Write it out. Be extra careful with this, but do it. Careful in that once you are certain you no longer need the written version, delete, burn, totally obliterate that damned thing. Take it with you when you go, then set it on fire and dump the ashes down the sewer.
But write it out. Use a spreadsheet if you have to. List each step of the plan, then each substep. Make notes on the side where you need to. Put approximate dates, give yourself a time line to get it done. Lawyers, authors, doctors—the list of professions that function best when there’s some kind of plan down on paper goes on longer than the guitar solo in “Hotel California.” If you’ve got that requisite lack of doubt and are feeling good about your road map along this journey, write it down. Give yourself checklists along the way, too. You’ll feel that warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishment each time you check something off.
Then, again: destroy all of it. The last thing in the world you want to leave behind is a step-by-step, bread-crumb trail leading directly to the mat on your doorstep that spells out the word “premeditated” in glow-in-the-dark letters.
Commit to the bit. Comedians use this phrase when talking about selling any part of an act. An audience can smell it when a performer has lost confidence in what they’re doing, and will react accordingly. Hell, that’s not just for comedy—it’s true in the court of law, too. To stand in front of a judge or jury and attempt to defend anyone with any less than 110 percent conviction is the only way to guarantee, well, a conviction. Or lack of one, if you’re on the side of the defense. Even if a client turned to me seconds before my closing argument and said, “Hey, buddy, I totally did stomp on all those baby kittens before I set those schoolchildren on fire,” I can guarantee that no one in that jury box would see it on my face.
In your new life, this thing for which you’ve carefully planned and laid a lot of groundwork, you have to sell it, baby.
If that seems intimidating, double back to a point I’ve made on several occasions already: lay low. The less often you interact with other humans, the less acting you’ll need to do. If you suffer from stage fright, a guiding principal of your new life is going to have to be “don’t make waves.”
Remember Joey Newts? That guy was an eccentric, sure, but on the whole the dude managed more than two full decades of laying low, doing his thing, and staying a mystery long after his death. One way Joey Newts managed was by not doing squat. He worked whatever jobs he could get that fit his skill set and didn’t dig too deep into his background, lived in a low-key apartment, and didn’t get too close to anyone. He kept his audience, so to speak, pretty small.
Clark Rockefeller? He was fine until his emotions shoved him onto a much bigger stage than his stories were prepared for.
Commit to the bit, yes. One hundred percent. At the same time, always play it to a chamber theater crowd. No big houses. That’s part of how this life works. Try to steer clear of the spotlight, or you might find yourself lit by a helicopter’s searchlight.
Every element of this big show, this charade we’re talking about putting into play, could bear volumes of discussion and finely detailed notes, but hey—even at my leisure, my time is at a premium. Just be glad I no longer charge in six-minute increments.
I wouldn’t be providing you with adequate counsel in talking about potential pitfalls in the disappearance game if I didn’t bite the bullet and deal with the one thing we’ve been talking about avoiding at all costs. What if you sense that you are under surveillance?
Someone could be on your tail for any number of reasons, not all of them related to trying to figure out if you are the you that you used to be (take a quick mental break and say that last bit five times fast; I’ll wait).
To begin with: yes, hell is other people. An average schmoe or schmoette on their way home after a long day at work could end up followed on the road for a variety of frequently terrible reasons. Anyone who’s ever stood on the subway knows that.
I always feel like… somebody’s watchin’ me. Seriously, how would you know if you’re being followed? There’s a little bit of bad news about that: often, if the follower is a professional, you won’t. How good the tail is also depends on who you are and why someone thinks you’re worth following in the first place.
If you’re an international fugitive, I feel safe assuming there will be way more than one lone agent eyeballing you from behind an out-of-place copy of Cat Fancy. And it won’t be your typical Keystone Kop, either. These investigators will be coordinated and careful and there’s not a chance in hell that you’ll see them coming.
When the stakes are lower, the most you’ll have to deal with are a couple of cops, maybe a private detective, or a skip tracer (a slightly more corporate private dick, often sent out if your vanishing was connected to a wee tablespoon of embezzlement) then their surveillance techniques may be a little easier to spot.
Lights on, everybody home. There’s no need to give up the small pleasures in life once you’ve adopted a new name and trajectory. Having said that, when you’re out in public, first and foremost: never let your guard down. I don’t care if it’s St. Patrick’s Day or Kwanzaa or F. Murray Abraham’s birthday, you keep that pint glass full of ice water when you’re out about town. Do what you will in the privacy of your new home, but when you’re in public, remember that “in vino veritas,” and those wine-truths could come back to bite you in the verit-ass.
And what’s the thing that pilots say? Eight hours bottle to throttle. Well, in your full-throttle new life, you’re probably never going to have a guaranteed eight hours without worry. If you’ve managed to nail down a job or have any kind of regular public travel to do in your assumed guise, then it’s alertness level orange at all times—and not even a sip of that sweet nectar of the gods to cloud your clear vision.
The trick to becoming Jason Bourne. This won’t make you a master operator like the storied assassin, with wicked hand-to-hand combat skills or total command over every form of weaponry that falls in your hands, but it will give you a lead on just about every other person walking down the street. The trick is called “situational awareness,” and we’d all be happier if more people practiced it.
On a basic level it’s pulling your head out of your ass or your phone or whatever clouds are hovering nearby, and taking stock of your surroundings when you’re in a public setting. The average man or woman marching down the street with their head bowed over a phone is at near zero situational awareness.
If you’re out during the day, you can start practicing this in a simple way. Wear shades so that your eyes are difficult to track (that’s one big reason so many feds seem to fetishize sunglasses, by the way) and make a point to size up as many people around you as you can. Watch gestures, mannerisms, their eyes. Is that guy over there tracking you with his eyes? Is he doing it because he fancies your scarf, or because he’s trying to see if you match a description on a BOLO or a missing persons flyer?
Don’t just mark the people around you—mark the cars, too. Has that Chevy circled the block one more time than you’d reasonably expect it would take to find parking? Check the street you live on (and any adjacent ones), making note of cars that seem like they’re parked at odd times, when others are gone. Or cars parked along whatever routes you use that are just idling, with a lone passenger inside. Sure, the driver could be finishing a sandwich before moving along with his or her own errands, but that doesn’t preclude the idea that they could be keeping tabs on you, too.