Assumed Identity

5

“Victor Grant,” an overweight, bearded interrogator with slicked-back dark hair said to Buchanan in a small, plain room that had only a bench upon which the interrogator sat and a chair upon which Buchanan was tied. The round-faced, perspiring interrogator made “Victor Grant” sound as if the name were a synonym for diarrhea.

“That’s right.” Buchanan’s throat was so dry that his voice cracked, his body so dehydrated that he’d long ago stopped sweating. One of the tight loops of the rope cut into his stitched, wounded shoulder.

“Speak Spanish, damn you!”

“But I don’t know Spanish.” Buchanan breathed. “At least, not very well.” He tried to swallow. “Just a few words.” Ignorance about Spanish was one of the characteristics he’d chosen for this persona. That way, he could always pretend that he didn’t know what he was being asked.

“Cabron, you spoke Spanish to the emigration officer at the airport in Merida!”

“Yes. That’s true.” Buchanan’s head drooped. “A couple of simple phrases. What I call ‘survival Spanish.’ ”

“Survival?” a deep-voiced guard asked behind him, then grabbed Buchanan’s hair and jerked his head up. “If you do not want your hair pulled out, you will survive by speaking Spanish.”

“Un poco.” Buchanan exhaled. “A little. That’s all I know.”

“Why did you kill those three men in Cancun?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill anyone.”

The overweight interrogator, his uniform stained with sweat, pushed himself up from the bench, his stomach wobbling, and plodded close to Buchanan, then shoved a police sketch in front of his face. The sketch was the same that the emigration officer at Merida’s airport had noticed beside a fax machine on a desk in the room to which he had taken Buchanan to find out why he was bleeding.

“Does this drawing look familiar to you?” the interrogator growled. “Ciertamente, it does to me. Dios, si. It reminds me of you. We have a witness, a fellow yanqui in fact, who saw you kill three men in Cancun.”

“I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Buchanan glared. “That drawing looks like me and a couple of hundred thousand other Americans.” Buchanan rested his hoarse voice. “It could be anybody.” He breathed. “I admit I was in Cancun a couple of days ago.” He licked his dry lips. “But I don’t know anything about any murders.”

“You lie!” The interrogator raised a section of rubber hose and whacked Buchanan across the stomach.

Buchanan groaned but couldn’t double over because of the ropes that bound him to the back of the chair. If he hadn’t seen the overweight man clumsily start to swing the hose, he wouldn’t have been able to harden his stomach enough to minimize the pain. Pretending that the blow had been worse than it was, he snapped his eyes shut and jerked his head back.

“Don’t insult me!” the interrogator shouted. “Admit it! You lie.”

“No,” Buchanan murmured. “Your witness is lying.” He trembled. “If there is a witness. How could there be? I didn’t kill anybody. I don’t know anything about. .”

Each time the interrogator struck him, it gave Buchanan a chance to steal opportunities, to wince, to breathe deeply and rest. Because the police had already taken his watch and wallet, he didn’t have anything with which to try to bribe them. Not that he thought a bribe would have worked in this case. Indeed, if he did try to bribe them, under the circumstances his gesture would be the same as an admission of guilt. His only course of action was to play his role, to insist indignantly that he was innocent.

The interrogator held up Buchanan’s passport, repeating with the same contemptuous tone, “Victor Grant.”

“Yes.”

“Even your passport photograph resembles this sketch.”

“That sketch is worthless,” Buchanan said. “It looks like a ten-year-old did it.”

The interrogator tapped the rubber hose against the bandage that covered the wound on Buchanan’s shoulder. “What is your occupation?”

Wincing, Buchanan told him the cover story.

The interrogator tapped harder against the wound. “And what were you doing in Mexico?”

Wincing more severely, Buchanan gave the name of the client he supposedly had come here to see. He felt his wound swell under the bandage. Every time the interrogator tapped it, the injury’s painful pressure increased, as if it might explode.

“Then you claim you were here on business, not pleasure?”

“Hey, it’s always a pleasure to be in Mexico, isn’t it?” Buchanan squinted toward the rubber hose that the interrogator tapped even harder against his wound. From pain, his consciousness swirled. He would soon pass out again.

“Then why didn’t you have a business visa?”

Buchanan tasted stomach acid. “Because I only found out a couple of days ahead of time that my client wanted me to come down here. Getting a business visa takes time. I got a tourist card instead. It’s a whole lot easier.”

The interrogator jammed the tip of the hose beneath Buchanan’s chin. “You entered Mexico illegally.” He stared deeply into Buchanan’s eyes, then released the hose so Buchanan could speak.

Buchanan’s voice thickened, affected by the swelling in his throat that the hose had caused. “First you accuse me of killing three men.” Breathing became more difficult. “Now you blame me for failing to have a business visa. What’s next? Are you going to charge me with pissing on your floor? Because that’s what I’m going to have to do if I’m not allowed to use a bathroom soon.”

The man behind Buchanan yanked his hair again, forcing tears from Buchanan’s eyes. “You do not seem to believe that this is serious.”

“Not true. Take my word, I think this is very serious.”

“But you do not act afraid.”

“Oh, I’m afraid. In fact, I’m terrified.”

The interrogator glowered with satisfaction.

“But because I haven’t done what you claim I did, I’m also furious.” Buchanan forced himself to continue. “I’ve had enough of this.” Each word was an effort. “I want to see a lawyer.”

The interrogator stared in disbelief, then bellowed with laughter, his huge stomach heaving. “Lawyer?”

The guard behind Buchanan laughed as well.

“Un jurisconsulto?” the interrogator asked with derision. “Que tu necesitas esta un sacerdote.” He whacked the rubber hose across Buchanan’s shins. “What do you think about that?”

“I told you, I hardly know any Spanish.”

“What I said is, you don’t need a lawyer, you need a priest. Because all that will help you now, Victor Grant, is prayers.”

“I’m a U.S. citizen. I have a right to. .” Buchanan couldn’t help it. His bladder was swollen beyond tolerance. He had to let go.

Urinating in his pants, he felt the hot liquid stream over the seat of the chair and dribble onto the floor.

“Cochino! Pig!” The interrogator whacked Buchanan’s wounded shoulder.

Any second now, Buchanan thought. Dear God, let me faint.

The interrogator grabbed Buchanan’s shirt and yanked him forward, overturning the chair, toppling him to the floor.

Buchanan’s face struck the concrete. He heard the interrogator shout in Spanish to someone about bringing rags, about forcing the gringo to clean up his filth. But Buchanan doubted he’d be conscious by the time the rags arrived. Still, although his vision dimmed, it didn’t do so quickly enough to prevent him from seeing with shock that his urine was tinted red. They broke something inside me. I’m pissing blood.

“You know what I think, gringo?” the interrogator asked.

Buchanan wasn’t capable of responding.

“I think you are involved with drugs. I think that you and the men you killed had an argument about drug money. I think. .”

The interrogator’s voice dimmed, echoing. Buchanan fainted.