Chapter 6

When Sydney got to the office the day after Sabrina had been fired, Paul took her to lunch and laid out his plans for her. He was deeply apologetic over what had happened. He renewed his offer of a line of her own, a full signature line for Sydney with profit sharing. He also had a new project he wanted to discuss with her to convince her to stay. He said it was a line of extremely well-made leather goods, copies of expensive purses at great prices, and he was going to put her name on them too. He said they were the best copies he’d ever seen. They were made in China, and he was offering her a share of the profits on the new line of purses too. He said it was an opportunity for her to make some real money. Lady Louise was well known for their high-quality leather goods at impressively low prices, and they sold out every time. She told Ed about it after her lunch with Paul.

“He wants me to be in charge of the line and put my name on them. I don’t know anything about leather goods. I’ve never dealt with bags before,” Sydney said, looking intrigued but nervous. He was luring her into areas she wasn’t familiar with that he said were big money makers.

“How do they look?” Ed asked her, curious about the purses. Paul hadn’t mentioned the project to him yet, but he knew that the purses they brought in from China always did well and had a high-priced quality look.

“I don’t know. He said he’d show me this afternoon. He already has samples at the warehouse. He’s having someone drive them in.”

Paul called both of them to his office later, and they were startled when they saw the bags laid out on a table. They looked like expensive designer bags, the real deal, and even better than the ones they usually sold.

“Who’s been making these?” Ed asked him, checking out the silk linings, and Paul mentioned a firm they’d never used before. Ed examined them closely, and so did Sydney. The workmanship was beautiful. There were four different styles, in shapes they all recognized by a familiar high-end brand. Ed opened them and looked for signs that they were real designer bags and not copies, but there were none. He looked impressed and pleased when he nodded at Paul. “They’re great,” Ed complimented him. Paul was going to call them the Sydney Smith line for Lady Louise, and he quoted an unbeatable price for the purses that their customers wouldn’t be able to resist.

“I need you to go back to China and sign them up for production. We have to get them from the supplier. We don’t have the machinery to make leather goods like that in our factories,” he explained to Sydney, and Ed confirmed it. The bags were a more sophisticated product than they’d made so far, even though they were cheap.

“When do you want us to go?” Ed was worried. “I’ve got production meetings here for the next month, lookbooks to oversee, and we’re already up to our ears getting ready for the presentation of the fall line.” They worked almost a year ahead, like every other major design firm. “I can’t go back to China yet.” He looked panicked at the thought and overwhelmed by his work.

“I need Sydney to go over in the next two weeks,” Paul said practically. “I don’t want to wait. The bags are already manufactured, so all we have to do is pick the styles and colors we want and import them. They won’t do modifications on these styles, and we don’t need them to. The bags are gorgeous. Sydney can handle it. The company that makes them is a couple of hours out of Beijing. We’ll get her a translator and a driver. She can manage without you this time,” he said confidently, but Sydney wasn’t so sure. He was giving her a lot of responsibility, and going to China without Ed was going to be difficult. He knew the customs so much better than she did. But the opportunity Paul was giving her was so enormous that Sydney didn’t dare turn him down. It was a challenge she’d have to meet.

She and Ed talked about it on the way back to the design floor, and he looked worried about her.

“Think you can do it? It’s a lot of paperwork to export them, and he wants you to make sure that what they’re manufacturing is as good as what we’ve just seen. We don’t want a bait and switch, where the product they ship is inferior to the samples we saw. I haven’t handled the bags before and I don’t know this supplier.”

“They do beautiful work,” Sydney commented. They looked like some bags she had herself, and had sent to storage. They were almost too good to be true, and Ed said they were the best copies he’d ever seen. Paul swore by them and loved the price, and said he was doing Sydney a favor, giving her the project, and Ed agreed. With profit sharing, the bags could be a windfall for her.

Paul had told her she only needed to stay in Beijing for two days, and they would have it all set up for her. Translator, driver, good hotel. She had an appointment with the manufacturer. All she had to do was inspect the bags, pick the ones they wanted, fill out the customs documents, arrange for shipping to New York, and get back on a plane.

She left a week later, and everything went smoothly on the way to Beijing. There was a car waiting for her at the airport to take her to the hotel, and the translator appeared the next morning to join her at the meeting. The bags they showed her were of the same high quality she’d seen in New York, in the same familiar shapes, with only the shoulder straps slightly different from the ones they’d copied, by a well-known designer. It was going to be a fabulously successful line, and the wholesale price was incredibly low. Lady Louise was going to make a fantastic profit on the new bags, which was what Paul loved about them. And having her name on them was an incredible opportunity for her.

She got back on the flight to New York on schedule. They had promised that the bags would arrive within two weeks. They were shipping them air freight. She reported everything to Ed as soon as she got home. The trip had gone without a hitch. She had bought two hundred of the bags, which was a lot for a new item they hadn’t tried out yet, but the price was so low, she could afford it on the budget Paul had given her. And she was sure they would be a huge hit, and they would be buying many more in future.

She had signed all the purchase orders since Ed wasn’t with her, and the customs documents. Going to China on her own had given her new self-confidence, and Paul said he was impressed with how efficient she’d been.

She called Sabrina and Sophie the night she got home. Sabrina had just interviewed at a firm where she’d always wanted to work, and had signed an excellent severance package, with her lawyer’s help and some heavy negotiation and legal threats against the employer that had fired her. They had accused her prematurely with no proof and damaged her reputation. They had given her two years’ salary with no restrictions and no noncompete clause, a vital benefit for her. She was thrilled. And Women’s Wear Daily had printed an apology to Sabrina, after being threatened by her lawyer.

“I think you did me a favor, Mom,” she said on the phone, and Sydney was relieved. They had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. She shuddered thinking that she had almost killed herself out of remorse and guilt the night that Sabrina had been fired. So much had happened to her in recent months, and suddenly it was all too much. Costing Sabrina her job had been the last straw.

Sophie didn’t answer when she called her, and as soon as Sydney hung up, Veronica called her. She had heard from her contractor that Kellie was doing a major remodel on the house before she moved in, and thought Sydney should know.

“It’s her house now, she can do whatever she wants,” Sydney said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to know about it. It just upsets me to think about the changes she’s going to make. There’s nothing I can do. And I don’t want progress reports on it once she gets started,” she warned Veronica.

“I thought you’d want to hear about it,” Veronica said again, sounding miffed. She was the only person from Sydney’s past life who still called her, but she only called when there was something upsetting to relate. She was the constant bearer of bad tidings. And she managed to slip in, with her pseudo sympathetic voice, that everyone was saying Andrew had left her nothing and she was broke, which upset Sydney too. “They probably think that because you went back to work. But what else are you going to do? You might as well keep busy since you have no husband and no house to run anymore.” Their conversations always took the same negative turn to unhappy issues for her. And Sydney guessed that if it was true that people were talking, the rumor had probably been started by one of her stepdaughters.

“I like working,” Sydney said, which sounded stupid, even to her.

“I read somewhere that Sabrina got fired from her job,” Veronica said in a snotty tone, to get even for Sydney not wanting to hear about the remodel of the house.

“Not really. She had a disagreement with them, and they acted hastily. They recanted the next day. In the end, she quit. She’s interviewing with other firms now.” Sydney wondered why she always felt compelled to justify herself to Veronica. Both of her own daughters were perennially unemployed, and one was getting a divorce. Why wasn’t she explaining that? Why was Sydney’s misfortune always her focal point of interest?

“And what have you been up to?” Veronica persisted.

“I just got back from China, for the second time,” Sydney said, feeling pleased with herself for what she had accomplished.

“I guess you don’t have time for your old friends anymore,” Veronica said, sounding insulted, as though Sydney had slighted her, when in fact she was working and trying to keep her head above water.

“Not at all. My ‘old friends’ haven’t called me since Andrew died,” Sydney tossed back at her. It was true. She’d been very hurt by it at first, but was too busy to think about it now.

“They probably don’t want to intrude,” Veronica suggested.

“Or you were right the first time, when you said they wouldn’t want a single woman around. I haven’t heard from a soul.” And she no longer cared. She had enough on her mind. But she didn’t like the idea that they were saying she was broke. It made her sound like a loser, but if Kyra and Kellie were saying it, there was nothing she could do to stop them, and, in fact, it was true.

Veronica promised to call soon and hung up then. Sydney hoped she wouldn’t, but didn’t have the guts to say it to her. Somehow whatever mood she was in, it always made Sydney feel worse whenever Veronica called. At least she didn’t drop by in New York. She never came to the city.

For the next two weeks, Sydney worked closely with Ed on preparing the presentation of the new clothing line for the fall. And she was working on inspiration sketches for the Sydney Smith line they were developing. They still had a long way to go. Her line of signature purses would be presented first, and would be a good test of how strong her name was.

She had Thanksgiving dinner with Sabrina and Sophie at the restaurant at the Greenwich Hotel, close to where the girls lived. It was their first Thanksgiving without Andrew, and predictably hard. Sydney was happy to get into bed that night after dinner when she got home, and grateful that the day was over. She bounced back and forth between missing him acutely and remembering every happy moment they’d ever shared, and at the opposite extreme, being angry at him for the life of financial insecurity she led now, constantly worried about money and trying to pay her expenses and bills on what she earned because he had left her nothing else. It reminded her of when she was first divorced twenty-two years before, trying to make ends meet, but at least this time she didn’t have two little girls to support. She had managed well on her salary then, and Andrew had come along and made everything easy for her when they got married. He had led her into a life of luxury she had never aspired to, but had gotten accustomed to, and then on his death he had tossed her into the deep end of the pool, without a penny. And the only asset she had was an apartment in Paris she couldn’t find a buyer for.

She spent a lazy weekend at home, reading, after Thanksgiving. It rained all weekend, and she was happy to be at home in her tiny apartment, which had begun to feel like home, and a cozy cocoon.

On Thursday morning, their customs broker called her. Their bags had arrived from Beijing, all two hundred of them, and since she had signed the customs documents in China, he wanted her to clear them with him. She told Ed where she was going shortly before noon. He had a mountain of things on his desk and half a dozen designs on his computer screen and looked distracted.

“Call me if you have any problems,” he said vaguely as she left for U.S. Customs at the airport.

“I won’t,” she reassured him. “The broker will be with me. Everything was very straightforward at the other end.” She sounded confident.

“You never know with customs. They get upset with some minor detail, a zipper or the thread content of the lining. It depends on their mood of the hour and the alignment of the stars that day, and if the customs agent wants to do it by the book.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” She had never cleared a shipment on her own, and normally she wouldn’t have had to, except that she had filled out all the forms and signed every document herself, as Paul had instructed her to since he had made her responsible for the line, and it was a first for her.

She ran into Paul as she left the building, on his way to lunch, and he smiled broadly when he saw her. He looked very dapper in a dark gray suit with a white shirt and red tie, a beautifully cut overcoat, and shoes she recognized as John Lobb by Hermès. He never skimped on himself. He sold low-priced goods, but bought the best for his personal use. And his wife had the reputation of costing him a fortune, which he complained about good-naturedly from time to time. But he seemed to accept the high cost of marriage and divorce as a fact of life.

“Where are you off to?” he asked easily as she hurried to the Uber car she had called, waiting at the curb.

“The airport, customs, to clear our bags. They arrived. The broker just called me.” She knew that Paul would be pleased. She had bought them in black, brown, a natural color, and a few in red. And she agreed with him that they were going to be their new hot item for Christmas. They were beautifully made. Even the lining was attractive, in matching high-quality silk.

“Let’s get them into the stores as soon as we can,” he said, and then hurried off with his collar turned up against the cold, as she nodded agreement and got into the car.

She gave the driver the address of the customs office at the airport, and sat back to answer emails on her iPad, since she had the time. There was one from Kellie and Kyra’s attorney demanding payment for the carpeting she’d already told them she wouldn’t pay for, since they had the house now. He kept saying that her stepdaughters didn’t like the color and wanted it replaced. She forwarded it to Jesse Barclay, and asked him to respond again. She was not going to pay them a penny, but they kept trying. And she had to pay Jesse for his time out of her own pocket, since the estate wouldn’t pay him. But it was cheaper than giving them money she didn’t owe them and didn’t have.

It took them forty minutes to get to the airport from Hell’s Kitchen, and their customs broker was waiting outside for her when she got there.

“Did they release the goods to you?” she asked him, hopeful that they had, and he shook his head. They were going to the office for commercial shipments.

“They said they have to see you in person. They’re being a pain in the ass.” She wasn’t surprised and strode inside the building, with the broker right behind her. She had never met him before, his name was Dan Parker. There were three customs agents waiting for her when they walked in, and they asked to see her identification. They wanted to know if it was her signature on the documents, and she confirmed it. They could see that it was.

“Did you purchase these purses for commercial use?” one of them asked her and she started to feel annoyed, but was polite.

“Yes, we purchased them wholesale directly from the manufacturer in China. I went over to do the transaction myself and approve the finished product.” She didn’t want to admit that they were knockoffs, or they might accuse her of bringing in counterfeits, exact copies, but these bags weren’t illegal. They complied with all the norms for copied goods, made in cheaper leathers, with different linings from the originals and different shoulder straps. She had inspected them herself according to Ed’s specifications and Paul’s directions.

The second agent held up one of the bags for her to identify, and she confirmed that it was one of their shipment. It happened to be a brown leather bag with a brown silk lining that differed from the original brand that had been copied. The originals, she knew, were lined in high-grade leather. And as she watched him, the agent sliced open the lining with a knife and removed it, and laid it on the counter, and Sydney didn’t look happy about it. She would be even less so if they removed all the linings because they didn’t like the fabric content, or charged her higher duty.

“You’re not supposed to damage the merchandise,” she reminded him.

“Take a look at the inside of that bag,” he said, his eyes expressionless as he watched her, and she glanced inside and saw the familiar leather lining she recognized from the similar bag she owned herself, by the original designer. There was a small silver plaque with the name of the expensive brand it had supposedly been copied from, with the clearly marked words “Made in Italy.” She looked up at the agent in amazement, not sure what to make of it. The lining had obviously been carefully fitted and sewn in to hide the original interior of the bag with the famous brand name of the maker. And it did not appear to be a counterfeit. It looked like the real deal, the original bag, to Sydney. Clearly someone had altered the handle and masked the lining to disguise it.

“And you’re not supposed to be bringing stolen goods into the country,” he said coldly in response to her complaint about his removing the lining.

“I didn’t see any sign of that when I inspected them in China,” she said in a much smaller voice.

“Who added the shoulder straps and lining to disguise them?” he asked her.

“They were sold to us as modifications of the original design when they were copied,” she answered, suddenly confused by what was happening. “There was nothing to indicate that they weren’t what they claimed they were. Good-looking copies.”

“Very good-looking,” the first agent commented with a scornful expression. “We’ve seen products from this outfit before. They’re either counterfeit or stolen. These aren’t counterfeit, so they’re stolen.” Once the lining was removed, all the markings were evident. They were expensive bags that were being sold for a fraction of what they were worth, and would have been sold for by their rightful maker. They were obviously stolen goods, being sold in large volume to be distributed in the States. An outfit like Lady Louise could sell many more bags than the black market could handle.

“Then clearly we got burned when we bought them.” Her voice wavered a little, while Paul’s customs broker watched her and didn’t say a word. “I’ll have to call my employer about this. He won’t be happy.” In fact, what they had spent on them had gone up in smoke. It was clear to her that the customs officers were going to confiscate them, and prosecute the people who had sold them.

“Your employer’s name isn’t on these documents,” the agent told her. “Yours is.” And as he said it, he took a pair of handcuffs off his belt and clipped them on her wrists before she could react or object, as she stared at him in horror. “You’re under arrest, Sydney Wells, for trafficking in stolen goods.” He read her her rights as her eyes filled with tears and she turned to the broker with a look of desperation.

“Call Mr. Zeller immediately, and tell him what just happened. Do you have his cellphone number?” Her voice was trembling as he shook his head, and she told him the number from memory. “Tell him to get a lawyer and get me out of here ASAP.” This wasn’t her problem, it was his. She had purchased the bags for him, and they’d been planning to put her name on them, which panicked her even more. Then she turned to the agents again. One of them was calling for a female agent on his walkie-talkie. “Can I make one phone call?” she asked them, praying that they’d let her.

“To your attorney?” She nodded, lying to them. She was going to let Paul’s attorneys handle it. But she wanted to call Ed Chin and tell him she’d been arrested. She knew he’d find Paul and get her out immediately.

“All right, one call,” they conceded, and handed her a phone. She called Ed’s cellphone and he picked up on the second ring while she prayed it wouldn’t go to voicemail. He sounded busy and distracted.

“I just got arrested at the airport,” she rushed to tell him. “The bags aren’t knockoffs, they’re stolen Prada. The manufacturer put in a fake lining to conceal it. If you cut it out, all the markings are clearly there. That explains the high quality. Fuck the bags. Find Paul and get me out of here. They arrested me because I signed all the import documents.”

Paul had told her to sign everything and she suddenly wondered if he had known what he was doing when he sent her. She couldn’t believe that of him. But he had let her bring them in, on her own, and take the fall when they got caught. Surely he didn’t know they had been stolen either. They had been duped by the merchant in China.

“Are you kidding? Where are you now?” Ed asked, incredulous, when she told him what had happened.

“At the commercial customs office at the airport.” The female agent had appeared by then. She was a hulking woman who looked extremely unpleasant. And Sydney’s expensive shearling coat and Hermès boots didn’t impress her.

“Are they taking you to jail?” he asked, and tears filled her eyes as she turned to the agents.

“Are you taking me somewhere?” she asked them, and one of them answered and told her to wind up the call.

“We’re taking you to a federal holding facility here at the airport. We’ll take you to the federal jail in the city tonight. Your attorney can see you there tomorrow.”

“Can he see me here now?” All three of them shook their heads and she told Ed, and where she was going. “You have to find Paul right away. They can’t arrest me. I was shipping the bags as an agent for the company. He has to take responsibility for this, I’m not going to. Find him, Ed, please.” She was terrified of what would happen to her now.

“I’ll take care of it this minute, and Sydney…I’m so sorry. I never should have let you go back to Beijing alone. Just sit tight, we’ll get you out by morning.”

“Oh my God, I have to spend the night in jail?” She was panicked.

“I’ll see what I can do tonight.” He wanted to kill Paul Zeller for letting Sydney put herself on the line. There was always the risk that goods were counterfeit or stolen when buying cheap copies, especially in Asia. She should never have signed the export documents. The manufacturer should have, but Sydney’s name was all over them.

The female agent took the phone away from Sydney then, handed it back to her co-workers, confiscated Sydney’s handbag, and led her outside to a waiting car to move her to the holding facility. She pushed Sydney roughly into the back of the car, which looked like any ordinary police car except that it was marked “Department of Homeland Security” with a government insignia and an eagle on it, and they drove half a mile away to a building marked “U.S. Customs.” Inside, it looked like a jail, with bars everywhere. It was used to hold drug dealers they apprehended and other criminals, and there was a small area for women. There was only one other woman in the cell they put her in. They had found five hundred grams of heroin on her, taped between her legs, and she started screaming at the customs agent as soon as she saw her. She was demanding a lawyer. Sydney felt as though she had been dropped into someone’s nightmare, and surely not her own.

Her cellmate in what looked like a cage appeared to be in her twenties, and turned to Sydney to ask her what she was in for.

“There’s been some confusion about stolen purses.” Sydney felt ridiculous as she said it, and the other woman laughed.

“There’s been some confusion about half a kilo of heroin taped to my crotch,” she said, and started shouting again. But no one came to help them. And all Sydney could hope was that Ed and Paul would do something quickly and get her out. This just couldn’t be happening, and it wasn’t her fault. It never even occurred to her that Paul Zeller might have known that the purses were stolen, and he had knowingly used her, an innocent, to get them into the country.