Paramour (29 page)

"A likely story. The San Francisco number you gave me is for the information desk at the San Francisco Public Library. It's not a listed number but a direct dial-probably a number they don't want tied up by people calling in."

He thanked her and said he would call her soon. She said she wouldn't hold her breath. He set the receiver down, took out a small notebook he'd brought with him, and made a note.

"Marilyn calls the San Francisco Public Library at night," he said.

"That might be a winner," Landry said, stirring sugar into his coffee.

"Marilyn is the key to everything," Powers said.

Powers rubbed his chin. "The day she left for Germany, the twentieth, she stopped at a beauty shop. And at Dulles she spoke with a United Airlines flight attendant. Those were her only contacts during the entire surveillance."

"I'll handle the beauty shop," Landry said.

"Then I'll take the airport and the San Francisco lead."

"In the meantime, I'll do some more nosing around at the House," Landry said.

"Should we tell Sullivan about all this?"

"My man, what would you do if two agents came to you and said they believed the Director of the CIA was involved in some kind of plot to undermine the President of the United States?"

"You're right. We'd better have some hard evidence before going to him or anyone else," Powers said.

"If the CIA is up to something, you'd better watch your back. Things could get real nasty, my man."

****

NINETEEN

The next morning in the White House Rose Garden, the President was handing out plaques to a line of rosy-cheeked Future Farmers of America. Per protocol, Landry, preoccupied with what he'd discussed with Powers the night before, stood a few feet behind him to remain out of photo opportunity.

Later, sitting at the radio console in W-16, he found it difficult to concentrate on even the mundane tasks of preparing a duty roster and completing the previous day's shift report.

At noon, Landry was relieved for lunch by Bob Tomsic and went to the pass section on the first floor of the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. He made small talk with a secretary as he opened a file safe and thumbed through until he came to Marilyn Kasindorf's file. Inside were a couple of forms requesting White House clearance and listing her payroll address as CIA, Langley, Virginia. Also in the file were two wallet-sized, face-only photographs. He palmed one of the photos and replaced the file in the safe, then pulled out a couple other files at random to make it look like he was doing nothing more than checking files routinely.

Drawing a car from the Secret Service motor pool, Landry drove to the Curls and Furls beauty shop and parked in a red zone in front.

Inside, he was met by a din of radios tuned to rock stations and a powerful odor of permanent wave solution. Four modish female hair stylists were working on women customers. Everyone in the place turned to look at him as he walked in.

A tall red-haired stylist was leaning against a counter reading a
Sex Forum
magazine. She was about forty years old and wore a pink tank top and slick, black leather pants so tight they showed her sharp pelvic bones. Her face and arms were covered with a spray of tiny freckles, and she had long curving red fingernails. Her bright red hair was cut garishly short and styled high in front to give her-well, a Woody Woodpecker look. She put the magazine down.

"We don't do men's hair."

Landry took out his Secret Service badge and credential and held them out. "I just need some information."

"Secret Service?" the woman said.

Her eyes hooded, and she glanced suspiciously at a young hairdresser working at the closest chair. Her hair was styled in what Powers would describe as a crew cut: white-walled sides and a level landing strip of black hair on top of her head. She wore heavy dangling silver earrings.

Landry reached into his jacket pocket and took out the pass section photograph of Marilyn Kasindorf. "Do you remember doing this woman's hair? She came in here August nineteenth."

She looked at him sternly for a moment. "The nineteenth... Oh, yes. I remember her."

"Can you tell me anything about her?"

She handed the photograph back to him. "What did she do?"

"It's a confidential inquiry."

"I shouldn't really be talking about a customer."

"She's a forger, ma'am. Social Security checks."

Her eyes widened. "God, I hope I didn't take a check from her." She reached under the counter, pulled out a metal box, and thumbed through some papers for a moment. The other stylists had lowered radio volumes and silenced hair dryers to eavesdrop. "No," she said finally. "I have six checks and twelve credit card drafts listed for the nineteenth, but I know all the customers. She must have paid in cash."

"Lucky for you," Landry said. "Do you remember anything about her?"

"Lemme see the photograph again."

He handed her the photo.

"This isn't a very good picture of her," she said. "Nice person, friendly. It was the first time she'd been in here."

"What did she talk about?"

"Art. I think she mentioned something about an art show. God, I wonder if she buys paintings by forging checks. I saw a TV show one time about people who did that kind of thing."

"This woman's name is Marilyn. Marilyn Kasindorf. Does that ring a bell?"

"Forgers use different names, don't they?"

"Usually," Landry said. "Are you sure she'd never been in here before?"

She nodded. "I know every regular customer."

Landry shrugged. "Thanks for the help."

"What should I do if she comes in here again?" the woman asked.

"She won't be back," Landry said on his way to the door.

Powers used one of his free airline travel coupons for the trip to San Francisco. Though tired, he was unable to sleep during the flight. He couldn't get Marilyn off his mind.

The weather was clear and sunny, much cooler than Washington, as Powers stepped off the airplane. At the terminal gift shop he purchased a map of the city and took a bus to the Summit Hotel on Post Street.

Powers had stayed at the Summit on numerous Secret Service protection assignments. It was a modest place, a remodeled fleabag catering to civil servants, trial witnesses, and tourists trying to save a buck. Just as he'd figured, the Samoan room clerk, who'd come to recognize him over the years, assigned him a room at the government discount without asking to see his Secret Service identification. With the savings on the room, Powers would be able to pay for taxis and meals.

The San Francisco Library, a massive gray stone edifice with ten Corinthian columns, was located on Larkin Street across from the modern federal building. Powers entered through the glass double doors. He made his way past a large book return desk manned by two young women, each of whom had a telephone instrument on her desk. He noted the library hours, which were posted on a sign at the desk, and strolled past the stacks to the other side of the library. There was another telephone on a small desk in the children's section and one on a wall in periodicals.

At a bank of pay telephones in the children's section, he dropped change and dialed the library number from Marilyn's phone bill. It began to ring. Allowing the receiver to hang from its cord rather than setting it back on the hook, he stepped out of the booth. There was no sound of ringing, and none of the employees within his sight on the first floor answered a phone. Quickly, he moved up the stairs to the general reference area. An elderly gray-haired woman wearing an earth mother dress moved from her desk to one in the corner and picked up the receiver. She said hello a couple of times, then set the receiver back on the cradle and returned to her desk.

Powers wandered around for a while until the woman left her desk to assist a customer, then hurried to the desk in the corner and checked the number on the telephone instrument. It was the one he'd dialed.

He left the library and took a long walk to his favorite restaurant, the Via Reggio on Lombard Street. Though the place was busy, the owner, Bill Smith, a slim, curly-haired young Irishman, greeted him warmly and showed him to a seat. Powers ordered and ate a leisurely lunch of fried squid and pasta, refusing wine because he didn't feel like drinking. Smith joined him and they chatted about the time President Reagan had lunched at the restaurant and the Secret Service agents had lined up an off-duty party with the lady gym instructors at the classy Fog City Health Club down the street.

After lunch, Powers killed the rest of the day and early evening as a tourist strolling along Fisherman's Wharf.

At 6 P.M. he took a cable car to the Hertz rental car office on Montgomery Street. There he rented a compact car and drove it to the library. He found a parking place across the street.

In the library, there was a man sitting at the desk in the corner on the second level. He was about twenty-five, of medium height, and had a thick dishwater beard. His hair was shoulder length and drawn back into a ponytail, and he was wearing Levi's, a SAVE THE WHALES T-shirt, and granny glasses. Powers returned to the car and waited.

At 9 P.M. a security guard in a khaki uniform came to the front door and opened it for each of the last few remaining library customers. Then the lights, upstairs first, then downstairs, were dimmed. A few minutes later, the guard opened the front door from the inside and several employees, including the man with the ponytail, came out the front door. They walked together, chatting amiably, to the corner of McAllister and Larkin and then went in different directions.

Powers started the engine and drove slowly to the corner. The man with the ponytail moved briskly down the street. In the middle of the block he entered a well-lit parking lot and climbed into a primer-gray Volkswagen beetle. He backed out of the parking space and drove out of the driveway onto McAllister. Powers accelerated and followed him through downtown to the Mission district. On a street of two-story Victorian-style houses, he pulled into an alley and parked the Volkswagen. He climbed out, locked the car, and entered the front door of the house without using a key.

Powers found a parking space for his car around the corner. Returning to the house, he opened the door and climbed a steep flight of stairs to a landing. There were four closed doors lining a hallway that extended to the end of the building. To Powers, it looked like a private residence whose bedrooms had been converted to rentals.

He knocked on the closest door.

"Yes?" a woman said.

"I'm looking for the man who works at the library," he said.

"End of the hall on your right," she said.

Powers moved to the door and knocked. The man opened the door almost immediately.

"My name is Jack Powers. Forgive me for bothering you at this late hour, but I'm conducting an investigation. May I step in?"

"Is this some kind of sales pitch?"

"I assure you it's not. May I come in where we can talk without being overheard?"

"I guess so," the man said after a moment. "But only because I'm curious."

Powers stepped in, and the man closed the door behind him. The room had a marred wood floor and was small and well-lit. In front of the window was an artist's easel with a nearly finished oil painting of a red-haired young girl standing behind the counter in a flower shop. A spattered canvas drop cloth covered half the floor, and artist's brushes and tubes of oil paint, filled and half-filled canvases, and cans of turpentine covered a small dining table. The walls, from floor to ceiling, were covered with oil paintings of differing sizes: realistic portraits of men, women, and children all done in subdued pastels like the painting on the easel. On the other side of the room was a mattress on the floor and a clock radio. The room smelled like turpentine, oil paint, and marijuana.