Brixton and Flo started the next day enjoying breakfast on their small balcony. Flo was in good spirits based upon the previous day’s sales, and Brixton’s mood paralleled hers. He’d spoken with Mac Smith after arriving home last night and the attorney filled him in on the new client that would need Brixton’s investigative savvy. Brixton was pleased on two levels. One, he could use the money to pay bills. Two, it would lift his spirits after having Flo carry the financial load for the past few months. Life was good.
“What’s on your agenda today?” she asked.
“I see the shrink at ten.”
“He’s made a difference,” she said.
“Think so?”
“I know so,” she said.
“Today will be the final session with him,” Brixton said. “No sense continuing writing checks when there’s nothing more he can do.”
“Robert!” she said sternly. “We can certainly afford it, and there’s more to be gained by continuing to see him.”
“Why? You say he’s made a difference. There are people who see their shrinks for years, every week, maybe twice a week. A waste of money.”
Flo knew better than to debate with him. She had faith that Dr. Fowler would convince Robert to continue seeing him, At least she hoped that would be the case.
“I’ll be late tonight,” he said, changing the subject.
“Oh? Why?”
“I’ve got a meeting at eleven o’clock.”
“Eleven o’clock? Who with, that movie actress?”
“No.”
“Then who are you seeing at such an hour?”
Brixton hadn’t intended to share with Flo that he was meeting with the lobbyist Morrison but he decided it would head off any questions on her part. He told her of Morrison’s phone call and shared some of his interest in him.
“You sure you want to meet this guy at what?—Gravel Point?”
“Gravelly Point. I checked it on a map. It’ll be fine. Maybe he’ll give me what Will Sayers is looking for.”
“And will Sayers pay you for that information?”
“I don’t care. The truth about Senator Gillespie needs to come out. If I can I want to help bring that about.”
Flo smiled, and finished her coffee, and went to her clothing shop. Brixton drove to his office and spent two hours with Mac Smith and Smith’s new client, who needed not only Smith’s keen legal mind, Brixton’s investigative prowess would also be brought into play. He engaged Mrs. Warden in conversation about her life, something he’d never done before, and learned that she was more interesting than she’d seemed.
After lunch at his desk he drove to Nikki Dorence’s apartment building and read a newspaper and a magazine while waiting for Eugene Waksit to show his face. When he didn’t, Brixton drove home and took a nap in preparation for his eleven o’clock meeting with Eric Morrison. He’d have waited at the apartment to have dinner with Flo but it was a late night for her at the shop, which was just as well. Anticipation of meeting Morrison had begun to build, and he wondered how forthcoming the lobbyist would actually be. He also wanted to make Will Sayers fully aware of the meeting, and called the corpulent journalist to suggest dinner. Sayers, who never met a meal he didn’t like, said that he’d been thinking all day of the lobster rolls at Hank’s Oyster Bar on Pennsylvania Avenue—“Not the one in Dupont Circle,” he clarified—and that’s where they met. Sayers became positively excited that Morrison had called Brixton and was ready to pass along some dirt on Senator Gillespie.
“Did he say anything specific?” Sayers asked over dessert.
“No, just that he was willing to share information with me.”
“Any idea what prompted him to do this, Robert?”
“No, but I figure the senator did something to tee him off. I also let him know the first time we talked that I’m aware of his part in what happened to the doctor in Papua New Guinea.”
“Don’t get sidetracked by that, Robert. I need evidence of the abortion that Morrison arranged for Senator Gillespie.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Brixton, “but I’m also interested in getting to the truth about Jayla King’s father.”
“Smitten with her, are you?”
“No, Will. I just want to right a wrong.”
The check had been placed in front of Brixton, but he slid it in Sayers’s direction.
“Fair enough,” Sayers said.
“That’s the way I see it,” Brixton said. “I’ll call you tomorrow with what I come up with.”
“Call tonight at any time. I won’t be able to wait until tomorrow.”
Brixton was early for the meeting with Morrison and decided to go to the appointed place and scope it out in advance. He had no difficulty finding a place to park close to Gravelly Point. He remained in his car for a half hour taking in his surroundings. There were few people strolling on the Mount Vernon Trail at that time of night even though the sky was clear, and a full moon cast flattering light over plantings, mostly tall bushes that formed barriers between the parking lot and the public spaces, and benches that had been occupied earlier. He kept a lookout for a man in a blue blazer carrying a yellow umbrella, smiling and shaking his head at the silliness of it all. But while the method of identifying Morrison seemed silly, the stakes weren’t. If things went the way he hoped they would he’d walk away with some sort of proof that Ronald Gillespie, senior senator from Georgia, had gotten a teenager pregnant and arranged for her to have an abortion.
At a quarter to eleven he got out of the car and went to a bench that was nestled in bushes, secluded from others, but affording him a view of the surrounding area. At a few minutes before eleven he heard a car come to a stop in the parking lot behind him. Although he didn’t expect to have to use it, he used his elbow to assure that his Sig Sauer P226 was where it should be, secured in its holster in his armpit. A man emerged through a break in the bushes and looked nervously around. He wore a blue blazer, and carried both a yellow umbrella and a briefcase.
“Morrison?” Brixton said.
Eric Morrison turned in Brixton’s direction. “Yes,” he said, and approached the bench.
Brixton didn’t bother to stand to greet the lobbyist. He patted the space next to him. “Sit down,” he said.
Morrison looked as though he wasn’t sure whether to do what Brixton had suggested.
“Have a seat,” Brixton repeated.
Morrison sat, gingerly, and perched on the edge of the bench.
“Let’s not string this out,” Brixton said. “You know that I know about Senator Gillespie, and the role you played in arranging and paying for an abortion for a teenage girl back in Georgia. I’m not looking to get you in trouble, Mr. Morrison, but the senator is another story. Voters back in Georgia have a right to know what he’s really all about.”
Morrison stared into the dark perimeter of the mini-park and said nothing.
Brixton said, “You give me evidence about the abortion and I’ll pass it along to the interested parties. I’ll keep you out of it best I can.”
“This is very difficult for me, Mr. Brixton.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it is. What’s your biggest problem, Morrison, that you might lose your senator buddy in congress? He pretty much does your bidding, doesn’t he, votes the way your Big Pharma clients want him to in return for hefty donations to his campaigns?”
“But what you don’t understand is—”
A man who’d been lurking in the parking lot approached, stopping at a spot directly behind the bench where the two men sat, the bushes shielding him from their sight. He silently took a step into the narrow opening created between two of the shrubs.
“Get to it, Morrison,” Brixton said, losing patience.
Morrison opened his briefcase and showed Brixton the $20,000 it contained. “It’s for you,” he said. “Twenty thousand dollars. I’m sure you can use it. I mean, I’m sure you can put it to good use. What’s to be gained by bringing down a United States senator? I mean, what’s in it for you?”
Morrison closed the briefcase. As he did, the large man behind them reached through the gap in the bushes and brought a spring-loaded lead-weighted sac across the back of Brixton’s neck. He went forward, off the bench, facedown on the gravel.
Morrison leaped to his feet.
“Why did you do that?” he said as the man pulled open Brixton’s jacket, pulled the Sig Sauer from its holster, and pointed it at Brixton’s prone body.
“Don’t shoot him!” Morrison yelled.
The man turned to face the lobbyist. He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger twice. Both shots blew apart Morrison’s heart. He was dead before he hit the ground, the tip of the yellow umbrella piercing the moist soil and standing vertical like a colorful graveyard monument. The man grabbed the case from Morrison’s limp hand and was gone.