Double Doublecross (23 page)

That night Sara lay in bed thinking about what she had learned from Rick that evening and whether she should tell Carl immediately. There was no point in calling him the next day as he would be in Seattle. She decided to leave it for a few days and see if she could pry some more information out of Rick. She felt certain the best thing she could do was to wait for Carl to call her next, and then tell him what she'd learned so far.

Rick, on the other hand, was thinking about Sara's comments. What should he do after paying off his debts?
He couldn't walk into a police station and hand over the money. There would be too many questions to be answered. Plus, his fingerprints were all over the place, and he had no way of eliminating them from the trail. There were quite a few problems for him to face, and he had no idea where this whole game was leading him. The only certain thing was he would be debt free and financially secure.

He turned to face Sara and gave her a passionate kiss. She responded immediately as he caressed her full breasts. Within minutes they were caught up in sexual emotion, making love that eventually sent them both into a dreamless sleep.

Rick awoke the next morning feeling both satisfied and at peace with himself. Slowly he slipped out of bed so as not to awaken Sara. Then he shaved, showered and made himself a pot of coffee and two slices of toast.

Sitting at the breakfast table, he started to think about his next move with the money in his floor safe. There was close to fifty thousand dollars lying there waiting to be used by him.

He knew he had to find another way of depositing the money, different from the one he had used on the previous day. Finally, he was certain he had the perfect answer. He would open various accounts at different banks in the area and deposit eight thousand dollars in each one. At the same time he would buy one thousand dollars worth of traveler's checks at each location with the explanation he was taking a short vacation to Las Vegas.

The drizzle was turning into a steady downpour as he made his way to the car. Eventually he had to find a way of pulling the money together into one account.

R
ick showered and dressed early the next morning. Reaching the kitchen, he made coffee and toast. He buttered the toast, took a bite and picked up the newspaper. ‘Still more violence,' he thought, glancing at the front page. He took another bite of toast and felt a crunch.

“Christ, they're putting rocks in the bread,” he said to himself.

Fishing around in his mouth, he found a small white object. Looking at it closely, he realized it was part of a tooth.

“Oh shit!” he said. “What a way to start the day.”

Picking up the phone, he dialed the office number of his dentist friend, Alec Collins.

“Happy Dental,” a sweet voice said. “How may I help you?”

“Hi! It's me, Rick Jacobs. Is Alec there? I've got a problem with a broken tooth.”

“Just a moment,” the sweet voice said.

After a few seconds Alec Collins answered the phone.

“Hello, Rick. What's the problem?”

“I've broken off a tooth. Can you fit me in?”

“Come on round and I'll see what the problem is.”

Rick took a final mouthful of coffee, took off in his car and headed for Alec's dental office.

On his arrival, Alec showed Rick to a chair and told him to relax.

“Open wide. Let's take a look. Okay, I see what the trouble is. You've broken off a wisdom tooth, upper left. It's too damaged to save, Rick. I'll have to extract it.”

“Okay! But remember, I'm a coward. No pain please,” Rick said with a grin.

“Don't worry about it. All you'll feel is a small jab.”

“Oh, sure! That's what you always say. Just remember, I'm a coward,” Rick said with a grin.

“Don't worry. Now, this won't take a second. Just a slight pinch, there we are. Now sit still for five minutes and I'll be back to take a look.”

A few minutes later Alec Collins returned. He opened Rick's mouth and tapped a few places.

“Feel anything?” he asked.

“Nushing!” Rick said in a slurred voice.

Rick put his head back and waited while Alec Collins appeared to be tinkering around in his mouth.

“It's all over, Rick. Just leave the plug in for a while and I'll give you something for the pain when the shot wears off.”

“Wunnerful. Mouth feelsh funny,” he said in a slurred voice once again.

“Go home and take it easy for an hour or two.”

Rick drove home feeling pleased. Although his mouth felt numb, he felt relaxed and decided to have a coffee when he reached home.

Opening the front door quietly, he heard raised voices in the kitchen and realized that Sara was talking loudly to
someone on the phone. She sounded frantic and angry.

“It's your problem, not mine. You started this—now you finish it,” she shouted into the speaker.

“Fuck you! You messed up, not me!” an angry voice said on the other end of the line.

Rick stood perfectly still in the hallway. He decided to stay out of sight and listen to see what he could make of the conversation.

“Don't blame me, Carl. You know damn well you're the one at fault!” he heard Sara say in a shaky but angry voice.

‘So it's Carl she's talking to,' Rick thought. He thought she was finished with him.

“Okay! Okay! So it's my fault. Nobody's perfect. Right now we don't seem to have a solution. Why don't we give it some thought, then get together and see what we come up with?”

“Fine with me,” Sara said in a calmer tone. “Let's meet at the Bagel House in the San Francisco Mall next Thursday. How does eleven o'clock in the morning suit you?”

“Fine, but I'm still being watched by the drug cartel. Unless I can shake him, I'll have a shadow. When you meet me, pretend it's a coincidence, shake hands as if we haven't seen each other for a long time. Then we'll find a place to sit and talk.”

“Okay, I'll see you then,” Sara said abruptly, turning the speaker off.

Rick quietly opened the front door and let himself out onto the porch. What was Sara mixed up in? The only thing that Rick could think of was the money in the Tourister bag they had found in the hotel. He decided not to mention to Sara that he'd overheard her discussion with Carl Regis. Somehow he would have to find out what they were up to.

Rick opened the front door and went into the kitchen. Sara was sitting at the table staring into space.

“Jushed had a toof out,” he said in his slurred, distorted voice.

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Rick. Sit down, put your feet up and I'll put the coffee pot on.”

Looking at her, he realized she wasn't going to mention the heated exchange she'd just had with Carl Regis. He sat in his recliner feeling shocked and angry, wondering what his next move should be. ‘Act normal as if nothing had happened,' he thought. There must be a way to find out what they were going to discuss when they meet at the San Francisco Mall.

The effect of the painkiller tablet was wearing off. He went over to the mirror and looked at his face; it seemed to be lopsided and slightly distorted due to the numbing impact of the anesthetic. Fishing in his pocket, he took out one of the painkillers, popped it into his mouth and fell asleep.

Two hours later he found a cold cup of coffee at his side. Sara was nowhere to be seen, and the pain had worn off. Walking over to the microwave, he warmed up his coffee and went to the mirror to take a look at his face. It was back to normal, and the lopsided appearance had gone.

“Pity,” he said to himself. “I looked like a different man.”

Then it hit him—a disguise was what he needed. If he could change the way he looked, it might be possible to deceive Sara and Carl Regis to get close enough and get an idea of their strategy. Harry Weeks, the makeup artist, was Alec's pal, perhaps he could help. He decided to give Alec a call and arrange to meet Harry on the following day.

Sitting back in his recliner, he tried to put together some idea of what had happened from the conversation he'd heard
between Sara and Carl. Perhaps Carl had somehow stolen a bag full of money from drug lords and passed it on to Sara for safekeeping until such time he could retrieve it and make a getaway.

Rick remembered picking up the bag from Sara's bed, thinking she had forgotten to put it in the Land Rover for their skiing trip to Lake Tahoe. Now he realized there hadn't been a second bag. He'd picked it up in the hotel lobby, and she knew about it from the beginning. Why hadn't she come clean then and told him the truth? What was her intention now? Was she going to run off with Carl? These questions raced through his mind.

The next day Rick placed a call to Harry Weeks.

“Hello, this is Harry Weeks. What can I do for you?”

“Hi, this is Rick Jacobs. I'm a friend of Alec Collins. He gave me your number. He said you were a great makeup man.”

“How is Alec? I haven't seen him for a few months.”

“He's fine. He pulled one of my teeth yesterday, quite painless. Look, I wonder if you could help me. I want to play a joke on some friends of mine at the office, and I need to change my appearance so it's impossible for them to recognize me close up. Is that possible?”

“No problem there. How do you want to look?”

“Oh, I don't know. I'll leave it up to you. How soon can you see me?”

“Come round this afternoon after the matinee. I won't be needed then. We're putting on
Fiddler on the Roof
.”

“Thanks, I'll be there,” Rick said, feeling a sense of excitement.

At five-thirty Rick arrived at the Arts Theatre and made
his way to the stage door, where he gave it a heavy rap. The door was opened by a short, chubby man with a ruddy, jovial expression.

“You must be Rick. Make yourself at home while I take a look at your profile.”

He looked at Rick's face from all angles, mused for a moment and leaned back in his chair.

“How do you want this? Will it be a quick change or will you have plenty of time to make up.”

Rick thought for a moment and realized he hadn't given it any consideration at all.

“A quick change would be fine, say about fifteen minutes or so.”

Harry Weeks set about the disguise: a full and neatly trimmed dark brown beard, a moustache and matching bushy eyebrows and hairpiece, plus a set of overlaying teeth, and finally, two puffers to fatten his face.

“How's that?” asked Harry Weeks stepping back proudly.

Rick looked in the mirror. The image he saw was a complete stranger to him.

“Christ!” he exclaimed, “I look a lot older. This is perfect.”

“Not quite. Wear a cloth cap with a peak and sunglasses, not too dark though. Walk with a different gait—maybe a limp with a walking stick would help. Don't forget to change the way you dress. Forget your normal way of dressing. Be casual, it gives you a greater variety of clothing.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. You're a friend of Alec. We have hundreds of props.”

Rick thanked him and drove home. He had the time and place of the meeting. Now he had a means of getting close to them when the time came.

The day had arrived. Sara had said nothing about the situation. Rick dressed early and went to the garage, where his car was parked. On the back seat was his change of clothes and the disguise components. Weeks had provided him with spirit gum to make the facial pieces adhere to his skin. Now he was ready to play the role of a complete stranger.

Rick glanced at his watch. It was now nine-thirty. ‘Better make my way to the station,' he thought, assuming Sara would be taking the BART into San Francisco. Driving was too much of a hassle.

He arrived at the station within a few minutes, parked between two large SUV's and started to put on his disguise. First he changed his clothes, putting on a gray, nondescript anorak and dark gray slacks. He prepared his face for the eyebrows, beard and moustache, taking care to fit them exactly as Harry Weeks had done. Next, he fitted the puffers into his cheeks to change the shape of his face. Finally, he fitted the set of fake teeth over his own and donned a cloth cap he had bought for the occasion. He looked in the mirror only to see an alien face staring back at him.

Picking up a magazine from the pocket of his car door, he made his way to the station feeling very conspicuous, or so he thought. Arriving at the station, he made his way to the platform, ready to take the next train to the big city by the bay.

The train arrived, and just as he made his way to the carriage, he saw Sara hurrying up the escalator rushing to catch the train. ‘It's now or never,' he thought, waiting for her to choose a compartment. He followed her into the carriage and immediately moved a couple of paces away from her seat. The test would come sooner or later. Would she recognize him? Was the disguise good enough to fool her?

He pulled the cloth cap further over his eyes and shuffled towards her. What if she recognized him? What explanation could he give? Finally he found a seat close to her and opened the magazine, pretending to be engrossed in an article.

After a while he folded the magazine and looked casually around him, glancing briefly in her direction. Sara had a concerned look on her face, and although she looked absently around her, she did not know the person sitting near her was Rick.

Rick was gaining in confidence at her failure to recognize him. He put the magazine away, leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, knowing full well where she would disembark.

When the train finally reached their stop, Rick jumped up and forced his way in front of her, ready to get off. Making his way ahead of her, he headed down the platform toward the exit leading to the San Francisco Mall. He stopped to look in a store window, allowing her to get slightly ahead of him, then he trailed her into the mall making their way to the Bagel House. Rick overtook her and made straight for the counter, keeping her in sight out of the corner of his eye. He grabbed a muffin and a cup of coffee, watching her closely as she stalled to look in a ladies garment shop window.