David Morrell - Assumed Identity

Her first task had been to leave the condominium. As soon as she’d realized that she was a prisoner, she’d automatically assumed that the door would be rigged to sound an alarm and warn her guards if she tried to escape in the night. The alarm was one of the reasons she had waited several weeks before leaving. It had taken her that long, whenever the maid wasn’t watching, to check the walls behind furniture and paintings and find the alarm’s hidden switch. Last night, she had turned it off behind the liquor cabinet, silently unlocked the door and opened it, then peered left down the corridor. The guard who watched the elevator could not be seen. He usually sat in a chair just around the corner. At four in the morning, there was a strong possibility he’d be drowsing, relying on the sound of the elevator to make him become alert.

But she had no intention of using the elevator. Rather, she left her door slightly ajar-she didn’t dare close it all the way and risk making an avoidable noise-then turned to the right, walking softly along the carpet toward the fire door. That door wasn’t guarded on this floor, but in the lobby, the exit from the stairwell was. With painstaking care, she eased the fire door open, closed it as carefully behind her, and exhaled, wiping sweat from her hands. That had been the part she most dreaded, that she’d make a noise when she opened the fire door and would alert the guard. The rest, for a time, would be easy.

She hurried down the cold, shadowy stairwell, the rubber soles on her sneakers making almost no sound. Forty stories later, energized rather than fatigued, she reached the lobby door but didn’t stop, continuing instead to the basement. As she made her way through dusty storage areas and the noisy furnace area, passing a clutter of pipes and circuit breakers, she feared that a custodian would confront her, but no one seemed on duty, and eventually she found stairs that led to a rear exit from the building, an exit that was far enough from the conventional exit that anyone watching the other exit wouldn’t notice someone leaving the basement.

Still cautious, she turned off the light near the door before she opened it, so that no illumination would spill out and reveal her. Then she was in an alley, feeling the chill of late October, hurrying along. She wished that she’d been able to bring a coat, but all the coats in her character’s closet had been expensive, designed to be worn with evening clothes. There’d been nothing as inconspicuous as a windbreaker. No matter. She was free. But for how long? Fear and urgency gave her warmth.

Without her wig, special makeup, and facial-altering devices, she no longer resembled her character. But even though the public wouldn’t recognize her, Alistair Drummond had a photograph of her original appearance. So she didn’t dare use a taxi. The driver, if questioned, would remember picking her up at this hour and in this vicinity, especially since she was Hispanic. The driver would also remember where he’d dropped her off. That destination would be a safe distance from where she intended to go. It would not reveal anything that put her in danger. Nonetheless, she considered it better if she permitted Drummond no leads whatsoever, false or true, and instead just seemed to vanish. Besides, given the little money she had, she didn’t dare waste it on a taxi.

So she ran, to all appearance an early-morning jogger on the nearly deserted streets. She went hunting, skirting Central Park, trying to look like an easy target. Finally, two kids with knives emerged from shadows. She broke both their arms and took the fourteen dollars she found on them. By dawn, her exercise clothes dark with sweat, she rested in a twenty-four-hour hamburger joint in Times Square. There she sacrificed part of her meager funds on several steaming cups of coffee and a breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, and English muffins. Not the sort of breakfast she usually ate and certainly not recommended by the American Heart Association, but given the frantic, furtive day she expected to have, she needed all the calories and carbohydrates her stomach would hold.

She sacrificed more of her meager funds to go to a theater that showed movies around the clock. The only woman present, she knew that she’d attract predators in the almost-deserted seats at seven in the morning. She wanted to. When the movie ended and she left the theater, she carried fifty more dollars, money that she’d taken from three men whom she’d knocked unconscious, using her elbow, when each-a half hour apart-had sat next to her and tried to molest her.

By then, a few cut-rate clothing stores were open, and she bought a plain wool cap, a pair of wool gloves, and an insulated black nylon jacket that blended with her gray exercise clothes. She tucked her hair beneath her cap, and with her slightly baggy exercise clothes hiding her voluptuous breasts and hips, she appeared overweight and androgynous. Her costume was almost perfect. Except that her clothes were new (and she remedied that by dragging her cap, gloves, and jacket in the gutter), she looked like most of the other street people.

Next, it was time to pick her spot among the hucksters beginning to set up shop on the curb along Broadway. It took two hours, a watchful eye for the police or anyone else who showed undue interest in her, and several prudent shifts of location, but she finally used her powers of performance to sell all of her jewelry to tourists, amassing $215.

That gave her enough to travel-not enough to fly, of course (which she wouldn’t have done anyhow because the airports would be among the first places that Drummond’s men would check), but certainly enough to take a train, and a bus would be even cheaper. Plus, the way she was dressed, she thought she’d be more invisible on a bus, so she ate a hamburger while she walked to the junkie-infested Port Authority Bus Terminal, and by noon she was on her way to Baltimore.

Why Baltimore? Why not? she thought. It was close enough that a ticket there wouldn’t use all her money. At the same time, it was comfortably far. She had no previous associations with Baltimore. It was simply a random selection, impossible for Drummond to predict, although if he eliminated the cities with which she’d been associated and if he arbitrarily chose the remaining big cities within a certain radius from Manhattan, he might make a lucky guess. Nothing was guaranteed. She had to be careful.

En route to Baltimore, while she studied the other passengers to determine whether any was a threat, she had ample opportunity to think about her options. She didn’t dare fall back into old patterns. Her family and friends were a danger to her. Drummond’s men would be watching them. She had to construct a new persona, one unrelated to any character she’d assumed before. She had to make new friends and create new relatives. As far as employment was concerned, she would do whatever was most tolerable, as long as it wasn’t anything she’d done previously. She had to make a complete break with the past. Getting the proper documents for a new false identity wasn’t a problem. She was an expert.

But as she considered her existential condition, she wondered if she was prepared to make the sacrifice. She liked the person she’d been before she met Alistair Drummond. She wanted to be that person again. Had she been foolish? Had she misjudged Drummond’s intention? Perhaps she should have been patient and continued to live in luxury.

Until you served your purpose and your performance was no longer necessary.

And then?

Remember, the gems were fake, and there was no way you were ever going to get the money Drummond claimed to be paying you. The only explanation for the way he rigged that bank account was that he planned to have you killed and take back the money.