David Morrell - Assumed Identity

But Frederick Maltin, who had been on vacation in Mexico, had been enchanted from the moment he first heard Maria Tomez sing. He had sent flowers to her dressing room after the performance, along with his business card and his Mexico City telephone number. When he received a call the next morning, he considered it significant that the call had come so early and that it was Maria herself who called, not her representative. Which tended to suggest that she either didn’t have a representative or else didn’t have confidence that the representative would contact him at her request. Professionally speaking, she was available.

Maltin invited her to lunch. They continued their conversation after an afternoon rehearsal and later, at dinner, after an evening performance of a different opera, Rigoletto. As Maltin repeatedly emphasized, in those days Maria’s schedule had been brutal, and he had sworn to her that if she agreed to let him represent her, he would change all that. He would make her a worldwide opera phenomenon. He would arrange it so that she performed only where and when she wanted to. Two years later, he had achieved his promise.

They married in the interim, and working relentlessly on her behalf, advising her about her clothes, her hairstyle, and her makeup, insisting that she lose weight, hiring a physical trainer to give her body definition, calling in every favor owed to him by anyone of influence in the opera world, Maltin promoted Maria Tomez as a singer in the passionate tradition of Maria Callas and Teresa Stratas. The former was Italian, the latter Greek, and Maltin’s genius was in making his client’s weakness her strength, in making audiences associate Maria Tomez with those divas because of a common denominator they shared, their ethnic origins. For Maria Tomez at least, it suddenly became fashionable to be Hispanic. Out of curiosity, European audiences came to hear her sing. Impressed, they stayed. Enthusiastic, they kept attending her other performances. After Frederick Maltin finished creating her public image, Maria Tomez never had any performance that wasn’t a sellout.

Buchanan rubbed his throbbing forehead. “This guy Maltin sounds like a cross between Svengali and Professor Henry Higgins.”

“That’s why the marriage failed,” Holly said. “He wouldn’t stop controlling her. He supervised everything she did. He dominated so much that she felt smothered. She endured it for as long as she could. Then fifteen years after she met him, she abruptly left him. It’s almost as if something inside her snapped. She retired from performing. She went into seclusion, making occasional public appearances, mostly keeping to herself.”

“This started. .” Buchanan picked up the newspaper article to jog his memory. “She divorced him six months ago, a few months after she took up with Alistair Drummond. But why would a comparatively young woman-what is she, thirty-seven now? — choose a man in his eighties?”

“Maybe Drummond makes no demands. I know that seems out of character for him. But maybe he just wants to shelter her in exchange for the pleasure of her company.”

“So she went into seclusion, and now her ex-husband claims she’s disappeared altogether.” Buchanan frowned. “He could be wrong, or he could be lying. He’s an expert in publicity, after all. He could be trying to attract so much attention that to get any peace, she’ll have to deal with his claims about the property settlement.”

“Or maybe something really happened to her.”

“But what?” Buchanan became impatient. “And what does that have to do with Juana? Was Juana protecting her? Are they both hiding somewhere? Are they. .?” He was about to say dead, but the word stuck in his throat, making him feel choked.

Someone knocked on the door. Buchanan spun.

“Room service,” a man’s voice said from the hallway.

Buchanan breathed out. “Okay.” He glanced toward Holly and lowered his voice. “In case this is trouble, take your camera bag and the briefcase. Hide in the closet.”

Holly’s brow knotted with worry.

“I think everything will be fine. It’s only a precaution,” Buchanan said. “Here, don’t forget your coat and hat.”

“I asked you before. How do you stand living this way?”

After shutting the closet, Buchanan approached the room’s entrance, peering through the small lens in the door, seeing the distorted image of a man in a hotel uniform next to a room-service cart in the hallway.

Buchanan no longer had his handgun. Having traveled with it from Fort Lauderdale to Washington to New Orleans to San Antonio, he’d finally been forced to throw it down a storm drain. His trainers had emphasized-never keep a weapon that links you to a crime. Plus, the urgency of his self-imposed deadline had required him to use a commercial airline to get back to Washington, and he wasn’t about to risk getting caught with a handgun in an airport.

With no other weapon but his body, Buchanan concealed his tension and opened the door. “Sorry I took so long.”

“No problem.” The man from room service wheeled in the cart. A minute later, he’d turned the cart into a table and set out the food.

Wary about having to compromise his hands, Buchanan signed the bill and added a 15 percent tip.

“Thanks, Mr. Duffy.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Buchanan locked the door behind the waiter. Slowly, he relaxed and exhaled.

Holly emerged from the closet, her features strained. “I guess in your line of work, you have to distrust everybody.”

“I was taught early-a person’s either on the team or not.”

“And if not?”

“There aren’t any innocent bystanders.”

“Cynical.”

“Practical.”

“And what about me?”

Buchanan took a long time answering. “You’re not a bystander.”

Buchanan had ordered pasta primavera for both of them. Now, instead of eating, he glanced at his watch, saw that it was ten o’clock, and went to the phone. Before leaving San Antonio, he and Pedro Mendez had chosen a pay phone near where Pedro worked. Buchanan had instructed Pedro to be waiting next to the phone at nine-ten o’clock in Washington. An enemy could not have anticipated that location and eavesdropped on the line when Buchanan called to make certain that there hadn’t been any trouble after the prisoners were released.

Pedro had been told to use English if he was being pressured. To Buchanan’s relief, he used Spanish.

“Any problems?”

“The men followed the agreement,” Pedro said. “When I let them go, they did not harm us.”

Buchanan imagined the courage that Pedro and Anita had required in order to go through with their part of the bargain.

“But I do not think they are far away,” Pedro said. “I have to believe that they are nearby, watching us.”

“I think so, too,” Buchanan said. “I never believed them when they said they’d leave town. Don’t remove the microphones from your house. Do everything as usual. The two things protecting you are that they believe you don’t know anything about your daughter’s whereabouts and that they need you alive and well in case Juana tries to get in touch with you. If they harm you, they’re destroying a potential link with her. Pedro, I need to ask you a question. It might have something to do with Juana, but I want you to think carefully before you let me ask it. Because if it helps explain why Juana disappeared, you’ll be putting yourself in danger. You’ll have exactly the kind of information that whoever’s trying to find Juana needs to know.”

The line was silent for a moment.

“I don’t have a choice,” Pedro said. “If this is about my daughter, if it might help her, I must do my best to answer your question.”