Dancing with the Tiger Page 25

  The meat stalls went on forever. A skinned pig’s head stared at him, a regular Supreme Court judge. Its lips moved. The looter rubbed his eyes, hoping to shut down the weirdness, but the foul, fleshy, avuncular, chalk-colored, blue-eyed swine resting on the butcher’s table was communicating over the chasm of species and language. Listen to the girl, it said. Believe in something. I know. I’m a pig.

  The looter glared at the beheaded turkeys, the skinned rabbits, the whole dead menagerie, daring other animals to offer two more lousy cents.

  The butcher turned away from the chicken parts on his scale.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Your pig is talking to me.”

  The butcher wiped his hands on his apron. A red splotch covered his heart. He looked down at his pig, amused, impressed.

  “If my pig is talking to you, you’d better listen,” he said. “He never tells me anything.”

  The looter put his ear to the pig’s nostrils. Not a peep. What had it said? Listen to the girl. He pictured Chelo, the moon of her belly, her constellation of freckles. Why had he lost his temper? He no longer remembered. With a stab to the gut, he realized he wasn’t sure where she lived and didn’t have her number.

  He ran out of the market now, knocking into people, not caring. What he wanted mattered more than what he upset. Chelo was the house he would live in. The children he would father. The love he would make. The proof he was a man, alive, no longer a twigger buried underground. Breathless, he reached the café, scanned the tables, their table, but the girl was gone.

  The pain of her absence took his breath away.

  He picked up a rock and hurled it. Something snapped in his shoulder. Something snapped in his heart. He was unloved and unlovable. Both things were his fault.

  thirty ANNA

  Room 7 of the VIP Hotel hadn’t changed anything but its sheets. Same sad desk where no letters were written. Same lamp, its shade tilted and frayed. Anna didn’t want to think about who had slept here in the interim, and the many ways what they had done was different from and the same as what she was about to do. She was going to seduce Thomas Malone and, while he slept, steal his keys. All of them, not one. She was done being subtle. She’d go to the chapel, swipe the mask, take off like Holly, meet the Tiger on Friday, retrieve her mother’s ashes, fly over the border and never return.

  Thomas lay on the bed, peering into his phone. Anna drank mescal from a recyclable cup. At the foot of the bed, another box, unopened. Maybe Thomas was giving her back the death mask. She smiled at the absurdity of the idea. The thing you wanted most was never inside someone else’s box.

  “Open your present.”

  “I will.” She didn’t move.

  “Open it now.”

  Anna studied him, debating whether at his core, beyond his vanities and greed, he was a good man or a bad man. She cut through the tape with scissors. Her desire for a happy ending was so strong she slowed down. As long as the box remained closed, her wish still might come true.

  “You didn’t have to do this.”

  She lifted the top of the box. It was a mask, all right—a mask of a skull, a grinning chalk-white calavera with sloppy red lipstick and gnarly clenched teeth. Beyond ugly.

  And Anna thought: I used to date nice boys.

  “Put it on.”

  Anna shook her head, slid the box across the cheap comforter. “It’s too much. What’s next? A donkey?”

  “I want you to wear it. You must.”

  “I must?” The ridiculousness of his statement gave her an edge. “Why?”

  He set his mouth. “I was looking for a woman to go places with me. I thought you were her.”

  “You really want me to wear this?”

  “It’s Calavera Catrina. Posada mocking the Indians who wanted to be European, putting on airs. You’ll be the height of fashion. The elegant cadaver.”

  “In bed?”

  “Sex, death, religion. They all go together. Why do you think the French call the orgasm the ‘little death’?”

  “Because they’re French.”

  “Don’t be so conventional. We’re playing. You like the circus.” From his cigarette case, Thomas produced a joint. This surprised her until she remembered he’d been a drug rep. Who knew what combination of substances kept him afloat?

  He inhaled, passed the joint to her. “You like?”

  Anna took a hit. Sweet smoke filled her lungs. She remembered a lacrosse player she’d dated one summer, a bully with a tapestry belt. She exhaled. “Like has nothing to do with it.”

  Two minutes later, she was stoned. Not high, but low, like a stone, a stoned stone, or maybe the creature that lives under the stoned stone, a slug with no eyes.

  She volunteered to fetch ice, a pretext for fresh air. The parking lot reeked of diesel and fries. At the ice machine, her phone bleeped a text. David.

  I heard yr dad’s sale fell thru. Sorry. For everything. Come home. Be w/ me.

  Ice cubes dropped into the plastic bucket. Anna searched for her feelings—love, regret, fear—but she was as full and empty as the parking lot of the VIP Hotel. Was David really sorry? Did he love her? Did she love him? There were no facts to check. No book, no census data, no website that confirmed sincerity, that diagrammed the tricky arteries of the heart. She pictured David, asleep in bed, when she’d lain awake nights, sifting through what she lacked the nerve to say. So many things. Or maybe just one: I wish you loved me enough to make me tell you the truth.

  She walked back to room 7, hugging the ice bucket to her chest. It wasn’t too late to start over. Anna was good at beginnings. She would start by being honest with Thomas Malone.

  She closed the door behind her. The collector patted the bed, his expression enigmatic. The room grew smaller. She was frightened. Honesty had this effect on her. Any mask was safer than no mask at all.

  “I need your help,” she began, joining him on the bed. “I’ve gotten myself into a real mess.”

  He toyed with her hair. “I am an expert at cleaning up messes.”

  She swallowed, pushed the words from her mouth. “That night, at the Excelsior when I blacked out, I lost something—”

  “Lost what?”

  “A death mask I bought in San Juan del Monte from that old woman who was killed. I had it with me that night, but when I woke up at your house, it was gone.”

  His face registered no emotion. She continued. “A man in a tiger’s mask came to my hotel. The same tiger who killed the old woman. He threatened to kill me if I don’t give him the mask. He works for Reyes. Did you take the mask that night? I don’t care now, I just need your help.”

  “The death mask in the postcard?”

  Anna nodded.

  “You had Montezuma’s death mask and didn’t tell me?” His voice was high and brittle. “Though you worked for me, though we’d shared intimacies, you said nothing. You wanted the mask, I suppose, for the Ramsey Collection.”

  A stone fell through Anna’s body. She saw three versions of everything, none of them good. “How did you know?”

  “How dumb do you think I am? Stealing my key. At that ridiculous dinner party, your face was so transparent. Scurrying off to the bathroom to compose yourself. I called Gonzáles. Who is she, and what does she want? In two minutes, I’d dragged it out of him. So Anna Ramsey came to Oaxaca to spy on me. She’s sick of her father’s incompetence. She’s ambitious, wants to join the real collectors. She gets her hands on a treasure, but there’s one complication: Reyes has already hung a nail over his heart-shaped bed for this particular trophy, already sent a victory postcard to his rival.” Thomas paused. “How am I doing so far?”

  Anna reached for a cigarette. She might be sick.

  “But poor Anna loses the mask. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she trusted someone she shouldn’t have. Now Reyes wants it back. He sends his
tiger to do his dirty work, and now scared little Anna wants Thomas Malone, the man she has lied to, the man she has seduced and betrayed, to save her. Thomas Malone becomes attractive when there’s something Anna needs or wants.”

  Anna looked up at the door. No cross. She prayed to the ice bucket.

  “To answer your question, I don’t have the death mask. But could I help you? Maybe. I could call the American embassy or smuggle you over the border in my truck. Hire a bodyguard. Contact Reyes and plead your case. Anything is possible, but why don’t you first show me why I should care?”

  He held up the skull mask.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna began. “I thought it was a silly knockoff. The tiger stole my mother’s ashes.”

  “Anna. You’re a writer. Show, don’t tell.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Help yourself.”

  It had come to this. Perhaps she’d always known it would. She took the skull mask, stumbled to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, wiggling her bare toes. Half-moons of color. If Thomas didn’t have the death mask, who did? If he did have the mask, the only way forward was to see the night through. Catrina was heavy. Anna’s breath warmed the wood as she tied the mask over her face. He’s got some sexual fetish. He thinks this is fun. How does a skeleton dance? I’ll walk out like a zombie and—

  A woman screamed. A gun fired. The television announcing its presence. Maybe Thomas had changed his mind and they’d snuggle up to a nice mafia movie. Anna opened the door. He’d turned off the lights. By the TV’s light, she made out the bed, bureaus, blinds, but Thomas had disappeared. The room swept past in unstable rushes. Whatever she’d smoked had clouded her insides, leaving her limbs heavy and numb. She called into the dark. “Thomas . . . I don’t feel well all of a sudden.”

  The blow to her neck came from behind. She blocked her fall on the bed with one arm. Then he was on her. His weight crushed her spine. His hand clamped the mask over her mouth. They struggled. He tore her clothes. Thomas, you’re hurting me! but her voice had no power and Thomas was chanting gibberish, Dueña y señora de la vida, Ángel que nuestro Padre creó. He dropped his pants. Through the mask, she caught snatches of the ceiling, square panels, removable. The mirror reflected the headboard, his back. Everything happened quickly. Everything happened slow. He was going to rape her, this horrible man. She kicked and struggled. Did she scream? She clamped her thighs. His face glowed, frantic eyes not seeing. She braced herself but nothing happened. She wrestled high enough to see his groin, pale and limp, and he saw her see this, his failure.

  With one furious motion, he hurled her to the floor. Her head smacked the desk. He kicked the mask on her face. Her cheek split open. She moaned. Car chase. Broken glass. Gunfire. Family entertainment. The room door slammed. Face pressed to the carpet, Anna felt the vibrations of traffic, the single car that merged, disappearing into the night.

  Out the window, the MARISCOS sign pulsed. Above it, the moon, half in light, half in shadow. The moon, where the footprints of astronauts would remain forever because there was no wind to blow them away. Anna held herself in the only place he hadn’t touched. A Mexican saying floated up from memory. El que con lobos anda a aullar se enseña.

  He who walks with wolves learns to howl.

  thirty-one THE LOOTER

  He was an empty man. How had he deluded himself for so long? All this time, he’d believed he carried an internal flame. He’d believed in his own honor, his place in the world, but that belief had crashed on the cobblestones of Oaxaca and he now understood who he was—a worthless junkie living in a country that did not love him. The Maddox Principle of Opposing Equilibrium was bunk. His outside had corroded his insides. Drugs had hardened his heart, consumed his decency. He could not be close to another person, except sexually, and barely that. He didn’t know what to say to a woman or how to behave. Nice . . . another four-letter word for trying to get what you want.

  He found the kiosk. The dealer with ping-pong eyes was conducting high finance in the alley. His T-shirt read MEXICAN HAIRLESS DOG. His client was a muscular guy in a leather coat and shiny white high-tops. A small man hoping to feel large. The looter caught the buyer’s profile. The sight of his hideous face made his legs go weak.

  Fucking Feo.

  The dealer jerked around, paranoid someone was cutting in on his territory.

  Feo looked ashen, like Jesus Christ had risen from a manhole. Recognition. Disbelief. Panic. A triptych of What the fuck? The man he had buried alive had returned from the dead.

  Nobody moved.

  thirty-two THE DOGS

  It was past midnight and the dogs of Oaxaca were howling again.

  The first dog howled at the scent of danger.

  The second howled because his stomach was empty.

  The third howled to one-up the other two, playing the dozens, singing the blues: You think you’ve got problems, listen to this.

  The fourth dog howled in empathy—We are all dogs together.

  The fifth howled to let everyone know he was a big dog.

  The sixth howled to not feel so alone.

  The seventh howled hoping to attract a sexy bitch who enjoyed late-night perambulations.

  The eighth howled to hear the beauty of her mezzo-soprano voice, a legacy of her mother, a Neapolitan mastiff.

  The ninth howled to express his inner dog. I am learning to be me.

  The tenth howled because the night was lovely and fleeting and, one day, no matter how grand his contemplations, no matter how majestically his howl echoed through the valley, no matter how many rabbits he killed or how furiously he copulated, there would come a night, much like this one, when he would no longer howl.

  PART THREE

  We must remove the mask.

  —Michel de Montaigne

  one ANNA

  Orange numbers ticked by on the digital clock. A minute lasted forever.

  He was gone, but still present.

  Thomas Malone was still on the sheets, still pressing her wrists, still closing the door behind him, leaving her stranded at the VIP Hotel, discarded like the white towel he had used to dry his hands.

  Anna lay with her fear, scared of the dark, scared of the light. Did knowing the man make it better or worse? With a stranger, the violence was anonymous, pure, but this evening had started with a drink and a present. He knew her, but had done what he’d done regardless. Without regard. And the masks? Erotica, a ruse that no longer worked, and he was growing more desperate and violent, furious with himself, with women. How much did Constance know? Did they share these secrets, or were they locked in his chapel, his sanctuary, his private collection?

  Murmurings drifted through the motel walls. Men and women, and who knew what else. Boxes with people inside. People coming together, pulling apart. Mouths open. Hungry. Breathing. All that desire, barely contained. Snuff motels. Ending things was a choice people made when oblivion became preferable to pain, but taking your own life was like tossing aside a half-read book, something Anna never did. Even the worst stories could improve.

  She hobbled to the bathroom. Her cheek was bleeding again, her eyelids swollen, but otherwise she looked remarkably unscathed—her hair covered the bump on her head—proving once again that people who looked okay often weren’t. The Aztecs understood this. Their healers placed water under a patient’s chin. If the reflection was shadowed, a man had lost his soul.

  Anna showered. She held herself. A wisp of water scalded her back.

  She thought about the Tiger, but was no longer scared.

  She thought of her father, but was no longer angry.

  She wondered where her mother was, spirit and ash. She sifted through her memories. Christmas morning, the smell of bacon, her mother’s thick robe. The tentative way she put on makeup. “Good?” she’d ask Anna. “Or too much?”

  Es mi bandera, la enseña nacional . . .
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  Up from memory floated a song. A Mexican flag salute, of all things, the anthem her mother sang at dinner parties to prove her Mexican chops.

  Son estas notas su cántico marcial . . .

  Anna sang, careful of her pronunciation, her accent. Shower water dripped off her cut lips. The Spanish shook loose something inside her and she thought: This is as far down as I am going.

  —

  She walked the dark, narrow streets, nipping mescal from the bottle. Her right heel was bleeding. She gave up trying to find a cab. The worst had already come to pass. Despite the shower, she felt soiled. She should have thrown out her underwear. She should have sliced the skin off Thomas Malone’s face with her Swiss Army knife and worn it like an Aztec mask.

  The cathedral appeared, soft in the darkness. She walked up to its oak doors studded with iron. The padlock stopped her, a dead end to her only idea. The city slept, except for a trio of goth waifs crashing skateboards. Anna sat on the wide church steps. When she closed her eyes, the VIP Hotel rushed back at her in lurid strobe-light flashes. His grasp. His breath. His vacant eyes. What was the word for unconsummated rape?

  A man joined her on the steps. Thirties, with a gaunt smoker’s face. Beanie hat. A satchel hung from his shoulder. A fishing box sat at his feet. A man, any man, was the last thing she wanted to see.

  Anna turned away, but he didn’t take the hint.

  “Is the church locked?” he asked.

  She gave a half nod. Of course, he’d known she spoke English. She had an American face, the kind people swore they’d seen before.

  “You want to get in?” he asked.

  Anna shrugged.