Paramour (10 page)

Powers chose his own table to get a good view of the door and sat down without waiting to be seated. A few minutes later a young waiter with a short greasy ponytail and fair features came over to the table. Telling himself that eating in a restaurant on a surveillance was the best way to appear inconspicuous, Powers ordered couscous. Then, recalling that Sullivan wasn't requiring him to furnish receipts for his expenditures, he also ordered the
fruits de mer
and a small bottle of wine.

With his earpiece receiver discreetly monitoring routine radio transmissions on the White House frequency, Powers finished his seashell of
fruits de mer
and set the plate on top of the empty couscous bowl. He still wasn't full. Because of nervous tension, he had an urge to smoke a cigarette, but he had quit three years earlier after reading an article in
Readers Digest
citing the fact that virtually all men suffering impotency were heavy smokers. He was determined to never smoke again.

He glanced at his wristwatch for what must have been the tenth time. It was 6:51 P.M., was she going to be late?

A few moments later, the waiter finished a long conversation he'd been having with a waitress about backgammon and finally took the dirty dishes from his table.

Just then a woman came in the door.

She was in her thirties, willowy, and had long chestnut hair parted on the side. Her cheekbones were high, and she had full, sensuous lips, satiny red with a recent application of lipstick. Her eyes were brown, deep-set, and implied sophistication and perhaps even a certain world-weariness. She wore a maroon crocheted cardigan with wide sleeves, a black knit top, and tight-fitting black pants. Slung over her right shoulder was a large geometric-print leather bag.

Though Powers still thought it unfathomable that the President had risked his place in history by allowing himself to be compromised, now he understood: the strikingly attractive Marilyn Kasindorf was a woman no man could ignore. In a Secret Service hangout like Blackie's, agents would fight over her.

Marilyn set her bag on a chair at the counter and casually looked about. Powers pretended to review his bill to avoid eye contact with her.

She sat down and crossed her legs. There was a gold anklet above her right foot. Was it a band of tiny hearts? She ordered coffee from the counter waiter, and he served her immediately.

Powers checked his wristwatch again. It was 7 P.M.: time for Morgan to make the call.

The phone rang. The waiter picked up the receiver. "I'll check, sir," he said after a moment, then scanned the customers. "Is there someone named Marilyn here?"

Poised, Marilyn came to her feet and moved to the end of the counter. The waiter stretched the expandable cord to hand her the phone, and she put the receiver to her ear. A moment later she spoke softly, just a few words, and then reached across the counter and set the receiver down.

There was the sound of five distinct transmitter clicks via the radio earpiece, Sullivan's prearranged signal that Morgan had phoned Marilyn and informed her the President had to cancel the meeting.

Without finishing her coffee, Marilyn took money from her leather bag and set it on the counter. She hoisted the bag and arranged its strap on her shoulder. Male customers turned their heads as she sauntered out the door.

Powers took out his wallet and left enough money on his table to cover the bill and a tip. Waiting until she made her way to the bottom of the few steps leading to the pavement, he followed.

Marilyn walked along the sidewalk with the long strides of a fashion model, her leather bag moving to and fro. At the corner of Connecticut Avenue, she stopped and joined a crowd of pedestrians waiting for the light. Crossing the street with them, she strolled north for a block, stopping now and then to window-shop. At M Street, she glanced at her wristwatch, then suddenly turned to her right and entered the lobby of the Dupont Hotel.

Powers hurried inside. The hotel's expansive lobby, with its lush, red carpet and highly polished antique furniture, was nearly empty. Walking briskly, he checked the registration area, the coffee shop, the elevator bank. She wasn't there. "Shit," he said out loud.

He moved quickly across the lobby and past a balustrade. In a wide hallway, he hurried past a Hertz rental car desk and an American Airlines ticketing counter. He checked the small gift shop and moved slowly along a bank of wooden telephone booths.

Marilyn was sitting in the booth on the end with her leather bag propping the accordion door open. Was she waiting for a call?

Powers stepped into the gift shop and stood near the window. Marilyn glanced at her wristwatch, then leaned down, reached into her bag, and took out a filter-tip cigarette and a small gold lighter. She stepped out of the booth and lit the cigarette. Staying close to the phone she paced about, nervously changing the lighter from hand to hand.

Because the young man behind the counter in the gift shop was staring at him, Powers purchased a Snickers bar, which he figured would suffice for the rest of his dinner while on surveillance. He moved back near the window and thumbed through a magazine.

The phone rang once and stopped.

Marilyn slowly picked up her bag, and stepped inside the phone booth, and pulled the door closed. With the light on inside the booth, she took change from her purse, lifted the receiver, and dropped the money in the slot. She dialed, then spoke quietly. For a moment, she fumbled with her purse again and took out a checkbook. With her head cocked to hold the telephone receiver, she made a note. Hanging the receiver back on the hook, she stuffed pen and checkbook back in her purse. Then she pulled open the door, stepped out, and headed toward the lobby.

The moment she was out of sight, Powers hurried to the telephone booth. Using a ballpoint pen he dug out of his shirt pocket, he wrote the telephone number on the back of his hand. Having been in charge of making advance security arrangements at the hotel a few months earlier, when the President had delivered a speech to a convention of religious broadcasters, Powers was familiar with the building's layout. He headed immediately through the hotel's busy restaurant and exited onto the sidewalk. He was fifty yards or so behind her. Perfect timing, he told himself.

Without looking back, she strode cast past tall office buildings with first-floor retail businesses to Rhode Island Avenue, a wide thoroughfare lined with a mixture of multistoried apartment houses, hotels, retail outlets, and the Gramercy Park Hotel.

At Scott Circle, a convergence of six major streets with a circular traffic island guarded by a pigeon-stained statue of General Winfield Scott on horseback, she approached the glass door of an apartment house. The building was a ten-story upended brick rectangle, like the rest of the lodgings in the area. The number 1152 was affixed to the door in gold.

Using a key she took from her purse, Marilyn unlocked the front door and entered. She crossed a carpeted, well-lighted lobby and stepped into an elevator. The doors closed.

Powers moved to the door and pushed. It was locked. To the right were an intercom phone and a creased black felt board covered with glass and secured at the corner with a small lock. The names of the residents were affixed to the board in small white plastic letters. The name M. KASINDORF was listed for apartment 721. Checking carefully, he noted no video camera or other security device at the entrance or, as far as he could tell, inside the lobby. To the right, a wide entrance to the apartment house's underground garage was protected by an automatic steel gate.

Powers looked both ways and made his way across the street. He turned, looked up at the apartment house, and counted floors. On the seventh floor, the lights came on in the apartment second from the right. Powers walked to the corner and sat down on a bus bench.

During the next few hours, the apartment house's front entrance was used infrequently: a man walking his miniature collie, two women arriving in a taxi and unloading groceries, a jogger (Powers thought his pace was particularly slow) doing his nightly mile.

The lights in apartment 721 remained on until shortly after midnight. Powers, his clothing sticky from the humidity, hailed a cab.

At his apartment, Powers turned on the air conditioner, He picked up the phone and dialed Sullivan's number. The phone rang once and Sullivan answered.

"I think I've identified the residence," Powers said.

"Good."

"And there was a phone call made from a pay phone in the Dupont. "

"What the hell was she doing there?"

"Looked like she just went in to use the phone. She waited at a booth. There was one ring, like a signal; then she made a call-a short one."

"Give me the number."

"Outgoing from 274-1169 at 1912 hours," Powers said, referring to the note on the back of his hand.

"I'll get the subscriber information."

Powers set the receiver down. He stripped off his damp clothing, took a quick shower, and dried off. In the bedroom, he turned out all the lights except his reading lamp and climbed in bed. Picking up a TV remote control from the nightstand, he turned on the television. Johnny Carson was interviewing a confused young blond starlet who appeared to be under the influence of narcotics.

"I mean, like, I go, 'How do you expect me to sing if I'm supposed to be eating?' and he goes, 'I'm the director,'" she said. The audience laughed, then stopped abruptly. Johnny Carson made a face at the camera and straightened his necktie. There was another four-second burst of laughter.

Powers pressed the POWER button on the remote control. He reached to the nightstand, set the clock radio alarm for 4 A.M., and turned off the lamp. He wanted to be sure Marilyn didn't leave her apartment before he could follow her.

Lying in bed naked, covered only by a sheet, he relived Marilyn's walking into the restaurant and wondered what he would have done if he hadn't been on duty. After some thought, he decided that, because of her aloofness, he would have hesitated to make a pass at her. She looked like the kind of woman who would coldly rebuff an advance.

He also decided that the President had good taste. Marilyn Kasindorf was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen . . .

An electronic buzz sounded. Powers slapped the clock radio to shut it off and bounded out of bed. Marilyn was still on his mind as he shaved and dressed.

****

SEVEN

Darkness was turning to daylight on Rhode Island Avenue as Powers steered his Chevrolet into a parking space down the street from Marilyn's building. Using binoculars, he checked her apartment. The lights were still off. He leaned back in the seat. For the next two hours, traffic increased. A few early-bird bureaucrats walked briskly to work, sanitation trucks moved along both sides of the street, a few joggers and walkers hustled past. Washington, DC-city of power brokers and street criminals; of shiny limousines transporting both Congressmen and dope dealers; of call girls, pages, lobbyists, diplomats, and spies; of multistory apartment houses occupied by single women working at Agriculture or justice or HUD; of paper shredders and empire builders, idealists and greedy fixers; of the majesty of democracy and its delicate practice-came slowly alive.

By 6 A.M. he was tired of the morning news and weather on his radio and regretted having forgotten to pick up a newspaper before taking his surveillance position. By 7 A.M. his stomach was rumbling with hunger.

At 7:04 A.M. exactly, a light came on in Marilyn's apartment. With the light from the rising sun, the drapes were only slightly illuminated.

During the next hour or so, residents of the apartment house began leaving. Most were on foot, a few left in automobiles from the underground garage. Powers used the binoculars to check if Marilyn was among them.

By 8:30 A.M., Powers became concerned he'd missed her. Could she have slipped away without his spotting her?

Less than a minute later, Marilyn came out the front door and walked to the corner. He left his car and followed. She crossed the street at the light and walked to M Street, where she followed the sidewalk to the Bentley Thompson building, a modern multistory office structure. As she waited in a small crowd for an elevator, Powers checked the building registry. Every listing was a U.S. government agency. Undoubtedly, one of them was a cover name for the CIA and she was going to work . . .