The Imposter

by Gary Blackwood

  He rubbed hard at his stomach, which had gone into its familiar nausea act. Luckily he'd had the sense to skip breakfast. There hadn't been anything in the apartment worth eating anyway, just some stale corn flakes and no milk.

  Ryan shook his head hard. Okay, time to get down to business. He was a professional. No matter how weird the situation might be, he had to do his best. Ten minutes, the guy had said. Ryan had had two days to prepare for the Les Miz audition, and that hadn't been enough. He took a deep breath and focused on the instructions the director had given him; they didn't amount to much, just a single short paragraph that had been typed, rather badly, on a manual typewriter:

  Your name is Allen. You were born in Quebec on November 23, 1974, but you have lived in several provinces since then, including Manitoba and Ontario. You live with your mother who is a dental hygienist. You are a good student but not very popular. You play chess and tennis and read a lot of books. You plan to study Biology at university.

  A nerd, Ryan thought. This Allen character is a nerd. That was okay. He'd played nerds before. It was a bit of a stretch, but he could handle it. He read through the character description again, more carefully this time.

  When the supposed director returned, Ryan had put the paper aside and was sitting on the floor with his legs crossed in a lotus position and his eyes closed, thinking nerdy thoughts, as Bea Spencer had taught him. He heard the man approach but he held the pose, knowing that it usually impressed people for some reason. Maybe because it made acting look less like a trick and more like a serious art, one that required discipline and meditation. Personally, Ryan had always seen it as more of a trick, one that he just happened to be good at.

  "What's the matter with you?" This guy didn't sound particularly impressed.

  Ryan opened one eye. The director was holding a Styrofoam cup and a bag of doughnuts, right at eye level. Ryan's stomach grumbled, but whether it was from nausea or hunger he wasn't sure. "Just centering down," he said.

  "Oh. Okay. You want a doughnut?"

  Ryan got to his feet and fussily brushed off the seat of his pants. "No, thank you. I try to avoid refined sugar. It gives you a quick burst of energy by raising your blood sugar, but it wears off just as quickly, and then your energy level drops dramatically."

  The man stared at Ryan as if wondering whether he was all there. Then he took a large bite out of a doughnut and talked around it. "Did you study the sheet I gave you?"

  "Can't you tell?"

  The man gazed blankly at him again for another moment, then a small smile forced its way onto his face. "I get it. You were doing Allen."

  Ryan ran a hand through his hair to make it stand up in a nerdy fashion. "Yes, sir."

  The director set the coffee and doughnuts aside and walked in a tight circle around Ryan, examining him like a drill sergeant looking over a new recruit. "How old are you, Allen?"

  "Sixteen, sir." Ryan started to pick his nose, then decided that was probably overdoing it. He settled for just sniffling a little.

  "You live here in Toronto?"

  "Yes. My mother and I rent a two-bedroom house in Scarborough. She works for Dr. Cales." He hiked the waistband of his pants up to his navel. "Have you ever been to him? He's very good. He uses a new technique in which it's not necessary to drill at all. You see, instead of drilling, he utilizes a chemical that—"

  "I understand you read a lot, Allen?"

  Ryan dug wax out of one ear with his pinky finger and examined it. "Yes, indeed. I've always loved books. They're far easier to get along with than people. Have you read A Brief History of Time? It's fascinating, just fascinating."

  To his surprise, the man started to laugh. It was a curious, rusty sort of sound, the sort that a novice actor might come up with the first time he's required to laugh on cue. Even more curious was the fact that the stern expression on the man's face scarcely changed, as if he disapproved of laughing on principle. "That's good. Very good."

  "Thank you, sir," said Ryan, still in character. Then he added, with a trace of a whine, "But I don't appreciate being laughed at."

  "Don't make him too obnoxious," cautioned the director, "or his … or nobody will be able to stand him."

  Ryan let his pants settle to their normal level and smoothed down his hair. "Do you mind if I ask what play we're doing?" he asked, carefully implying that he was now part of the cast.

  The man looked at him for several seconds without answering, obviously considering something. Then he said, "Sit down. Have a doughnut."

  Ryan dug a doughnut from the bag, then sat on a raised section of the floor.

  The man stared at his own doughnut, as if he were addressing it and not Ryan. "The fact is …" he said slowly, "it's not a play."

  Ryan's stomach tightened. Not a play? What, then? A movie? A commercial? He said nothing, though; he just waited for the man to go on.

  But the man didn't go on. He seemed less like a director than like an actor sorely in need of prompting. He opened his mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out except a little powdered sugar. Finally he dug from his back pocket a fat leather wallet that was tethered to his belt by a chain; he fished a laminated photograph from the wallet and handed it to Ryan.

  It was a color photo of a kid about three or four years old, a boy with shaggy blond hair and a smile that showed a lot of baby teeth but no real pleasure or humor—as if he were smiling only because someone had told him to. "Cute kid," Ryan said dutifully. "Is he yours?"

  The man gave a short, almost contemptuous laugh. "No. This is Allen."

  "Allen? You mean the Allen? The one I was just—"

  The man nodded.

  Ryan glanced at the picture again, with more interest this time. The kid didn't look all that nerdy. Of course, with a four-year-old, who could tell? "So," he said, for want of anything better to say, "this is Allen." He started to hand the picture back, but the man waved it away.

  "Keep it a while. Study it."

  Puzzled, Ryan pretended to examine it, wondering if this was still part of the audition. The man sat sipping his coffee and watching Ryan thoughtfully. Ryan tried to look absorbed in the picture. After a minute, the man took a deep, slightly raspy breath and said, "Okay. Okay. I'm going to take a chance on you. I hope I'm not wrong."

  "Maybe if you told me what kind of acting job we're talking about—"

  "It's not an acting job. Well, yeah, it is. But probably not the kind you're used to. I want you to …" he reached out and tapped the photo "… I want you to impersonate this kid."

  Chapter 5

  At first, Ryan thought the guy had just chosen the wrong word again, the way he'd said try out instead of audition. "Impersonate him?"

  "Right."

  "You mean, as in … pretend to be him?"

  The man held up his hands. "Don't jump to conclusions, okay? There's nothing illegal about it. But there is quite a bit of money in it for you, if you can manage to carry it off."

  Surely there was no way the word money could mean anything else. Ryan sat up a little straighter. "I'm listening."

  "Good. Okay." The man dug another laminated paper out of his wallet and passed it to Ryan. This one was an identification card; at the top, in bold letters, were the words private investigator. Beneath that, in smaller print, it said: The holder of this card is a licensed private investigator. He or she is authorized to carry unusual personal weapons (Unusual? Like what? A broadsword? A phaser?) and conduct confidential investigations of a sensitive nature. At the bottom of the card was an unflattering photo of the man, looking even more dour than in real life, and a name: Herschel L. Burton.

  Ryan gaped up at the man. "You're—you're a private eye?"

  "Investigator," Burton said irritably. "Private investigator. Whoever started that private eye crap should be shot."

  "Sorry. But you are one?"

  "Of course I am." He snatched the card back. "Don't act dumb, kid, or you'll make me want to reconsider."

  "Sorry," Ryan re
peated. "Go on."

  "Where was I?"

  "The money?" Ryan offered.

  "We'll talk money later. First, I want to know if you're in or out."

  "Well … it's hard to say. I mean, I don't know exactly what—"

  "All right, okay. Here's the problem, you see. If I tell you the details, then you're in whether you like it or not. You understand?"

  Ryan considered this for a second. "You say it's not illegal?"

  "Right."

  "And the money's good?"

  Burton nodded.

  "Well, then … I guess I'm in."

  "Good. Good. Okay, then, here's the story." Burton leaned forward and tapped the picture of the kid again. "I'm working for his old man."

  "Allen's."

  "Right. Six months ago, Allen's father hires me to find his kid. He says that, about twelve or thirteen years back, Allen's mother divorced him and then she took off with the kid, and the guy hasn't seen either one of them since. Now he wants to see his kid. You with me so far?"

  "Sure. Only you haven't been able to find the kid. Right?"

  Burton glared at him and dug out another doughnut. "Wrong. I didn't have much trouble tracking Allen and his mother down. It took me a while, but that's par for the course. The trouble is, I can't very well take the kid to meet his old man."

  "Why not? Because he's a nerd?"

  "No." Burton took a mouthful of doughnut. "Because he's dead."

  "Oh. I guess that would be a problem." Ryan glanced at the photo of the four-year-old Allen and tried to imagine him dead. "How old was he?"

  "When he died, you mean? I don't know. Twelve. Thirteen. Does it matter?"

  "I guess not. So, you haven't told his dad yet?"

  Burton shook his head. "The guy's got a bad heart. If I tell him, it'll kill him for sure. That's why he wants to see the kid so much—because he could kick off at any time."

  "And you want me to fill in for the kid so the father dies happy."

  "You got it."

  "That's really sweet," said Ryan, with more than a trace of sarcasm. "What's in it for you?"

  The big man shrugged. "My fee. Well, I'm getting paid in any case, but obviously the father's going to be a lot more generous if I bring him Allen than he will be if I tell him his kid is dead. The old man gets what he wants, I get a bonus. What could be fairer?"

  "I don't know. You sure this is legal? I mean, isn't it like fraud or identity theft or something?"

  "According to section 403 of the Criminal Code, it's only fraud if you do it to obtain property—which we're not—or to cause disadvantage to the person being impersonated—which we're not, since he's dead—or to avoid arrest or prosecution—which we're certainly not. All we're doing is making a guy's last days happy. It's not like I'm passing you off as his kid so you can inherit all his money or something. That would be fraud."

  Ryan gazed at the man thoughtfully. Though Burton didn't seem like the brightest bulb in the bunch, it did sound like he knew what he was talking about.

  "So, are you still in?"

  Ryan's butt was starting to ache from sitting on the floor, but he didn't shift position. One thing he'd learned from all those acting classes was the importance of body language; he didn't want his to say that he was uncomfortable. Negotiate, his mother would say if she were here; negotiate. "What if I say no?"

  Burton gave him a dark look that made him drop his gaze. "I wouldn't if I were you. I can't take a chance on you shooting your mouth off about this and blowing it for me." He sat back in his folding chair, which squeaked a little under his bulk, and said in a less edgy voice, "Besides, you're the best actor I've got."

  "Really? How many have you auditioned?"

  "Fifteen. Maybe twenty."

  "No kidding." Ryan wondered if the guy was just trying to flatter him. If so, it was working. He cleared his throat, then wished he hadn't—negative body language. "Can we talk about money now?"

  "I'll talk. You listen. I'm offering a third of my fee. Thirteen thousand dollars."

  Ryan did some quick mental calculation. A third of thirteen thousand. That was only a little over four thousand. If Burton thought he could take advantage of Ryan because he was young, he had another think coming. "That's not exactly major money. I can make that much doing one or two tv spots." Well, there was a time when he could, anyway, back when he was still little and cute and still singing soprano.

  "You get thirteen thousand dollars for saying a couple of lines in a cereal commercial?" Burton said.

  "Oh. I thought … you mean the thirteen thousand is my share? That's different." A lot different. That was more than he normally made in a year, even if he worked pretty much nonstop. Though he still had some doubts about the legality of the scheme, he had a lot more doubts about his ability to go on supporting himself and his mother on what he'd been making. In any case, it was Burton's scheme, not his; as far as he was concerned, this was just another acting job—a very lucrative one. "How long would you need me for? School starts the first week of September, and if I miss any, it'll hurt my grades. I'm hoping to get a scholarship to an arts high school next year."

  "Two weeks should be plenty. The old man doesn't want you to move in or anything. He just wants to meet you."

  "Not me," Ryan reminded him. "He wants to meet Allen."

  "Yeah, well, starting as of now, you are Allen."

  Ryan was pretty confident that he could pull this off. After all, the old man hadn't seen him—Allen, that is—in twelve or thirteen years. Kids changed a lot in that amount of time. The fact that Allen was sixteen—or would be, if he were alive—and Ryan was only fourteen was no big thing, either. People were always telling him that he looked and acted a lot older.

  He didn't really have many qualms, conscience-wise. He'd been posing as somebody else half his life, and this wasn't all that different. Okay, strictly speaking, it wasn't a hundred percent honest. But sometimes you had to fudge the facts a little for the greater good. If telling Allen's father that his son was dead was going to give the guy a heart attack, then surely it was better to lie to him.

  There was one possible problem, though: getting his mother to cooperate. If he'd been hired by a legitimate touring company, she'd have been only too happy to get rid of him. But somehow he didn't think she would consider this legitimate. As desperate as they were for money in the short run, she was more concerned about the long run—about his future career. This job wasn't something he could put on his resumé.

  Clearly, this was another one of those cases where you had to consider the greater good. If the truth was going to upset her, why not give her a more comforting version? He wouldn't necessarily need to actually lie to her, just mislead her a little.

  Burton was all in favor of misleading her—until he learned that he was expected to play a part in the deception. "Why do you need me?" he protested.

  "To put her mind at ease," said Ryan. "She'll want to know that I'm going to be looked after by a responsible adult, that I'm not being sold into white slavery or something." It was Ryan's turn to give Burton the once-over. He walked around the man in a slow circle, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. You don't look much like the director type to me. I think we'd better make you the stage manager."

  "Hey, look. I'm not sure this is such a good idea. I'm no actor, you know."

  Ryan smiled and patted him reassuringly on one beefy shoulder. "Relax," he said. "You'll do just fine."

  Chapter 6

  As soon as Ryan unlocked the door to the apartment and smelled the familiar scent of Canadian Club, he knew he should have called ahead and told his mom they were coming. He turned to Burton. "Could you … could you just wait out here in the hall for a minute or two?"

  The investigator scowled. "This isn't a social call. I don't care what the place looks like."

  "Hey, do you want her to let me go, or don't you?"

  Burton sighed and leaned against the wall. "Yeah, yeah."

  "Then we'd better not do a
nything to upset her." Ryan slipped inside and clicked the door shut.

  Actually, the place didn't look as bad as he expected. But his mother did. She hadn't even bothered to put on a housecoat. She was slumped on the couch, still in her nightgown. At some point, she had made an effort to put her hair up in rollers, but hadn't managed more than about six, which were clinging to her head at odd angles.

  The cast of General Hospital was emoting on the tv, but she didn't seem to be really watching it. Her focus was much further away, probably somewhere in the past. When Ryan clicked off the set, his mother came out of her daze. "Oh, hello," she said, shaping her words carefully to compensate for the amount of liquor she'd consumed. "I didn't hear you come in."

  "Listen, Mom, you've got to get dressed. We've got company."

  Her response was to launch into the title song from Company. You had to give her credit; even as drunk as she was, it didn't sound too bad.

  "Mom! I mean it! The stage manager from the show is here. He wants to talk to you."

  She wasn't so far gone that she missed the significance of this. "To me? Here? Now?"

  "Yes. Come on, all right? Get dressed and take those rollers out, and I'll clean the place up a little."

  "Why did you bring him here?" she wailed—but softly, so it wouldn't carry into the hall.

  "Mom! Just get dressed, okay?"

  "I'm getting, I'm getting. I won't be a minute."

  She was, in fact, gone for nearly half an hour. Ryan fixed coffee for Burton, who was even more impatient and irritable than usual, and in low tones they went over the details of the story they were going to spin for his mother. When at last she came traipsing from the bedroom, she was dressed more or less normally, except for one curler that still dangled from the back of her hair.

  She gave Burton a strained smile. "Hello, there." To avoid limping across the room, she perched on one worn arm of the upholstered chair, with her scarred profile to the wall. "You must be the gentleman I talked to on the phone."