The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

right.”

9
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    T HOMAS CALLAHAN slept late and alone. He had gone to bed early, and sober, and alone. For the third day in a row he had canceled classes. It was Friday, and Rosenberg’s service was tomorrow, and out of respect for his idol, he would not teach con law until the man was properly put to rest.
    He fixed coffee and sat on the balcony in his robe. The temperature was in the sixties, the first cold snap of the fall, and Dauphine Street below bustled with brisk energy. He nodded to the old woman without a name on the balcony across the street. Bourbon was a block away and the tourists were already out with their little maps and cameras. Dawn went unnoticed in the Quarter, but by ten the narrow streets were busy with delivery trucks and cabs.
    On these late mornings, and they were many in number, Callahan cherished his freedom. He was twenty years out of law school, and most of his contemporaries were strapped into seventy-hour weeks in pressurized law factories. He had lasted two years in private practice. A behemoth in D.C. with two hundredlawyers hired him fresh out of Georgetown and stuck him in a cubbyhole office writing briefs for the first six months. Then he was placed on an assembly line answering interrogatories about IUDs twelve hours a day, and expected to bill sixteen. He was told that if he could cram the next twenty years into the next ten, he just might make partner at the weary age of thirty-five.
    Callahan wanted to live past fifty, so he retired from the boredom of private law. He earned a master’s in law, and became a professor. He slept late, worked five hours a day, wrote an occasional article, and for the most part enjoyed himself immensely. With no family to support, his salary of seventy thousand a year was more than sufficient to pay for his two-story bungalow, his Porsche, and his liquor. If death came early, it would be from whiskey and not work.
    He had sacrificed. Many of his pals from law school were partners in the big firms with fancy letterheads and half-million-dollar earnings. They rubbed shoulders with CEOs from IBM and Texaco and State Farm. They power-schmoozed with senators. They had offices in Tokyo and London. But he did not envy them.
    One of his best friends from law school was Gavin Verheek, another dropout from private practice who had gone to work for the government. He first worked in the civil rights division at Justice, then transferred to the FBI. He was now special counsel to the Director. Callahan was due in Washington Monday for a conference of con law professors. He and Verheek planned to eat and get drunk Monday night.
    He needed to call and confirm their eating anddrinking, and to pick his brain. He dialed the number from memory. The call was routed then rerouted, and after five minutes of asking for Gavin Verheek, the man was on the phone.
    “Make it quick,” Verheek said.
    “So nice to hear your voice,” Callahan said.
    “How are you, Thomas?”
    “It’s ten-thirty. I’m not dressed. I’m sitting here in the French Quarter sipping coffee and watching pedestrians on Dauphine. What’re you doing?”
    “What a life. Here it’s eleven-thirty, and I haven’t left the office since they found the bodies Wednesday morning.”
    “I’m just sick, Gavin. He’ll nominate two Nazis.”
    “Well, of course, in my position, I cannot comment on such matters. But I suspect you’re correct.”
    “Suspect my ass. You’ve already seen his short list of nominees, haven’t you, Gavin? You guys are already doing background checks, aren’t you? Come on, Gavin, you can tell me. Who’s on the list? I’ll never tell.”
    “Neither will I, Thomas. But I promise this—your name is not among the few.”
    “I’m wounded.”
    “How’s the girl?”
    “Which one?”
    “Come on, Thomas. The girl?”
    “She’s beautiful and brilliant and soft and gentle—”
    “Keep going.”
    “Who killed them, Gavin? I have a right to know. I’m a taxpayer and I