In a development that will raise more questions than it will answer, a recent tour of the Old Mint building on Fifth Street with property manager Warren Sitterley revealed a ghostly presence in room 203: CIA spies.

A cryptic one-liner in a 1995 architect's report to the General Services Administration was the tip-off: "Information about this room has been deleted from this report at the request of the Department of Treasury and the CIA."

Located on the seocnd floor beside the sweeping room, where government employees once shook the golden litter from their clothing at the end of the workday, room 203 was outfitted with the tangled cables of a multiline wiretap, padded walls, and listening devices.

Sitterley's best guess is that the room was padded to muffle the noise emitted by old Teletype machines. But the listening device is so clearly labeled "WIRE TAP 2" that it might as well say "GET MOOSE AND SQUIRREL!" Just exactly who was the CIA listening to? Calling Herb Caen...who worked right across the street, at Fifth and Mission. Maybe Caen didn't die of cancer after all.