Assumed Identity

10

Brendan. Bren. As his first name and his nickname echoed in his consciousness, Buchanan became more aware of how long it had been since he had portrayed himself.

But this was different. Now he found himself confronted by the most complex assumption of identity that he had ever attempted. Not one identity but two. Simultaneously. Brendan Buchanan and Peter Lang. Not schizophrenia, for in that case, one identity would alternate with the other. No, these identities had to be multilayered, coexisting. Compatible yet separate. Balanced within the same instant.

To fulfill his purpose for coming to New Orleans, to find out why Juana had sent the postcard, to learn the trouble she was in, he had to reconstruct Peter Lang. After all, Peter Lang had made the promise to help her. Peter Lang had been in love with her. Desperate not to be himself, Buchanan wanted very much to be Peter Lang.

But Peter Lang wasn’t being followed by Holly McCoy. Peter Lang hadn’t worked for the Intelligence Support Activity. He wasn’t now assigned to Scotch and Soda. Oh, Peter Lang had worked for a clandestine branch of Special Operations. That was true. But not these particular ones. Peter Lang wasn’t under investigation by the Washington Post. Brendan Buchanan was, and it was Brendan Buchanan who would have to deceive and discourage Holly McCoy.

Thus Peter Lang would pretend to be Brendan Buchanan. And Brendan Buchanan. . Well, he had to do something while he was in New Orleans. He couldn’t just sit in his hotel room and show Holly that she’d made him nervous. As a consequence, he would pretend to be Peter Lang and revisit the spots he had so admired when he’d lived here six years ago.

Peter Lang would have stayed at a place he knew in the French Quarter, but in theory, Brendan Buchanan had never been to New Orleans. He didn’t know the secret good places. He would choose an easier-to-book, less quaint, but first-rate hotel, something near the French Quarter but also near the Riverwalk mall and the other downtown attractions. The Holiday Inn-Crowne Plaza, tall and gleaming, seemed ideal. Having made a reservation for Brendan Buchanan, he checked in, was shown to his twelfth-floor room, waited until the bellhop had left, then locked the door and transferred his handgun and Victor Grant’s passport from his travel bag to his clothes. After all, the room might be searched. The passport fit within his lightweight gray sport coat. The gun fit underneath the sport coat, behind his belt, at his spine. He didn’t bother to check the view.

Two minutes after having been shown to his room, he left it, taking the fire stairs to the lobby. He scanned it to make sure that Holly McCoy wasn’t in sight, then walked outside and got in the taxi whose driver he had told to wait for him.

“Where you gwin to now, suh?” the elderly, silver-haired, resonant-voiced black man asked.

“Metairie Cemetery.”

“Somebody die, suh?”

“All the time.”

“Ain’t that the truth, suh.”

Buchanan’s contact officer had told him to stay at the hotel from six to eight this evening in case he had to be given a message. But that was three hours from now, and Buchanan wanted to keep moving. More important, he wanted to do what Peter Lang would do. So he leaned back in the taxi, pretending to admire the sights as the driver headed down Tchoupitoulas Street, got on the 90 expressway, and merged with rushing traffic, speeding toward Metairie Road.

The huge cemetery, established in 1873, had once been a pre-Civil War racetrack. Like the many other old cemeteries in New Orleans, it consisted of rows and rows of masonry tombs. Each tomb was one hundred feet long and four tiers high, with niches into which coffins had been slid, the entrances sealed. The land was so flat and the Mississippi so close that in the previous century the city’s moist soil had necessitated aboveground burial. Since then, modern drainage systems had reduced the moisture problem. Nonetheless, tradition had been established, and most interments were still above ground.

Peter Lang had come here often. Among the old cemeteries he’d frequently visited, Metairie had been his favorite. His ostensible purpose for coming had been his taste for gothic atmosphere and his interest in history, although the actual reason had been that the nooks and crannies of the decaying cemeteries had provided abundant locations for message dead drops (Buchanan-Lang’s then control officer had had a morbid sense of humor). On rare occasions, a messenger had passed him a coded note by means of brush contact, the cemeteries so crowded with visitors and mourners that the skillful exchange would not have been detected.

Now Buchanan-Lang came for another reason. He associated the cemetery with Juana. She had often accompanied him on his visits, and her interest in the old tombs had eventually rivaled his. He particularly remembered her delight when she first came upon the miniature mausoleum built for Josie Arlington, a prominent madam in the city many years before. Josie had decided to have her tomb built from symbolic red stone and decorated with granite torches. As Buchanan-Lang reached the tomb, he could almost hear Juana’s laughter. The haze in the sky had lifted. The sharp sun gleamed from deep blue, and in the sudden clarity that contrasted with the gloom of the crumbling cemetery, he imagined Juana standing next to him, her head tilted back, her smile bright, her hand on his shoulder. He wanted to hug her.

And tonight he would.

I should never have let you go. My life would have been so different.

I won’t let you go a second time. I didn’t know how much I needed you.

I meant what I said six years ago. I love you.

Or Peter Lang does.

But what about Buchanan-Lang? he wondered.

And what about Buchanan?

His skull wouldn’t stop throbbing. He massaged his temples, but his headache continued to torture him.