Dancing with the Tiger Page 21

  “There is an American asshole in Oaxaca who collects masks, and I enjoy making him miserable. When I get a mask he might like, I send him a photo. I steal his runners. Someday I may slit his throat or rape his wife, but I haven’t yet because he amuses me. Soon we will each have an opening to show off our masks. The fool doesn’t realize that no one beats the cartels. My patrón wants the American to drive for us, smuggle shipments over the border. He is corruptible. We will appeal to his ego and greed and taste for sex. This works ninety-nine percent of the time.

  “With money, you can make the dog dance. Without money, you dance like a dog.

  “The best mask I ever had was the death mask of Montezuma, but it was stolen from me. This kind of betrayal is unacceptable. I buried the American digger in Gonzáles’s tub. The next time Gonzáles screws up, I’ll fix him a bath. An American girl has the mask now, but I will take it back soon. You cannot be sloppy when you kill an American, or the FBI will fly down and make soup. I want to be buried with the mask. It will set me apart from the dogs. With that mask, I could look God in the face.

  “People think being a drug lord is all cocaine and women, but actually it is hard work. I never sleep in the same bed two nights in a row. Sometimes I sleep in a tunnel. Sometimes I check into a five-star hotel under the name Jesús Máximo. I have disguises. My bathtub has a trapdoor. My cook keeps a gun in her breadbox.

  “Some men take prostitutes to bed. I take art books and a pistol. I look up words in the dictionary. Maybe I should pay a naked woman to do this for me. Ha. When I know enough about art, I will off Gonzáles. No one likes a know-it-all. There’s another reason I take art books to bed: If I am shot in my sleep, it comforts me to think I saw something beautiful before I fell into the arms of Santa Muerte.”

  fifteen ANNA

  When Salvador drove up to the Puesta del Sol, Anna didn’t care whether he was motivated by sex, money, revenge, boredom, mockery, pity, or kindness. She was simply grateful he was taking her into the mountains, where no tiger could find her. Salvador had sounded surprised when she’d called and confessed a change of heart. She’d slept only three hours, cell phone in hand, front desk number entered, chair propped under the doorknob.

  “You seem stressed.” Salvador shifted gears.

  “Shy,” Anna said.

  “That is something new.” He smiled, friendly, teasing, cute.

  “You are nice to do this.”

  She couldn’t think what to say next. She wanted to fall into his lap, confess everything, but he would want her to turn over the mask to Mexican authorities. He would make no distinction between her father and Thomas Malone.

  She checked the side mirror. No Tiger.

  “Someone had to rescue you,” he said. “Also, I wanted to show you the mountains.”

  For a change, Anna said what she was thinking. “You hurt my feelings when you threw me out of your apartment.”

  Salvador rapped the steering wheel. “I did not throw you out. My family needed me. I thought, Why spend time with a woman who is sleeping with Thomas Malone?”

  “I am not sleeping with Thomas Malone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think I would know.”

  “So there’s hope?”

  His sincerity disarmed her. “I thought I was the only one interested.” She rubbed his neck. “My mother used to do this for my dad when he drove.”

  He made a happy animal sound. “Lucky man.”

  “Not really. Not now. He’s drinking again.”

  She told him about her father’s addiction. He listened. It felt good to share a difficult part of her life, though she was careful not to mention her father’s name.

  “He says he’s coming to Mexico, but it will never happen. When he’s drinking, he can barely get out of his chair. He would have missed my wedding if—”

  “You are married?”

  “I was engaged, but not anymore.”

  Her face must have looked distraught, because he touched her knee. “Are you okay? Do you want to go back?”

  “Go back?” Anna stuck her elbow out the window. “No. I want to go faster.”

  —

  Benito Juárez was a Mexican version of small-town Vermont. Marching schoolchildren carried a flag around the village square while a bugler played a patriotic anthem. Log cabins lined the thick woods. The air was clean and brisk.

  Their room had not been cleaned yet, so they decided to hike to a mirador that offered a spectacular view of the valley.

  “You might want to leave that here,” Salvador said, eyeing her pack. “What do you have in there?”

  “My life.”

  “Dámelo.”

  She hesitated, then carefully handed him the pack, warning him fragile things were inside, and then, worried she sounded unappreciative, added, “Gracias.”

  And he said, “El gusto es mío.”

  Up a trail they zigzagged, past farmhouses, cornfields, and sheep. Anna decided her worst fears were unfounded. The Tiger had not followed her here.

  Salvador was hiking in dress shoes and jeans. Anna felt a rush of affection. She could love a man who hiked in dress shoes long before she could love a man who hiked in ripstop and fleece. Screw Miss Venezuela. She wasn’t here. Anna was.

  Salvador stopped, panting. She took the pack back from him. “Sometimes I want to travel forever,” she said.

  “I have always wanted to follow the camino of Che Guevara,” he said. “Ride south through Argentina. Smoke and drink and sleep with beautiful women.”

  Jealousy rose inside Anna, juice through a straw. She said she wanted to come.

  Salvador swatted the air. “You don’t want one man. You want whoever is next. I know what you think: ‘Salvador, he is okay in Mexico.’”

  Anna laughed. He had her number.

  Salvador wiped sweat off his lip.

  “After Mexico, you go home and marry an American man and have American babies and live a happy American life until you have an American divorce and come back to Oaxaca and sit on the zócalo with your sad margarita and hope to see your old friend Salvador who you abandoned years ago.”

  “I may never go back to America.” Her plane left in two days. “Look at that.”

  She pointed to a shack with colorful laundry drying on a line: a man’s pants, toddler shirts, baby socks. Anna sighed. “One day, I want to make a book of photographs of only clotheslines.”

  “You think it is beautiful, and all they want is a dryer.”

  —

  The view at the top was lovely, a panorama of distant mountains, a patchwork of parceled land, everything dazzling in a silvery haze.

  “Por fin.” Salvador stabbed his walking stick. “Llegamos. Too much clean air. I need a cigarette.”

  Anna checked over her shoulder. No Tiger. She was being ridiculous.

  Salvador tugged her arm. “Sit with me, woman.”

  Back against a boulder, he opened the backpack’s outside flap and pulled out a warm beer.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “Magic,” he said.

  Anna sat between his legs, leaned against his chest. Her mother would have loved this landscape. You are what you notice. What you see, you can keep. Whatever hurts is your beginning.

  “What’s wrong?” Salvador nudged her.

  “Being on the edge like this makes me want to jump.”

  “Put your bird mask on first.”

  “You think people in those little houses are happy?”

  “If you ask me are those people happy because they live in a house that looks pretty to tourists who climb the hill with their boyfriends, then I think the answer is no.”

  Anna’s stomach registered the word “boyfriend.” “What about the pigs?”

  “Very happy. Speaking of pigs, don’t see Thomas Mal
one anymore. He is not a nice man.”

  “No es un hombre sincero,” Anna half sang. “You’ve told me.”

  “He will not help you.”

  “I was trying to get your attention.”

  “You have it.”

  Salvador stroked her hair. She liked the way he made her feel: like a traveler, a conjugator of irregular verbs. He pulled up a blade of grass, nibbled the tender end. He looked less jostled, a glass of water come to rest. Under different circumstances, this could be a love story.

  Anna pulled her mother’s journal from her pack. “My mother kept a diary when she was in Mexico. She collected all these great quotes. Here’s one. ‘I had expected to see the town of my mother’s memories, of her nostalgia—nostalgia laced with sighs. She had lived her lifetime sighing about Comala, about going back. But she never had. Now I had come in her place. I was seeing things through her eyes, as she had seen them. She had given me her eyes to see.’”

  “Pedro Páramo,” Salvador said. “‘You will hear the voice of memory that is stronger than the voice of death—if death has a voice.’ That is not quite right, but almost.”

  He kissed her. And she thought: I don’t ever want to move. And she thought: So long as we stay on this mountaintop, we are both seeing the same thing.

  Salvador lifted her head. “I need to tell you something.”

  She braced herself. Here it comes. Miss Venezuela. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. I understand—”

  “Thomas was right,” he said. “There are no great carvers in Benito Juárez. None, in fact.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  The answer was written all over his face.

  sixteen THE GARDENER

  The Tiger checked his hands for blood, checked the rearview mirror, checked the time, checked his machete. His hands itched. A rash. It was late afternoon. He cracked his neck. His car was headed into the mountains. Veinte kilómetros a Benito Juárez.

  Find the mask.

  Save the girl.

  Kill her father.

  What sacrifice would you make for our love?

  An old man on a bicycle pedaled on the side of the road. The Tiger snuck his car up behind him, gunned the accelerator. The man toppled into the weeds. The Tiger laughed. He was an invincible animal.

  He hadn’t slept since he’d killed the old woman. Whenever he closed his eyes, visions appeared: dreams and faces, the past and present overlapping, the comet, the crane, the crone, the yellow girl, Reyes, Soledad, the wounded Montezuma carried to safety, his handsome face bloodied, his golden robes torn. It was getting hard not to think of everything at once.

  Was it possible to kill without guilt or remorse? If so, were you a man or an animal?

  He had to find the American. He’d been certain that the mask would scare her, that she would follow his instructions—Put the mask in the box—but she’d run off with her little artist friend. His phone rang. A text. Reyes. Where the fuck is my mask? You are late.

  The Tiger threw the phone across the car. He was shaking.

  Lago Azul was blue as the sky. Families played along the sandy edges. Something strange was happening. Steam rose off the lake. The water started to boil, slowly at first, then faster, bubbling, hotter by the second. Families shrieked and rushed to shore. The lake was convulsing. A cloudbank wiped out the sun. Wind whipped across the Tiger’s car, shaking the chassis. Dead bathers floated to the surface, cooked in their own skin. A tsunami-size wave appeared, two stories high, pressing toward the shore, inexorable as death. Over the road, black water swarmed around his wheels, rising, stalling out all motion. The Tiger jammed the brakes. He was in the wave and of the wave, trapped in its cold, black grasp. Water poured into his lap, filled his ears.

  He let go of the steering wheel, tore the mask off his face.

  When he opened his eyes, the lake was blue again, calm, dotted with vacationers, dead-man floating, face to the sun. A flirty husband splashed his wife, trying to get something started. Children spat watermelon seeds, tossed rinds onto the sand. He was driving on the wrong side of the road, heading straight into a moving van.

  Hugo jerked the wheel just in time, crossed himself. Oh, little yellow girl. What I do, I do for you.

  He had seen the fifth omen. The boiling lake.

  The dead could fuck up the living. The dead had nothing but time.

  seventeen THE PAPERSHOP GIRL

  I do not blame my mother. The birds were clear about it, flying in a nervous, broken X, going west on a Sunday, qué mala onda. Then Mamá’s egg broke in boiling water and a dead bird appeared at the front door, etched feet and a wasted gray eye. Mamá shrieked and would not touch it.

  So we’re moving closer to Manny. Only an hour drive, instead of five. Nice, I guess, not that Manny will thank us, but maybe the omens will calm themselves, leave my mother alone before she goes completely loca.

  Last time we went to the cemetery in Xalapa, someone had placed a giant stuffed bear on the gravestone next to Manny. The bear looked pathetic, slumped over, getting dusty, but still I felt bad that Manny had only plastic flowers. Maybe the other kid had a narco for a father. Those people could buy a pinball machine and leave it out in the rain.

  Sometimes I go back and pick a different ending, see us sitting at dinner, laughing like people in a milk ad. I have never written down what happened, but I will now so I don’t forget. Your memory will forget anything if you let it.

  We were on vacation in Acapulco. It was morning, hot already. Mamá wanted new sandals because her strap broke, and the three of us were walking the strip. We were all tired, the way a vacation can feel like work. Mamá had bought Manny one of those shiny balloons, which he didn’t deserve, and I said so. He had it tied around his wrist. He was dragging behind so we wouldn’t see him scarfing red hots, and I was deciding whether to rat him out or whine for a new bikini. I didn’t notice the men drive up, or the guns, until Mamá screamed and dragged me under an awning. By then, a guy had scooped up Manny, who was howling, his face a runny mess.

  The thug held Manny in front of him like a shield. A six-year-old. It was crazy after that, screaming and gunfire. People crawled under cars. Someone stepped on my back. Mamá ran into the street. You can scream, but if the noise around you is loud enough, you make no sound at all. That coward thought they wouldn’t shoot a child, but the narcos just used more bullets. Manny died in his arms. Mamá threw herself on top of Manny and let his blood seep into her dress. His stupid balloon didn’t pop. Daffy Duck, floating like it was a fucking parade.

  You don’t expect something like that at the beach.

  Manny was a good boy. Spoiled but good inside. He ate chilies from the jar. He had a pet turtle, Donatello, but he let him go free. I bet Manny would have been a doctor when he grew up. He put Band-Aids on my cuts. He liked superheroes because they could fix problems and punch out bad guys. He had Superman undies and would tie a towel around his neck and jump off the couch and smile because he didn’t know what to do next. There really isn’t much a little boy can fix.

  Papi doesn’t believe in signs, but after Manny died, Mamá started having visions. That’s when Papi began coming into my bedroom. One bad thing leads to the next. The door closes. The window closes. Pretty soon, you’re in the dark. Maybe Papi stopped believing in God. Sometimes I hear Manny whisper, I will protect you. He would if he could but he can’t.

  Manny would be eleven now, but instead he’s six forever.

  After he died, for a year or so, I wore a lot of clothes, layers on top of layers, all together. Two or three shirts and a sweater and socks and tights. It drove Papi nuts. Kids called me Mummy Girl. Luckily, that name died out. I still wear gloves no matter what. I don’t touch people even when I’m naked. I don’t tell anyone what I am thinking. My thoughts are my own. I am a piñata with candy inside.

  The name Manuel means “God is with us.�
�

  This is a lie.

  God is a drunk sleeping under a cactus.

  eighteen THE LOOTER

  They wandered the city until dark. The looter was letting things evolve, the SAT word for letting shit flow downstream. Outside the market, crones sold baskets of chili peppers, their scrawny legs crossed beneath their rumps like knitting needles. Some clown was hawking Calderón puppets. The girl wanted hair combs. They searched for one of those discount stores where everything costs ten pesos and breaks before you get it home.

  “Mira. Hay uno.” The girl pointed.

  “Te espero afuera.” I will wait for you outside.

  The girl looked doubtful, like maybe he’d ditch her. He kissed her forehead, all those peppery freckles. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. It just came up.

  The girl waddled into the store. Chelo. He had a hard time remembering her name. He leaned against a kiosk, glanced down a side alley, where a haggard guy was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, eyes like jumping beans. The looter didn’t need to smell the piss to know what the guy was selling. Old cravings yanked his insides. Walk away. Walk away now.

  He darted in the opposite direction, hungry for distraction. Underwear shop. Penny candy. One of those document joints where you can laminate an ID, wire money, have credentials forged. Once in D.F., on the Plaza de Santo Domingo, he’d bought a fake driver’s license under the name Nacho Rico. Forget the U.S. of A. These shops were the land of opportunity. For a hundred bucks and a passport, you could walk out a dentist.