Perfection

I did something I never do last night. I slept in all my makeup. This morning I woke up to see what I would have to do if I maintained a disguise overnight.

11:00 a.m.

My mustache was loose on one side as was a piece of my hair over the left temple. I must have scratched at it in the night. My 5:00 shadow looked more like a smear of mud on my face. I tidied up as much as I could and headed for Stevie’s place. She promised to help me perfect the disguise this morning. And believe me, it needs perfecting.

It was hard enough to be with Angel while she flirted with me. It was even harder to run into Silas and deflect his interest. The two encounters left me in such a serious panic attack that after I escaped from them I practically ran back to my car, jumped into the back seat, curled up into a little ball and rocked back and forth while I panted and sobbed. It wasn’t even that important. I could pass off the disguise with Angel if she’d caught me out. I bet her that I could have a direct encounter with her and she wouldn’t recognize me. So, if I’d been recognized, it was a simple Oops. Somehow, though, I didn’t think Silas would understand as well.

And what was with that? Why is Silas watching Angel’s business and poking at people who go in there.

Well, duh. That’s easy. She’s helping people launder money. What she does may violate the spirit of the law, but as well as I can read it, unless they can prove that she’s receiving money from some illicit source, she’s technically legal. I don’t think Silas was completely satisfied with my answers about booking travel, but it was more important to him to follow Angel wherever she was going after our little meeting.

Stevie looked at my hair and makeup job critically. She made a few adjustments, and then had me sit in the chair of her salon for several hours while she completely redid everything, lecturing me the entire time. The first task was making it easier for me to get into the makeup and hairpiece. The second task was making it foolproof against detection at close range. If I was going to pull the same ruse with Cinnamon that I had with Angel, I was going to have to get up close to her without being spotted as a fraud. Even if she didn’t recognize me, if she recognized that I was in makeup and a costume, it would be just as much a failure.
There was no question that I was going to have to get more comfortable being around girls when I was dressed as a boy as well.

Here’s a bizarre question. Who do you think would be more pissed off at me: a straight girl who finds out I’m also a girl or a gay boy who finds out that I’m a girl? Oh, this gets so confusing. Why is it that I feel so obsessed with perfecting my boy act all of a sudden? I should just be sitting in my office trying to break the code of Simon’s little game or tracking down Brenda. Instead, I’m getting lectured by Stevie on how to improve my 5:00 shadow, fasten my hair on, and walk like a boy.

When Stevie was finished, I looked incredible. Looking in a mirror I couldn’t recognize myself. She instructed me to leave the makeup and hair on again tonight. Tomorrow I’m really going to have to shower and clean all this stuff off. I can only imagine what it’s doing to my skin. But I promised to complete the day today in disguise, seeing and talking to people as a boy. I still need to run by the office, though.

8:00 p.m.

WTF? Something has gone terribly wrong and I don’t know what it is. I had lunch on the way to the office, so it was easily 2:00 when I finally meandered down there. I had in mind to set up a couple more experiments with the thumb drive and see if there was anything on it other than the destructive virus. I had to remember that it was all going to be a game of “Simon Says.”

Before I got to the office, I could hear voices and see that my door was open. I started to hurry toward it, but then realized that I had no identity on me that would prove who I really was, and I didn’t want to barge in on a burglary anyway. I approached quietly and listened from outside the door. The voices were from the inner office. The outer office was empty, so I slipped inside to hear better.

“Nothing,” I heard a voice say. “The place is clean. I don’t find a random electrical signal or any indication that there is activity in the area.”

“It must have been cleaned out,” said a second voice that I recognized. I was about to walk in and reveal myself when he continued. “There’s only one person who could have it, and that’s Deb Riley. I want a search warrant for her apartment. And just to be on the safe side let’s get an arrest warrant on suspicion of aiding in the laundering of funds. She’s got a key to Dag’s research on Simon and Brenda Barnett and I want it.”

Silas Grant was getting a warrant for my arrest? But that wasn’t all.

“No one has seen her since the funeral,” Silas continued. “I want all the ports checked and see if you can locate her car. She may have skipped the country already.”

I got out fast. I could hear them closing the doors to the office by the time I reached the end of the pier. I thought about my car parked across the street in the Pike Place Garage. It was best to just leave it there. But where was I going.

I don’t really have that much to hide from the police, but a thorough search of my apartment will reveal some not-exactly-legal IDs and all my disguises, wigs, photos. My heart leapt to my throat. Including the one I was wearing. I had to get there before they did.

I flagged down a Taxi on Alaskan Way and gave him the address to my apartment. How much time did I have? He couldn’t move on the apartment until he had the warrants, but how fast would FINCen turn them around? I had a feeling that I didn’t have much time.

I did a quick walk-by on the apartment and got the cab driver’s card so I could call him back. I had a feeling that he wouldn’t be going too far away when I tipped him $20. I ran upstairs. The place was still a mess from my restless night last night. This was going to have to be fast. I grabbed two big suitcases from my closet and opened them on the bed. Everything that was Deb Riley’s had to stay in the apartment. I would be safest if Silas thought I was still around. But my false ID’s, my blonde wig, and my makeup kits had to go with me. I pulled all the cash I had out of my hidey-hole in the ceiling of the closet. The last thing I needed to do was grab my photos. Too many of them have pictures of me in disguise.

It’s a long story, and if I get a break sometime soon I’ll tell you more about it, but for now, suffice it to say that I don’t have pictures of me with a happy family. You know my history. A bald kid with a drunk mother and an over-protective father doesn’t get many pictures taken. Most of the pictures of me were taken in photo booths in the places we visited or wherever I found them. About eight years ago I discovered photo editing on my computer. So I created the kind of family memories that I wanted to have. I used photos of me and me in disguise to mash together a family portrait album with scenes from places I imagined we’d visited. The truth is I haven’t been many places outside of Seattle. I stuffed every photo I could find in my suitcase, removed all the men’s clothes, shoes, hats, and underwear from my apartment and locked the suitcases. I took off for the street and left by the service entrance to the apartment with a hat pulled down over my eyes. I caught sight of Silas getting out of his car in front of the building as I came around the corner and ducked back.

I dialed Hassan’s phone number on my cell and he pulled up about three minutes later.
Where to?

I chose Dag’s apartment. It might not be safe for long, but for now it should offer me just the kind of break I needed to regroup and figure out where I was going next. I placed a call to Mrs. Prior and told her that I had a friend in town who needed a place to stay and I’d given him the key to Dag’s apartment. Was that okay? Yes, she said, it was mine to do as I wished, but Maizie was often up there. That’s okay, I said, he likes dogs.

When I hung up, the cab driver was giving me an odd look in the rearview mirror. I realized I’d just made a call with a very different voice than the man’s voice I’d been using.

“It’s the phone,” I said, returning to masculine. “It always makes my voice sound high. It will be well-worth your while if you just forget you ever saw me or heard me talk.” He nodded. I went back to my phone. It’s a pretty sophisticated sleek black model with a lot of computer-like features. I’d only had it for a few weeks, but I was going to have to get rid of it. It was Deb Riley’s phone. I deleted all my personal information, connection routines, and e-mail from it, opened it and pulled out the SIM card. Then I polished it up nicely and when the cab pulled up in front of Dag’s house, I handed it to the driver along with a $50 bill.

“You’ll need to get the phone activated,” I said, “but it will be really good for your business. Keep the change and lose this address.”

He nodded and I escaped with my bags to the sanctum of Dag’s apartment. It wasn’t more than five minutes after I got there that Maizie pushed the door open and jumped up into my lap.

So what’s going on?

I’ve integrated all my men’s clothes in among Dag’s and found a place to hide my pictures. But I’m completely cut off from everything right now. I can’t even be Deb Riley. Right now I’m James Whitcomb. Why is Silas wanting to arrest me? What does he think I have, and why is it so valuable?

I thought the case was closed.