The Pelican Brief

“Yes. I notarized it.”

Darby handed her the photograph of Garcia, now Morgan, on the sidewalk. “Is this the man who signed the affidavit?” she asked.

“This is Curtis Morgan. Yes. That’s him.”

“Thank you,” Gray said.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Ms. Stanford asked. “I saw it in the paper.”

“Yes, he’s dead,” Gray said. “Did you by chance read this affidavit?”

“Oh no. I just witnessed his signature. But I knew something was wrong.”

“Thank you, Ms. Stanford.” They left as fast as they’d come.

The thin man hid his shiny forehead under a ragged fedora. His pants were rags and his shoes were torn, and he sat in his ancient wheelchair in front of the Post and held a sign proclaiming him to be HUNGRY AND HOMELESS. He rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder as if the muscles in his neck had collapsed from hunger. A paper bowl with a few dollars and coins was in his lap, but it was his money. Maybe he could do better if he was blind.

He looked pitiful, sitting there like a vegetable, rolling his head, wearing green Kermit the Frog sunglasses. He watched every move on the street.

He saw the car fly around the corner and park illegally. The man and the woman jumped out, and ran toward him. He had a gun under the ragged quilt, but they were moving too fast. And there were too many people on the sidewalk. They entered the Post building.

He waited a minute, then rolled himself away.

Smith Keen was pacing and fidgeting in front of Feldman’s office door as the secretary looked on. He saw them weaving hurriedly down the aisle between the rows of desks. Gray was leading and holding her hand. She was definitely attractive, but he would appreciate it later. They were breathless.

“Smith Keen, this is Darby Shaw,” Gray said between breaths.

They shook hands. “Hello,” she said, looking around at the sprawling newsroom.

“My pleasure, Darby. From what I hear, you are a remarkable woman.”

“Right,” Grantham said. “We can chitchat later.”

“Follow me,” Keen said, and they were off again. “Feldman wanted to use the conference room.” They cut across the cluttered newsroom, and walked into a plush room with a long table in the center of it. It was full of men who were talking but immediately shut up when she walked in. Feldman closed the door.

He reached for her hand. “I’m Jackson Feldman, executive editor. You must be Darby.”

“Who else?” Gray said, still breathing hard.

Feldman ignored him and looked around the table. He pointed. “This is Howard Krauthammer, managing editor; Ernie DeBasio, assistant managing editor/foreign; Elliot Cohen, assistant managing editor/national; and Vince Litsky, our attorney.”

She nodded politely and forgot each name as she heard it. They were all at least fifty, all in shirtsleeves, all deeply concerned. She could feel the tension.

“Give me the tape,” Gray said.

She took it from her bag and handed it to him. The television and VCR were at the end of the room on a portable stand. He pushed the tape into the VCR. “We got this twenty minutes ago, so we haven’t seen it.”

Darby sat in a chair against the wall. The men inched toward the screen and waited for an image.

On a black screen was the date—October 12. Then Curtis Morgan was sitting at a table in a kitchen. He held a switch that evidently worked the camera.

“My name is Curtis Morgan, and since you’re watching this, I’m probably dead.” It was a helluva first sentence. The men grimaced and inched closer.

“Today is October 12, and I’m doing this at my house. I’m alone. My wife is at the doctor. I should be at work, but I called in sick. My wife knows nothing about any of this. I’ve told no one. Since you’re watching this, you’ve also seen this. [He holds up the affidavit.] This is an affidavit I’ve signed, and I plan to leave it with this video, probably in a safe deposit box in a bank downtown. I’ll read the affidavit, and discuss other things.”

“We’ve got the affidavit,” Gray said quickly. He was standing against the wall next to Darby. No one looked at him. They were glued to the screen. Morgan slowly read the affidavit. His eyes darted from the pages to the camera, back and forth, back and forth.

It took him ten minutes. Each time Darby heard the word pelican, she closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. It had all come down to this. It was a bad dream. She tried to listen.

When Morgan finished the affidavit, he laid it on the table, and looked at some notes on a legal pad. He was comfortable and relaxed. He was a handsome kid who looked younger than twenty-nine. He was at home, so there was no tie. Just a starched white button-down. White and Blazevich was not an ideal place to work, he said, but most of the four hundred lawyers were honest and probably knew nothing about Mattiece. In fact, he doubted if many besides Wakefield, Velmano, and Einstein were involved in the conspiracy. There was a partner named Jarreld Schwabe who was sinister enough to be involved, but Morgan had no proof. (Darby remembered him well.) There was an ex-secretary who’d quit abruptly a few days after the assassinations. Her name was Miriam LaRue, and she’d worked in the oil and gas section for eighteen years. She might know something. She lives in Falls Church. Another secretary whom he would not name had told him she overheard a conversation between Wakefield and Velmano, and the topic was whether he, Morgan, could be trusted. But she just heard bits and pieces. They treated him differently after the memo was found on his desk. Especially Schwabe and Wakefield. It was as if they wanted to throw him up against the wall and threaten his life if he told of the memo, but they couldn’t do it because they weren’t sure he’d seen it. And they were afraid to make a big deal out of it. But he’d seen it, and they were almost certain he’d seen it. And if they conspired to kill Rosenberg and Jensen, well, hell, he was just an associate. He could be replaced in seconds.

Litsky the lawyer shook his head in disbelief. The numbness was wearing off, and they moved a bit in their seats.

Morgan commuted by car, and twice he was trailed. Once during lunch, he saw a man watching him. He talked about his family for a while, and started to ramble. It was apparent he’d run out of hard news. Gray handed the affidavit and the memo to Feldman, who read it and passed it to Krauthammer, who passed it on.

Morgan finished with a chilling farewell: “I don’t know who will see this tape. I’ll be dead, so it won’t really matter, I guess. I hope you use this to nail Mattiece and his sleazy lawyers. But if the sleazy lawyers are watching this tape, then you can all go straight to hell.”

Gray ejected the tape. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at the group. “Well, gentlemen, did we bring you enough verification, or do you want more?”

“I know those guys,” Litsky said, dazed. “Wakefield and I played te

Feldman was up and walking. “How’d you find Morgan?”

“It’s a long story,” Gray said.

“Give me a real short version.”

“We found a law student at Georgetown who clerked for White and Blazevich last summer. He identified a photograph of Morgan.”

“How’d you get the photograph?” Litsky asked.

“Don’t ask. It doesn’t go with the story.”

“I say run the story,” Krauthammer said loudly.

“Run it,” said Elliot Cohen.

“How’d you learn he was dead?” Feldman asked.

“Darby went to White and Blazevich yesterday. They broke the news.”

“Where was the video and affidavit?”

“In a lockbox at First Columbia. Morgan’s wife gave me the key at five this morning. I’ve done nothing wrong. The pelican brief has been verified fully by an independent source.”