David Morrell - Assumed Identity

“Smart, Buchanan,” the portly man said. “There’s just one problem.”

“Oh?”

“The police didn’t find the passport.”

“What? Then it must have floated away.”

“But not the wallet?”

“Hey, the wallet was heavier. How do I know what happened? My orders were to make Victor Grant disappear. I did it the best way I knew how.”

The portly man stared at him.

“Has the missing passport made the cops think something’s wrong?” Buchanan asked.

The portly man stared harder. “You’ll have to sign this document saying that you couldn’t surrender the passport.”

“Whatever,” Buchanan said. He signed and returned the document, then watched the man who called himself Alan put it in his briefcase.

“The next order of business.” With an air of efficiency combined with distaste, the portly man opened and dumped the contents of a paper bag onto the coffee table.

Buchanan looked at the sprawl of magazines, catalogs, video- and record-club solicitations, and various other forms of bulk mail. The items were addressed to several persons, Richard Dana, Robert Chambers, Craig Madden, and Brian MacDonald, the most recent pseudonyms that Buchanan had used before becoming Ed Potter in Mexico.

“Housecleaning,” the portly man said.

Buchanan nodded. To appear believable in an assumed identity, he had to be equipped with more than just fake ID. Mail, for example. It wasn’t natural for people never to get mail. Bills had to be paid. Letters had to be received. Magazines-lots of people subscribed to magazines. If you said your name was Brian MacDonald and you got a magazine addressed to that name, the magazine became another bit of evidence that proved you were the person you claimed to be. So, under various names, Buchanan subscribed to magazines wherever he expected to live for an extended time. But just as he created individual characteristics for each person he pretended to be, so he had to make sure that the magazines matched each character’s personality. Richard Dana subscribed to Runner’s World. Robert Chambers liked Gourmet. Craig Madden was a movie fanatic and received Premiere. Brian MacDonald enjoyed Car and Driver. Because magazines often sold their subscription lists to catalog companies, soon Buchanan’s various characters would begin receiving catalogs about the subject in which they were supposedly interested, and this extra mail would help legitimize his characters.

Eventually, though, Buchanan would receive a new assignment and move on, discarding one identity, assuming another. In theory, the previous identity would no longer exist. Still, even though Buchanan had made arrangements to stop mail from coming to his former characters, a few items would inevitably arrive at places where his characters used to live. To avoid arousing suspicion, he always left a forwarding address with the landlords at those places. That forwarding address was known in the trade as an accommodation address, a safe, convenient mail drop, usually a private mail service owned by-but not traceable to-Buchanan’s controllers.

“Is there anything here that needs to be dealt with?” the portly man who called himself Alan asked. “Some loose end that needs to be tied? We ought to know before we destroy this stuff.”

Buchanan sorted through the items. “Nope. These magazines can go. These catalogs. This circular is exactly what they call it-junk. This. .”

He felt a chill as he lifted a postcard. “It’s addressed to Peter Lang. I haven’t used that name in six years. How the hell did it get lost this long?”

“It didn’t. Check the postmark. Someone mailed it from Baltimore. . Last week.”

“Last week?” Buchanan felt cold. “Who’d want to get in touch with Peter Lang after six years? Who’d remember him? Who’d care enough to. .?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Alan said, his calculated gaze threatening. “And why a postcard? Why not a letter? And what do you make of the message?”

Troubled, Buchanan studied it. The message was handwritten in black ink, the script small, the strokes thin, the lettering ornate yet precise.

A woman’s handwriting. No name.

Five sentences, some of them incomplete, seeming gibberish.

But not to Buchanan. He didn’t need a signature to tell him who had sent the postcard. Because she would have taken for granted that several people, especially Buchanan’s employers, would have read the message by now, he admired her indirection.

Here’s the postcard I never thought I’d send. I hope you meant your promise. The last time and place. Counting on you. PLEASE.

Buchanan read the message several times, then glanced up at the portly man, who now was squinting.

“So?” The man squinted harder.

“It’s a woman who knew me when I was Peter Lang. Someone I needed for window dressing.”

“That’s all?”

Buchanan shrugged.

“Who was she, Buchanan?”

“It’s been so long, I don’t even remember her name.”

“Don’t tell me your famous memory is failing you.”

“I remember what’s essential. She wasn’t.”

“Why didn’t she sign her name?”

“She was a flake. That much, I recall. Maybe she thought it would be cute and mysterious if she sent an unsigned postcard.”

“And yet without a name on the card, a name you claim you can’t remember, you know who sent the message.”

“She used to do this kind of stuff a lot. Unsigned cryptic messages. I’d find them in my bathroom, in my pajamas, in my sock drawer. I told you she was a flake. But she sure was gorgeous, and I never read any handwriting as neat and elegant as this. She was proud of that-her handwriting.”

“But what does it mean?”

“Damned if I know. Maybe she was high on something when she wrote it. Or maybe she tried so hard to make the message cute that she didn’t realize she was being incoherent.”

The portly man squinted even harder. “Just like that, after six years, she decided to write to you.”

“Must be,” Buchanan said. “Because that’s what happened. She didn’t even think to put a return address on it. That’s how spur-of-the-moment she used to act.”

“What’s this ‘last time and place’ business?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

The portly man didn’t move. He just kept staring at Buchanan as if trying to make him uncomfortable enough to demonstrate a sign of weakness.

Buchanan returned his stare.

After thirty seconds, the portly man sighed and gestured for Buchanan to give back the postcard. He shoved it into the paper bag along with the magazines, catalogs, and circulars, then placed them in his metal briefcase and locked it. “We’ll talk again soon, Buchanan.” He stood.

“Wait a minute.”

“Is something wrong?” the man asked. “Or maybe there’s something you forgot to tell me?”

“Yeah. What about my new ID?”

“New ID?”

“The driver’s license and credit card, all the documents for Don Colton.”

The man frowned. “You must have gotten the wrong impression. You’re not being issued new ID.”

“What?”

“You won’t need any. The rent, the phone, and the other bills are paid through one of our cover organizations by mail. There’s plenty of food here, so you won’t need a checkbook to go to the grocery store, and you won’t need a credit card to go to a restaurant. And since we want you to stay close, you won’t need ID to rent a car.”

“So what about clothes? I need a credit card to replace what I abandoned in Fort Lauderdale. What’s in the closet here is too small.”

“There’s a gray cotton sweat suit on the bedroom shelf. It’s large enough to do for now. When I drive you to the hospital for your CAT scan, I’ll bring you a few more things.”