One more item to check. And thanks to Zuzu, I know what it is. I zip open a side pocket in the Angelina and slide my fingers down deep inside. I know a real D-M has a tiny metal bead sewn into the right corner seam. In this bag, there’s nothing. This is a fake.
Carefully folding up the brown suede, I attempt to recreate the way it was originally, then slide the resealed pouch into the middle of one of the piles. I zip up the suitcase again, leaning my whole weight onto the top to get it to close.
Thread the tiny lock back through the zipper pull. Stash the key in the outside pocket. Slide open the latch to my secret bathroom hideaway. And go.
Question is-will someone be watching for this bag? And will they see me put it back?
Chapter Eighteen
Back at luggage claim, it’s as if I’d never been gone. It’s still crowded, departure confusion still in full swing. More luggage arriving. Keeping my expression confident and nonchalant, I wheel the bag full of contraband back to the carousel. There I see hundreds of circling bags are still waiting to be collected by hundreds of travel-worn passengers. Most people are in a congested pack, milling around where the bags come out, some pushing those ungainly gray steel rented baggage carts. I make my way to the end of the line where the bags go back outside.
Lifting the black suitcase back onto the carousel, I watch as it gets carried through the black baffles and outside, out of sight and swallowed up into baggage anonymity. If all goes as planned, soon it’ll be coming down the chute again.
I can’t wait to see what’ll happen next.
My own bag is still, thankfully, circling. Grabbing it, I post myself at the exit to the claim area as if I’m waiting for a fellow passenger. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m stationed at the only way out. Travelers will have to walk right by me, either heading up the escalators to the parking area, or out the door to buses and cabs. When the person I’m looking for walks by, I’ll follow right behind.
I consider calling Franklin, but I’m not sure what I’d tell him. And I may not have time. I fold my red Hartford bag in half and tuck it inside my suitcase, just to be safe. No sense having that on display. Crossing my arms in front of me, I lean back against a pillar. It can’t be long now.
The bag of bags is now at the top of the chute again. I watch it hesitate at the top, then get pushed over the side by the luggage behind it. It slides down to the carousel. And then, someone grabs it.
It’s a woman, elegant, graying hair cut in a chic bob. Do I remember her from the plane? I don’t. She looks like a traveling executive, in her slim tweed skirt, white shirt, hip-length cardigan sweater tied with a soft belt, low-heeled shoes. Her rented baggage cart is already carrying two other suitcases, a large black one and an overstuffed maroon carryall. She sets the contraband case on its wheels, then looks again at its baggage claim check.
Get a cab, I send her a silent plea. If she has a car, there’s no way for me to follow her. I’d have to settle for a license plate. If she takes a bus, that has its pros and cons. I pray she’s getting a cab. That’s got only pros.
The woman shifts the other two bags, and slides the black bag onto the cart’s lower shelf. Pausing a moment to retie her belt, she pushes her cart toward the exit. And me.
Turning my back to her, I hoist my purse onto my shoulder as if I’m also on the way out. Get a cab. I ESP her another message. You. Need. A. Cab.
Yes. She goes past the escalator and through the automatic doors. Above her is an orange arrow with a sign proclaiming This Way to Ground Transportation. And I’m right behind her. Just another tired and harried late-night traveler who wants to get home.
Sliding just behind her in the crowded and lengthening cab line, I figure I can get her cab number, and then, somehow, find out where she told the driver to take her. I have a fleeting “follow that cab” idea, but in Boston that’s doomed to failure. We might make it through the sleek new Ted Williams Tunnel, or even the two-lanes-only fifties-era Sumner Tunnel. But as soon as we hit the centuries-old cowpaths that are now paved over and used as Boston city streets, there’s no way to follow anyone without being snagged at a light or trapped by a one-way street.
“Where you headed, ma’am?” The stocky red-faced cab dispatcher, a pencil stuck behind each ear, organizes his passengers like a pudgy sheepdog, asking each for a destination, then forming us into docile groups.
“Cab sharing in effect, lookit the posted rules,” he announces, waving his clipboard, invoking Logan Airport’s time-honored crowd-control method. He dodges out of the way as a brown-and-white Town Taxi almost sideswipes him, sliding into place at the curb with the passenger door swinging open. “Who’s for the south shore?” Foh-ah the south show-ah, it sounds like, proving he’s a Boston native. “Who’s for downtown? Cab sharing in effect.”
Three passengers for downtown raise their hands. He shepherds them to a dented Yellow Cab, waiting, engine running, with its trunk already popped. Doors and trunks slam, engines rev, exhaust plumes as my quarry and I move closer to our turn.
“Who’s for the western burbs?” The dispatcher scans the line. “Brookline, Newton, Framingham, Natick?”
“Here.” Luggage woman raises her hand and the clipboard approaches. “Brookline,” the woman says.
Perfect.
I don’t delay. “I’m for Newton,” I say, wheeling my suitcase closer. “I can share.” Newton is the town just past Brookline and I know Madam Suitcase will be dropped off at her destination first. And I, Nancy Drew reincarnated, will be able to see exactly where that is.
“Cab 576.” The dispatcher waves both of us to a reasonably safe-looking Red Cab. Here we go. If she recognizes me somehow, or the cabdriver does, well, I guess that won’t be a problem. I’ll just say I’m coming back from a trip. Like everyone else. But no question, it would be better if I can just stay Elsa.
Thank goodness for text messaging. If I call Franklin on my cell, this person might recognize my voice from television. But I’ve got to let him know I’m all right. I wait until we motor through gloomy old Sumner Tunnel, where my phone won’t work anyway. As we emerge into the neon and streetlights of Boston’s North End, I flip my cell open, holding it up to my window so I can see the numbers. I punch Franklin’s speed dial, and with two thumbs, text as best I can. Home. Katie? Fire? FBI? Got big ifno.
Rats. No time to fix spelling errors. Call u L8TR.
We turn onto Storrow Drive, the Charles River reflecting MIT on the right, the lights of Beacon Hill flashing by me on the left. It feels strange, knowing we’re going past the turnoff for my own apartment headed to Brookline and points unknown. Stranger still, I’m sitting in the backseat of a cab, right next to someone who’s clearly up to her stylish rear end in the counterfeit purse syndicate.
I pretend to yawn, so I can look at her but still keep my hand over my face.
She’s now peering through red-rimmed reading glasses as she examines the screen of her cell, a complicated multitasking PDA with a tiny keyboard and green screen. No way for me to read what it says. On her right hand, she’s wearing a square-cut emerald, surrounded by diamonds. Very pricey. If it’s real. And in her lap, a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. Very pricey. If it’s real. Gucci shoes. This woman has bucks. Or connections.
Unfortunately, she must have told the driver her address while he was loading her stuff in the trunk. So I don’t know exactly where we’re going. But she said Brookline. And I do know we’re almost there.
I look at my cell again. I type another message, quickly, before I can decide not to. “To Josh. Sorry. V V late. Talk 2morrow. Miss U.” I pause. That’s true. I do miss him.