Let’s focus on my visit to collect my finger or two of Springbank 30 year Scotch Whiskey from the client I just completed the job for.  My flight arrived on-time at Samedan Airport, which has been closed to scheduled flights for a number of years.  Because of its private nature and close proximity to St. Moritz, it has become a secret of the wealthy and powerful since its last commercial flight.  It has a high landing fee (paid for in person as you stroll into the barely manned control room adjoining the restaurant down the street) but you also have a value added option: you can purchase a Graubünden Nut Pie right then and there.  Don’t pass up on this exquisite and impossible to mimic creation of the Swiss.

I paid the hefty landing fee and snagged a limo waiting at the airport; the limo wasn’t there for me, but the drivers-for-hire in St. Moritz know the value they offer when a wealthy aircraft owner comes through the airport at any hour of the day and night.  St. Moritz in a handful of kilometers from Samedan, and my client’s villa another 10 minute drive outside of the main square.  As usual, I didn’t have to make that final 10 minute drive because my Orange carriered cell phone lit up 3 minutes from the main square of St. Moritz.  My client was informed that I had arrived, as I expected him to be.

“Wo sind Sie?” he asked.  Where are you? I told him I was driving down Via Maistra from the airport, just a few minutes from Plazza dal Mulin, the street with my final destination.  ”Ich warte,” he replied before abruptly hanging up. I’m waiting. He’s at his usual spot, Hemingway’s Club, a late-night bar that is one of the only options for public imbibing.  It’s early, and he’s certainly in a private alcove with the curtains drawn closed.

The limo driver drops me off, and doesn’t ask for payment.  I’m sure my client already knew who was driving me, and provided for the payment and a large tip on my behalf.  That’s a nice gesture always as the limo ride can be over 500 Swiss Francs, or almost $500 US Dollars.  For a 15 kilometer drive.  Ouch.  I make my way into Hemingway’s and see less than a handful of people, likely local workers more than travelers.  I wander to the third booth from the right as the curtain is drawn back slightly.  A step in and the curtain returns itself to the closed atmosphere of privacy.

My glass is waiting, just over a hand tall and a hand wide, perfect crystalline vibrations as I snuggle my hand into it.  A huge chunk of solid and clear ice sits in the glass.  My client, Eber, pours from a bottle of Springbank sitting on the table, letting the Scotch Whiskey pour over the ice and collect perfectly at the level of the ice cube.  He then pours his own glass from a more private and much more expensive bottle.  We clink glasses and our “conversation” is over after I down the perfect nectar he poured.  He never touches his own liquor; I’m not sure if he even drinks.  I leave quietly with neither a thank you from him, nor a thank you from me.  Payment has been rendered before for a job completed perfectly.  Eber doesn’t even look my way.  In German, Eber means “boar.”  His attitude is just like that of his namesake: uncaring but aware of his surroundings.

The car is still waiting outside.  I decide to spend the night in St. Moritz, so the mute driver speeds off to my regular hotel to sleep in my irregularly visited bed, alone.  Alone, as usual.  Alone, almost as always.  That’s not always been the case in St. Moritz.  Tonight I wish it wasn’t the case.  Garnet.  The name sits on the edge of my lips, my tongue pushing against my lower teeth as I fight the urge to form the hard-G to say her name.

I met Garnet on a flight into Samedan Airport a decade ago, when I was far younger and far less knowledgeable of my trade.  I’d started this “career” in my late teens, but it wasn’t until over a decade of working that I picked up all the traits I needed to get to the position I am today, practically at the top of my field.  The small commuter jet I was flying on to meet Eber for the first time had 7 people on it, a record number that has never been matched by even half that number since.  3 Germans, 1 Swiss in a conference with their chairs rotated to see one-another.  Myself, an American in birthplace only.  An Asian in a business suit, probably half Japanese and half Cantonese from the look of his eyes and hair and body type.  An then there’s her: a short, well dressed and rubicund-maned athlete, probably with a trained dance history.

She looked at me twice, but I turned away without holding that intense stare.  The second time I turned away, I used my peripheral focus training to notice the smile form on her face.  Since those days my fear of holding eye contact has withered away: years of practice along with confidence built from years of success.   Looking back, I showed my cards completely.  Lucky for me, the competition of the eyes was one of only a few battles with her that I lost.  All of those happened right away.

As we all readied to step off the plane, she disembarked immediately after me.  I saw her eyes on me through the reflection of the window next to do the exit door.  When I held that stare, her eyes turned from eying my outfit to locking directly onto my own reflecting eyes.  I looked at the door immediately as if to get my bearings, but she knew.  That damn smile reappeared and I’m sure my face cast a temporary blip of frustration.  I’m sure she saw that, too.

A beautiful woman, on a plane alone, flying to an extravagantly expensive and secretive city in Switzerland, carrying no luggage or bag other than a tiny purse just big enough for a small pistol, paying more attention to a 20-something in a $2000 suit instead of an older, wiser and actually wealthy man or group of men?  Alarms all over the place.  Ever heard of the phrase too-good-to-be-true?  It’s beyond that.  I believe in the idea regularly, and I even believe in just that phrase.

As I’m heading down the stairs to the tarmac, the redhead in tow behind me but only because we had the same destination in mind, I think back to my training years earlier in dealing with women.  One of my talents in my repertoire is being able to handle women of all sorts: servers in restaurants and hotels, girlfriends and wives of clients, sometimes even prostitutes and drug dealers and the homeless that abound in the seedy alleys that make up 5-10% of my life, it seems.

Everything about her is wrong.  She’s hiding a secret, and she does it so invisibly that it’s obvious.  The alarms call my training which bring forth a single word, the most fearful word in a finisher’s odd vocabulary: honeypot.  You won’t hear it too often in the context that matters here, but the honeypot is something we’re all warned about from about 6 months into training: most of us are men, and most men fumble and get mentally hazy when a beautiful woman is presented anywhere within 60 feet of our presence.

As I continue walking towards the airport management building/restaurant to pay my landing fee, I am more aware of the mercurial woman’s presence.  She’s short but walks fast.  She’s quiet but I can hear the clicks of her expensive heals with a louder-than-expected staccato.  Her perfume bit through the chilly air of this mile high region in the mountains, mixing with the scent of ice and snow and salt from the runway, the burned rubbed oozing off the tires of the Gulfstream behind us.

As we arrived at the airport manager center ahead of all the business men, I grabbed the frozen metal door handle and pulled it open for the redhead.  Her eyes were on my eyes for a split second as her reflection moved in unison with the glass door opening.  This time her smile didn’t appear.  My first win — she’s unsure of whatever game she’s obviously playing.  It’s not a sexual or lustful game, but it’s a game nonetheless.

She pays her landing fee before me and turns on a heel without glancing back.  Out the exit doors she goes, to be whisked off in a limo and likely never seen by me again.  I pay my fee and head towards the same doors, right down the hallway (instead of left to the car port) and wander into the restaurant to grab my nut pie as I always do.

I walk to the order counter and place my order.  As my order receipt comes back, I am about to drop casual banter with the blonde and attractive Swiss as my shoulder is tapped.  I turned around and show a flabbergasted face.

“I’m Garnet.  I don’t like to be ignored.”