couldn’t do anything about the prints he’d left on the glasses in the restaurant, but maybe the table would have been cleared by now, the glasses taken to the kitchen and washed.
Hurry.
As he started to swing toward the first twin, wipe fingerprints from the pistol, and leave it in the twin’s hand, he heard Bailey’s voice become stronger.
“Crawford? Were you hit?”
Shut up! Buchanan thought.
Near the hotel’s bar, the crowd was becoming aggressive. The glow from the hotel was sufficient to reveal two uniformed policemen who sprinted off the sidewalk onto the sand. Buchanan finished wiping the pistol clean of fingerprints and forced it into the first twin’s fingers. He pivoted, stayed low, and ran, making sure he kept his right shoulder close to the splashing waves. That shoulder and, indeed, his entire right side were covered with blood. He wanted the blood to fall into the water so that the police couldn’t track him by following splotches of his blood in the sand.
“
Buchanan raced harder, staying low, charging parallel to the waves, hoping the night would so envelop him that he’d make a poor target.
“
“Hey, what do you think you’re-? What are you shovin’ me for? I didn’t do nothin’!” Big Bob Bailey objected with drunken indignation.
The police had grabbed the first person they came to.
Despite his pain and his desperation, Buchanan couldn’t help grinning. Bailey, you turned out not to be completely useless, after all.
THREE
1
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Pushing a squeaky cart along a dark, drizzly downtown alley, the woman dressed as a bag lady felt exhausted. She hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours, and that period of time (as well as several days before it) had been filled with constant dread. Indeed, for months, since she’d first met Alistair Drummond and had agreed to his proposal, she’d never been free from apprehension.
The assignment had seemed simple enough, and certainly the fee she earned was considerable, her accommodations lavish. As a bonus, she seldom had to perform. Mostly, all she had to do was stay in the Manhattan condominium with its splendid view of Central Park and let servants take care of her, occasionally deigning to accept a telephone call but making it short, pretending to be hoarse because of a throat problem that she claimed her doctor had diagnosed as polyps and that might require surgery. Rarely, she went out in public, always at night, always in a limousine, always wearing gems, a fur, and an exquisite evening gown, always with protective, handsome escorts. Those outings were usually to the Metropolitan Opera or to a charity benefit, and she stayed just long enough to ensure that her presence was noticed, that she’d be mentioned in a society column. She permitted no contact with her character’s former friends or former husband. She was, as she’d indicated in a rare magazine interview, beginning a period of self-assessment that required isolation in order for her to commence the second act of her life. Her performance was one of her best. No one thought her behavior unusual. After all, genius was subject to eccentricities.
But she was terrified. The accumulation of fear had been gradual. At first, she had attributed her unease to stage fright, to becoming accustomed to a new role, to convincing an unfamiliar audience, and of course, to satisfying Alistair Drummond. The latter particularly unnerved her. Drummond’s gaze was so intense that she suspected he wore spectacles not to improve his vision but, rather, to magnify the cold glint in his eyes. He exuded such authority that he dominated a room, regardless of how crowded it was or how many other notables were present. No one knew for certain how old he was, except that he was definitely over eighty, but everyone agreed that he looked more like an eerie sixty. Numerous face-lifts, combined with a macrobiotic diet, massive amounts of vitamins, and weekly infusions of hormones, seemed to have stopped the evidence of his advancing age. The contrast between his tightened face and his wizened hands troubled her.
He preferred to be called professor, although he had never taught and his doctorate was only honorary, the result of a new art museum that bore his name and that he’d had constructed as a gift to a prestigious but financially embattled Ivy League university. One of the conditions of her employment had been that the “professor” would have access to her at all times and that she would appear in public with him whenever he dictated. As vain as he was rich, he cackled whenever he read his name-in company with hers-in the society columns, especially if the columnist called him professor. The sound of his brittle, crusty laughter chilled her.
But as frightening as she eventually found Alistair Drummond, even more frightening was his personal assistant, a pleasant-faced, fair-haired, well-dressed man whom she knew only as Raymond. His face never changed expression. It always bore the same cheery countenance, regardless of whether he helped Drummond inject himself with hormones, looked at her in a low-cut evening gown, watched a weather report on television, or was sent on an assignment. Drummond was careful never to discuss the specifics of his business transactions while she was present, but she took for granted that anyone who had accumulated so much wealth and power, not to mention worldwide notoriety, by definition had to be ruthless, and she always imagined that the assignments Drummond gave to Raymond would have repugnant consequences. Not that Raymond gave any indication. Raymond always looked as cheery when he left as when he returned.
What had made her uneasiness turn into dread was the day she realized that she wasn’t merely pretending to be in seclusion-she was a prisoner. It was unprofessional of her, she admitted, to have wanted to break character and take an unescorted afternoon walk in Central Park, perhaps go over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The moment the thought occurred to her, she repressed it. Nonetheless, briefly she’d felt liberated, and subsequently she’d felt frustrated. I can’t, she thought. I made an agreement. I accepted a fee-a
That tantalizing question had made her impatient with her narrow world. Except for a few sanctioned outings and an occasional performance on the telephone, she spent most of each day exercising, reading, watching videotapes, listening to music, eating, and. . It had sounded like a vacation until she was forced to do it. Her days had become longer and longer. As much as Alistair Drummond and his assistant made her uneasy, she almost welcomed their visits. Although the two men were frightening, at least they were a change. So she had asked herself, What if I did break character? What if I did go out for an afternoon walk in Central Park? She had no intention of actually doing so, but she wondered what would happen if. . A bodyguard had suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor outside her unit and had prevented her from getting on the elevator.
She was an experienced observer of audiences. She’d known from the start-the first time she was allowed from the condominium, escorted into Drummond’s limousine-that the building was being watched: a flower seller across the street, a hot dog vendor on the corner, no doubt the building’s doorman, and no doubt someone like an indigent at the rear exit from the building. But she had assumed that these sentries were there to prevent her character’s former acquaintances from arriving unexpectedly and catching her unprepared. At once, now, she had realized that the building was under watch to keep her
When will I be able to get out of here? she’d wondered. When will the performance end? Or
One evening as she put on her diamond necklace-which Drummond had told her would be her bonus when the assignment was completed-she’d impulsively scraped the necklace’s largest stone across a glass of water. The stone had not made a scratch. Which meant that the stone was not a diamond. Which meant that the necklace, her bonus, was worthless.
