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.
11
Six P.M.
Back in his hotel room, he obeyed instructions and waited in case his superiors needed to contact him. He thought about ordering a meal from room service, but his appetite was gone. He thought about watching CNN, but he had no interest. Juana. He kept anticipating his reunion with her. He kept reliving their last night together six years ago. He kept regretting his failed opportunity.
He sat in a chair, and suddenly the room was in blackness. He’d left the draperies open to appreciate the sunset. A moment ago, it seemed, the sky had been crimson. Now abruptly it and the room were dark. Confused, uneasy, he glanced at the luminous dial on his watch.
Nine-sixteen?
No. That wasn’t possible. The shadows must be playing tricks on him. He wasn’t seeing the dial correctly. Leaning toward a table, he turned on a light and studied his watch, disturbed to discover that the time was indeed 9:16, that three hours and sixteen minutes had passed without his being aware of them.
Dear God, he thought, that’s the third time in the last three days. No. I’m wrong. It’s the fourth. Jesus. Am I so preoccupied that I’m blotting out my surroundings?
He stood, went to the bathroom, then came back and paced, trying to regain his sense of motion. As he passed the telephone on the bureau near the closet, he was startled to notice that the tiny red message light was flashing.
But I didn’t hear the phone ring.
Worried that his contact officer had tried to relay emergency instructions, he quickly picked up the phone and pressed zero.
After three buzzes, a woman answered. “Hotel operator.”
He tried to sound calm. “This is room twelve fourteen. My message light is flashing.”
“Just a moment, sir, while I. . Yes.”
Buchanan’s heart pounded.
The operator said, “Holly McCoy left a message at five-forty-five. It says, ‘We’re staying in the same hotel. Why don’t we get together later?’ I can call her room if you like, sir.”
“No, thank you. It won’t be necessary.”
Buchanan set down the phone.
His emotions were mixed. He felt relieved that he hadn’t missed an urgent message that his superiors had tried to give him. He felt equally relieved that the message he did receive had been logged at 5:45. Before he’d returned to his room. Before he’d sat down and lost over three hours. At least he wasn’t losing touch so deeply that a phone call had failed to rouse him.
But he also felt disturbed that Holly McCoy had managed to track him to this hotel. It wasn’t just her annoying persistence that troubled him, her relentless pressure. It was something further. How had she found him? Was she so determined that she’d telephoned every one of the hundreds of hotels in the area and asked for. .?
When I made the reservation, I should have used a different name.
Hey, using different names is what got you into this. If Holly McCoy found out that you used an alias to register, then she’d really be suspicious. Besides, if you’d used an unauthorized false name to register, your superiors would have wondered what on earth you thought you were doing? You’re supposed to be on R and R, not on a mission.
But that’s exactly what Buchanan was on, a mission, and the rendezvous time was almost upon him. He had to get to Cafe du Monde by eleven o’clock. That was when he and Juana had arrived there six years ago.
Tonight. After making sure that his pistol was covered by his gray sport coat and securely braced behind his belt, at his spine, he opened the door, checked the hallway, locked his room, and went quickly down the fire stairs.
12
The night was eerily similar to the one six years ago. For example, as Buchanan left the hotel, he noticed that the air was balmy with the hint of rain, a pleasant breeze coming in from the Mississippi. The same as before.
He took care to make sure that Holly McCoy wasn’t in sight, but as he walked along Tchoupitoulas Street, restraining his pace so he wouldn’t attract attention, another parallel between tonight and six years before became disconcertingly obvious. It was Halloween. Many pedestrians he passed wore costumes, and again similar to six years before, the most popular costume seemed to be a skeleton: a black tight-fitting garment with the phosphorescent images of bones painted on it and a head mask highlighted with white, representing a skull. With so many people resembling one another, he couldn’t tell if he was being followed. More, all Holly McCoy needed to do to disguise her conspicuous red hair was to wear a head mask. By contrast, on this night, he looked conspicuous, since he was one of the minority who weren’t wearing a costume of some sort.
As he crossed Canal Street toward the French Quarter, he began to hear music, faint, then distinct, the increasing throb and wail of jazz. A while ago, he’d read in a newspaper that New Orleans had instituted a noise ordinance, but tonight no one seemed to care. Street bands competed with those in bars. Dixieland, the blues-these and many other styles pulsed along the French Quarter’s narrow, crowded streets as costumed revelers danced, sang, and drank in celebration of the night of the dead.
. . gone and left me.
When the saints. .
Buchanan tried to lose himself in the crowd. He had less than an hour before he was supposed to be at Cafe du Monde, and he wanted to use that hour to guarantee that his meeting with Juana would not be observed.
As he headed up Bienville Street and then along Royal Street, then up Conti to Bourbon Street, he felt frustrated by the density of the crowd. It prevented him from moving as fast as he wanted, from taking advantage of opportunities to duck into a courtyard or down a side street. Every time he attempted an evasion tactic, a group would suddenly loom in front of him, and anyone who followed would not have trouble keeping up with him while blending with the festivities. He bought a devil’s mask from a sidewalk vendor and immediately found that it restricted his vision so much that he bumped into people, making him feel vulnerable and self-conscious. He took it off, glanced at his watch, and was amazed to discover how much his concentration had compressed the time. It was almost eleven. He had to get to the rendezvous site.
Soon, he thought. Soon he would put his arms around Juana. Soon he’d be able to find out why she needed him. He’d help her. He’d show her how much he loved her. He’d correct the mistake he’d made six years ago.
Who had made?
Coming down Orleans Avenue, he reached the shadows of St. Anthony’s Garden. From there, he took Pirate’s Alley down to Jackson Square. Its huge bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback rose ghostlike from the darkness of the gardens in the locked, deserted park. Using one of the walkways that flanked the wrought-iron fence of the square, he at last reached Decatur Street and paused in the shadows next to the square while he studied his destination.