"Zurich," I said as I removed a bundle. "First Class.”

The wide grey leather seat embraced me. I lay back in the seat, exhausted from the events of the last twenty-four hours, but still too excited to sleep. The entire world lay open before me and I would be awake when I met it.

I was the first to exit the plane when it rolled to a stop. Though familiar, the Zurich terminal visible beyond the narrow exit causeway looked different somehow. The colors seemed more vibrant, the floors cleaner, the people more promising. I studied their passing faces as I stepped over to the roped off area around the customs desk.

"Do you have anything to declare?" asked the customs agent in a low monotone. His partner asked the same question to the woman behind me. A third man in a different uniform sat at an adjoining desk.

"Only cash and this," I said holding out the cane in my right hand.

"What is your business in Switzerland?"

"Banking."

He glanced quickly at the dragon, then fixed his eyes on the new tattoo. "Detective," he said, getting the attention of the third man behind the other desk.

The officer stood up, grabbed a file and walked toward me, the brass badge pinned to his brown uniform read 'Interpol.'

"Is there a problem?" I asked the customs agent nervously, my windpipe constricted with apprehension. I looked over at the approaching agent in time to see him close the file and nod to the customs man, who snapped a cuff around my outstretched right hand. I recoiled, pulling the other end of the handcuffs away from the stunned officer. The Interpol agent dropped the file and tackled me to the floor. I wrestled with him over the spilled contents of the folder. He clasped the other cuff around me just as I saw myself in the computer reproduced black and white photographs littering the floor. My own face, firm with concentration, looked back at me in image after image. I had been captured in each flashing strobe; first hiding on my stomach, then getting to my feet, and finally running toward the gallery's back door. The fresh tattoo showed clearly in each one.

25

The events of the next two weeks showed me quite clearly how tenuous my purchase in the world had been, as though cruel fate, weary of countless snubs, lunged at me from the shadows like a hungry tiger, eager to capitalize on any mistake. But of course, whenever you have to mention fate you already know it's been cruel. I saw then that life is everything that happens between the narrow getaways. That life was over.

From the airport holding cell, I was taken to a Swiss detention facility in downtown Zurich, surely no more than twenty blocks away from the Hotel St. Germain. It was only the first small taste of what awaited me.