The Pelican Brief

Nine

Thomas Callahan slept late and alone. He had gone to bed early, and sober, and alone. For the third day in a row he had canceled classes. It was Friday, and Rosenberg’s service was tomorrow, and out of respect for his idol, he would not teach con law until the man was properly put to rest.

He fixed coffee and sat on the balcony in his robe. The temperature was in the sixties, the first cold snap of the fall, and Dauphine Street below bustled with brisk energy. He nodded to the old woman without a name on the balcony across the street. Bourbon was a block away and the tourists were already out with their little maps and cameras. Dawn went unnoticed in the Quarter, but by ten the narrow streets were busy with delivery trucks and cabs.

On these late mornings, and they were many in number, Callahan cherished his freedom. He was twenty years out of law school, and most of his contemporaries were strapped into seventy-hour weeks in pressurized law factories. He had lasted two years in private practice. A behemoth in D.C. with two hundred lawyers hired him fresh out of Georgetown and stuck him in a cubbyhole office writing briefs for the first six months. Then he was placed on an assembly line answering interrogatories about IUDs twelve hours a day, and expected to bill sixteen. He was told that if he could cram the next twenty years into the next ten, he just might make partner at the weary age of thirty-five.

Callahan wanted to live past fifty, so he retired from the boredom of private law. He earned a master’s in law, and became a professor. He slept late, worked five hours a day, wrote an occasional article, and for the most part enjoyed himself immensely. With no family to support, his salary of seventy thousand a year was more than sufficient to pay for his two-story bungalow, his Porsche, and his liquor. If death came early, it would be from whiskey and not work.

He had sacrificed. Many of his pals from law school were partners in the big firms with fancy letterheads and half-million-dollar earnings. They rubbed shoulders with CEOs from IBM and Texaco and State Farm. They power-schmoozed with senators. They had offices in Tokyo and London. But he did not envy them.

One of his best friends from law school was Gavin Verheek, another dropout from private practice who had gone to work for the government. He first worked in the civil rights division at Justice, then transferred to the FBI. He was now special counsel to the Director. Callahan was due in Washington Monday for a conference of con law professors. He and Verheek planned to eat and get drunk Monday night.

He needed to call and confirm their eating and drinking, and to pick his brain. He dialed the number from memory. The call was routed then rerouted, and after five minutes of asking for Gavin Verheek, the man was on the phone.

“Make it quick,” Verheek said.

“So nice to hear your voice,” Callahan said.

“How are you, Thomas?”

“It’s ten-thirty. I’m not dressed. I’m sitting here in the French Quarter sipping coffee and watching pedestrians on Dauphine. What’re you doing?”

“What a life. Here it’s eleven-thirty, and I haven’t left the office since they found the bodies Wednesday morning.”

“I’m just sick, Gavin. He’ll nominate two Nazis.”

“Well, of course, in my position, I cannot comment on such matters. But I suspect you’re correct.”

“Suspect my ass. You’ve already seen his short list of nominees, haven’t you, Gavin? You guys are already doing background checks, aren’t you? Come on, Gavin, you can tell me. Who’s on the list? I’ll never tell.”

“Neither will I, Thomas. But I promise this — your name is not among the few.”

“I’m wounded.”

“How’s the girl?”

“Which one?”

“Come on, Thomas. The girl?”

“She’s beautiful and brilliant and soft and gentle—”

“Keep going.”

“Who killed them, Gavin? I have a right to know. I’m a taxpayer and I have a right to know who killed them.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Darby. Who killed them, and why?”

“You could always pick names, Thomas. I remember women you turned down because you didn’t like the names. Gorgeous, hot women, but with flat names. Darby. Has a nice erotic touch to it. What a name. When do I meet her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has she moved in?”

“None of your damned business. Gavin, listen to me. Who did it?”

“Don’t you read the papers? We have no suspects. None. Nada.”

“Surely you have a motive.”

“Mucho motives. Lots of hatred out there, Thomas. Weird combination, wouldn’t you say? Jensen’s hard to figure. The Director has ordered us to research pending cases and recent decisions and voting patterns and all that crap.”

“That’s great, Gavin. Every con law scholar in the country is now playing detective and trying to solve the murders.”

“And you’re not?”

“No. I threw a binge when I heard the news, but I’m sober now. The girl, however, has buried herself in the same research you’re doing. She’s ignoring me.”

“Darby. What a name. Where’s she from?”

“Denver. Are we on for Monday?”

“Maybe. Voyles wants us to work around the clock until the computers tell us who did it. I plan to work you in, though.”

“Thanks. I’ll expect a full report, Gavin. Not just the gossip.”

“Thomas, Thomas. Always fishing for information. And I, as usual, have none to give you.”

“You’ll get drunk and tell all, Gavin. You always do.”

“Why don’t you bring Darby? How old is she? Nineteen?”

“Twenty-four, and she’s not invited. Maybe later.”

“Maybe. Gotta run, pal. I meet with the Director in thirty minutes. The tension is so thick around here you can smell it.”

Callahan punched the number for the law school library and asked if Darby Shaw had been seen. She had not.

Darby parked in the near-empty lot of the federal building in Lafayette, and entered the clerk’s office on the first floor. It was noon Friday, court was not in session, and the hallways were deserted. She stopped at the counter and looked through an open window, and waited. A deputy clerk, late for lunch and with an attitude, walked to the window. “Can I help you?” she asked in the tone of a lowly civil servant who wanted to do anything but help.

Darby slid a strip of paper through the window. “I would like to see this file.” The clerk took a quick glance at the name of the case, and looked at Darby. “Why?” she asked.

“I don’t have to explain. It’s public record, isn’t it?”

“Semipublic.”

Darby took the strip of paper and folded it. “Are you familiar with the Freedom of Information Act?”

“Are you a lawyer?”

“I don’t have to be a lawyer to look at this file.”

The clerk opened a drawer in the counter, and took out a key ring. She nodded, pointing with her forehead. “Follow me.”

The sign on the door said JURY ROOM, but inside there were no tables or chairs, only file cabinets and boxes lining the walls. Darby looked around the room.

The clerk pointed to a wall. “That’s it, on this wall. The rest of the room is other junk. This first file cabinet has all the pleadings and correspondence. The rest is discovery, exhibits, and the trial.”

“When was the trial?”

“Last summer. It went on for two months.”

“Where’s the appeal?”

“Not perfected yet. I think the deadline is November 1. Are you a reporter or something?”

“No.”

“Good. As you obviously know, these are indeed public records. But the trial judge has placed certain restrictions. First, I must have your name and the precise hours you visited this room. Second, nothing can be taken from this room. Third, nothing in this file can be copied until the appeal is perfected. Fourth, anything you touch in here must be put back exactly where you found it. Judge’s orders.”

Darby stared at the wall of file cabinets. “Why can’t I make copies?”

“Ask His Honor, okay? Now, what’s your name?”

“Darby Shaw.”

The clerk scribbled the information on a clipboard hanging near the door. “How long will you be?”

“I don’t know. Three or four hours.”

“We close at five. Find me at the office when you leave.” She closed the door with a smirk. Darby opened a drawer full of pleadings, and began flipping through files and taking notes. The lawsuit was seven years old, with one plaintiff and thirty-eight wealthy corporate defendants who had collectively hired and fired no less than fifteen law firms from all over the country. Big firms, many with hundreds of lawyers in dozens of offices.

Seven years of expensive legal warfare, and the outcome was far from certain. Bitter litigation. The trial verdict was only a temporary victory for the defendants. The verdict had been purchased or in some other way illegally obtained, claimed the plaintiff in its motions for a new trial. Boxes of motions. Accusations and counteraccusations. Requests for sanctions and fines flowing rapidly to and from both sides. Pages and pages of affidavits detailing lies and abuses by the lawyers and their clients. One lawyer was dead.

Another had tried suicide, according to a classmate of Darby’s who had worked on the fringes of the case during the trial. Her friend had been employed in a summer clerkship with a big firm in Houston, and was kept in the dark but heard a little.

Darby unfolded a chair and stared at the file cabinets. It would take five hours just to find everything.

The publicity had not been good for the Montrose. Most of its customers wore dark sunglasses after dark, and tended to enter and exit rather quickly. And now that a U.S. Supreme Court Justice had been found in the balcony, the place was famous and the curious drove by at all hours pointing and taking pictures. Most of the regulars went elsewhere. The bravest darted in when the traffic was light.

He looked just like a regular when he darted in and paid his money inside the door without looking at the cashier. Baseball cap, black sunglasses, jeans, neat hair, leather jacket. He was well disguised, but not because he was a homosexual and ashamed to be hanging around such places.

It was midnight. He climbed the stairs to the balcony, smiling at the thought of Jensen wearing the tourniquet. The door was locked. He took a seat in the center section on the floor, away from anyone else.

He had never watched queer movies before, and after this night he had no plans to watch another one. This was his third such smut house in the past ninety minutes. He kept the sunglasses on and tried to avoid the screen. But it was difficult, and this irritated him.

There were five other people in the theater. Four rows up and to his right were two lovebirds, kissing and playing. Oh, for a baseball bat and he could put them out of their misery. Or a nice little piece of yellow ski rope.

He suffered for twenty minutes, and was about to reach in his pocket when a hand touched his shoulder. A gentle hand. He played it cool.

“Could I sit by you?” came the rather deep and manly voice from just over his shoulder.

“No, and you can remove your hand.”

The hand moved. Seconds passed, and it was obvious there would be no more requests. Then he was gone.

This was torture for a man violently opposed to pornography. He wanted to vomit. He glanced behind him, then reached carefully into the leather jacket and removed a black box, six inches by five and three inches thick. He laid it on the floor between his legs. With a scalpel, he made a careful incision in the cushion of the seat next to him, then, while glancing around, inserted the black box into the cushion. There were springs in this one, a real antique, and he delicately twisted the box from one side to the other until it was in place with the switch and the tube barely visible through the incision.

He took a deep breath. Although the device had been built by a true professional, a legendary genius at miniature explosives, it was not pleasant carrying the damned thing around in a coat pocket, just centimeters from his heart and most other vital organs. And he wasn’t particularly comfortable sitting next to it now.

This was his third plant of the night, and he had one more, at another movie house where they showed old-fashioned heterosexual pornography. He was almost looking forward to it, and this irritated him.

He looked at the two lovers, who were oblivious to the movie and growing more excited by the minute, and wished they could be sitting right there when the little black box began silently spewing forth its gas, and then thirty seconds later when the fireball would flash-fry every object between the screen and the popcorn machine. He would like that.

But his was a nonviolent group, opposed to the indiscriminate killing of innocent and/or insignificant people. They had killed a few necessary victims. Their specialty, however, was the demolition of structures used by the enemy. They picked easy targets: unarmed abortion clinics, unprotected ACLU offices, unsuspecting smut houses. They were having a field day. Not one single arrest in eighteen months.

It was twelve-forty, time to leave and hurry four blocks to his car for another black box, then six blocks over to the Pussycat Cinema, which closed at one-thirty. The Pussycat was either eighteen or nineteen on the list, he couldn’t remember which, but he was certain that in exactly three hours and twenty minutes the dirty movie business in D.C. would take a helluva blow. Twenty-two of these little joints were supposed to receive black boxes tonight, and at 4 A.M. they were all supposed to be closed and deserted, and demolished. Three all-nighters were scratched from the list, because his was a nonviolent group.

He adjusted his sunglasses and took one last look at the cushion next to him. Judging from the cups and popcorn on the floor, the place got swept once a week. No one would notice the switch and tube barely visible between the ragged threads. He cautiously flipped the switch, and left the Montrose.