The Pelican Brief

“Then slap the bitch in the face and run like hell. I’ll catch you at the front door. I’ve got a gun, and we’ll blast our way down the sidewalk.”

“Come on, Gray. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can do it, okay? Play it cool. Be assertive. Be a smartass. It should come natural.”

“Thanks so much. What if they call security on me? I have this sudden phobia of security guards.”

“I’ll rescue you. I’ll come blazing through the lobby like a SWAT team.”

“We’ll all be killed.”

“Relax, Darby. It’ll work.”

“Why are you so chipper?”

“I smell it. Something’s in that lockbox, Darby. And you have to bring it out, kid. It’s all riding on you.”

“Thanks for easing the pressure.”

They were on E Street near Ninth. Gray slowed the car, then parked illegally in a loading zone forty feet from the front entrance of First Columbia. He jumped out. Darby’s exit was slower. Together, they walked quickly to the door. It was almost ten. “I’ll wait here,” he said, pointing to a marble column. “Go do it.”

“Go do it,” she mumbled as she disappeared inside the revolving door. She was always the one being fed to the lions. The lobby was as big as a football field, with columns and chandeliers and fake Persian rugs.

“Safe deposit boxes?” she asked a young woman behind the information desk. The girl pointed to a corner in the far right.

“Thanks,” she said, and strolled toward it. The lines in front of the tellers were four deep to her left, and to her right a hundred busy vice presidents talked on their phones. It was the largest bank in the city, and no one noticed her.

The vault was behind a set of massive bronze doors that were polished enough to appear almost golden, no doubt to give the appearance of infinite safety and invulnerability. The doors were opened slightly to allow a select few in and out. To the left, an important-looking lady of sixty sat behind a desk with the words SAFE DEPOST BOXES across its front. Her name was Virginia Baskin.

Virginia Baskin stared at Darby as she approached the desk. There was no smile.

“I need access to a box,” Darby said without breathing. She hadn’t breathed in the last two and a half minutes.

“The number, please,” Ms. Baskin said as she hit the keyboard and turned to the monitor.

“F566.”

She punched the number and waited for the words to flash on the screen. She frowned, and moved her face to within inches of it. Run! Darby thought. She frowned harder and scratched her chin. Run, before she picks up the phone and calls the guards. Run, before the alarms go off and my idiot cohort comes blazing through the lobby.

Ms. Baskin withdrew her head from the monitor. “That was rented just two weeks ago,” she said almost to herself.

“Yes,” Darby said as if she had rented it.

“I assume you’re Mrs. Morgan,” she said, pecking on the keyboard.

Keep assuming, baby. “Yes, Beverly A

“And your address?”

“891 Pembroke, Alexandria.”

She nodded at the screen as if it could see her and give its approval. She pecked again. “Phone number?”

“703-664-5980.”

Ms. Baskin liked this too. So did the computer. “Who rented this box?”

“My husband, Curtis D. Morgan.”

“And his social security number?”

Darby casually opened her new, rather large leather shoulder bag, and pulled out her wallet. How many wives memorized their husband’s social security number? She opened the wallet. “510-96-8686.”

“Very well,” Ms. Baskin said properly as she left the keyboard and reached into her desk. “How long will this take?”

“Just a minute.”

She placed a wide card on a small clipboard on the desk, and pointed at it. “Sign here, Mrs. Morgan.”

Darby nervously signed on the second slot. Mr. Morgan had made the first entry the day he rented the box.

Ms. Baskin glanced at the signature while Darby held her breath.

“Do you have your key?” she asked.

“Of course,” Darby said with a warm smile.

Ms. Baskin took a small box from the drawer, and walked around the desk. “Follow me.” They went through the bronze doors. The vault was as big as a branch bank in the suburbs. Designed along the lines of a mausoleum, it was a maze of hallways and small chambers. Two men in uniform walked by. They passed four identical rooms with walls lined with rows of lockboxes. The fifth room held F566, evidently, because Ms. Baskin stepped into it and opened her little black box. Darby looked nervously around and behind her.

Virginia was all business. She walked to F566, which was shoulder-high, and stuck in the key. She rolled her eyes at Darby as if to say, “Your turn, dumbass.” Darby yanked the key from a pocket, and inserted it next to the other one. Virginia then turned both keys, and slid the box two inches from its slot. She removed the bank’s key.

She pointed to a small booth with a folding wooden door. “Take it in there. When you finish, lock it back in place and come to my desk.” She was leaving the room as she spoke.

“Thanks,” Darby said. She waited until Virginia was out of sight, then slid the box from the wall. It was not heavy. The front was six inches by twelve, and it was a foot and a half long. The top was open, and inside were two items—a thin, brown legal-sized envelope, and an unmarked videotape.

She didn’t need the booth. She stuffed the envelope and videotape in her shoulder bag, and slid the box back into its slot. She left the room.

Virginia had rounded the corner of her desk when Darby walked behind her. “I’m finished,” she said.

“My, that was quick.”

Damned right. Things happen fast when your nerves are popping through your skin. “I found what I needed,” she said.

“Very well.” Ms. Baskin was suddenly a warm person."You know, that awful story in the paper last week about that lawyer. You know, the one killed by muggers not far from here. Wasn’t his name Curtis Morgan? Seems like it was Curtis Morgan. What a shame.”

Oh, you dumb woman. “I didn’t see that,” Darby said. “I’ve been out of the country. Thanks.”

Her step was a bit quicker the second time through the lobby. The bank was crowded, and there were no security guards in sight. Piece of cake. It was about time she pulled a job without being grabbed.

The gunman was guarding the marble column. The revolving door spun her onto the sidewalk, and she was almost to the car before he caught her. “Get in the car!” she demanded.

“What’d you find!” he demanded.

“Just get outta here.” She yanked the door open, and jumped in. He started the car and sped away.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“I cleaned out the box,” she said. “Is anyone behind us?”

He glanced in the mirror. “How the hell do I know? What is it?”

She opened her purse and pulled out the envelope. She opened it. Gray slammed on the brakes and almost smashed a car in front.

“Watch where you’re going!” she yelled.

“Okay! Okay. What’s in the envelope!”

“I don’t know! I haven’t read it yet, and if you get me killed, I’ll never read it.”

The car was moving again. Gray breathed deeply. “Look, let’s stop yelling, okay? Let’s be cool.”

“Yes. You drive, and I’ll be cool.”

“Okay. Now. Are we cool?”

“Yes. Just relax. And watch where you’re going. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. What’s in the envelope?”

She pulled out a document of some sort. She glanced at him, and he was staring at the document. “Watch where we’re going.”

“Just read the damned thing.”

“It makes me carsick. I can’t read in the car.”

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

“You’re yelling again.”

He yanked the wheel to the right and pulled into another tow-away zone on E Street. Horns honked as he slammed his brakes. He glared at her.

“Thanks,” she said, and started reading it aloud.

It was a four-page affidavit, typed real neat and sworn to under oath before a notary public. It was dated Friday, the day before the last phone call to Grantham. Under oath, Curtis Morgan said he worked in the oil and gas section of White and Blazevich, and had since he joined the firm five years earlier. His clients were privately owned oil exploration firms from many countries, but primarily Americans. Since he joined the firm, he had worked for a client who was engaged in a huge lawsuit in south Louisiana. The client was a man named Victor Mattiece, and Mr. Mattiece, whom he’d never met but was well known to the senior partners of White and Blazevich, wanted desperately to win the lawsuit and eventually harvest millions of barrels of oil from the swamplands of Terrebo