"Yes, ma'am."
"That's a good boy."
"I assume there's a master plan rattling around somewhere in your brain."
"Maybe. We'll talk about it over dinner."
"Is this sort of like a date?"
"Let's eat a bite and call it business."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm hanging up now. Be cautious, Gray. They're watching." She was gone.
She was sitting at table thirty-seven, in a dark corner of the tiny restaurant when he found her at exactly nine. The first thing he noticed was the dress, and as he walked to the table he knew the legs were under it but he couldn't see them. Maybe later when she stood. He wore a coat and tie, and they were an attractive couple.
He sat close to her in the darkness so they could both watch the small crowd. The Tabard Inn appeared old enough to have served food to Thomas Jefferson. A rowdy crowd of Germans laughed and talked on the patio outside the restaurant. The windows were open and the air was cool, and for one brief moment it was easy to forget why they were hiding.
"Where'd you get the dress?"
"You like it?"
"It's very nice."
"I shopped a little this afternoon. Like most of my recent wardrobe, it's disposable. I'll probably leave it in the room the next time I flee for my life."
The waiter was before them with menus. They ordered drinks. The restaurant was quiet and harmless.
"How'd you get here?" he asked.
"Around the world."
"I'd like to know."
"I took a train to Newark, a plane to Boston, a plane to Detroit, and a plane to Dulles. I was up all night, and twice I forgot where I was."
"How could they follow that?"
"They couldn't. I paid with cash, something I'm running out of."
"How much do you need?"
"I'd like to wire some from my bank in New Orleans."
"We'll do it Monday. I think you're safe, Darby."
"I've thought that before. In fact, I felt very safe when I was getting on the boat with Verheek, except it wasn't Verheek. And I felt very safe in New York. Then Stump waddled down the sidewalk, and I haven't eaten since."
"You look thin."
"Thanks. I guess. Have you eaten here?" She looked at her menu.
He looked at his. "No, but I hear the food is great. You changed your hair again." It was light brown, and there was a trace of mascara and blush. And lipstick.
"It's going to fall out if I keep seeing these people."
Chapter Twenty-One
The drinks arrived, and they ordered.
"We expect something in the Times in the morning." He would not mention the New Orleans paper because it had pictures of Callahan and Verheek. He assumed she'd seen it.
This didn't seem to interest her. "Such as?" she asked, looking around.
"We're not sure. We hate to get beat by the Times. It's an old rivalry."
"I'm not interested in that. I know nothing about journalism, and don't care to learn. I'm here because I have one, and only one, idea about finding Garcia. And if it doesn't work, and quickly, I'm out of here."
"Forgive me. What would you like to talk about?"
"Europe. What's your favorite place in Europe?"
"I hate Europe, and I hate Europeans. I go to Canada and Australia, and New Zealand occasionally. Why do you like Europe?"
"My grandfather was a Scottish immigrant, and I've got a bunch of cousins over there. I've visited twice."
Gray squeezed the lime in his gin and tonic. A party of six entered from the bar and she watched them carefully. When she talked her eyes darted quickly around the room.
"I think you need a couple of drinks to relax," Gray said.
She nodded but said nothing. The six were seated at a nearby table and began speaking in French. It was pleasant to hear.
"Have you ever heard Cajun French?" she asked.
"No."
"It's a dialect that's rapidly disappearing, just like the wetlands. They say it cannot be understood by Frenchmen."
"That's fair. I'm sure the Cajuns can't understand the French."
She took a long drink of white wine. "Did I tell you about Chad Brunei?"
"I don't think so."
"He was a poor Cajun boy from Eunice. His family survived by trapping and fishing in the marshes. He was a very bright kid who attended LSU on a full academic scholarship, then was admitted to law school at Stanford, where he finished with the highest grade point average in the school's history. He was twenty-one when he was admitted to the California bar. He could have worked for any law firm in the country, but he took a job with an environmental defense outfit in San Francisco. He was brilliant, a real legal genius who worked very hard and was soon winning huge lawsuits against oil and chemical companies. At the age of twenty-eight, he was a highly polished courtroom lawyer. He was feared by big oil and other corporate polluters." She took a sip of wine. "He made a lot of money, and established a group to preserve the Louisiana wetlands. He wanted to participate in the pelican case, as it was known, but had too many other trial commitments. He gave Green Fund a lot of money for litigation expenses. Shortly before the trial started in Lafayette, he announced he was coming home to assist the Green Fund lawyers. There were a couple of stories about him in the New Orleans paper."
"What happened to him?"
"He committed suicide."
"What?"
"A week before the trial, they found him in a car with the engine running. A garden hose ran from the exhaust pipe into the front seat. Just another simple suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning."
"Where was the car?"
"In a wooded area along Bayou Lafourche near the town of Galliano. He knew the area well. Some camping gear and fishing equipment were in the trunk. No suicide note. The police investigated, but found nothing suspicious. The case was closed."
"This is incredible."
"He had had some problems with alcohol, and had been treated by an analyst in San Francisco. But the suicide was a surprise."
"Do you think he was murdered?"
"A lot of people do. His death was a big blow to Green Fund. His passion for the wetlands would've been potent in the courtroom."
Gray finished his drink and rattled the ice. She inched closer to him. The waiter appeared, and they ordered.
The lobby of the Marbury Hotel was empty at 6 A.M. Sunday when Gray found a copy of the Times. It was six inches deep and weighed twelve pounds, and he wondered how much thicker they planned to make it. He raced back to his room on the eighth floor, spread the paper on the bed, and hovered over it as he skimmed intensely. The front page was empty, and this was crucial. If they had the big story, it would of course be there. He feared large photographs of Rosenberg, Jensen, Callahan, Verheek, maybe Darby and Khamel, who knows, maybe they had a nice picture of Mattiece, and all of these would be lined up on the front page like a cast of characters, and the Times had beat them again. He had dreamed of this while he had slept, which had not been for long.
But there was nothing. And the less he found, the faster he skimmed until he was down to sports and classifieds, and he stopped and sort of danced to the phone. He called Smith Keen, who was awake. "Have you seen it?" he asked.
"Ain't it beautiful," Keen said. "I wonder what happened."
"They don't have it, Smith. They're digging like hell, but they don't have it yet. Who did Feldman talk to?"