"No. I was paid. To watch you."
"By who?"
"I don't know." She noted my face and said, "Look, I swear. I feel really bad about this."
"You're sweet."
"You have every right to be pissed off. But you can't let anyone know you caught me. This guy seems dangerous, all right? I wasn't lying-I am an art photographer. I do take PI jobs on the side. But never like this. This guy scares me."
"Tell me what you know."
She took a deep breath, studied the ceiling, exhaled hard. "I was tight on cash, so I pulled a posting off a Web site two days ago. Someone wanted a photographer like me, around my age. Had to be female. The guy had me meet him on a fire road by Runyon Canyon that night. He told me to park, turn off the car and lights, unlock the doors, angle away the rearview mirrors, and wait. So I did. He was twenty minutes late. Probably watching me, making sure I was alone. Just when I was about to drive off, he slid into my backseat. He told me your name and address and said he wanted me to spy on you, take pictures if I could. Get close. He knew that the condo here was getting renovated, but he'd had someone pay the owner to rent it for a few weeks. He told me to let myself get spotted by you, then have the pictures of the homeless guy waiting. Build trust, all that. He left cash and the necklace on the backseat. A lot of cash. He said to give you the necklace later. Then he told me to wait five minutes before leaving, and he walked off."
"Was the cash in hundreds, banded?" I asked.
"No. Twenties. Normal money, not fresh from a bank or anything."
"How old is he?"
"I didn't see him, obviously. He sounded older than me, though. Older than you."
"Did he have a smoker's voice?"
"No. Smooth, quiet. And calm. Too calm." Her eyes moistened, and then she blinked and they were as they'd been before. "Look, I just want to go back to my stupid life."
And I wanted to get the hell out of my condo, but if I did, the Voice wouldn't know where to find me, and I'd be giving up my shot at that second P.O.-box key. If there was a second key. I'd gone all-in on a single hand and couldn't leave the table taking anything with me. I blew out a breath and refocused. "How are you in touch with him?"
She sighed, stared up at the ceiling again. "I have a pager number, okay? If I input the number where I'm at, with a 1 after, he calls back. That's all I've done so far. But if I type a 2 after, it means I'm leaving something at our drop point."
"Which is where?"
"Echo Park. There's a garbage can next to the pretzel stand on the north side of the lake. I'm supposed to tape photos beneath the lid. But only if I get pictures of you meeting with other people. Everything else he's just had me describe over the phone."
I fished a piece of paper from a drawer and found a pen on my nightstand. "Write down the number."
She looked at me. "If you find him, you can't tell him."
"Write it down."
She jotted it down on a piece of paper for me. I dialed, got the two beeps of the pager right away, and hung up.
"Listen," I said, taking a page from Wydell's book, "let's pretend I believe you. You're scared. You should be. You don't even know who this guy works for. People have died already." Her eyelids flared convincingly, and she blanched. I said, "Is there anything else you can tell me?" Her eyes darted away, so I said, "What? "
"I don't know if it's anything," she said. "I don't even know what it means. But one time I dialed the pager from a pay phone, and after I input the number, I hit 4 instead of 1 by mistake. Right when I hung up, the phone rang." She'd gone cadaver pale, her voice thinned out with fear. "Before I could say hello, he said, 'Godfather's with Firebird, so all's clear. Get it to them.'"
Firebird. My mind went blank when I heard the word: Caruthers's old Secret Service call sign, from back when Frank worked with his protection detail.
The Voice in the Dark's information, though scattered, had pointed to Caruthers, but the phrase Kim had overheard seemed a solid indication that the senator was directly involved. As I sat there absorbing it, I began to wonder-was the snippet too pat, too convenient? Who the hell was Godfather? The handle seemed a bit on-the-nose for a mobster. The "accidental" message relay could have been disinformation. Call signs weren't classified; they were easy enough to find out and inevitably obvious, usually a jokey take on some feature of the principal. Everyone knew Reagan's was "Rawhide." When the Service had the pope back in '87, the newspapers even reported his call sign as "Halo."
"That's exactly what he said?" I asked.
"No. But it was something like that. And I remember the code names for sure."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. I was scared. I mean, Godfather? So I hung up. I knew I wasn't supposed to hear whatever. He called back. The phone rang and rang. It scared me, so I took off. I almost hit someone backing out."
I watched her closely. My gut said I should believe her. Still, they could've played her to mislead me.
