Dancing with the Tiger Read online

  Into his closet she stalked, swatting hanging shirts, digging through drawers, looking for what? A business card? More lingerie? Who walks out of an apartment without underwear?

  David’s laptop sat close-lipped on his desk. Anna opened the top drawer, where a dozen typed passwords had been taped for safekeeping. Google user name: DFlackston. Password: Plastic. She had never done this before.

  His in-box was bland, a million urgent e-mails about the opening. The “Personal” file had notes from his mother. The “Taxes” file? Dry stuff. “Insurance?” Insurance! Why, lookie here. E-mails from Clarissa. With attachments. Two more clicks and Anna saw Clarissa. Young, fit, gymnastically inclined Clarissa, wearing no underwear at all. There were other files. Other women. A regular art collection.

  At the stoplight by Swifty’s, Anna sloshed herself more tequila. She ate a pickled egg she’d fished from a glass jar at the packy. Protein. Hydration. If she ate little enough and drank a whole lot more, she might slip through a keyhole into a new world. What was the etiquette for recalling 150 “Save the Date” cards? Or did bad news trickle down the street on its own, like sewer water after a downpour?

  Strip-mall traffic. Hardee’s. Subway. Red light. Anna checked her face in the mirror. Time for an extreme makeover. Forget being the devoted fiancée, the risotto maker and Pilates babe, the recycler who separates trash. Bring on the old Anna. Drinker-smoker–lovable slut. If a misogynist was a man who hated women, what was a woman who hated men?

  Smart.

  At the market, she bought groceries. All her father ate was cheese and peanuts left over from Christmas. She’d fix him lunch. Five food groups. Cloth napkin. Steering up his pea-pebble driveway, Anna felt her head was about to explode. The dilapidated house, another failure. Warped porch. Cracked paint. Sad bushes. How could someone devoted to art let his home deteriorate this way? A layer of snow lined the house and the yard, as if nature thought it best to cover the whole mess with a dropcloth. When he sold the collection, she’d insist on a paint job.

  She popped a mint, slammed the car door, crossed the frozen yard. What would she tell him? Her father had introduced her to David. They’d met at a fund-raiser. David had hidden his disdain for masks. Her father had hidden his disdain for Warhol. Soon enough, they had Anna in common.

  She reached the porch, grabbed the banister. A heavy emptiness filled her torso and shoulders, making it hard to stand straight. Posture. Her mother had been big on that. Her mother. Anna looked across the field. She could see the pine tree from here.

  Anna knocked, pushed open the front door.

  Her father sat in his usual plaid chair. Although Daniel Ramsey saw virtually no one, the collector still dressed with care, as if at any moment he might receive a museum official or give a university talk. Pleated pants. Collared shirt. His favorite goofy explorer’s vest, a multipocketed khaki affair that made Anna cringe.

  He rose, his worn face brightening. He was always happy to see her, which made her feel guilty. She should stop by more often. “What a nice surprise.”

  Anna hugged him, smelled his breath. Force of habit. After her mother’s death, her father drank with the same gusto he applied to acquisitions. His collection of Mexican masks was reputably the largest in the country. His drinking had been equally epic. It took a fender bender to persuade him to go to treatment, which he grudgingly attended, though Anna still worried. She dropped the groceries in the kitchen, went to the living room couch. She had planned to tell him everything, but now the bad news stuck in her throat.

  “How was the opening?” he asked, sitting back down. “I could have gone, you know.”

  Anna was always steering her father away from the proverbial punch bowl. “Full of Warhol wannabes. You would have hated it.” She scanned the living room. The walls were riddled with tiny holes, as if from a shooting spree, the only clue that dozens of masks once hung there. Anna sat down, forced out the words. “You remember how I said I didn’t need my share of the money, that you should invest it? Well, I might need it after all.”

  Her father rubbed his jaw, not meeting her eyes.

  “Have they signed yet?” Anna asked. “You never give me updates.”

  He stared out the window into the cold. “There’s been a little hitch.” He rallied a halfhearted smile. “Let me put it this way: There’s good news and bad news.”

  Anna sat up, wary now. “What bad news?”

  “I’ll let you read it for yourself.” He hobbled to his desk, handed her a letter from the Metropolitan. Anna skimmed the opening paragraph of pleasantries and then read: “Regretfully, the Museum must suspend negotiations regarding the purchase of the Ramsey mask collection due to worrisome inconsistencies and inaccuracies in its documentation. Any information about the provenance of the masks, particularly receipts of sales, would help our investigation. Specifically, we have concerns about the masks attributed to Emilio Luna and Ricardo Rodríguez. There appears to be adulteration, antiquing, and artificial rusting. We are also unsure about the veracity of your book Dancing with the Tiger, where the same worrisome misinformation is presented as fact.”

  Anna’s mouth went dry. “What worrisome misinformation?”

  “There’s a second sheet with an inventory.”

  “After taking wood and paint samples, our curatorial team has confirmed the Centurion mask in the collection, reproduced on page 37 of the book, is not turn-of-the-century, as claimed. It appears to have been carved within the past decade. Contrary to claims made on page 122, Grasshopper masks were never danced in a town called Santa Catarina. There are nine Santa Catarinas in Mexico, but none holds a ‘Harvest Dance.’ These masks appear to be purely decorative, likely carved for commercial sale.”

  Anna skimmed ahead. Not only was the Met backing out of the sale, it had trashed Dancing with the Tiger, the book Anna had helped write. For decades, her father had dreamt of publishing the first definitive guide to Mexican masks, but he never would have finished if Anna hadn’t quit her editorial job and stepped in to help. Since then, she had subsisted on fact-checking gigs—and David.

  Anna flopped back in the couch. “I can’t believe it.”

  “They will have a field day with this online when it breaks.”

  “When it breaks?” It hadn’t occurred to Anna the disgrace would be public. Who would hire a fact-checker who couldn’t get her own book right?

  Her father grimaced. “It’s a juicy little story for the bloggers. Some will accuse us of fraud. Others will be nice and say we’re incompetent.”

  Anna’s shame twisted into anger. “You know more about Mexican masks than anyone in the country.”

  “Anyone can be fooled.”

  “You were drinking.”

  “You would blame global warming on my drinking. That’s over. I’m as dry as that plant.”

  The plant, an ivy, was near death. Anna checked the letter’s date. January 5, 2012. “This was sent a month ago. Did you ever respond? They’re asking for documentation. Don’t you have something?”

  “My journals, but nothing official enough to please them.” He set down his glass with a frown. “Why should I make their case? Let them send a nice art history docent into the jungle to verify things. Do they think I buy these masks at gift shops?” He hiked his voice into a falsetto. “Excuse me, Mr. Carver. Do you gift wrap? Oh, and I’d like an itemized receipt with that.”

  “It’s my fault. I should have gone down there. You expect forgeries in fine art or antiquities, but folk art?”

  “The art of forgery is as old as art itself. It’s not your fault. The book was my responsibility.”

  He shifted the crank so the footrest of his recliner rose, then crossed his hands over his belly and closed his eyes, as if something had been decided.

  “I need that money,” Anna said. “You need that money. That’s your retirement.” His calm infuriated her. �
��You don’t seem that upset.”

  “I was irate, but not anymore.”

  “They could be wrong. You know the carvers, they don’t.”

  “I suspect what they say is true. But you’re forgetting the good news.”

  “What good news?” Anna nearly spat. She had lost her fiancé and a family fortune in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Yesterday I got the most remarkable e-mail from Mexico.”

  He lowered his footrest, passed her his laptop. On the screen was a turquoise mosaic mask with blockish white teeth. One eye was missing. She noted these basics without enthusiasm.

  “Nice mask.” She couldn’t have cared less.

  “Magnificent mask. Sixteenth-century. Aztec. Just dug up in Mexico City. It’s for sale. Lorenzo Gonzáles is brokering the deal—”

  “Who found it?”

  Her father shifted in his chair. “A twigger.”

  “A what?”

  “A twigger. A tweaked digger. A meth addict. An American.”

  “How would an American twigger even get to Mexico?”

  “He took a bus, I imagine.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. Other daughters weren’t doing this.

  Her father nibbled the end of his glasses. “He’s a rather famous twigger in some circles.”

  “Famous for what?”

  “A soft touch. A keen eye. He’s not an archaeologist, but he’s made significant finds. He’s lucky. Got a sixth sense.” Her father swelled with avuncular pride, whether for himself or this digger Anna couldn’t tell. “The drugs help, of course. He’s driven. Always needs more money, more dope. Terribly sad, but what can you do?”

  “Send him to rehab.”

  “I am not his mother.”

  “Or father—”

  “These twiggers work like camels, go days without eating.” Her father leaned into his story, voice warming. “Hoover sites, don’t leave a scrap. And this one is the best. Here. I am forwarding you Gonzáles’s e-mail.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten grand.”

  Anna groaned.

  He finished his drink, whatever it was. Everything he drank looked like water. “This is a pre-Columbian funerary mask. Five hundred years old. A collector’s dream, and I have first crack at it. I’m flying to Oaxaca tomorrow to meet Gonzáles. He’ll oversee the sale. He gave me his word—”

  “How much does that cost?”

  “Two-grand commission, and worth every penny. Gonzáles directed the anthropology museum in Oaxaca. Now he’s a premier dealer in pre-Columbian art. Top of the line. Whatever he says about a piece—”

  “I know. I spoke with him on the phone multiple times. That’s the good news? Another mask?”

  He ignored her tone. “I wired Gonzáles a deposit. We have an exclusive until Wednesday. I pay the looter directly when I see him. Cash in hand.” He pointed to his bedroom, where presumably the money was waiting. “Of course, it would be easier to fly directly to Mexico City, but Gonzáles insists in meeting first in Oaxaca. What can you do?”

  Outside, sodden snow had sunk into gray banks. The average dream lasts about twenty minutes, a fact Anna had read somewhere, remembered. She had a knack for that: getting little things right and big things wrong. Their book sat on the coffee table. Anna gave it a shove. “Let’s face it, the Met isn’t buying, and no mask is going to change that. There’s not going to be a big ‘Daniel Ramsey’ in gold letters over the door.”

  Her father straightened, indignant. Anna knew what was coming.

  “This is not about me,” he said icily. “The Met is the largest museum in the United States. Four hundred galleries. More than fifty galleries of Asian art, seventy-two galleries of European painting. Guess how many rooms are dedicated to art of the Americas? Three. It’s an embarrassment, and they know it. The Met is an encyclopedic museum with many pages missing. Some people, apparently, are invisible. The art of some countries doesn’t matter.”

  “Dad, I know.” She had heard this rant a million times. “They are still not going design a gallery for one mask.”

  “They will for this one. For this one mask, the Rose White Ramsey Gallery will open with a black-tie reception and international press. Our book will be reissued with proper clarifications. The mask will be featured on postcards and T-shirts. This twigger is a fine digger, a connoisseur of controlled substances, I am sure, but no art historian.” He was practically levitating. “This is not some two-bit relic he’s dug up. It’s Montezuma’s funerary mask.”

  This new absurdity took Anna a moment to absorb. Her father’s eyes gleamed. He believed this. He wanted her to believe it. He was drunk. Dry drunk, whatever that meant.

  “The Montezuma?” she said at last. “There’s no such thing.” Even as she dismissed this, she remembered reading rumors she’d discounted as apocryphal. Like the Loch Ness monster and the blood-sucking chupacabra. “And you believe in this mask because some drug addict sent you an e-mail.”

  “Gonzáles sent the e-mail. He trusts his digger implicitly.”

  “Gonzáles,” Anna scoffed. “I don’t trust any of them. And even if it’s true, how are you going to smuggle it over the border? In your boxers?”

  “I am done playing fair.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Gonzáles will give the mask a legal provenance, say it was part of ‘an old European collection.’ Prior to 1970. Prior to UNESCO. Another fee, but so be it.”

  “So he’s a liar, too. I thought he was a respected—”

  “To accomplish a greater good. He wants me to have the mask for the Ramsey Collection. If I don’t buy it, Malone will. Then no one will see it but his housekeeper and her feather duster. Or Reyes will use it as a doorstop.”

  Thomas Malone was her father’s friendly rival, a man Anna had never met but loathed anyway. Malone was younger, richer, and lived in Oaxaca, all sources of envy. Óscar Reyes Carrillo was a Mexican drug lord, whom her father knew only by reputation, from hushed conversations in art circles.

  “Or . . .” her father continued, “it will be put in a Mexican museum and stolen within the year.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “You know how much a Mexican museum guard earns? Two-fifty a week. You think he’s not corruptible?”

  “So we’ll steal the mask first? That’s the American spirit.”

  “We are not stealing anything.” Her father’s face reddened. “Current cultural property law ignores the essential role the collector plays. We are the ones who safeguard art. We hold it and preserve and protect it from scoundrels. What did Hernán Cortés do when Montezuma gave him gold goblets? He melted them down. Furthermore, you forget, the gallery is not in my name. It’s the Rose White Ramsey Gallery. It was your mother’s money. My work, but her money. She loved those masks as much as I did.”

  Love. It justified anything. It was why he drank. Why he collected. Why he had never remarried. Her father had never recovered from her mother’s sudden death. Well, neither had Anna. She was only ten, a girl, a little girl who’d grown up without a mother. She resented her father’s epic descriptions of his loss. By magnifying his sorrows, he diminished her right to her own.

  “Mom didn’t love masks.” Anna’s voice was flat, lifeless. “She loved you. She loved Mexico.”

  Her father’s hands pulsed. “Any great achievement requires commitment and dedication. Your mother understood that.”

  “You never even buried her.” Anna stared into the bedroom. “Always another excuse. Oh, my knees. My back. There’s this mask I want to buy. . . . She wanted to be in Mexico.”

  Her father picked up his drink. Anna eyed it suspiciously. They had entered new terrain. She wasn’t sure what he’d do or say.

  “Ashes,” he snorted. “A silly romantic idea she wrote in her journal and now you hold me
to it. Your mother’s gone. Nothing I do will change that. But this death mask could bring the Ramsey Collection back to life.”

  Anna grabbed the laptop, marched to the kitchen. Hit Google.

  “Go ahead,” her father called from his chair. “Look it up. Read the history. There’s a mask drawing in the Codex Mendoza that’s an exact match. Snakes across the forehead, the warts. Turquoise and jade were more valuable than gold because green stones offered protection in the underworld. The sitio makes perfect sense. A half mile north of the Templo Mayor. Montezuma would have been buried in secret. Mexico City is a graveyard. The government has no idea what’s underground. The entire city should be excavated, but there’s no money. Who do you favor? The living or the dead? The present or the past? . . . Are you reading?”

  “I’m reading.”

  “Go to the British Museum. They have the largest collection of mosaic—”

  “I’m there.”

  Anna cinched her hair into a ponytail. “Montezuma the Second died in 1520. He was either stabbed by the Spanish or stoned by his own people for trying to placate Cortés. His death was unexpected. He was fifty-three. His body was thrown in the river. No mention of a mask. No, wait, his servants rescued and cremated him. . . . It was customary for royalty to be buried with masks to ensure their safe travel in the afterlife, but no one has ever found Montezuma’s funereal mask. Collectors have been looking for centuries. . . . Blah, blah. Holy grail. Please. Such a treasure would be priceless.”

  Anna studied the fridge. It was empty, but you couldn’t tell that from the outside. “What’s the going rate for priceless? For the Mexican Tutankhamen?”

  Her father coughed up something nasty. He did that a lot. It was getting worse. “Crass comparison. The truth is, I don’t know. Six million. That’s a wild guess. No less than that certainly. I’d give you the money. You’d be free. Your children would be free.”