a field marshal, and I'm here because I was told to be here. I must stay until Tuesday, or until she gets jumpy and moves me again. I'm in room eight-thirty-three if you need me, but don't tell anyone."

"I assume you want the Post to pay for this," Keen said with a smile.

"I'm not thinking about money right now. The same people who tried to kill her in New Orleans turned up in New York on Friday, or so she thinks. They have amazing talent in pursuit, and she's being painfully cautious."

"Well, if you're being followed by someone, and she's being followed by someone, then perhaps she knows what she's doing."

"Oh, listen, Smith, she knows exactly what she's doing. She's so good it's scary, and she's leaving here Wednesday morning for good. So we've got two days to find Garcia."

"What if Garcia's overrated? What if you find him and he won't talk, or what if he knows nothing? Have you thought about that?"

"I've had nightmares about that. I think he knows something big. There's a document or a piece of paper, something tangible, and he's got it. He referred to it a time or two, and when I pressed him he wouldn't admit it. But the day we were supposed to meet, he planned to show it to me. I'm convinced of that. He's got something, Smith."

"And if he won't show it to you?"

"I'll break his neck."

They crossed the Potomac and cruised by Arlington Cemetery. Keen lit his pipe and cracked a window. "What if you can't find Garcia?"

"Plan B. She's gone and the deal's off. Once she leaves the country, I have permission to do anything with the brief except use her name as a source. The poor girl is convinced she's dead regardless of whether we get the story, but she wants as much protection as possible. I can never use her name, not even as the author of the brief."

"Does she talk much about the brief?"

"Not the actual writing of it. It was a wild idea, she pursued it, and had almost dismissed it when bombs started going off. She's sorry she wrote the damned thing. She and Callahan were really in love, and she's loaded down with a lot of pain and guilt."

"So what's Plan B?"

"We attack the lawyers. Mattiece is too devious and slippery to penetrate without subpoenas and warrants and things we can't dispense, but we know his lawyers. He's represented by two big firms here in town, and we go after them. A lawyer or a group of them carefully analyzed the Supreme Court, and suggested the names of Rosenberg and Jensen. Mattiece wouldn't know who to kill. So his lawyers told him. It's a conspiracy angle."

"But you can't make them talk."

"Not about a client. But if the lawyers are guilty, and we start asking questions, something'll break. We'll need a dozen reporters making a million phone calls to lawyers, paralegals, law clerks, secretaries, copy room clerks, everybody. We assault these bastards."

Keen puffed his pipe and was noncommittal. "Who are the firms?"

"White and Blazevich, and Brim, Stearns, and Kidlow. Check our library on them."

"I've heard of White and Blazevich. It's a big Republican outfit."