Paramour

by Gerald Petievich

  "They sure as hell don't," Landry said. Examiners?

  "One of the examiners they sent up here is an old friend from the Five-eleventh. He said they did everyone simultaneously on a Sunday . . . at their homes."

  "Lucky the word never got out," Landry said. What the hell was he talking about?

  Sneed chuckled. "Hell, the Washington Post would have had a damn field day. Headline: 'Cabinet and highest White House staff made to sit down on lie box. '"

  "You can say that again," Landry said. Lie detector tests!

  "Did you get tested?"

  "Me? No. No one in Secret Service was tested as far as I know," Landry said.

  "As I understand it, they only asked one question: 'Are you now working or have you ever worked for a hostile intelligence agency?' Is it true Morgan told everyone if they refused the test, it would be considered a resignation?"

  "I heard a rumor to that effect," Landry said, feeling he had to answer.

  Sneed looked him in the eye. "You sure you knew about this in the first place? I don't want to be talking out of turn."

  Landry sipped his drink. "Nothing happens at the House without the Secret Service knowing about it."

  Sneed slapped Landry on the shoulder and checked his watch again. "I'd better be going," he said, climbing off his bar stool. He headed for the door.

  Landry remained at the bar after Sneed left, his mind swirling with what he'd learned. The entire cabinet forced to take lie detector tests? Ray Stryker killing himself? A CIA agent getting killed during a presidential visit? Powers quitting his job suddenly? Coming to a decision, he left the bar and returned to the White House.

  At the East Gate, Landry stopped at the guard booth. Howard Singer, the uniformed officer on duty, came to his feet.

  "How you doin', my man?"

  "Fine, Mr. Landry. Working late tonight?"

  "I just thought I'd stop by to see how things are going on the night shift. Any suggestions on how we can increase security-make things better?"

  "No, sir. Things seem fine to me."

  "That's good, Howard," Landry said. He turned and entered the White House itself. Once inside, he stepped into the logistics office. From the window, he had a view of the guard booth. Singer was on the phone, making one quick call after another, informing all guard posts that Landry was present conducting an unannounced inspection-exactly what Landry wanted him to do. Inspecting posts was a legitimate reason for the Agent-in-Charge of the presidential detail to be in the White House after midnight.

  At the upstairs elevator bank, Landry stopped and made small talk with Agent Jim Anderson, the only other black on the White House Secret Service Detail. Anderson told him that Singer had, as Landry had suspected, notified everyone the Agent-in-Charge was in the White House.

  Landry continued down the hall to Morgan's office. Using the White House master key he kept on his key chain, he opened the door and entered, closing the door behind him.

  Recalling the safe diagrams kept on file in W-16, he surmised Morgan kept his private papers in the Diebold safe against the facing wall. The number 8336 was stenciled on the top of the safe. Memorizing the number, he left the office and continued down the hallway. At the end of the hall, he took the stairs down to W-16. Agent Harrington, the acting shift leader, had his suit coat on and his tie straightened. Landry told him he'd forgotten a phone number and opened the file cabinet next to the radio console. He thumbed through files until Harrington was busy answering a radio call, then reached to the back of the drawer for the safe combination file. Quickly, he found the combination for number 8336, repeated it three times to himself, then shoved the file back into its place.

  "Can I help you find anything?" Harrington said.

  "I was just looking for my shift report. I had some more calls from the press about Capizzi and his little act today."

  "Capizzi is a deluxe, grade-A, tournament-class pain in the ass. An asshole's asshole."

  "He is that," Landry said. "But look at it like this: he probably can't help the way he is. His mom and dad may have been assholes."

  "You have a point," Harrington said as Landry left the room.

  "I'm going to make one more run through the House before I go," Landry said, because he knew Harrington would follow him on the closed-circuit camera. "Have a good night."

  "You too, Ken."

  Landry checked the outside posts, chatting amiably with each of the agents on duty, then made his way back into the House through the bowling alley. He returned upstairs to Morgan's office. Thankful there was no closed-circuit camera on this floor, again he used the key to enter Morgan's office. Inside, he closed the door gently and ran to the safe. He dialed the combination as fast as he could, yanked open the top drawer, and quickly checked file tabs. In the second drawer, flipping through tabs, he became concerned that Harrington, wondering what he was doing upstairs for so long, might investigate. He could hear himself breathing.

  He found the file. The tab was marked FENCING MASTER.

  He opened it. There were only two pages. He ran to the copying machine on the other side of the room. Thankfully someone had left it on and he didn't have to wait for it to warm up. He copied the two memos, shoved the copies in his jacket pocket, and rushed back to the safe to return the originals. He closed the drawers, locked the safe, and ran to the door.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him. He walked briskly down the hall, his heart beating wildly. Taking the elevator to the first floor, he made his way out of the White House and walked along G Street. Passing Secret Service headquarters, he had the terrible feeling that at any moment someone might rush up, arrest him, and yank the stolen memos from his pocket. He entered the four-story parking garage at Nineteenth and G Street where he rented a space by the month, then stopped and looked behind him. Seeing there was no one on the street, he let out his breath and loosened his necktie. Still not taking any chances, he didn't so much as take the memos from his pocket until he was safely inside his automobile.

  At the Georgetown Arms, Powers had changed clothes, unplugged his telephone, closed the curtains, and lain down on the sofa. Hell, he needed time to think.

  The living room was decorated with impersonal Georgetown Arms furnishings: a thin-cushioned sofa, a small veneer coffee table, an oversized commercial oil painting of a sailing ship on an indigo sea. Though the room looked like a hotel cubicle as much as a rented flat, the place had suited him perfectly . . . when he was a Secret Service agent. In fact, the sum total of his belongings-out-of-season clothes, a tennis racket, a baseball mitt, some books (biographies mostly, because he didn't care much for fiction), a few marksmanship trophies, and a couple of shoe boxes containing such items as his army discharge papers and a framed Secret Service commendation awarded by Director Fogarty for his actions during the attempt on President Ford's life, fit nicely into two army footlockers. This lack of possessions had made it convenient for him to abandon the apartment at a moment's notice when sent on long-term Secret Service protection assignments.

  For a moment Powers considered phoning Sullivan and telling him about what had happened at Highland. But Sullivan had lined up the job in the first place, and Powers would rather die than ask him for the same favor again. Besides, Powers told himself, he could always get a job. There were any number of bodyguard services in DC, most of them run by retired Secret Service agents. The problem was he'd been a security agent for the President of the United States, and he didn't relish the idea of being a bodyguard for some alcoholic businessman with a Lear jet or a twenty-two-year-old Saudi prince on vacation. Still, he had to find a way to earn a living soon because he had only two thousand dollars in savings. He went into the kitchen and made another drink.

  At about 1 A.M., dizzy-drunk and sick of both liquor and the sight and sound of television, he went in the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. Cupping his hands under the tap, he washed his mouth out with water, then staggered into the bed
room and stretched out on the bed.

  Lying on his back with the room spinning, he found himself dwelling on Ray Stryker and the bloodstained drape in the Special Projects conference room. He still considered the act of suicide cowardly and foolish, but thinking about it over and over made it seem somehow no longer repulsive ... a legitimate consideration for human beings perhaps. Who was to say suicide was right or wrong? He breathed deeply a few times. Thankfully, blackness took him....

  The street lights were out and Marilyn, dressed the way she'd been the first day he'd seen her, was running away from him through the exhibit hall at the art show. He tried to run after her, but his clothes were made of lead and he couldn't keep up. He was out of breath as he continued after her, knocking down the paintings and sculptures in his way. She stopped and looked back at him, then continued on. For the life of him, he couldn't catch up.

  The door buzzer sounded.

  Powers awoke. Figuring whoever it was would eventually go away, he didn't move. The buzzer continued for a while, then finally stopped. He closed his eyes again. Peace.

  A few minutes later, there was the sound of a key being slipped into the front door lock. Powers sat upright.

  "Jack?" It was Landry. Powers said nothing.

  There was the sound of footsteps. Landry stood in the bedroom doorway. "Jack. You okay?"

  "Fine."

  "Why haven't you been answering your telephone?"

  "How did you get in here?" Powers said.

  "I talked Mrs. Hammerstrom out of a key." Landry flicked the bedroom light switch and Powers covered his eyes. "I've been trying to reach you, my man."

  "Whataya want?"

  "I came here to talk."

  "What about?"

  "Why don't you get up?"

  "Because I don't feel like getting up."

  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 dr
opped 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.