How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found Read online

  Apparently there are a few romantically-inclined individuals who disappear simply for the hell of it. Most of them are probably younger people who would otherwise have no pressing need to go through the considerable trouble of effecting an identity change. The disappearees I talked to were aghast at the very idea of it, taking the attitude that anyone who disappeared for a lark, given the difficulties of establishing and documenting a new identity, ought to have his head examined!

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  HOW - THE MECHANICS OF DISAPPEARING

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  "An adventure is usually the penalty for lousy planning."

  Jenkins, Miner & Prospector, Durango, Mexico 1943.

  The way a disappearance is begun usually determines how it will end. The person who blows out one night without any preparation or planning is likely to return soon, either brought back by force or an inability to withstand the rigors of anonymity. On the other hand, the most successful vanishers are those whose disappearance was planned well in advance and painstakingly executed.

  Most disappearances fall between the extremes of the careful planner and the spur-of-the-moment drop-out. Many of the disappearances that look on the surface like whimsical undertakings are actually the result of years of detailed and methodical planning even though the person doing the planning may not actually realize it at the time. Let me explain this phenomenon.

  THE "UNPLANNED" DISAPPEARANCE

  One of the more popular and conventional forms of daydreaming, especially for men, is the wishful contemplation of getting away from it all. How many of us would like to chuck the humdrum, boring existence we lead and exchange it for exciting, perhaps dangerous, adventure? The banker may want to be a Northwoods guide, the chemist a cowhand in New Mexico, the chain-store executive a big-time magazine photographer. Most men have such fantasies but how many ever realize them? Merely hinting at such secret desires earns the dreamer the ridicule of family and peers who scoff at the idea of changing occupations and locations late in the game of life. Spouses may be afraid to take the risks of reducing the family income or leaving a community they have grown comfortable in. Co-workers may find it impossible to imagine such a radical change in lifestyle; their greatest fear may be of the realization that a large and exciting world exists outside the confines of their nine-to-five routine.

  And so the dreamer keeps his fantasies to himself. He may buy maps of South America, guidebooks to arctic Alaska, magazines on single-handed boating. He may have these delivered to where he works to keep his family from scoffing at him. He goes on dreaming about the lifestyle of a carefree traveler, but he never breathes a word about it around work or home.

  Then one day something happens. Maybe it's a bad argument with his wife about their finances, or he misses out on that promotion he thought was his for sure, and something inside him snaps. That's when he realizes he's gone through this journey a thousand times in his head--why not live it out? What's holding him back now? After dinner one night he goes out for a pack of smokes and never returns. While he never "planned" to disappear, his years of "aimless" dreaming provided him with most of the materials he needed, particularly a mental blueprint of where he would go and what he would do once he got there.

  The disappearee who originally piqued my interest in the subject was an example of an unpremeditated disappearance. He realized that it was just fantastic luck that made his disappearance possible. But he had a quick mind and took advantage of the opportunities that arose and enabled him to live incognito. His name was "Capa."

  Capa

  A few years ago I had an assignment to do a magazine article that entailed my going to La Paz, Mexico. As it was Easter Holy Week and all the flights to that part of Mexico were booked, I had to catch a flight to Tucson then take a bus from Nogales, Arizona to Mazatlan where I could catch a ferry to La Paz. My seatmate on the bus out of Nogales was a quiet, unprepossessing gentleman in his mid-forties who introduced himself as "Capa." What hair he had left was shot with gray and he wore a mustache of a type very common in Mexico but seldom seen in the U.S. since silent movies went out. I was standing behind him in the ticket line in Nogales and was amused that he spoke fluent Central American Spanish with a Southern U.S. accent.

  We passed small talk between us as the bus began its long journey. I couldn't help the feeling that something about this fellow was very unusual. For one, he pointedly did not say where he lived or what sort of work he did--two of the first bits of information usually exchanged between travelers. Then there was the name "Capa." It means, among other things, cloak, pretense, mask, cover, that which hides. It is not a common name for someone of Spanish descent.

  Then there was the accent. When I casually commented on this he glanced at me sharply and I thought I had offended him. Then he smiled and said, "Thanks, I didn't realize that. Where I live I doubt if anyone would recognize a regional American accent. The information is deeply appreciated. I'll have to watch out for that in the future."

  We had a difficult time conversing without having to shout over the two redneck drunks sitting in front of us. They were off on a fishing excursion and passed the time comparing notes on their nagging wives and thinking up schemes for breaking away from their dreary lives. When their conversation turned to disappearing and creating new identities I noticed that Capa, who until now had seemed annoyed at the louts, took a keen interest in their discussion. They concluded this wasn't a practical scheme because of the web of paperwork the U.S. citizen is subjected to. The discussion continued along these lines until they reached Las Mochis and got off the bus.

  I was glad to see the drunks depart because it meant that I could hold a civil conversation with Capa, who seemed a most interesting and mysterious man.

  As the bus started out of the depot, Capa turned to me and said, "Those drunks were full of shit, you know."

  "In what way?" I asked.

  "About disappearing and taking on a new identity. It is done all the time in every country of the world, and most countries have much, much more paperwork to contend with than the United States."

  He sounded very authoritative on the subject, and I could tell it was of particular interest to him. I thought of the stories I had read in the papers about fugitives who had changed identities to escape the law and how they seemed to always get caught. "I imagine it's a very difficult feat to pull off," I said. "Probably something used only by criminals and the like."

  "Not at all," he replied. "It's much easier than you think. A good friend of mine once pulled it off and I don't believe he'll ever be discovered. It is a most interesting story, if you care to hear it."

  I told him I did. This was my first encounter with the ubiquitous "friend" I would encounter over and over again while researching this book. What follows is the story he spun as reconstructed from the notes I made in Mazatlan while waiting for the ferry to La Paz.

  "I had a friend who lived in one of those textbook examples of a sleepy Southern town that still exist here and there. Let's call him 'Paul,' which is not his real name, of course.

  "Paul came from one of the so-called 'leading families' of the South, complete with the bronze statue of an ancestor on the courthouse lawn. He married the daughter of another of the town's 'leading families'--a second cousin, as a matter of fact. They were not really 'in love.' They had married because they were expected to marry. They had two kids who eventually became the only thing holding them together. As time passed, Paul's wife became more involved with establishing herself in local society and Paul escaped more and more into his love of boats.

  "Paul and his wife began to argue frequently, and their fights seemed to center around his love of boating. His wife resented his hobby and felt it kept him from participating in the social events she was constantly arranging. She refused to ever join him on his little day sailer. As their quarrels grew more violent he consented to sell the boat to keep peace in the family. From that day forward he kept his hobby sheltered from his wife.

  "He
continued to read everything he could about boats and single-handing, but the magazines and books now came to his office instead of his home. He taught himself navigation through a mail order course, bought himself a plastic sextant and measured the height of every building, chimney and telephone pole he could see from his office window. But his relationship with his wife only seemed to get worse.

  "Then one day the inevitable happened. He began to dream about disappearing, about changing his identity and buying a boat. Then he could spend the rest of his life gunkholing around all the places he'd read about for so many years. Of course, he never had the slightest intention of actually doing it. He had always done the conventional, expected things and could be expected to go on that way for the rest of his natural life.

  "One balmy May afternoon Paul took off work early and went down to the river to see if any boats were coming in. It turned out to be a lucky day because there was a sailboat headed into the dock--a rare occurrence on an inland river. Paul hopped out of his car and went over to help the lone sailor tie-up. To his delight, the skipper invited him aboard for a mug-up.

  "The skipper was amazed by the fact that Paul knew the proper names and functions of every item on a fairly large sailboat. When Paul mentioned that he'd taught himself navigation the skipper made him an offer. Seems he started out with a mate who got cold feet and left him about halfway down the river. He couldn't handle the boat himself on the open sea, so he asked Paul to accompany him on a 'leisurely cruise down the Caribbean to Yucatan, then down to Panama.' "

  "And of course Paul jumped at the chance," I said.

  "No. In fact, he didn't even consider it seriously, although it sounded like a marvelous opportunity. No, he went home at the usual hour, but came back to the ketch after dinner for another gam. The skipper stayed docked-up for several days during which Paul spent most of his free hours on board. They grew to be close friends bound by a common affection for sailboats and the sea.

  "On the skipper's last night in town Paul had a very depressing dinner conversation with his wife. She didn't appreciate his mysterious late-night rendezvous. She was planning to attend a society ball that evening and she insisted Paul accompany her. He refused, she got hostile, and it ended with Paul ducking out to see his friend off.

  To make a long story short, when the skipper cast off the next morning he had a new mate. Paul had no intention of leaving permanently. He figured he'd ride down the river to New Orleans where the skipper could pick up a new mate. He didn't have his passport and he sure wasn't going out into international waters without it. When they reached New Orleans he explained to the skipper that he'd have to go back home.

  "The skipper just grinned like a Cheshire cat. It seems his former mate had forgotten his passport behind a cushion on the settee. They looked it over and, although the picture didn't resemble Paul, the basic statistics were a pretty good match. A few weeks growth of beard and Paul probably wouldn't have any trouble with the immigration officials.

  "Paul's world suddenly opened up before his eyes. He knew what he could expect from his wife if he went back home after his brief river ride. On the other hand, here was the opportunity of a lifetime to live out his dreams of sailing through the waters of foreign lands. He could still return home in a couple months, and the reaction from his wife would be no worse than if he went back immediately. So he took the skipper up on his offer and set out for adventure."

  "What about the car he left on the dock?" I asked. "I'm sure the police would find it, connect it with the boat, and be after him in no time."

  "That's a good question. A few years ago my friend hired a private detective to check up on his family, out of curiosity. Paul had left the keys in the car and it turned up a few months later stripped clean as a jay-bird's ass. After about a year his wife had him declared legally dead and collected on his life insurance. That was easy enough for a woman with her connections, given the discovery of the stripped car and the fact that Paul had never mentioned the idea of disappearing to anyone.

  "The minute she got her hands on the money, she married one of her own crowd. I doubt if she would say anything if she happened to meet Paul face-to-face again, which is very unlikely, because if the insurance company finds out he's still alive they'll want their money back."

  "So I imagine your friend is still out sailing the world then," I said.

  "No. This all happened several years ago. And Paul was blessed and cursed by an unusual circumstance. The skipper pulled into a little port in--well, let's just say in a typical Atlantic banana republic port--several months later. While Paul was ashore buying some provisions the skipper had a coronary and fell onto the dock. Needless to say, they don't have the kind of emergency medical services down there that we take for granted. When Paul returned to the boat he found his partner dead on the dock with a crowd of locals standing around.

  "The local officials asked Paul to bring the skipper's papers around after siesta so they could take care of the formalities. Dazed by the death of his friend and numb with the many beers he had downed since, Paul rummaged through the ship's papers to find the skipper's passport. It wasn't until the local Chief of Police started reading the statistics aloud as he wrote them down that Paul realized he had given the man the wrong passport.

  "When Paul realized what he had done he decided not to mention his mistake to the locals. If he had, he would have been on the beach with no money, no job, no working papers and almost no language of the country. But if he let the matter lay he could become the skipper as easily as he adopted the identity of the former mate."

  "What happened when the death got reported in the U.S. papers?" I asked. "I would imagine that Paul's plans would fall apart if there was an investigation."

  "Paul had several things going for him in this respect. Because the death didn't involve a famous or noteworthy person, it probably never got mentioned anywhere except the local Spanish-language newspaper. Since there was obviously no foul-play involved the police never made a formal investigation of the death. And a U.S. passport with several years still to run on it is worth a fair amount on the black market down there. I imagine the Chief of Police never got around to sending it back to the U.S."

  "So where is Paul today?" I asked.

  "Well, he sold the ketch after about six months more on the seas. He'd lived out his sailing dreams and he was getting anxious to rejoin the civilized world. He had plenty of time to think about his new identity and the options available to him. He took the proceeds from the sale of the boat and went into business in one of the Central American countries. He's done quite well there. In fact, he's engaged to the only daughter of one of the Catorce." ("Catorce" means "fourteen" in Spanish and in Central America refers to the fourteen families that are rumored to own and operate El Salvador.--Ed.)

  "I imagine he'd be under pretty close scrutiny there," I said. "Those people are very likely to investigate any gringo who's going to marry into their family."

  Capa gave a broad grin. "Investigate they did, though he's not supposed to know it. They found out the skipper was Catholic, had been a widow for ten years, and had been a respectable, successful businessman who was well thought of by all who knew him in his home town."

  After he finished Paul's story, Capa quizzed me about the San Francisco Bay Area. He said he'd read a lot about it and hoped to visit there in the not-too-distant future.

  I was in Sausalito a few months later photographing a houseboat story for Rudder magazine when I heard someone calling my name. I turned to see Capa, smiling broadly, with a very attractive young woman hanging on his arm. We repaired to The Bar With No Name for a few bottles of Anchor Steam Beer.

  It turned out that Capa was honeymooning with his new Central American bride. She was a charming young lady with all the outward marks of old money and expensive schooling. I'd guess her age to be about twenty to twenty-five years, about twenty years younger than her new husband.

  As we were making our farewells on the sidewal
k in front of the bar, I couldn't resist a mild parting shot. "Looks to me as if your friend Paul you told me about on the bus is doing a lot better nowadays than he was back in the Bible Belt."

  Capa's teeth flashed in his sun-browned face and he half-bowed, his young lady waved, and they were gone.

  PLANNING TO DISAPPEAR

  Capa's story of his friend "Paul" is an example of the "unplanned" disappearance. Paul had several things going for him. First, he had spent years studying boats, sailing and the geography of the places he wanted to visit. When he took off, he had the skills and knowledge to successfully travel by water. Second, he was lucky enough to fall into a new identity. And third, the time he spent at sea allowed him to grow into his new identity without having to immediately find a job or a place to live. Most disappearances start out the same way as Paul's did. People dream of more exotic lifestyles and collect books, magazines, maps, even equipment, but they rarely put their knowledge and tools to use by practicing hiking, boating, photography, or whatever. And they never even seriously consider discarding their identity, or contemplate the difficulties they would face building a new one.

  Unlike Paul, however, when that fateful day of the lost promotion or ugly family squabble hits, these dreamers don't just take off on a boat and leave their troubles behind. Once they realize they can no longer live the way they have been, their adventurous dreams turn into hardcore planning. They start to assemble fake ID. They research the mechanics of identity change. They study the bureaucratic requirements of city, state and federal governments, of foreign nations and employers. They prepare their disappearance.