Aaron Elkins: Twenty blue devils

"Um, let's see, he was probably, oh, maybe thirty at the time of the trials, so that would make him a little over forty now, and Brian was thirty-eight-so, yeah, the ages could fit, and changing his black hair to blond wouldn't be any problem, but-” He shook his head.

"But what?"

"But I tell you, it's hard to imagine that anybody could change a strange-looking bird like Bozzuto into a good-looking guy like Brian without giving him a brand-new head altogether. I mean, can they really do that with plastic surgery?"

"In a case like this, yes. Look, I think I understand what was wrong with Bozzuto, why he looked like that. From what you've said, I believe he had something called fibrous dysplasia of the skull. It's something like von Recklinghausen's disease-"

"English, please."

"You know, the Elephant Man syndrome-only it's a localized version, pretty much restricted to bony exostoses on and around the supraorbital torus."

"Really,” John said, “bony exostoses on and around the supraorbital torus."

"Right, and if you get a plastic surgeon who knows what he's doing, it can be fixed. It's a massive operation-you have to take out a chunk of the frontal bone, do some hammer-and chisel sculpting on it, and then put it back…which, if you remember, is exactly what was done to Brian. All that scaring-even the fractures-wasn't the result of an accident; it was done on purpose, by the surgeon himself. You have to do it to make the piece of bone fit back in after you change the shape; sometimes you even have to put it back in upside down to make it fit. And of course you have to do some substantial whittling around the orbits too, to make it all go together."

"Mm,” said John.

"And the reason that you never saw any scars on his face was that they weren't accidental wounds; the surgeon could pick his places to make his incisions-hairline, behind the ears, and so on."

"Mm,” said John.

"Ergo," Gideon said, “unless we can come up with something better, which I very much doubt, we now have the reason that Brian Scott was so stingy with the details of his life: there weren't any details because there wasn't any Brian. There was only Klingo Bozzuto."

This shamelessly theatrical windup was received with measured silence. John carried the coffee to the rattan table and chairs in one corner and set it down for them. Only after they had their first grateful swallows did he say anything. And even then it was accompanied by a shrug.

"Maybe."

"Maybe! Where's the ‘maybe'?"

"Well, for one thing, weren't you the guy that was explaining to me a couple of days ago that it wasn't plastic surgery, that it couldn't be plastic surgery, because if it was plastic surgery the bone would never be that beat up?"

"Well, as I recall, I said it was reconstructive surgery, but reconstructive surgery is just another name for a more radical form of pl-"

"And, let's see, correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't you tell me that it was all the result of this humongous accident? ‘Devastating accident,’ I believe you said?"

"Well, yes, but that was just a first reaction. I hadn't given it any thought, I wasn't sure of myself, I was just making a guess."

"You could have fooled me,” John said. “You even told me what kind of accident: automobile, you said. You even gave me the speed: sixty miles an hour. I was real impressed. You also-"

Gideon finally gave in, laughing. “All right, I may have been a little premature in my conclusions,” he allowed.

"That's one way to put it,” John said, laughing too. He swallowed down the last of his coffee and poured them both some more. A few rays of pale gray light were filtering through the wooden blinds now, and in the trees the rowdy mynah birds were waking up and staking their daily territorial claims.

"I tell you the truth, Doc,” John said, “what you say adds up-but then, what you said about that accident added up too, only now you're telling me it never happened. I'm not saying you're wrong, but-well, think about it; it just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's crazy. Brian was a nice guy, a good guy. Bozzuto was your typical Mob crud."

"Did you actually know him?"

"Well, no, but it stands to-"

"Wait, there's more, John. What kind of work did they get for Bozzuto in Chicago?"

"Huh? How would I know that?"

"Didn't you tell me they got him a job with the railroads?"

"Oh, yeah, with Amtrak, that's right."

"What kind of job, exactly? Do you know?” He asked the question quietly, but he could feel his heart thudding. Klingo Bozzuto's work experience with Amtrak was the crucial factor in the complex and unlikely scenario he had put together, the linchpin that made it all work.

Disappointingly, John shook his head. “What difference does it make?"

Gideon leaned earnestly forward. “Well, let's say they got him a job as a conductor or a steward-"

"Which I doubt. The guy was a CPA."

"Yes, but wouldn't they give him a whole new life that was different from the old one? Besides, he was a crook. I can't imagine they'd sic him on poor, unsuspecting Amtrak in some responsible position where he could mess with the books."

"Well, yeah, that's true. Okay, say they turned him into a conductor. So?"

"So what does a conductor do?"

John hunched his shoulders. “Punches tickets?"

"He punches tickets,” Gideon said triumphantly, “while he walks up and down the train!"

John frowned silently at him for a few seconds. “Am I missing something here?"

"John, what muscles would you use if you were walking up and down a moving train all day?"

John made an impatient sound. “How the hell would I-” He stopped. His eyes widened. He put down his cup so suddenly that coffee slopped over the rim. "Balance! You'd use your muscles of balance. You'd be standing on a moving, vibrating platform all day long, you'd always be using those muscles that keep you steady-"

"Bingo,” Gideon said with quiet satisfaction. “In particular the soleus muscles. And the soleus muscles attach to the fibulas. And if you used them hard enough and often enough, you might even develop a pair of fibulas that looked like Brian's."

"Whew,” John said wonderingly, starting to believe it now. “But…I mean, how could it be? What was it all about? Why would he…You think Therese knew? What about Nick? Why would…how could…” He shook his head again, this time with a little jerk, as if to clear the fuzz away and get himself going. “First things first. Let's make sure it's even possible. Let me call the Bureau and see about getting some up-to-date dope on Bozzuto.” He leaned across the table and reached for the telephone. “If it turns out he's alive and well in Chicago, then we've got a small problem with this theory of yours."

"Back to the drawing board,” Gideon agreed. “But I don't think it's going to turn out that way.” He looked at his watch. “John, it's only seven-fifty in Seattle. Are you going to get anybody in?"

"Absolutely. The Bureau never sleeps.” He punched in a set of numbers, then looked up while the connection was being made. “This is going to take a while. You think you could scout around and see if anybody's working in the kitchen yet? Maybe you could bring us back some breakfast."

"Will do,” Gideon said, making for the door.

"I don't want anything healthy,” John called after him. “I want something good. No fruit."

It took John another pot of coffee, three telephone calls, an hour and fifteen minutes, and three foot-long sugar-encrusted fried crullers to get the information he wanted. Gideon had stayed with him for a while, but after finishing the cheese, rolls, and grapefruit juice he'd brought for himself he went back to his own cottage to shave and shower. When he came out of the bathroom John was sitting in the main room, waiting for him, looking seedy and bedraggled in the fresh, clear light of a Tahitian morning, but with the happy look on his face of a man who had gotten somewhere.