The Pelican Brief

“Nope.” She slowed. The boardwalk was crowded, and a line had formed beside the Bayou Queen, a paddle wheeler. They stopped at the end of the line.

“What the hell is this?” he asked.

“Do you bitch about everything?” she almost whispered.

“Yes. Especially stupid things, and this is very stupid. Are we getting on this boat?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” he sneezed again, then coughed out of control. He could take her out now with one hand, but there were people everywhere. People in front, people behind. He took great pride in his cleanliness, and this would be a dirty place to do it. Get on the boat, play along for a few more minutes, see what happens. He would get her on the upper deck, kill her, dump her in the river, then start yelling. Another terrible drowning accident. That might work. If not, he’d be patient. She’d be dead in an hour. Gavin was a bitch, so keep bitching.

“Because I’ve got a car a mile upriver at a park where we’ll stop in thirty minutes,” she explained in a low voice. “We get off the boat, into the car, and we haul ass.”

The line was moving now. “I don’t like boats. They make me seasick. This is dangerous, Darby.” He coughed and looked around like a man pursued.

“Relax, Gavin. It’s go

Khamel tugged at his pants. They were thirty-six inches in the waist and covered eight layers of briefs and gym shorts. The sweatshirt was extra large, and instead of weighing one-fifty, he could pass for one-ninety. Whatever. It seemed to be working.

They were almost to the steps of the Bayou Queen. “I don’t like this,” he mumbled loud enough for her to hear.

“Just shut up,” she said.

The man with the gun ran to the end of the line and elbowed his way through the people with their bags and cameras. The tourists were packed tightly together as if a ride on the river-boat was the greatest trip in the world. He had killed before, but never in such a public place as this. The back of her head was visible through the crowd. He shoved his way desperately through the line. A few cursed him, but he couldn’t care less. The gun was in a pocket, but as he neared the girl he yanked it out and kept it by his right leg. She was almost to the steps, almost on the boat. He shoved harder and knocked people out of the way. They protested angrily until they saw the gun, then they began yelling. She was holding hands with the man, who was talking nonstop. She was about to step up onto the boat when he knocked the last person out of the way and quickly stuck the gun into the base of the skull just below the red baseball cap. He fired once, and people screamed and fell to the ground.

Gavin fell hard into the steps. Darby screamed and backed away in horror. Her ears were ringing from the shot, and voices were yelling and people were pointing. The man with the gun was ru

“He’s got a gun!” a woman near the boat yelled, and the crowd backed away from Gavin, who was on all fours with a small pistol in his right hand. He rocked pitifully back and forth like an infant trying to crawl. Blood streamed from his chin and puddled under his face. His head hung almost to the boards. His eyes were closed. He moved forward just a few inches, his knees now in the dark red puddle.

The crowd backed farther away, horrified at the sight of this wounded man fighting death. He teetered and wobbled forward again, headed nowhere but wanting to move, to live. He started yelling—loud painful moans in a language Darby did not recognize.

The blood was pouring, gushing from the nose and chin. He was wailing in that unknown tongue. Two crew members from the boat hovered on the steps, watching but afraid to move. The pistol concerned them.

A woman was crying, then another. Darby inched farther back. “He’s Egyptian,” a small, dark woman said. That news meant nothing to the crowd, now mesmerized.

He rocked forward and lunged to the edge of the boardwalk. The gun dropped into the water. He collapsed on his stomach with his head hanging over and dripping into the river. Shouts came from the rear, and two policemen rushed to him.

A hundred people now inched forward to see the dead man. Darby shuffled backward, then left the scene. The cops would have questions, and since she had no answers, she preferred not to talk. She was weak and needed to sit for a while, and think. There was an oyster bar inside Riverwalk. It was crowded for lunch, and she found the rest rooms in the back. She locked the door and sat on a toilet.

Shortly after dark, she left Riverwalk. The Westin Hotel is two blocks away, and she hoped maybe she could make it there without being gu

She made it to the Westin in one piece. There were no rooms, and she sat in the well-lit lounge for an hour drinking coffee. It was time to run, but she couldn’t get careless. She had to think.

Maybe she was thinking too damned much. Maybe they now thought of her as a thinker, and pla

She left the Westin, and walked to Poydras, where she flagged a cab. An elderly black man sat low behind the wheel.

“I need to go to Baton Rouge,” she said.

“Lord, honey, that’s a heckuva ride.”

“How much?” she asked quickly.

He thought a second. “A hundred and fifty.”

She crawled in the backseat and threw two bills over the seat. “There’s two hundred. Get there as fast as you can, and watch your rear. We may be followed.”

He turned off the meter and stuffed the money in his shirt pocket. Darby lay down in the backseat and closed her eyes. This was not an intelligent move, but playing the percentages was getting nowhere. The old man was a fast driver, and within minutes they were on the expressway.

The ringing in her ears had stopped, but she still heard the gunshot and saw him on all fours, rocking back and forth, trying to live just a moment longer. Thomas had once referred to him as Dutch Verheek, but said the nickname was dropped after law school when they became serious about their careers. Dutch Verheek was not an Egyptian.

She had caught just a glimpse of his killer as he was ru

Everything blurred. Halfway to Baton Rouge, she fell into a deep sleep.

Director Voyles stood behind his executive swivel chair. His jacket was off, and most of the buttons on his tired and wrinkled shirt were unfastened. It was 9 P.M., and judging from the shirt he had been at the office at least fifteen hours. And he hadn’t thought of leaving.

He listened to the receiver, mumbled a few instructions, and hung it up. K. O. Lewis sat across the desk. The door was open; the lights were on—no one had left. The mood was somber with small huddles of soft whispers.

“That was Eric East,” Voyles said, sitting gently into the chair. “He’s been there about two hours, and they just finished the autopsy. He watched it, his first. Single bullet to the right temple, but death came sooner from a single blow at C-2 and -3. The vertebrae were shattered into tiny chips and pieces. No powder burns on his hand. Another blow severely bruised his larynx, but did not cause death. He was nude. Estimate of between ten and eleven last night.”