The Pelican Brief

Fifteen

The argument started with dessert, a portion of the meal Callahan preferred to drink. She was nice enough when she clicked off the drinks he’d already consumed with dinner: two double Scotches while they waited on a table, one more before they ordered, and with the fish two bottles of wine, of which she’d had two glasses. He was drinking too fast and getting sloppy, and by the time she finished rattling off this accounting he was angry. He ordered Drambuie for dessert, because it was his favorite, and because it was suddenly a matter of principle. He gulped it and ordered another, and she was furious.

Darby spooned her coffee and ignored him. Mouton’s was packed, and she just wanted to leave without a scene and get to her apartment alone.

The argument turned nasty on the sidewalk as they walked away from the restaurant. He pulled the keys to the Porsche from his pocket, and she said he was too drunk to drive. Give her the keys. He gripped them and staggered on in the direction of the parking lot, three blocks away. She said she would walk. Have a nice one, he said. She followed a few steps behind, embarrassed at the stumbling figure in front of her. She pleaded with him. His blood level was at least point-two-zero. He was a law professor, dammit. He would kill someone. He staggered faster, coming perilously close to the curb, then weaving away. He yelled over his shoulder, something about driving better drunk than she could sober. She fell behind. She’d taken a ride before when he was like this, and she knew what a drunk could do in a Porsche.

He crossed the street blindly, hands stuck deep in his pockets as if out for a casual stroll in the late night. He misjudged the curb, hit it with the toes instead of the sole, and went sprawling and bouncing and cursing along the sidewalk. He scrambled up quickly before she could reach him. Leave me alone, dammit, he told her. Just give me the keys, she begged, or I’m walking. He shoved her away. Have a nice one, he said with a laugh. She’d never seen him this drunk. He’d never touched her in anger, drunk or not.

Next to the parking lot was a greasy little dive with neon beer signs covering the windows. She looked inside the open door for help, but thought, how stupid. It was filled with drunks.

She yelled at him as he approached the Porsche. “Thomas! Please! Let me drive!” She was on the sidewalk and would go no farther.

He stumbled on, waving her off, mumbling to himself. He unlocked the door, squeezed downward, and disappeared between the other cars. The engine started and roared as he gunned it.

Darby leaned on the side of the building a few feet from the parking lot’s exit. She looked at the street, and almost hoped for a cop. She would rather have him arrested than dead.

It was too far to walk. She would watch him drive away, then call a cab, then ignore him for a week. At least a week. Have a nice one, she repeated to herself. He gunned it again and squealed tires.

The explosion knocked her to the sidewalk. She landed on all fours, facedown, stunned for a second, then immediately aware of the heat and the tiny pieces of fiery debris falling in the street. She gaped in horror at the parking lot. The Porsche flipped in a perfect violent somersault and landed upside down. The tires and wheels and doors and fenders slung free. The car was a brilliant fireball, roaring away with flames instantly devouring it.

Darby started toward it, screaming for him. Debris fell around her and the heat slowed her. She stopped thirty feet away, screaming with hands over her mouth.

Then a second explosion flipped it again and drove her away. She tripped, and her head fell hard on the bumper of another car. The pavement was hot to her face, and that was the last she remembered for a moment.

The dive emptied and the drunks were everywhere. They stood along the sidewalk and stared. A couple tried to advance, but the heat reddened their faces and kept them away. Thick, heavy smoke billowed from the fireball, and within seconds two other cars were on fire. There were shouts and voices in panic.

“Whose car is it?”

“Call 911!”

“Is anybody in it?”

“Call 911!”

They dragged her by the elbows back to the sidewalk, to the center of the crowd. She was repeating the name Thomas. A cold cloth came from the dive and was placed on her forehead.

The crowd thickened and the street was busy. Sirens, she heard sirens as she came around. There was a knot on the back of her head, and a coldness on her face. Her mouth was dry. “Thomas. Thomas,” she repeated.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said a black face just above her. He was carefully holding her head and patting her arm. Other faces stared downward. They all nodded in agreement. “It’s okay.”

The sirens were screaming now. She gently removed the cloth, and her eyes focused. There were red and blue lights flashing from the street. The sirens were deafening. She sat up. They leaned her against the building beneath the neon beer signs. They eased away, watching her carefully.

“You all right, miss?” asked the black man.

She couldn’t answer. Didn’t try to. Her head was broken. “Where is Thomas?” she asked, looking at the crack in the sidewalk.

They looked at each other. The first fire truck screamed to a halt twenty feet away, and the crowd parted. Firemen jumped and scrambled in all directions.

“Where is Thomas?” she repeated.

“Miss, who is Thomas?” asked the black man.

“Thomas Callahan,” she said softly, as if everyone knew him.

“Was he in that car?”

She nodded, then closed her eyes. The sirens wailed and died, and in between she heard the shouts of anxious men, and the popping of the fire. She could smell the burning.

The second and third fire trucks came blaring in from different directions. A cop shoved his way through the crowd. “Police. Outta the way. Police.” He pushed and shoved until he found her. He fell to his knees and waved a badge under her nose. “Ma’am, Sergeant Rupert, NOPD.”

Darby heard this but thought nothing of it. He was in her face, this Rupert with bushy hair, a baseball cap, black and gold Saints jacket. She stared blankly at him.

“Is that your car, ma’am? Someone said it was your car.”

She shook her head. No.

Rupert was grabbing her elbows and pulling up. He was talking to her, asking if she was all right, and at the same time pulling her up and it hurt like hell. The head was fractured, split, busted, and she was in shock but what did this moron care. She was on her feet. The knees wouldn’t lock, and she was limp. He kept asking if she was all right. The black man looked at Rupert as if he was crazy.

There, the legs worked now, and she and Rupert were walking through the crowd, behind a fire truck, around another one to an unmarked cop car. She lowered her head and refused to look at the parking lot. Rupert chatted incessantly. Something about an ambulance. He opened the front door and gingerly placed her in the passenger’s seat.

Another cop squatted in the door and started asking questions. He wore jeans and cowboy boots with pointed toes. Darby leaned forward and placed her head in her hands. “I think I need help,” she said.

“Sure, lady. Help’s on the way. Just a coupla questions. What’s your name?”

“Darby Shaw. I think I’m in shock. I’m very dizzy, and I think I need to throw up.”

“The ambulance is on the way. Is that your car over there?”

“No.”

Another cop car, one with decals and words and lights, squealed to a stop in front of Rupert’s. Rupert disappeared for a moment. The cowboy cop suddenly closed her door, and she was all alone in the car. She leaned forward and vomited between her legs. She started crying. She was cold. She slowly laid her head on the driver’s seat, and curled into a knot. Silence. Then darkness.

Someone was knocking on the window above her. She opened her eyes, and the man wore a uniform and a hat with a badge on it. The door was locked.

“Open the door, lady!” he yelled.

She sat up and opened the door. “Are you drunk, lady?”

The head was pounding. “No,” she said desperately.

He opened the door wider. “Is this your car?”

She rubbed her eyes. She had to think.

“Lady, is this your car?”

“No!” She glared at him. “No. It’s Rupert’s.”

“Okay. Who the hell is Rupert?”

There was one fire truck left and most of the crowd was gone. This man in the door was obviously a cop. “Sergeant Rupert. One of you guys,” she said.

This made him mad. “Get outta the car, lady.”

Gladly. Darby crawled out on the passenger’s side, and stood on the sidewalk. In the distance, a solitary fireman hosed down the burnt frame of the Porsche.

Another cop in a uniform joined him and they met her on the sidewalk.

The first cop asked, “What’s your name?”

“Darby Shaw.”

“Why were you passed out in the car?”

She looked at the car. “I don’t know. I got hurt and Rupert put me in the car. Where’s Rupert?”

The cops looked at each other. “Who the hell’s Rupert?” the first cop asked.

This made her mad and the anger cleared away the cobwebs.

“Rupert said he was a cop.”

The second cop asked, “How’d you get hurt?”

Darby glared at him. She pointed to the parking lot across the street. “I was supposed to be in that car over there. But I wasn’t, so I’m here, listening to your stupid questions. Where’s Rupert?”

They looked blankly at each other. The first cop said, “Stay here,” and he walked across the street to another cop car where a man in a suit was talking to a small group. They whispered, then the first cop and the man in the suit walked back to the sidewalk where Darby waited. The man in the suit said, “I’m Lieutenant Olson, New Orleans PD. Did you know the man in the car?” He pointed to the parking lot.

The knees went weak, and she bit her lip. She nodded.

“What’s his name?”

“Thomas Callahan.”

Olson looked at the first cop. “That’s what the computer said. Now, who’s this Rupert?”

Darby screamed, “He said he was a cop!”

Olson looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry. There’s no cop named Rupert.”

She was sobbing loudly. Olson helped her to the hood of Rupert’s car, and held her shoulders while the crying subsided and she fought to regain control.

“Check the plates,” Olson told the second cop, who quickly scribbled down the tag number from Rupert’s car and called it in.

Olson gently held both her shoulders with his hands and looked at her eyes. “Were you with Callahan?”

She nodded, still crying but much quieter. Olson glanced at the first cop.

“How did you get in this car?” Olson asked slowly and softly.

She wiped her eyes with her finger and stared at Olson. “This guy Rupert, who said he was a cop, came and got me from over there, and brought me over here. He put me in the car, and this other cop with cowboy boots starting asking questions. Another cop car pulled up, and they left. Then I guess I passed out. I don’t know. I would like to see a doctor.”

“Get my car,” Olson said to the first cop.

The second cop was back with a puzzled look. “The computer has no record of this tag number. Must be fake tags.”

Olson took her arm and led her to his car. He spoke quickly to the two cops. “I’m taking her to Charity. Wrap this up and meet me there. Impound the car. We’ll check it later.”

She sat in Olson’s car listening to the radio squawk and staring at the parking lot. Four cars had burned. The Porsche was upside down in the center, nothing but a crumpled frame. A handful of firemen and other emergency types milled about. A cop was stringing yellow crime-scene tape around the lot.

She touched the knot on the back of her head. No blood. Tears dripped off her chin.

Olson slammed his door, and they eased through the parked cars and headed for St. Charles. He had the blue lights on, but no sirens.

“Do you feel like talking?” he asked.

They were on St. Charles. “I guess,” she said. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Darby. I’m sorry. I take it he was the only one in the car.”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get hurt?”

He gave her a handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes. “I fell or something. There were two explosions, and I think the second one knocked me down. I don’t remember everything. Please, tell me who Rupert is.”

“I have no idea. I don’t know a cop named Rupert, and there was no cop here with cowboy boots.”

She thought about this for a block and a half.

“What did Callahan do for a living?”

“A law professor at Tulane. I’m a student there.”

“Who would want to kill him?”

She stared at the traffic lights and shook her head. “You’re certain it was intentional?”

“No doubt about it. It was a very powerful explosive. We found a piece of a foot stuck in a chain-link fence eighty feet away. I’m sorry, okay. He was murdered.”

“Maybe someone got the wrong car.”

“That’s always possible. We’ll check out everything. I take it you were supposed to be in the car with him.”

She tried to speak, but could not hold the tears. She buried her face in the handkerchief.

He parked between two ambulances near the emergency entrance at Charity, and left the blue lights on. He helped her quickly inside to a dirty room where fifty people sat in various degrees of pain and discomfort. She found a seat by the water fountain. Olson talked to the lady behind the window, and he raised his voice but Darby couldn’t understand him. A small boy with a bloody towel around his foot cried in his mother’s lap. A young black girl was about to give birth. There was not a doctor or nurse in sight. No one was in a hurry.

Olson crouched in front of her. “It’ll be a few minutes. Sit tight. I’m gonna move the car, and I’ll be back in a minute. Do you feel like talking?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He was gone. She checked again for blood, and found none. The double doors opened wide, and two angry nurses came after the girl in labor. They sort of dragged her away, back through the doors and down the hall.

Darby waited, then followed. With the red eyes and handkerchief, she looked like some child’s mother. The hall was a zoo with nurses and orderlies and the wounded yelling and moving about. She turned a corner and saw an EXIT sign. Through the door, into another hall, much quieter, another door, and she was on a loading dock. There were lights in the alley. Don’t run. Be strong. It’s okay. No one’s watching. She was on the street, walking briskly. The cool air cleared her eyes. She refused to cry.

Olson would take his time, and when he returned he would figure they had called her name and she was back there getting worked on. He would wait. And wait.

She turned corners, and saw Rampart. The Quarter was just ahead. She could get lost there. There were people on Royal, tourist types strolling along. She felt safer. She entered the Holiday Inn, paid with plastic, and got a room on the fifth floor. After the door was bolted and chained, she curled up on the bed with all the lights on.

Mrs. Verheek rolled her plump but rich ass away from the center of the bed, and grabbed the phone. “It’s for you, Gavin!” she yelled into the bathroom. Gavin emerged with shaving cream on half his face, and took the receiver from his wife, who burrowed deep into the bed. Like a hog rutting in mud, he thought.

“Hello,” he snapped.

It was a female voice he’d never heard before. “This is Darby Shaw. Do you know who I am?”

He smiled instantly, and for a second thought of the string bikini on St. Thomas. “Well, yes. I believe we have a mutual friend.”

“Did you read the little theory I wrote?”

“Ah, yes. The pelican brief, as we refer to it.”

“And who is we?”

Verheek sat in a chair by the night table. This was no social call. “Why are you calling, Darby?”

“I need some answers, Mr. Verheek. I’m scared to death.”

“It’s Gavin, okay?”

“Gavin. Where is the brief now?”

“Here and there. What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Just tell me what you did with the brief.”

“Well, I read it, then sent it to another division, and it was seen by some folks within the Bureau, then shown to Director Voyles, who sort of liked it.”

“Has it been seen outside the FBI?”

“I can’t answer that, Darby.”

“Then I won’t tell you what’s happened to Thomas.”

Verheek pondered this for a long minute. She waited patiently. “Okay. Yes, it’s been seen outside the FBI. By whom and by how many, I don’t know.”

“He’s dead, Gavin. He was murdered around ten last night. Someone planted a car bomb for both of us. I got lucky, but now they’re after me.”

Verheek was hovering over the phone, scribbling notes. “Are you hurt?”

“Physically, I’m okay.”

“Where are you?”

“New Orleans.”

“Are you certain, Darby? I mean, I know you’re certain, but, dammit, who would want to kill him?”

“I met a couple of them.”

“How’d you—”

“It’s a long story. Who saw the brief, Gavin? Thomas gave it to you Monday night. It’s been passed around, and forty-eight hours later he’s dead. And I’m supposed to be dead with him. It fell into the wrong hands, wouldn’t you say?”

“Are you safe?”

“Who the hell knows?”

“Where are you staying? What’s your phone number?”

“Not so fast, Gavin. I’m moving real slow right now. I’m at a pay phone, so no cute stuff.”

“Come on, Darby! Give me a break! Thomas Callahan was my best friend. You’ve got to come in.”

“And what might that mean?”

“Look, Darby, give me fifteen minutes, and we’ll have a dozen agents pick you up. I’ll catch a flight and be there before noon. You can’t stay on the streets.”

“Why, Gavin? Who’s after me? Talk to me, Gavin.”

“I’ll talk to you when I get there.”

“I don’t know. Thomas is dead because he talked to you. I’m not that anxious to meet you right now.”

“Darby, look, I don’t know who or why, but I assure you you’re in a very dangerous situation. We can protect you.”

“Maybe later.”

He breathed deeply and sat on the edge of the bed. “You can trust me, Darby.”

“Okay, I trust you. But what about those other people? This is heavy, Gavin. My little brief has someone awfully upset, wouldn’t you say?”

“Did he suffer?”

She hesitated. “I don’t think so.” The voice was cracking.

“Will you call me in two hours? At the office. I’ll give you an inside number.”

“Give me the number, and I’ll think about it.”

“Please, Darby. I’ll go straight to the Director when I get there. Call me at eight, your time.”

“Give me the number.”

The bomb exploded too late to make the Thursday morning edition of the Times-Picayune. Darby flipped through it hurriedly in the hotel room. Nothing. She watched the television, and there it was. A live shot of the burned-out Porsche, still sitting amid the debris in the parking lot, secluded nicely with yellow tape running everywhere. The police were treating it as a homicide. No suspects. No comment. Then the name of Thomas Callahan, age forty-five, a prominent professor of law at Tulane. The dean was suddenly there with a microphone in his face, talking about Professor Callahan and the shock of it all.

The shock of it all, the fatigue, the fear, the pain, and Darby buried her head in the pillow. She hated crying, and this would be the last of it for a while. Mourning would only get her killed.