Like a Woman Scorned (8 page)

A plan gradually formed in her mind as winter turned into spring. One she could never reveal to anyone, not even Brenda. No one. Ever.

CHAPTER SIX

On a windy day in late March, Alison called an old friend of hers who worked for the Swiss Embassy in San Francisco and invited him to dinner. They hadn’t seen each other for a few years, but were tight in times past. She knew she could trust him.

Emil Carter was a friend from her old law firm, where he was known as “the fixer.” Because of him, Alison used to assume every law office had a fixer, until she started working at Mike’s office and discovered otherwise. That old firm, where Alison worked when she first began her paralegal career, was not exactly known for being the most ethical law practice in town. It took a few years before Alison learned enough to catch on to that fact, which is when she went looking for another job. Emil never did anything blatantly illegal, so far as Alison knew, but he was good at walking extremely close to that line when it came to getting clients out of messes. He was originally from Switzerland and managed to land a job at the Swiss Embassy shortly after Alison quit.

Alison arranged to meet Emil at MacArthur Park. He was on time, apparently still the same punctual, all-business man she knew from the old days. They hugged and ordered cocktails while waiting for a table. He fussed over her, marveling about how good she looked. Alison had to admit she did. It was the best she’d felt about herself in a while.

Emil talked about his wife and new baby, and how happy he was to still be able to live in San Francisco and work at the embassy. Alison briefly discussed politics with him as well, something they used to enjoy talking about together regularly, both having rather liberal viewpoints.

Then Alison caught him up on her personal life, but omitting the affair with Rick and the surgery. He was shocked to learn she quit her job without first having another lined up, and asked if she needed any help financially—probably thinking that was the real reason for their little get-together.

“Emil, my grandmother died and left me a large amount of money, two million after taxes.”

His mouth opened and his eyebrows went up.

“So,” Alison continued, “I kept working for a little while, then decided I couldn’t stand being in the office any longer and that’s when I quit. Right now I’m kind of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, but in the meantime, there’s something I need to do, something I need your help with. I want to pay for that help, because I know I can trust you—and this is something you are going to want to be paid for, believe me.”

She reached into her purse and handed him an envelope. He looked inside and was shocked. Alison told him it contained nine American Express gift cards for $3000 each, a total of $27,000. Emil gulped.

“Alison, my God, I can’t take this from you. We’re friends, for crying out loud. Whatever it is, I’ll help you if I can, but I can’t accept this from you.”

Alison shook her head. “There’s no other way I will do it, Emil. I’m sure you can use the money, and I can certainly afford it these days. It has to be this way.”

Emil tried to hand the envelope back but Alison withdrew her hands from the table.

“Now listen,” Alison said. “What I need is for you to connect me with someone in Zurich who can provide me with a new identity—passport, driver’s license, social security card, and anything else I might need, the best money can buy. Whatever it costs—and I know it might be a lot—I will pay. I’ll need to use the false identity for maybe a year.”

That’s when the staring contest began. Suddenly you could hear crickets chirping, when the two of them had been chattering like squirrels up until now. Emil’s expression gradually changed from one of alarm to one of a man who was thinking and planning. She could see those old gears in his magnificent head start to turn, as they had done so many times in the past, saving so many people from landing in a fire. Alison knew she had him then, and noticed he pulled the envelope slightly closer to him.

“It will cost a lot of money, Alison. A lot. I’m talking about $100,000, maybe more, in American dollars. That’s a job that has to be done right—and the people that can do it right charge dearly for it.”

“Glad to hear you say that. I’m prepared to pay and understand completely. I need the job done right. So, you do know someone, then?”

Emil rolled his eyes while tucking away the envelope. “Yes, I know someone. Let me get ahold of them and assemble the details. Do you have a timetable?”

Alison thought for a moment.

“I’m flexible on the time. If it’s a month or two months, that’s fine. Whatever it will take, as long as the work is not compromised. If your people want money up front and you trust that, I will get the money there first. Just tell me what needs to be done.”

Their table was ready, so they followed the hostess from the cocktail lounge to the dining room and changed the topic of conversation. Delicious shrimp dinners with small talk that was now only a tiny bit uncomfortable occupied the next ninety minutes. When they parted, Emil agreed to contact her as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements, and advised her not to discuss any of it over the phone.

Several days later, Emil phoned. He asked Alison to meet him for breakfast the next morning at the Embarcadero Center, close to his office. She knew from the tone of his voice that he had put together the information she needed.

They met at nine. Emil was already seated with coffee for two and muffins on the table. They exchanged pleasantries and talked about the weather for a few minutes. He mentioned he put the money she gave him in a safe deposit box without telling his wife about it, as he hadn’t yet figured out what to do with it. Probably best to access it a little at a time, as needed. He then looked around the restaurant and lowered his voice.

“I have a contact for you who will arrange for the work you requested to be done. It is of the highest possible quality on all levels. They want you to go to Zurich and meet in person, pay in cash up front, and stay there while the work is done. You’ll need to provide passport photo negatives as well. It will take about a week. Then you’ll be ready to do whatever and go wherever you wish. The price is $100,000 complete, in American dollars only, and is not negotiable. You get $5,000 of that back in a new bank account set up for your new identity. The only reason it’s this cheap is because I personally assured them you are not a hot client.”

Alison noticed Emil was studying her face as if to measure her reaction, but Alison was cool and business-like.

“Excellent. Exactly what I needed. I knew you’d come through for me, Emil. Thank you! I’ll make the arrangements to go within a couple of weeks. I have some things to do first, as I plan on being gone for about a year. So, here’s another proposition for you. You mentioned you and your wife are renting a small apartment and will have to move soon, now that you have a baby. I propose that you to move into my house for the time I am gone, one year, to live rent free as my house sitter, and you can have use of everything there. It would make me feel better knowing I had a reliable person there watching over things. That should allow you to save up enough to move into a bigger place.”

Emil was once again stunned into silence. Alison smiled. She knew she was surprising him out of left field, and didn’t see how he could refuse.

“Alison, I hardly know what to say. That’s an incredible offer. Why?”

“It’s simple. We trust each other. You need a new place to live. My things will be safe and I don’t have to worry about renting it to a stranger. Just say yes. The utilities are very reasonable. You can park in my garage, which is vacant because I don’t have a car. Money is not an issue for me right now. I’ll tell my next door neighbor so there won’t be any confusion. So talk to Lisa. What do you think she’ll say?”

“Ha-ha, are you kidding? She’ll say ‘when do we move?’ We have been talking every night about what to do when our lease ends next month and this is like manna from heaven.”

They parted with Emil promising to get back to her that same evening on the housing proposal. Alison felt an enormous sense of relief, knowing she could go forward with her plans and her home would be taken care of. When Emil phoned later that night, they agreed on a time the next day for him and Lisa to come over and do a walk-through. Alison would provide copies of everything from insurance policies to appliance manuals.

After she hung up, Alison went through every room in her house taking photos and verifying the insurance logs she kept of china, silver, and other important items. It occurred to her that she should give Emil power of attorney for anything relating to her home, so she planned to take care of that in the morning. She also decided it would be best to put her financial records not related to her home in her safe deposit box.

There would need to be an emergency communication method, in case something happened. Alison would tell her friends she was going travelling in Europe for a year, but only she knew she would be there just a short time. What if something happened to her parents or Brenda, or any of her other friends? She’d want to know. One more item to add to the list.

The last thing Alison did before crashing on the couch to watch television was book a flight to Zurich. She made so much progress tonight she no longer felt she needed two weeks of preparation. One week from today she would be on her way.

* * *

Despite leaving San Francisco almost an hour late, the plane landed in Zurich within ten minutes of its scheduled arrival time. It had been a long time since Alison last took the red-eye to Europe. She knew she would be jetlagged today, but could handle it. She wasn’t meeting Emil’s contact until tomorrow, so she just needed to stay awake until eight or so tonight and then sleep the night through to wake up fully operating on Swiss time.

A taxi took her to the Hotel Villette where she did Sudoku puzzles until she received the call she was waiting for. It was a woman’s voice on the phone. The instructions were simple: Wear a white flower in her hair and sit in a booth on the left side of the pub next to the hotel tomorrow at 1:00 pm. The contact would find her.

Alison’s hotel room was very feminine. It had wicker furniture and photos on the walls of mothers with their children. Pictures of women with kids were not Alison’s favorite thing to see these days. Heck, she didn’t even like seeing real women with real small children—and often changed the channel when commercials came on television which had babies in them. Alison took two of the pictures off the wall and turned them around before leaving the room for a walk around town. Several hours later she returned, did more Sudoku’s, ordered room service, and forced herself to stay awake watching Swiss reality TV shows until eight. She almost made it.

The next morning, it was raining outside. Her German was rough and she was concerned about communicating, but would just have to manage. Hopefully, her contact spoke at least some broken English. Most Europeans did, especially businessmen.

Her money belt was secure on her body when she walked into the ZeigerHut at noon with her brand new, large Swiss handbag strapped securely across her opposite shoulder. The flower she purchased from the cart in front of the hotel was tucked into the side of her hair and she quickly forgot it was there.

Alison had a leisurely lunch of a cheese and mushroom omelet with a beer, and then began to get restless. Second thoughts invaded her mind for the first time. Perhaps this was all a mistake. As if on cue, the bartender then came over and handed her a slip of paper. She read it, quickly paid her bill, and walked out the front door into the public square.  The rain had stopped and it smelled wonderfully refreshing outside, the fragrance of blooming bushes nearby mixing with the scent of rain. Shortly, a tall blonde woman pushing a baby carriage bumped into her.

“Madame, please sit at the bench with me and make nice to my baby. Emil sent me. My name is Eva and I have the information you need.”

Alison was taken aback for a moment, surprised at the subterfuge in spite of realizing that’s how she wanted the encounter to happen. She turned to look at the woman. They made eye contact and then Alison bent over to do the admirations of the …baby. Why a baby? But Alison did as instructed. Eva pointed to the bench and they both sat down to begin their conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Alison said. “I did not mean to seem rude, just thought it would be a man contacting me. I’m not used to this kind of thing and feel like I am in a spy movie or something.” Alison brushed her hair with her hand quickly several times, knowing she was sounding like an idiot.

Eva laughed, which was something of a relief to Alison.

“I understand,” Eva finally said. “But I had to be sure it was you and not have any confusion. So that you know, Emil is a close friend of my family, and the work you require is a specialty of my family business. Emil says he trusts you with his life, so I have no reason to be concerned about you. But he couldn’t give you any of these details in advance, because of the rules of the family business. I’m sure you understand.”

Alison looked at her directly and smiled. “Of course I understand. But I’ve never done anything like this.”

“Yes, Emil told me all about you. That’s why you’re getting such a good price on this.”

They discussed the details of what Alison needed. Eva knew more about that than Alison did, which was encouraging. Identification that could be traced to a database so she wouldn’t come up as a blank should anyone run a background check. The proper papers to travel throughout Europe and confirm her identity—passport, visa where needed, birth certificate, and a working American Express card tied to a real bank account. Eva told her it would take one week and the delivery would be made in person. She also told Alison not to carry any identity with her when the delivery was made.

Alison knew that meant she had to secure her real documents in a Zurich safe deposit box before picking up the new ones from Eva. She also had to be prepared to leave the country at that time, and could not go back to the same hotel. She would be assuming a new identity at that moment, one which must coincide with all the new documents.