David Morrell - Assumed Identity

As Buchanan entered the room, staring to the right and then the left, then straight ahead, studying each table and the various array of eerily realistic imitations of human features, he understood that in her security business Juana had become a version of what he was. But whereas his own specialty was creating new personalities, hers was creating new appearances.

He’d never been confident with disguises. On occasion, he would grow a mustache or a beard, or else he would put on well-made facsimiles. A few times, he had used noncorrective contact lenses that changed the color of his eyes. A few other times, he had altered the length, style, and color of his hair. As well, he always tried to make each of his identities dress differently from the others, preferring particular watches, belts, shoes, shirts, sunglasses, even ballpoint pens, anything to make each character distinctive, just as each character had a favorite food, favorite music, favorite writer, favorite. .

But Juana had become the ultimate impersonator. If Buchanan’s suspicion was correct, she hadn’t only been altering her personality with each job-she had been totally altering her physical appearance, not just her clothes but her facial characteristics, her weight, her height. Buchanan found padding that would have increased Juana’s bust size. He found other padding that would have made her look pregnant. He found cleverly designed sneakers that had lifts that would have made her seem taller. He found makeup cream that would even have lightened the color of her skin.

A part of him was filled with professional amazement. But another part was horrified, realizing that at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, she could have been sitting right next to him while he waited for her to enter the restaurant and he would never have known how close she was. During his quest, he might have bumped into her or even spoken to her and never have been aware.

What had happened to her in the past six years? Where had she learned this stuff? For whom was he looking? She could be anybody. She could look like anybody. He remembered the last conversation they’d had. “You don’t know me,” he’d said to justify his inability to commit to her. “You only know who I pretend to be.”

Well, she had outdone him, becoming the ultimate pretender. As he’d gone through the house, he’d thought it frustrating and strange that he’d found no photographs of her. He’d wanted so much to be reminded of her brown eyes, her shiny black hair, her hauntingly lovely face. Then he’d suspected that her hunters had taken the photographs so they’d be better able to memorize what she looked like. But if so, he now understood, the photographs wouldn’t do them any good because there wasn’t any definitive image of her. It may have been that Juana herself had removed the photographs because she no longer identified with any individual version of her appearance. Buchanan suddenly had the terrible sense that the woman he (or Peter Lang or whoever the hell he was) had fallen in love with was as insubstantial as a ghost. As himself. He felt sick. But he still had to find her.

He closed the window in the computer room, then used a handkerchief to wipe his fingerprints off everything he had touched. He shut off lights as he left each room, reconfirmed that he had done everything he had to, and finally shut the front door behind him, using his picks to relock the two dead-bolts. When the killer’s partner arrived to begin his shift, the partner would take a while to figure out what had happened. The two area rugs that had been moved (and one of which was missing), the bullet hole in the hallway ceiling, the blood beneath the area rug that Buchanan had put in the computer room-each individually would not be obvious, but together they would eventually tell the story. The killer’s partner would then waste time looking for the body. His report to his bosses would be confused, adding to the further confusion that the two snipers watching the Mendez house couldn’t be found, either. The only certainty was that the people who were hunting Juana knew that a man named Brendan Buchanan had visited Juana’s parents, and that made it equally certain that they would associate Brendan Buchanan with everything that had happened tonight. By morning, they’ll be hunting me, he thought. No. They’ll be hunting Brendan Buchanan. With luck, it’ll take them a while to realize that tonight I became Charles Duffy.

Patting the wallet that he’d taken from the dead man and put in his jacket, Buchanan got into the Jeep Cherokee and backed from the driveway. His hands shook. His wounds hurt. His head throbbed. He’d come to the limit of his endurance. But he had to keep going.

A mile down the murky road, at the bottom of a misty hollow, he came to the van. Getting out of the Jeep, he kept his right hand behind his back so that he could quickly draw his weapon if there had been trouble while he was away. He saw movement in the mist, tensed, then relaxed somewhat as Anita came toward him, telling him in Spanish that Pedro was in back with the bound-and-gagged sentries.

“The phone kept ringing.”

“I know,” Buchanan said.

“We thought it might be you, but it didn’t ring twice, stop, and then ring again as you said it would if it was you. We didn’t answer.”

“You did the right thing.”

Buchanan studied her. She seemed nervous, yes, but not in a way that suggested she knew that someone was hiding and aiming a weapon at her. Nonetheless, he didn’t fully relax until he made sure that the prisoners were as they had been and that nothing had happened to Pedro.

“Did you find Juana?” Pedro asked.

“No.”

“Did you find any sign of her?”

“No,” Buchanan lied.

“Then this was pointless. What are we going to do?”

“Leave me alone with these men for a minute. Sit with your wife in the Jeep,” Buchanan said.

“Why?” Pedro looked suspicious. “If you’re going to question them about Juana, I want to hear.”

“No.”

“What do you mean? I told you if this is about my daughter, I want to hear.”

“Sometimes it’s better to be ignorant.”

“I don’t understand,” Pedro said.

“You will. Just leave me alone with these men.”

Pedro hesitated, then somberly got out of the van.

Buchanan watched to make sure that Pedro got into the Jeep with Anita. Only then did he close the van’s rear doors. The back of the van smelled from when Buchanan had allowed each man to use the Porta Potti before he drove to Juana’s house. They were still naked and looked chilled.

He aimed a flashlight at one man and then the other. “You should have told me the sentry was in the house.”

Terror made their eyes wide, their faces gaunt.

“Now he’s dead,” Buchanan said.

Their fearful expressions intensified.

“That puts the two of you in an awkward position,” Buchanan said. He took out his gun and used his other hand to ungag the first man.

“I figured,” the man said. “That’s why you sent the man and woman away. You didn’t want them to see you kill us.”

Buchanan picked up a blanket from a corner of the van.

“Sure,” the man said in despair. “A blanket can make a not-bad silencer.”

Buchanan pulled the blanket over the man and his partner. “I wouldn’t want you to get pneumonia.”

“What?” The man looked surprised.

“If our positions were reversed,” Buchanan said, “what would you do to me ?”

The man didn’t answer.

“We’re alike, yet we’re not,” Buchanan said. “Both of us have killed. The difference is, I’m not a killer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”