"Why would my client be contacted at all?"
"I don't know. But it's not an accident. Does your client have any radical tendencies?"
Thinking of Morton, Evans wanted to laugh. "Absolutely not."
"You quite sure, Peter?"
"Well, yes..."
"Because sometimes these wealthy donors amuse themselves, or justify themselves, by supporting terrorist groups. That's what happened with the IRA. Rich Americans in Boston supported them for decades. But times have changed. No one is amused any longer. Your client should be careful. And if you're his attorney, you should be careful, too. Hate to visit you in prison, Peter."
And he hung up.
TO LOS ANGELES
MONDAY, AUGUST 23
1:04 P. M.
The flight attendant poured Morton's vodka into a cut-glass tumbler. "No more ice, sweetie," Morton said, raising his hand. They were flying west, over Greenland, a vast expanse of ice and cloud in pale sun beneath them.
Morton sat with Drake, who talked about how the Greenland ice cap was melting. And the rate at which the Arctic ice was melting. And Canadian glaciers were receding. Morton sipped his vodka and nodded. "So Iceland is an anomaly?"
"Oh yes," Drake said. "An anomaly. Everywhere else, glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate."
"It's good we have you, Nick," Morton said, putting his hand on Drake's shoulder.
Drake smiled. "And it's good we haveyou, George," he said. "We wouldn't be able to accomplish anything without your generous support. You've made the Vanutu lawsuit possible--and that's extremely important for the publicity it will generate. And as for your other grants, well...words fail me."
"Words never fail you," Morton said, slapping him on the back.
Sitting across from them, Evans thought they really were the odd couple. Morton, big and hearty, dressed casually in jeans and a workshirt, always seeming to burst from his clothes. And Nicholas Drake, tall and painfully thin, wearing a coat and tie, with his scrawny neck rising from the collar of a shirt that never seemed to fit.
In their manner, too, they were complete opposites. Morton loved to be around as many people as possible, loved to eat, and laugh. He had a penchant for pretty girls, vintage sports cars, Asian art, and practical jokes. His parties drew most of Hollywood to his Holmby Hills mansion; his charity functions were always special, always written up the next day.
Of course, Drake attended those functions, but invariably left early, sometimes before dinner. Often he pleaded illness--his own or a friend's. In fact, Drake was a solitary, ascetic man, who detested parties and noise. Even when he stood at a podium giving a speech, he conveyed an air of isolation, as if he were alone in the room. And, being Drake, he made it work for him. He managed to suggest that he was a lone messenger in the wilderness, delivering the truth the audience needed to hear.
Despite their differences in temperament, the two men had built a durable friendship that had lasted the better part of a decade. Morton, the heir to a forklift fortune, had the congenital uneasiness of inherited wealth. Drake had a good use for that money, and in return provided Morton with a passion, and a cause, that informed and guided Morton's life. Morton's name appeared on the board of advisors of the Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Sierra Club. He was a major contributor to Greenpeace and the Environmental Action League.
All this culminated in two enormous gifts by Morton to NERF. The first was a grant of $1 million, to finance the Vanutu lawsuit. The second was a grant of $9 million to NERF itself, to finance future research and litigation on behalf of the environment. Not surprisingly, the NERF board had voted Morton their Concerned Citizen of the Year. A banquet in his honor was scheduled for later that fall, in San Francisco.
Evans sat across from the two men, idly thumbing through a magazine. But he had been shaken by the Hong Kong call, and found himself observing Morton with some care.
Morton still had his hand on Drake's shoulder, and was telling him a joke--as usual, trying to get Drake to laugh--but it seemed to Evans that he detected a certain distance on Morton's part. Morton had withdrawn, but didn't want Drake to notice.