The Firm Page 0,75

men for surveillance. What an idiot!"

* * *

Ernie's Airport Lounge was indeed near the airport. Mitch found it after three attempts and parked between two four-wheel-drive swampmobiles with real mud caked on the tires and headlights. The parking lot was full of such vehicles. He looked around and instinctively removed his tie. It was almost eleven. The lounge was deep and long and dark with colorful beer signs flashing in the painted windows.

He looked at the note again, just to be sure.

Dear Mr. McDeere:

Please meet me at Ernie's Lounge on Winchester tonight-late. It's about Eddie Lomax. Very important.
Tammy Hemphill, his secretary

The note had been tacked on the door to the kitchen when he arrived home. He remembered her from the one visit to Eddie's office, back in November. He remembered the tight leather skirt, huge breasts, bleached hair, red sticky lips and smoke billowing from her nose. And he remembered the story about her husband, Elvis.

The door opened without incident, and he slid inside. A row of pool tables covered the left half of the room. Through the darkness and black smoke, he could make out a small dance floor in the rear. To the right was a long saloon-type bar crowded with cowboys and cowgirls, all drinking Bud longnecks. No one seemed to notice him. He walked quickly to the end of the bar and slid onto the stool. "Bud longneck," he told the bartender.

Tammy arrived before the beer. She was sitting and waiting on a crowded bench by the pool tables. She wore tight washed jeans, faded denim shirt and kinky red high-heels. The hair had just received a fresh bleaching.

"Thanks for coming," she said into his face. "I've been waiting for four hours. I knew of no other way to find you."

Mitch nodded and smiled as if to say, "It's okay. You did the right thing."

"What's up?" he said.

She looked around. "We need to talk, but not here."

"Where do you suggest?"

"Could we maybe drive around?"

"Sure, but not in my car. It, uh, it may not be a good idea."

"I've got a car. It's old, but it'll do."

Mitch paid for the beer and followed her to the door. A cowpoke sitting near the door said, "Getta loada this. Guy shows up with a suit and picks her up in thirty seconds." Mitch smiled at him and hurried out the door. Dwarfed in a row of massive mud-eating machinery was a well-worn Volkswagen Rabbit. She unlocked it, and Mitch doubled over and squeezed into the cluttered seat. She pumped the accelerator five times and turned the key. Mitch held his breath until it started.

"Where would you like to go?" she asked.

Where we can't be seen,Mitch thought. "You're driving."

"You're married, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes. You?"

"Yes, and my husband would not understand this situation right here. That's why I chose that dump back there. We never go there."

She said this as if she and her husband were discriminating critics of dark redneck dives.

"I don't think my wife would understand either. She's out of town, though."

Tammy drove in the direction of the airport. "I've got an idea," she said. She clutched the steering wheel tightly and spoke nervously.

"What's on your mind?" Mitch asked.

"Well, you heard about Eddie."

"Yes."

"When did you last see him?"

"We met ten days or so before Christmas. It was sort of a secret meeting."

"That's what I thought. He kept no records of the work he was doing for you. Said you wanted it that way. He didn't tell me much. But me and Eddie, well, we, uh, we were... close."

Mitch could think of no response.

"I mean, we were very close. Know what I mean?"

Mitch grunted and sipped the longneck.

"And he told me things I guess he wasn't supposed to tell me. Said you had a real strange case, that some lawyers in your firm had died under suspicious circumstances. And that you always thought somebody was following and listening. That's pretty weird for a law firm."

So much for the confidentiality,thought Mitch. "That it is."

She turned, made the exit to the airport and headed for the acres of parked cars.

"And after he finished his work for you, he told me once, just once, in bed, that he thought he was being followed. This was three days before Christmas. And I asked him who it was. He said he didn't know, but mentioned your case and something about it was probably related to the same people who were following you. He didn't say much."

She parked in the short-term section near the terminal.

"Who