Assumed Identity

6

It was sunset when Buchanan wakened, dusk thickening behind the closed draperies. He stretched and enjoyed the feeling of having had a good meal, of having slept naked beneath smooth sheets, of having Holly’s body next to him. She wore her robe. He’d discarded his own after making love. Exhaustion had been like a narcotic that made them stretch out and doze. She attracted him: her humor, her sensuous features, her tall, slender, athletic grace. But he had always made a point of never allowing his personal life to interfere with his work, of never becoming physically and emotionally involved with anyone on an assignment. It clouded your judgment. It. .

Hell, you never had any personal life. There wasn’t any you to have it. All you had were the identities you assumed.

And that’s why you’re here right now. That’s what brought you this far. Because you kept that rule of being uninvolved when you worked with Juana, no matter how much you wanted her, and now you’re searching for her, trying to make amends.

Are you going to make the same mistake again, this time with Holly?

What’s wrong with me? he thought. Searching for one woman while I’m becoming attracted to another?

Get your mind straight.

He got out of bed, put on his robe, and walked over to a chair, next to which he stacked the books and files that Holly had given him. Setting a lamp on the floor where it wouldn’t cast much light and wake Holly, he leaned back in the chair and began to read.

Two hours later, Holly raised her head, rubbed her eyes, and looked over at him.

“Hi.” She smiled, lovely even after having just wakened.

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Feeling as if I’ve just seen a ghost.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This material you gave me. I think I know what’s going on. I don’t spook easily, but this makes me cold.”

Holly sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”

“The photographs in these books. There’s something about. .”

Holly got out of bed, tied her robe, and came over quickly. “Show me.” She pulled a chair next to his, then peered at the book in his lap. “What photographs?”

“This biography of Maria Tomez. I still have a lot to read, but one thing that’s clear is that Frederick Maltin didn’t just discover her and manage her. In a very real sense, he created her.”

Holly looked curious, waiting for him to continue.

“I’ve never seen her perform,” Buchanan said, “but from what I gather, Maria Tomez sings not just well but passionately. That’s her reputation, a fiery, passionate diva. An opera critic wouldn’t ever go this far, but to put it bluntly, Maria Tomez is. .”

“Sexy,” Holly said.

“That’s the word. But look at these early photographs.” Buchanan turned pages in the book. “This is Maria Tomez at the beginning of her career. Before Frederick Maltin. When she was singing in Mexico and South America and none of the major critics was paying attention to her.”

Buchanan placed his index finger on a photograph of a young, short, overweight, dark-skinned woman with an insecure look in her eyes, a broad nose, an unbecoming hairstyle, pudgy cheeks, and slightly crooked teeth.

“All that hair piled on top of her head,” Holly said. “And the way her oversized costume hung on her, as if she was trying to hide the weight.”

“The early reviews are unanimous about the quality of her voice, but it’s obvious that the critics are holding back, trying to be kind, talking about her awkward stage presence,” Buchanan said. “What they’re really saying is that she’s too frumpy to be treated seriously as a stage performer.”

“Sexist but true,” Holly said. “The big money goes to the women with a great voice and magnetism.”

“The night Maltin saw her performing Tosca in Mexico City, Maria Tomez wasn’t even scheduled. She was the understudy who had to step in when the production’s star got sick.”

“I wonder what Maltin saw in her.”

“Someone to dominate. Someone to sculpt and shape. If Maltin had heard her perform under other circumstances, he wouldn’t have associated her with a sexy role like Tosca. But once he did, he took advantage of the possibilities. According to this biography, no one had ever shown so much interest in her. Her career was going nowhere. What did she have to lose? She turned herself over to him. She gave him absolute obedience.”

“And?”

“Look at these next few photographs. What do you notice?”

“Well, she’s progressively thinner. And her costumes take advantage of that.” Holly picked up the book to examine the photographs more closely. “Obviously her hairstyle’s been changed. Instead of being piled on top of her head, it’s now swept back. It’s long and thick. It’s loose and curled. There’s a kind of wild abandon to it.”

“As if a breeze is blowing it,” Buchanan said. “As if she’s on a cliff and the sea is crashing below her. What’s the word? Tempestuous? That’s what I noticed, too. The hairstyle has a passionate look to it. Now check this photograph.”

Holly did and shook her head. “I don’t know what. .” At once, Holly pointed. “Her nose. It’s been narrowed and straightened.”

“And check this photograph taken three months later.”

“This time, I really don’t get it,” Holly said.

“She’s smiling.”

“Right.”

“Is she smiling in the previous one?”

“No.”

“And in the one before that?”

“She’s not smiling there, either, but in this first picture she is, and. . Oh, my God,” Holly said, “the teeth. They aren’t the same. They’re crooked at the start, and now. . She’s had them straightened and capped.”

“Or Frederick Maltin did,” Buchanan said. “He promised her that within two years he’d have her career turned around. What none of the publicity mentions is how much physical alteration was necessary. In the next photograph, three months further along, her eyebrows are different. In the photograph after that, it looks as if something chemical or surgical has been done to her hair to raise the scalp line, to give her more forehead, to help proportion the rest of the face.”

“And all the while, she’s been losing weight,” Holly said with excitement. “Her wardrobe’s been getting more stylish. The designs made her look taller. She’s wearing expensive necklaces and earrings that glint and look good to the camera. Those changes attract the most attention, so the other, gradual, step-by-step changes become less noticeable. They’re subtle and equally important, but done over a long enough period, they don’t make anybody realize the degree to which she’s been reconstructed.”

“Her fame was still growing,” Buchanan said. “She wasn’t under the same close scrutiny then that she would be in her prime, so a lot of the changes wouldn’t have been noticed as she moved from opera house to opera house in various countries. Still, look at these later photographs, after she’d become a sensation. The changes continued. Here. Am I wrong, or has she had cosmetic surgery around her eyes to make them seem more intense? In this photograph, have her earlobes been shortened? There’s something about them that’s different and makes her face look more proportioned.”

“Not only that, but her breasts seem higher,” Holly said. “Possibly some kind of surgery there, as well. Her waist seems longer. This is amazing. At first, it just seems that she’s maturing and glowing from her success. But I think you’re right. She was being sculpted and shaped. Frederick Maltin created her.”

“Once her body matched the passionate roles that Maltin wanted her to play, the critics paid more attention to her voice,” Buchanan said. “She became an overnight sensation that took two years and who knows how many visits to dentists and surgeons. And all of a sudden, she wasn’t awkward on stage-because she wasn’t self-conscious about her appearance anymore. She’d been made beautiful, and she loved being adored. The more her audiences applauded, the better she improved her stage technique to encourage their applause. Her voice blossomed. She became rich. Or rather, she and Maltin became rich. Part of the deal was that she’d marry him. Not that I think Maltin cared about having sex with her. My guess is, he wanted to control her finances, and he could do that better as her husband in addition to being her manager. For fifteen years, he controlled her. Maybe he threatened to reveal the true story behind her success, to release before-and-after pictures, that sort of thing. Then one day at the start of this year, it became too much. She finally left him. She and Drummond met at a charity benefit in Monaco. They struck up a friendship. Drummond became her escort. Maybe he seemed safe to her. After all, he was old enough to be her grandfather. He was thousands of times richer. He probably didn’t want sex. In fact, on the surface, there wasn’t anything she could give him that he needed or didn’t already have. So she kept seeing him, but the gossip photographers wouldn’t leave them alone, and Drummond offered her a chance to get away from the public eye, to relax and regroup, to keep her picture out of the magazines, not to mention to be out of touch from the jerk she was divorcing. Drummond flew her to his yacht off the western coast of Mexico. A vacation in her home country. She stayed on board three weeks, flew back to New York, bought an apartment, retired from singing, and in effect, like Garbo, told the world that she wanted to be left alone.”

“Now months later, she disappears.” Holly frowned. “And your friend who sometimes provided security for her disappears as well. What happened two weeks ago? What’s going on?”

“I don’t think it happened two weeks ago.”

Holly didn’t move for a moment. Then she straightened.

“I think it happened on the yacht,” Buchanan said.

“What happened? I still don’t-”

“The photocopies of the recent articles you gave me don’t reproduce the pictures very well. But this page from yesterday’s Washington Post has clear photographs. A shot of Maltin at his news conference. A recent shot of Maria Tomez during one of her infrequent public appearances. Dark glasses. Concealing hat.”

“Tell me what you’re getting at.”

“It looks like Maria Tomez had some work done on her jawline. It’s just a little different. And the ridges on her collarbone are a little different,” Buchanan said.

“A nose job’s one thing,” Holly said. “But changing a jawline? Altering ridges on a collarbone? That’s major reconstructive work.”

“Exactly,” Buchanan said. “This last photograph. I don’t think it’s Maria Tomez. The more I look at it. . the more I’m sure it’s Juana impersonating her.”