Paramour (27 page)

Landry came to the bedside. "You sick?"

"No. I just want some peace and quiet."

"Jack, I'm your friend. Talk to me."

Powers closed his
eyes and rolled over onto his
stomach.

"I don't feel like talking."

"Get up," Landry said.

"Fuck you."

Suddenly Powers felt the mattress lift and he was thrown out of bed onto the hardwood floor. Furious, he came to his feet ready to fight. Landry didn't raise his hands to defend himself. He just stood there staring at him.

Powers stopped.

"Put your clothes on, my man," Landry said softly. Then he turned and left the room.

Powers angrily threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went to the living room. Landry had thrown open the windows. He was standing in front of the refrigerator taking out lunchmeat and bread.

"What are you doing?" Powers said,

Landry ripped open the plastic wrap covering some sliced bologna. "I didn't eat dinner tonight."

Powers sat down on the sofa. Nothing was said as Landry finished making a sandwich.

Having put the fixings back in the refrigerator, Landry popped open a can of Pepsi and sat down at the kitchen table. "Someday you're going to talk about the real reason why you resigned," Landry said as he ate. "Someday you'll do just that." He took a bite of the sandwich. "There comes a time when a man needs to share what's bothering him. Otherwise he might eat himself alive."

Powers rubbed his eyes.

Nothing was said as Landry slowly finished the sandwich. Finally he wiped his mouth with a paper towel and drank some Pepsi. "You and I both know Jack Powers would never voluntarily leave the Secret Service," Landry said without looking at him.

"I was offered a job with higher pay."

Landry came to his feet and brushed crumbs off his pants. "I've been standing post in the White House since I was twenty-three years old," he said. "I can sense when something is out of kilter ... like before the Watergate and Iran-gate crises. There's tension in the air, my man."

He stood there for a moment, then shrugged and walked to the apartment door.

"The man wanted me out of the White House," Powers heard himself saying. "I chose to resign rather than take a transfer."

Landry shoved the door closed gently. He took off his suit jacket, hung it neatly on a dinette chair, and sat down on the sofa.

Powers told him about meeting Sullivan in front of the Museum of Natural History and signing the resignation. Landry, as was his habit, showed no emotion.

"So now you know," Powers said. Suddenly thirsty, he stood up and went to the sink. He ran the faucet, drank water, and set the glass down.

Landry left the sofa and stood at the window with his thumbs hooked in the thick diamond-weave leather belt holding his revolver and other Secret Service equipment.

"It's a funny thing in this town. Nobody, I mean nobody, ever gets the full story. Ever think about that?"

"What are you driving at?"

"Take Watergate, for instance. Everyone went to jail and Nixon went down the political drain, but still, to this very day, no one for sure knows the real reason for the burglary. There's a lot of speculation-for that matter, a lot of damn good reasons-yet no one has yet established beyond doubt why the break-in was planned in the first place. There's always more than meets the eye, my man."

"I don't see the point."

Landry cleared his throat. "About a year ago Capizzi called in one of his phony sick days and I was filling in on the rotation. The President and Morgan were playing chess in the Lincoln Room."

"Post twelve."

Landry nodded. "The door was cracked a few inches. They were talking about the President's foreign policy failures-the way the Syrians have out negotiated us time after time, as if they knew our next move. Morgan said he thought the reason the administration had been doing so badly was that there was a leak in the White House."

"I never heard anything like that."

"Then tonight I ran across Ed Sneed, He mentioned something called Operation Fencing Master. Ever heard of it?"

"No."

"Well, get this, my man. The entire cabinet and the ranking members of the White House staff were forced to take lie detector tests-administered by army polygraph examiners."

"Bullshit."

"That's what I thought. So I went back to the White House and checked Morgan's safe."

"You actually went into his safe?"

"Let's just say I conducted an after-hours security check and found something in plain sight-a file titled Fencing Master." He reached inside his jacket, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to Powers. "In the file were two memos: a TOP SECRET addressed to the Provost Marshal of the Army requesting a platoon of polygraph examiners and this."

Powers examined the photocopied memo. It was a fist of the cabinet and staff members' home addresses. There were check marks by all the names except Russel Patterson. Next to his name the word REFUSED
had been scribbled in what looked like Morgan's handwriting.

"Everyone takes the test except Patterson," Powers said. "A defector is interviewed by the Director of the CIA. Ray Stryker's body is found in a CIA office. Marilyn Kasindorf works for the CIA, and one of Patterson's CIA shine boys shows up at her apartment, then ends up dead."

"Patterson ... the man who would be King," Landry said facetiously.

"But does he want the Presidency bad enough to burn down the White House?"

"The President has been cutting back the CIA since the Russians folded their tent. It's possible that Patterson would love nothing more than to embarrass the man. He figures passing a few goodies out to the other side to screw the man helps the country in the long run. Some Ollie North-style thinking. Besides, I've heard Patterson and the President go way back in hating each other."

"Then you and I are right in the middle of a great big bag of worms," Powers said meditatively.

Landry checked his watch. "It's late. Come over to my place tomorrow." Landry walked to the door. "We'll talk after dinner. Just wear a pair of Levi's. I'll expect you about six." He turned the doorknob and left.

In the kitchen, Powers dropped ice in a glass and poured himself a stiff drink. He lifted the glass to his lips, then stopped himself and dumped the contents of the glass into the sink.

****

EIGHTEEN

Powers awoke with a painful hangover. In a fury, he threw out trash, including a nearly full bottle of scotch, and washed the dishes in the sink. In the bathroom, he shaved and then showered for a long time, as if to cleanse the poison from his body. Finally, he dressed in a suit and tie, slipped a screwdriver in his inside coat pocket, and headed down the street to the All America Cafeteria.

Moving along a buffet line, he filled a plastic tray with enough food for two breakfasts, At a table in the corner, he ate slowly, sipping coffee and reading a newspaper for a long time, concentrating on an article captioned PRESIDENT TRAILS IN POLL, analyzing the President's failure to surge ahead in the polls even after his latest campaign swing. By the time Powers finished eating, he felt better than he had in days.

Outside the cafeteria, he shoved the newspaper in a trash receptacle and headed down the street toward Scott Circle.

At Marilyn's apartment house, Powers took out the screwdriver and jimmied the front door. Entering the lobby, he checked the
mail: rows
of small brass-plated boxes with slits so no one could see if there was anything inside. There was mail in box 704, Marilyn's apartment. Obviously it had been piling up since her defection.

On the seventh floor, Powers stepped out of the elevator and walked down the carpeted hallway to Marilyn's apartment. Having familiarized himself with the lock the first time he'd broken in, he jimmied it easily and opened the door on the first try. He stepped inside the apartment. The living room was vacant and there were indentations in the carpeting where the furniture had been. He walked slowly across the room and toured the apartment. There was no furniture of any kind in the bedroom or in the bathroom. All drawers and closets, including the medicine chest, were empty. Seeing the barren apartment reminded him that he would never see her again.

Powers returned to the living room. For a moment, it occurred to him that he might like to take something of Marilyn's with him as a keepsake.

In front of the bay window was a short length of telephone cord left where the telephone instrument had been. He surmised that the CIA had searched the apartment once they'd learned of Marilyn's defection, but why would they remove the furniture and the telephone?

On the wall under the living room window a faceplate was missing from an electrical outlet. He moved closer to inspect. A small trail of paint dust led along the baseboard, leading him to believe the baseboard might have been removed and replaced since the last time the apartment had been painted.

Powers dropped to his knees and tugged on the baseboard. It was loose and came away from the wall easily. There was an inch-long length of thin black insulating wire near the electrical outlet, the kind of wire used as an antenna for an eavesdropping transmitter designed to draw power from an electrical socket. This kind of device was known as a "hardwire rig." Though unsophisticated by today's eavesdropping standards, it was extremely effective. With a good receiver it could pick up all the sounds not only in the living room but throughout the entire apartment.

Powers picked up the tiny length of wire and dropped it in his shirt pocket.

"May I help you?" a woman said. Powers started.

Marilyn's clear-eyed elderly neighbor, the one who'd walked past him when he had broken in the first time, was standing in the doorway. She was wearing a matronly blue suit and a designer scarf.

"How'd you get in here?"

"The door was open," Powers said, standing up. "I'm a friend of Marilyn's."

"She doesn't live here anymore. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for Marilyn."

"Did you think you'd find her on the floor?"

"I'm sorry to alarm you," Powers said, smiling obsequiously. "But the door was open."

"No, it wasn't. You get out of here or I'm going to call the police."

Powers came to his feet. "There's no need for that, ma'am. You can see I've stolen nothing."

"That's only because there's nothing to steal."

Powers moved past the woman and down the hallway. She stood in the hallway watching as he waited for the elevator. At least she hadn't called the police.

Downstairs, Powers stepped off the elevator and stopped again at Marilyn's mailbox. He looked around to see that no one was watching, then used the screwdriver he'd brought with him to snap the mailbox's small lock. He grabbed the envelopes and shoved them in his coat pocket.

There was the sound of footsteps.

"You don't live here," a voice said.

Powers whirled. A young woman in a red dress was standing a few feet away from him, holding a bag of groceries.

"I forgot my key," Powers said. He turned and walked briskly toward the door.

"You put that mail back right now"' the woman shouted. "Stop!"