The Pelican Brief

The building was on Pennsylvania, and Brim, Stearns, and Kidlow covered floors three through eleven. Garcia left the building with his buddy, and they laughed their way down the sidewalk. Something was very funny. Croft followed as closely as possible. They walked and laughed for five blocks, then, just as he figured, they ducked into a yuppie corporate fern bar for a quick bite.

Croft called Grantham three times before he got him. It was almost two, and the lunch was winding down by now, and if Grantham wanted to catch the guy, then stay close to the damned phone. Gray slammed it down. They would meet back at the building.

Garcia and his friend walked a bit slower on the return. It was a beautiful day, and it was Friday, and they enjoyed this brief respite from the grind of suing people or whatever they did for two hundred bucks an hour. Croft hid behind his sunshades and kept his distance.

Gray was waiting in the lobby near the elevators. Croft was close behind them as they spun through the revolving door. He pointed quickly to their man. Gray caught the signal and punched the elevator button. It opened and he stepped in just before Garcia and his friend. Croft stayed behind.

Garcia punched number six a split second before Gray punched it too. Gray read the paper and listened as the two lawyers talked football. The kid was no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. The voice maybe had a vague familiarity to it, but it had been on the phone and there was nothing distinctive about it. The face was close, but he couldn’t study it. The odds said go for it. He looked very similar to the man in the photograph, and he worked for Brim, Stearns, and Kidlow, and one of its countless clients was Mr. Mattiece. He would give it a shot, but be cautious. He was a reporter. It was his job to go barging in with questions.

They left the elevator on six still yakking about the Redskins, and Gray loitered behind them, casually reading the paper. The firm’s lobby was rich and opulent, with chandeliers and Oriental rugs, and on one wall thick gold letters with the firm’s name. The lawyers stopped at the front desk and picked up their phone messages. Gray strolled purposefully in front of the receptionist, who eyed him carefully.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked in the tone that meant, “What the hell do you want?”

Gray did not miss a step. “I’m in a meeting with Roger Martin.” He’d found the name in the phone book, and he’d called from the lobby a minute earlier to make sure lawyer Martin was in today. The building directory listed the firm on floors three through eleven, but did not list all one hundred and ninety lawyers. Using the yellow pages listing, he made a dozen quick calls to find a lawyer on each floor. Roger Martin was the man on the sixth floor.

He frowned at the receptionist. “I’ve been meeting with him for two hours.”

This puzzled her, and she could think of nothing to say. Gray was around the corner and into a hallway. He caught a glimpse of Garcia entering his office four doors down.

The name beside the door was David M. Underwood. Gray did not knock on it. He wanted to strike quickly, and perhaps exit quickly. Mr. Underwood was hanging his jacket on a rack.

“Hi. I’m Gray Grantham with the Washington Post. I’m looking for a man named Garcia.”

Underwood froze and looked puzzled. “How’d you get in here?” he asked.

The voice was suddenly familiar. “I walked. You are Garcia, aren’t you?”

He pointed to a desk plate with his name in gold letters,

David M. Underwood.

“There’s no one on this floor named Garcia. I don’t know of a Garcia in this firm.”

Gray smiled as if to play along. Underwood was scared. Or irritated.

“How’s your daughter?” Gray asked.

Underwood was coming around the desk, staring and getting very perturbed. “Which one?”

This didn’t fit. Garcia had been quite concerned about his daughter, a baby, and if there had been more than one, he would have mentioned it.

“The youngest. And your wife?”

Underwood was now within striking distance, and inching closer. It was obvious he was a man unafraid of physical contact.

“I don’t have a wife. I’m divorced.” He held up his left fist, and for a split second Gray thought he’d gone wild. Then he saw the four ringless fingers. No wife. No ring. Garcia adored his wife, and there would be a ring. It was now time to leave.

“What do you want?” Underwood demanded.

“I thought Garcia was on this floor,” he said, easing away.

“Is your pal Garcia a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

Underwood relaxed a bit. “Not in this firm. We have a Perez and a Hernandez, and maybe one other. But I don’t know a Garcia.”

Well, it’s a big firm,” Gray said by the door. “Sorry to bother.”

Underwood was following. “Look, Mr. Grantham, we’re not accustomed to reporters barging in around here. I’ll call security, and maybe they can help you.”

“Won’t be necessary. Thanks.” Grantham was in the hall and gone. Underwood reported to security.

Grantham cursed himself in the elevator. It was empty except for him, and he cursed out loud. Then he thought of Croft, and was cursing him when the elevator landed and opened, and there was Croft in the lobby near the pay phones. Cool it, he told himself.

They left the building together. “Didn’t work,” Gray said.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yep. Wrong man.”

Dammit. I knew it was him. It was the kid in the photos, wasn’t it?”

“No. Close but no cigar. Keep trying.”

“I’m really tired of this, Grantham. I’ve—”

“You’re getting paid, aren’t you? Do it for one more week, okay? I can think of harder work.”

Croft stopped on the sidewalk, and Gray kept walking. “One more week, and I’m through,” Croft yelled to him. Grantham waved him off.

He unlocked the illegally parked Volvo and sped back to the Post. It was not a smart move. It was quite stupid, and he was much too experienced for such a mistake. He would omit it from his daily chat with Jackson Feldman and Smith Keen.

Feldman was looking for him, another reporter said, and he walked quickly to his office. He smiled sweetly to the secretary, who was poised to attack. Keen and Howard Krauthammer, the managing editor, were waiting with Feldman. Keen closed the door and handed Gray a newspaper. “Have you seen this?”

It was the New Orleans paper, the Times-Picayune, and the front-page story was about the deaths of Verheek and Callahan, along with big photos. He read it quickly while they watched him. It talked about their friendship, and their strange deaths just six days apart. And it mentioned Darby Shaw, who had disappeared. But no link to the brief.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” Feldman said.

“It’s nothing but the basics,” Gray said. “We could’ve run this three days ago.”

“Why didn’t we?” asked Krauthammer.

“There’s nothing here. It’s two dead bodies, the name of the girl, and a thousand questions, none of which they answered. They’ve found a cop who’ll talk, but he knows nothing beyond the blood and gore.”

“But they’re digging, Gray,” Keen said.

“You want me to stop them?”

“The Times has picked it up,” Feldman said. “They’re running something tomorrow or Sunday. How much can they know?”

“Why ask me? Look, it’s possible they have a copy of the brief. Very unlikely, but possible. But they haven’t talked to the girl. We’ve got the girl, okay? She’s ours.”