Dancing with the Tiger (13 page)

The looter woke up handcuffed in the back of an SUV, a gun barrel pressed into his waist. Three Mexicans rode with him. Feo, Alfonso, the other punk from the safe house. The looter tried to figure how much trouble he was in. He remembered buying at Pico's stand, but after that things grew hazy. Cross-eyed, he could see his nose was swollen and pulpy. Blood caked his shirt. He wanted many things, but only asked for one.

“¿Un tabaco?”

“Por supuesto, mi cariño.”
Alfonso sat beside him, holding the gun. “Let me light it for you.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see Gonzáles.”

Gonzáles was better than Reyes. The looter had never met Gonzáles, saw no reason to meet him now.

“Where's Gonzáles?”

“Oaxaca.”

“Why the handcuffs?”

“We don't want you to escape.”

Alfonso put the cigarette in the looter's lips. The smoke felt close to bliss. An hour later, they reached Oaxaca, wove into the city. The SUV parked in a decent neighborhood: a good sign. Alfonso pushed him out of the car. The four men marched to the front door, banging buckets and sacks.

Alfonso rang the bell. Feo was his usual ugly self, so many muscles he could hardly lower his arms. His T-shirt read
HECHO EN MÉXICO
.
A housekeeper opened the door, saw the handcuffs, looked alarmed. She was a wide woman with earrings running up one lobe, like someone had gone nuts with a stapler.

“Señor Gonzáles is not here,” she said, closing the door. “He's away in Cuernavaca.”

Feo drew a gun, pushed her aside. “Where's the bathroom? The master bath?”

The housekeeper pointed up the stairs. Feo grabbed her chin, making sure she was listening. “We're hungry. Make us some food.”

The looter tried to catch the housekeeper's attention, to convey that she should call the police, but he missed her face by a mile. Her wide pants swayed as she drifted into the kitchen. A burner ignited with a whoosh.

The bathroom was marble, sunken tub, white tile. Feo threw the looter on the toilet. The punk filled the buckets with water, dumped in a bag of powder, stirred the sludge with a stick. Feo kept his aim fixed on the looter's head. The looter trembled. He understood. They would bury him in cement and leave him for dead.

An ice cream truck passed, playing a childish ditty. The smell of corn oil pushed up the stairs. This wasn't happening to anyone but him.

The mixer barked, “Help me, assholes.”

Feo shot the kid a look, warning him to watch it.

They worked together, mixing and dumping. The cement, pasty and foul, was the color of elephants, not that the looter had seen elephants, but he'd drawn them as a boy, used up gray markers to fill their enormous hides. Fragments of his life appeared to him. Colorado. The mountains, the ranch houses, his mother. She had wanted him to be an accountant because he was good with numbers. Math. Algebra. Where had
x
gotten him? He'd dropped out of community college and drifted to Utah, started digging, dealing; his two passions went well together. After crossing the border, he did a few drug runs in Juárez, but always returned to digging. Underground, he was lucky. He was the guy who found stuff, the guy who wouldn't stop till he did. He had stamina. Charisma. All those words ending in
a
. America. Where was his country to save him?

“Cariño,”
Feo said, unlocking the cuffs. “Your bath is ready. Take off your clothes.”

“I'm leaving for Colorado today. I have a flight to catch.”

“That plane has been delayed.”

Trembling, the looter loosened his belt buckle. Now that his hands were free, he couldn't make them work. “Please . . .”

Feo lowered his gun to the looter's genitals. “Hurry up.”

The looter dropped his clothing in a heap. His body was his only possession. Naked, he stepped into the tub. The cool cement covered his ankles. Who would think to kill a man this way? The human imagination had too much time on its hands. Feo produced duct tape, sealed the looter's mouth.

“Sit down,
señor arqueólogo
,” Feo said. “Relax.”

Feo jammed his gun into the looter's ribs. It jerked but did not go off. The other two kept mixing. Arrowheads of sweat stained their shirts.

Feo swiveled on the toilet seat, grinding his jaw, reminiscing. “You fucking idiot. That mask was worth a fortune. You think Reyes is going to put up with that shit? No one steals from Reyes.”

Cement covered the looter's skinny calves, the white legs his mother had once scrubbed clean, the legs that wound around women as he kissed their necks. The itching was unbearable. The sweat on his scalp itched and the hair on his splayed legs itched and his nose was running. He mumbled into the tape, used his eyes to plead for mercy. He had beautiful eyes. Every woman he'd slept with had told him so. But Feo turned away, exposing a scar on his neck, a dog on a choke chain. These men were not in their bodies.

It was time to pray, but all the looter could think was
Shoot me now,
the punch line from a joke he no longer remembered. The cement reached his armpits. These men were dogs. He'd heard of decapitation, of profanity scrawled on corpses, but not this. This was not intelligent.

An even more degrading idea struck him: He was being buried alive in a bathtub not because he'd stolen the death mask, but to send a message to Gonzáles. He was not Christopher Maddox; he was a dry-erase board, a human Post-it. Not even his death was his own. His bowels emptied. His ears rang. Sweat dropped from his chin. He was a young man, with gifts.
No one else finds the shit I do.

He could run but they would kill him. He could scream but no one would hear. He could wait and someone might find him. He was a
treasure buried underground, a looter who needed a looter. The Maddox Principle of Opposing Equilibrium had failed him in every way.

Shovel after shovel.

Closing his eyes, he was a boy again on the beach in North Carolina. His sister was burying him in wet sand. She'd dug a pit and arranged him inside it, then set about to cover him. The ocean surf crashed in regular intervals. His skin smelled like coconut. Sandpipers pranced in the waves. A day like this could last forever. On her beach chair, his mother checked her tan lines, pleased she was no longer white.

Cement circled his neck.

“Wait here,” Feo said. “We'll be back after lunch.”

Thomas Malone drove fast, which didn't surprise Anna. What surprised her was how good it felt to be in his car, watching him shift the phallic clutch, feeling the breeze through the open window, going somewhere, anywhere, fast. Combat boots, swishy dress, lipstick red as Valentine roses, she'd dressed to get what she wanted. At a light, they stopped alongside a house painted a luscious shade of terra-cotta. A birdcage hung from the wall. Inside, a pair of canaries fought, a hideous, screeching explosion of feathers. Mexico was always doing that: beauty and cruelty shadowboxing.

“I'm glad you called,” Thomas said. “Turn around. I packed cocktails.”

On the backseat was a cooler with a thermos and two cups.

“Margaritas?”

“Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien también.”

For everything bad, mescal, and for everything good as well.

She filled two cups, handed him one, felt a chill as she slid hers between her thighs for safekeeping.

They nudged through traffic, past El Llano Park, where families pushed strollers, waited in line for flavored ice. Normal people doing normal things on a Sunday afternoon. Safe bet she was the only woman in Oaxaca seducing a nefarious art collector to steal an Aztec death mask.

“Have you made any friends yet?” Thomas asked. “Besides us.”

Banking on jealousy to work in her favor, Anna said, “I met a local painter. Constance knows him. Salvador Flores. He's going to take me to Carnival in San Juan del Monte.”

Thomas gave her a withering look. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“What's that mean?”

“Did he offer to be your guide and show you secret places that only he knows? Take you for a donkey ride? Sell you a rug from his grandmother for a very special price?” Thomas chortled. “I didn't know you wanted to go native.”

“Okay.” Anna folded her arms. “Enough. I'm going to miss work Tuesday. That okay?”

Ignoring the question, Thomas made a childish sad face. “Poor Salvador. He sits on the
zócalo
and pounces on the loneliest girl he sees. Was that you? Well, not anymore. I've rescued you.” The collector patted her thigh. “Funny. He usually goes for college girls, present-tense girls on exchange programs.
Vroom, vroom
on the motorbike.”

“Where are we going?” Anna said coldly.

“Cheer up. He's bamboozled the best of them.”

“Where are we going?”

“There's a place near here I like. I thought we could talk.”

“What kind of place?”

“You'll see. It's not fancy, but I didn't think you were into fancy.”

“I'm not.”

“Good girl.”

This last comment annoyed her, like it was his job,
his right
, to recognize value and bestow it, to control her by praising the behavior he desired. She was a good girl when she affirmed what he'd already decided to do. She wanted to say:
You don't get to decide what's good or bad.
She wanted to say:
Just because you're older doesn't mean you're right.
But Anna Bookman kept her mouth shut. She was after his keys.

In the ugly outskirts of the city, Thomas pulled into the parking lot of a minty bunker called the VIP Hotel. A garish flamingo tap-danced across its façade. The long-legged bird wore a rakish top hat over a leering mascaraed eye. Thomas drove around back, nosed his bumper up to room 7. Without a word he got out, popped the trunk, grabbed a briefcase and a cardboard box.

“I brought you a present.” He shook the box, teasing her into the room, before disappearing inside.

Anna sat, debating what to do next. The VIP Hotel was the sort of low-rent motel frequented by truckers and prostitutes, mid-level politicians and their mistresses. Anna didn't know whether to be flattered or appalled. She felt silly following him if they weren't going to have sex, but she also felt dumb sitting in the car, exposed, unclaimed, the last suitcase circling the baggage carousel.

Anna poured the last of the margaritas into her cup.

By the time she got inside, alcohol had loosened her misgivings. She liked how drinking made simple actions more difficult, and difficult actions unthinkable, thereby lowering her expectations of herself to a
manageable level. Walking. Talking. Petty theft. She could manage these things with a buzz. She just needed two minutes alone with his keys, to return the bad one, snatch another.
Send him for ice. Dig through coat pockets. Have him take a shower. Dig through pants. Wait till he's sleeping. Dig through his fucking briefs.

With a vague sweep, Anna took in the worn-out furnishings. They could be anywhere. Phoenix or Taipei. The dispassion of the place aroused her. They'd entered a box of anonymity and indifference. What happened here didn't count. Thomas reclined on the bed, feet up.

Anna said, “This is a funny place to talk.”

She caught her face in the mirror. The circles under her eyes formed tiny suitcases of worry. Thomas had already opened a liter of mescal, poured two shots.

Thomas slid scissors across the nylon bedspread. “Open your gift.”

Anna considered the box. To open it was to commit to the object inside. Hereafter, she would own something he'd given her. “You didn't have to do that.” Anna always said this when given a present.

“I wanted to. Open it. Then decide.”

Decide what?
she nearly asked.

Anna ran the scissors through the tape. The flaps opened. Looking up at her was a mask of a sensual woman with wild orange hair and almond-shaped eyes. A golden fly decorated each sculpted cheek. Her fleshy lips whispered a secret.

“She's beautiful.”

“I think so.”

“Who is she?”

“La Malinche. Mistress of Cortés.”

“The traitor? Thanks a lot.”

“Seductress of the conquistador.”

“The most hated woman in Mexico. The interpreter who sold out the entire indigenous race.”

“The woman who helped Catholicism triumph over the pagan practice of human sacrifice and ensured that the Virgin Mary became the most beloved saint.”

“
La chingada.
The whore.” Anna finished her shot. Her tongue felt grainy and soiled. “If I'm Malinche, that makes you Cortés. Didn't he have syphilis?”

Thomas gave her a cool appraisal. “I thought a woman with your imagination would enjoy being Malinche, that you'd find a way to astonish a quiet boy from Ohio. I bet as a girl you liked the circus.”

Anna's face tightened. Were her desires that obvious?

“Let's face it: You're done with artists from the
zócalo
.” Thomas touched her shoulder. “Put on the mask. Surprise me with a dance. I brought music.”

Anna retreated into the bathroom, head spinning. She'd had sex for worse reasons. Self-doubt. Boredom. Pity. This might be the most heroic sex she'd ever had. The most satisfying. She'd screw Thomas Malone, then screw him over. A year from now, she'd slip on her little black dress and invite him to the grand opening of the Rose White Ramsey Gallery at the Met. She was a victim only if she lost. Of course, she knew what to do with the mask of La Malinche. Every woman did. The mask was heavy, but not impossible. She checked her face in the mirror. She looked like the kind of prostitute who worked the VIP Hotel.

And she thought:
It takes the average snowflake two hours to fall.

She opened the bathroom door. Brazilian music bubbled caramelized pop. Candlelight made the room wobbly and golden. Full-dressed, Thomas leaned against the far wall. He tugged his cuff down over his wrist. Their every encounter, every glance and word, offer and
counteroffer, had been designed to lead her here. He wanted her to dance a mask for him. All along, he had known she was willing.

Anna danced. Smoky, dangerous, smart. She was seducing him. She was seducing herself. Slipping an arched foot from her combat boots, she let her sweater puddle on the floor. When her dress dropped, she caressed her camisole. She touched herself. Men wanted to see themselves, then see how you were different. She wasn't naked. She was wearing a costume. Exposed but hidden, she was Anna. She was Malinche. Whore. Heroine. Captive. Insurgent. Forget the chapel.
She
was a goddamn new religion. Her breasts, celestial clouds. Her pussy, a burning bush.

Anna found her glass. Thomas refilled it.

“How am I doing?” She was hammered and didn't care. She was going to win this game. Take home the grand prize.

“Wonderful,” he said.

“You know how the dance ends.”

Thomas shushed her. “Strippers don't talk.”

“Oh, I see.” With mock seriousness, she recited an expression her Spanish teacher had always used.
“Con la boca caillita, te ves más bonita.”

With your mouth shut, you look more beautiful. She remembered the most ridiculous things.

Thomas pressed a finger over her lips. “Exactly.”

Anna spun away, let the music stir her insides. A mask had no value unless it was danced. Maybe the same held true for women. She danced. She disrobed. She got down to a bra and panties. Thomas was still fully dressed.

“If this is strip poker, I seem to be losing.”

“Shhhhhh.”

She led him to bed, pushed him down, straddled him, reached around his hips. No keys. The mask was heavy and she took it off.
Thomas tensed. Her mouth grazed his, but got no response. He did not touch her. His face was remote. He was stiff, but not where it mattered.

“What's wrong?” She was pretty sure she was doing most things right.

“We should wait for the chapel.”

“Is that what you do in there?”

“It all depends.”

“I thought you didn't let anyone in.”

“Someday. When we have a relationship.”

“What do you call this?”

“An encounter.”

Anna got up, found her dress. It took effort not to feel bad. She had been rejected by a man she didn't want. An oxymoron. Something. Her back to the bed, Anna jangled his jacket. No keys. That left the briefcase, open on the table. Through the blinds, a red neon sign blinked:
MARISC
OS
AL
CHEFF
.
She felt like a blonde in a Hopper painting, sexy to look at, broken inside.

“You brought me to this fine hotel just to dance?” She was trying to understand what was happening.

“We're building trust.”

Anna turned sharply. “I trust a man who wants me. That I understand. I don't know what this is.”

“We'll wait for the chapel. Anticipation heightens pleasure. Like virgins on their wedding night.”

“Virgins?” Anna gestured around the room.

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“This virgin needs another drink. Ice, this time. I saw a machine outside.”

Thomas roused himself, smoothed his hair, then disappeared so quickly Anna wondered if he'd ditched her, but then she heard the clatter of falling ice. She found his keys in the pocket of his briefcase. She worked quickly, sliding the bad key back on. But which key should she take next? In the briefcase, a postcard caught her eye, a black-and-white photograph of a glamorous woman, whose face had been smudged with white paste. Another taunt from Reyes? Anna turned it over.
Juliet in Mud Mask
from the Getty. She jumped to the bottom.
Love always, Holly.
The card began,
Hello, you two, this card made me think of—

“What are you doing?”

Thomas Malone stood in the doorway.

“Looking for a cigarette.” Anna shuffled the papers, burying the card. “Did you bring any?”

“You were looking through my things.”

“For cigarettes.” Anna looked him directly in the eye, unblinking. “Why? You have secrets in here?”

“Of course.” He handed Anna the ice bucket. She reached for the bottle. No key. No sex. Failure was killing her buzz.

“Put the mask back on,” he said. “It becomes you.”

“No, I become it.
Her.
”

He sat down, patted the bed. “Lie with me. I want to imagine us together.”

“We are together. We
were
more together.”

He tied on her mask. She let him do this. Thomas lay down, eyes closed, fondled her breasts through her dress. She lay with him, watched his face. His mouth quivered with pleasure. She was aroused, despite herself.

“What's happening?” she asked.

“We're making love in the chapel.”

“Am I wearing a mask?”

“Of course.”

“Then how do you know it's me?”

A police car streamed past, siren blazing.

When he didn't answer, Anna Bookman nibbled his ear. “I want you to show me the chapel.”

“I'll take you soon,” he murmured.

“I can't wait.”

“
No veo la hora.
That's what Argentineans say. ‘I can't see the hour
.
'”

“I can't even see a minute.”

Time passed. Time passed as they lay in the bed of the VIP Hotel, two Americans in Mexico, while outside, a blue sign advertised the building's vacancy, while outside, a boy rode a bike with no hands, while outside, workers from the graveyard shift streamed out of the Coca-Cola plant, while outside, two nuns hunched in a doorway, selling dry sugar cookies, thirty pesos a bag. They lay in the dark and said nothing, a smiling man and a woman in a mask.