The Pelican Brief

Twenty-One

Gavin Verheek had been a tired old man when he arrived in New Orleans, and after two nights of barhopping he was drained and weakened. He had hit the first bar not long after the burial, and for seven hours had sipped beer with the young and restless while talking of torts and contracts and Wall Street firms and other things he despised. He knew he shouldn’t tell strangers he was FBI. He wasn’t FBI. There was no badge.

He prowled five or six bars Saturday night. Tulane lost again, and after the game the bars filled with rowdies. Things got hopeless, and he quit at midnight.

He was sleeping hard with his shoes on when the phone rang. He lunged for it. “Hello! Hello!”

“Gavin?” she asked.

“Darby! Is this you?”

“Who else?”

“Why haven’t you called before now?”

“Please, don’t start asking a bunch of stupid questions. I’m at a pay phone, so no funny stuff.”

“Come on, Darby. I swear you can trust me.”

“Okay, I trust you. Now what?”

He looked at his watch, and began untying his shoelaces. “Well, you tell me. What’s next? How long do you plan to hide in New Orleans?”

“How do you know I’m in New Orleans?”

He paused for a second.

“I’m in New Orleans,” she said. “And I assume you want me to meet with you, and become close friends, then come in, as you say, and trust you guys to protect me forever.”

“That’s correct. You’ll be dead in a matter of days if you don’t.”

“Get right to the point, don’t you?”

“Yes. You’re playing games and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Who’s after me, Gavin?”

“Could be a number of people.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now you’re playing games, Gavin. How can I trust you if you won’t talk to me?”

“Okay. I think it’s safe to say your little brief hit someone in the gut. You guessed right, the wrong people learned of the brief, and now Thomas is dead. And they’ll kill you the instant they find you.”

“We know who killed Rosenberg and Jensen, don’t we, Gavin?”

“I think we do.”

“Then why doesn’t the FBI do something?”

“We may be in the midst of a cover-up.”

“Bless you for saying that. Bless you.”

“I could lose my job.”

“Who would I tell, Gavin? Who’s covering up what?”

“I’m not sure. We were very interested in the brief until the White House pressed hard, now we’ve dismissed it.”

“I can understand that. Why do they think they can kill me and it will be kept quiet?”

“I can’t answer that. Maybe they think you know more.”

“Can I tell you something? Moments after the bomb, while Thomas was in the car burning and I was semiconscious, a cop named Rupert took me to his car and put me inside. Another cop with cowboy boots and jeans started asking me questions. I was sick and in shock. They disappeared, Rupert and his cowboy, and they never returned. They were not cops, Gavin. They watched the bomb, and went to plan B when I wasn’t in the car. I didn’t know it, but I was probably a minute or two away from a bullet in the head.”

Verheek listened with his eyes closed. “What happened to them?”

“Not sure. I think they got scared when the real cops swarmed on the scene. They vanished. I was in their car, Gavin. They had me.”

“You have to come in, Darby. Listen to me.”

“Do you remember our phone chat Thursday morning when I suddenly saw a face that looked familiar and I described it to you?”

“Of course.”

“That face was at the memorial service yesterday, along with some friends.”

“Where were you?”

“Watching. He walked in a few minutes late, stayed ten minutes, then sneaked out and met with Stump.”

“Stump?”

“Yes, he’s one of the gang. Stump, Rupert, Cowboy, and the Thin Man. Great characters. I’m sure there are others, but I haven’t met them yet.”

“The next meeting will be the last, Darby. You have about forty-eight hours to live.”

“We’ll see. How long will you be in town?”

“A few days. I’d planned to stay until I found you.”

“Here I am. I may call you tomorrow.”

Verheek breathed deeply. “Okay, Darby. Whatever you say. Just be careful.”

She hung up. He threw the phone across the room, and cursed it.

Two blocks away and fifteen floors up, Khamel stared at the television and mumbled rapidly to himself. It was a movie about people in a big city. They spoke English, his third language, and he repeated every word in his best generic American tongue. He did this for hours. He had absorbed the language while hiding in Belfast, and in the past twenty years had watched thousands of American movies. His favorite was Three Days of the Condor. He watched it four times before he figured out who was killing whom and why. He could have killed Redford.

He repeated every word out loud. He had been told his English could pass for that of an American, but one slip, one tiny mistake, and she would be gone.

The Volvo was parked in a lot a block and a half from its owner, who paid one hundred dollars a month for the space and for what he thought was security. They eased through the gate that was supposed to be locked.

It was a 1986 GL without a security system, and within seconds the driver’s door was open. One sat on the trunk and lit a cigarette. It was almost 4 A.M. Sunday.

The other one opened a small tool case he kept in his pocket, and went to work on the yuppie car phone that Grantham had been embarrassed to buy. The dome light was enough, and he worked quickly. Easy work. With the receiver open, he installed a tiny transmitter and glued it in place. A minute later, he eased out of the car and squatted at the rear bumper. The one with the cigarette handed him a small black cube, which he stuck under the car to a grille and behind the gas tank. It was a magnetized transmitter, and it would send signals for six days before it died and needed replacing.

They were gone in less than seven minutes. Monday, as soon as he was spotted entering the Post building on Fifteenth, they would enter his apartment and fix his phones.