Dancing with the Tiger (11 page)

The looter sat in a playground in Chapultepec Park, watching children swing in the sunshine. He'd found a bench under a shady tree with a view of Benito Juárez or Pancho Villa or Óscar Reyes Carrillo. It was hard to say which. He'd been bingeing for days, a final blowout before he returned to Colorado. His heart trembled but his mind was clear, brilliant, in fact. He'd figured out how the entire jungle gym was assembled, drawn a blueprint in his head. When he got back to Divide, he'd build one for his nephew. Scotty was the kid's name. Or maybe it was Luke.

Only the death mask held him back. Montezuma?
Christ.
He hadn't thought big enough. That was always his problem, not daring to imagine how good things could be. He missed the mask. The damn thing was mouthy, but they had gotten along. Objects could be good company, if you let them get close.

He popped his last pills.

He'd seen a movie about Montezuma once, done a half-assed report in high school, decided that if granted an afterlife, he'd come back as King of the Aztecs. Guy had his own zoo. Tigers, lions, songbirds, parrots, snakes rattling in jars. His cooks made him three hundred dishes each meal—frogs in pimiento sauce, oysters, and winged ants, topped off with hot chocolate served in gold cups. And a pipe. Always a fucking pipe.

The looter wiped his face with his shirttail. The sun was relentless. A bully with one decent idea. Businessmen strolled past, popping phones. Facebook. E-mail. Good night, my tweet. He kept an eye out for Reyes. Both eyes. Bastard could be anywhere. The trees were talking, but he ignored them, muttering: “I'm busy here. Shuffling my cards.”

His father had taught him to play gin. Arnold Maddox, district manager of Pikes Peak Savings and Loan, had disinherited him, though he had nothing to hand down but a split-level and some waders. Arnold left his wife and kids. Started a rock band called the Wheelies. People built things, then didn't like what they'd built. Well, suck it up.
You were responsible for everything you made.

The trees whispered, “He's an unhappy man. You're okay now. You're Montezuma, King of the Aztecs.”

Or maybe he was just King of Divide. His homeland.
Center of the Known Universe.
Who thought that motto up? He laughed through his nose. Hell. Forget Divide. The new Montezuma should start a zoo right here in Chapultepec Park. Nab that tiger in the bushes. Design gardens. Bathe in the fountain. Where was the girl to help him undress? The parrots were making a racket. The dwarves were on strike. Cortés was whining about his cross. He wanted it higher.

“Forget Cortés,” the trees whispered. “That death mask is
yours
. Go get it. It was made for your face.”

On the next bench sat a plump woman with a kitty-cat T-shirt. Dark-skinned with a lighter boy playing nearby. A nanny, no doubt. Her bra cut into her sides. Her plastic watch matched her headband. Women without money made sure to match. The boy was throwing sand and she called,
“No, no, Manito.”

The looter got up, joined the nanny on her bench. She nudged away, gripping her phone like it was the battery pack for her brain. She tapped her watch.
“Ya es la hora.”

Nanny slid gum into her mouth. The smell of fake watermelon met the air. Her breasts shifted. His erection was as big as Mexico City. He needed her to take him in her watermelon mouth. People brought Montezuma gifts. Chocolate. Lizards for luck.

His hand reached to pet her thigh. His shadow arrived first.

Something dark caught his attention: three men, B-movie bad guys in leather jackets, ran toward him. Feo, Alfonso, and another goon. The looter took off, knocking a toddler into the sand. The harder he ran, the more nowhere he got.
Motherfuckers.
His pants were falling down he'd lost so much weight. He'd lost so much weight he could fly. He'd flown often in his dreams, soaring over villages and church steeples, peeping in the curtained windows where charcoal children slept. He had that kind of magic inside him. Buried. Waiting.

He flapped his arms. His sneakers lifted. He rose, up, up into the haze, until he was gazing down at the traffic on Reforma, the heaving buses, the spinning
glorietas
, the stoplights hanging like whistles. The boy from Colorado was flying high, two miles, three miles, a trillion, zillion miles into the stratosphere, the cosmos, where there was no need to breathe. Then, like outer space after the last star burned out, everything went dark.

Deception took more concentration than Anna realized. More tequila, too. Like Spanish, lies floated more freely off a lubricated tongue. Luckily, at Chez Malone, it was never too early for a drink. Her first afternoon, Thomas made Anna a frosty cocktail, then another, and Anna left 14 Amapolas pleasantly sloshed. Thomas had a sense of humor. He liked to slip on masks and do imitations. When Constance joined them, he did the same impersonations for her, defusing the possibility of marital jealousy lest it appear he was reserving his charms for his younger guest. Thomas was an extraordinarily busy man for someone without a job. The printer pumped out orders and his phone rang as he managed shipments with DHL. Throughout the editorial work, the flirtations, the elaborate charade, Anna kept her eyes fixed on the chapel.

It drove her crazy that the mask was so close yet unattainable. Anna had assumed Thomas would show off his prize or leave the chapel door
ajar, but he entered and exited in the same methodical manner: locking the door, giving the lock a pull, slipping a ring of keys into his pants pocket.
Damn his meticulousness
.
His paranoia.
Her only hope was to steal his keys or persuade him to invite her in. Both scenarios made Anna extraordinarily thirsty.

The work itself was not hard. Anna took a Polaroid of each mask, then typed notes: character, origin, artist, materials, dimensions, date danced, and any information available about the dance itself. Some dances dated back to the Conquest, when Indians reenacted fertility rituals and mocked the Spaniards—these masks were painted bright pink, representing the Europeans' terrible sunburns. Thomas sometimes asked Anna's opinion, but then disagreed with whatever she said. The resulting debates were charged and flirtatious. Were the wavy carvings wind or water? Was the double-faced mask meant to be twins or to show the duplicity of man?

“No doubt the latter,” Thomas said. “The Aztecs believed in man's essential duality. There were not good people and bad people. Every soul was good
and
evil. Sinners, saints, that whole fiction was a European invention.” He stopped for a dramatic pause. “The Spanish brought the devil to Mexico.”

“I think the mask is you,” Anna said, laughing. “The dual faces of the art collector. You pretend something is shoddy to pay less.”

“It's the same tactic you use with men.”

“I don't know why you hired me.” She challenged him with her mouth. “Cataloguing is tedious but not hard.”

“I hate writing. I have dyslexia.”

“Dog is God?”

“Which is why I order other parts of my life.”

“Guess what ‘Anna' is backwards?”

“Trouble.”

Thomas's advances had a gradual progression. Monday, he touched her hand. Tuesday, her knee. Each morning, she dressed with him in mind, debating which blouse, which earrings.
What the hell are you doing?
she'd ask her reflection.
Working,
the mirror replied. She had to woo Thomas to finagle a key to steal a mask to give to her father, who would oversee the creation of the new Rose White Ramsey Gallery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It was a lot to ask of one blouse.

How far she'd come from her twenties, when she'd hidden her figure in linen tent dresses. Men pursued her not because they knew or liked her, but because she looked like the girl they thought they deserved. As Anna took no credit for her appearance—just as a homely girl could not be blamed for looking plain—she felt unworthy of their regard, and was convinced they would be disappointed when they knew her well. She slept with men because they wanted her, because sex was pleasure you could count on. In a sense, she had waited her whole life to play Anna Bookman, to use her looks to get what
she
wanted, and Thomas Malone would fall for her because he was a shallow man in love with beautiful things.

—

The next afternoon,
Constance drifted out to the patio at day's end. Sensing she was lonely, Anna stayed to talk. A minute later, Constance called Anna by the wrong name.

“Holly?” Anna said, confused. “Who's she?”

Constance coughed, stifling embarrassment, then said curtly, “She used to work here.”

“With Soledad?”

“For Thomas.” Constance slid her legs under her chair. “She was his assistant. Before you.”

Anna tried to remember what the librarian had said. Something about Chiapas. “She found another job?”

“My husband can be difficult to work for. . . .”

“She left Mexico?”

“She went back to California.” Constance gave her nose an irritated wipe. One of the dogs—Morocco? Or was it Honduras? Anna couldn't tell them apart, had never really bothered to try—came over, panting. Constance batted him away with her foot.

Something was wrong, but Anna couldn't tell what. “Were you close?”

“Not now.” Constance's smile wobbled. “She's sent a postcard or two, like Reyes.
Thinking of you
sort of drivel.” Her voice hardened, making clear that this moment of vulnerability had ended. She picked up a watering can. “Excuse me. I've got a few chores to do before tonight.”

“I could help you.”

Constance fastened a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear.

“No,” she said. “Actually, you can't.”

—

On Thursday,
Thomas suggested that after work the next day, they go out for a drink to celebrate their first week. When Anna agreed, he excused himself to make a long-distance call. It was late afternoon and the neighbor's chain saw was roaring. Constance had taken the car to Soriana for groceries. Anna waited a minute, then, trying to look casual, headed across the lawn to the chapel.

She passed the pool, which desperately needed a cleaning, and, seeing no one, strolled to the chapel door. The padlock was old, took a skeleton key. No brand name. She yanked it. Definitely locked. She stepped back, circled the building. The pair of opaque windows on each side didn't appear to open. In back, the round window was set high, presumably over the altar. Behind the chapel, a flimsy wire fence marked the property line, where the land fell off dramatically. Down the bluff, a gaggle of children scampered about the neighbors' messy yard. Anna surveyed the landscape, then realized something surprising. The Malones' security wall extended to the edge of their property line, turned the corner inward, ran ten yards, and then stopped. Just stopped. While from the street, the wall gave the appearance of impenetrability, it was actually porous, if you were willing to trespass the Mendez property and hack through the woods. Had they run out of money? Was the embankment too unstable? Or had workers been lured to another job, then promised to return, but never done so? Perhaps, over time, the job had been forgotten, hidden by the woods that provided a natural buffer and deterrent, unless someone
really
wanted to sneak onto the Malones' property. Like the dogs. Like Anna.

The chain saw ground louder. Anna gazed into the woods. What kind of man kept secrets from his wife? Every man, she supposed. But this wasn't a private drawer or sexual fantasy, but an entire building Constance was forbidden to enter. It was creepy, sad too, as if Thomas Malone had locked up his soul or heart, his libido or intelligence, his greed or magnificence—some essential part of himself that he dared not expose.

A hand landed on her shoulder. Anna jumped.

“You wandered off,” Thomas said loudly, straining to be heard.

“I didn't hear you with the chain saw.” Anna tapped her ears. “You scared me.”

The saw cut out with a snarl.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

Anna did her best to look innocent. “Exploring. I wondered how far back the property line went. Who lives there?” She pointed down the ravine, hoping to distract him.

“Mexicans. Chickens.”

“What do they do for a living?”

“The chickens?”

She punched his arm, light, playful. He guided her back to the house. They passed the pool, the peacocks. Behind the chain link, the male opened its plumage. Glorious blue feathers formed a monstrous fan. Its tail had a million black eyes.

“Your expression . . . You look odd,” Thomas said. “Like a guilty child.”

Anna laughed. “Guilty? No, just thinking.”

“Thinking of what?”

“About what you'll bring me tomorrow and whether I'll like it.”

—

They met in an underground café
. The collector appeared the same but different, less husband, more businessman, an executive with squash trophies and gold cards, a man who drank Heineken and didn't recycle, a man who paid someone to walk his dog, who flew business class, read
Barron's
, did mini triathlons, bought art. His body looked thin, pressed, lonely in his clothes.

They sat under a hanging spider plant, next to a lugubrious painting of a disassembled woman. Luis Miguel crooned through invisible speakers. Thomas flagged the waiter, ordered two mescals, two beers, and guacamole, glancing at Anna to confirm. She pulled out a notebook. Thomas put his hand over hers, flattening her pen into silence.

“We're always talking about masks. Tell me more about you. What do you like to do? I mean, what are you really good at?”

Fucked-up relationships,
Anna thought.
I am really good at those.

“I like to travel.”

“We could do that,” Thomas said. “I need to go to Guanajuato before the show. Afterward, you could help me with new acquisitions.”

“Acquiring what?”

“Objects of value.”

“Just objects?”

Drinks appeared. Thomas took his shot in a single swallow. Anna matched him. Sade was cooing in the background. Fucking Sade. Always. Everywhere. Still.

Buzzed already, Anna adopted a more practical tone. “Wouldn't Constance want to do that with you? Traveling, I mean.”

Thomas appeared unfazed by the mention of his wife. “Constance hates traveling and is a lousy bookkeeper. She would appreciate you keeping the proverbial eye on her peripatetic partner. It's a tongue twister.”

A spider plant baby snagged Anna's hair. Thomas reached for the menu, revealing a tattoo above his wrist. It disappeared before Anna could make out the image. He pulled out his reading glasses. Tight rectangular frames. There was something endearing about the gesture, a small weakness. Anna was always looking for vulnerability. A place to insert herself.

His voice changed, turning almost sentimental.

“You're the perfect girl for me. I love masks. You love masks. I drink mescal. You drink mescal. I have money. You need money. I collect, and you need to be . . . collected.”

Anna made her mouth go saucy. “All that older-man stuff. I like that.”

The afternoon cocktail had met up with the evening cocktail and danced around her empty stomach. Anna thought back to the shower of the Puesta del Sol. That woman, limp and discarded, seemed miles away.

“Tell me more about Holly. Constance mentioned her.”

“There's nothing much to tell. She worked for us and then moved back home to California. Oaxaca is like that.” The collector tapped his menu. “Find something you like.”

Anna tilted her head. “I already have.”

His fingers had passed over his mouth, like he'd swallowed something.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine. Small headache. It will pass.” He admired her. “You have beautiful cheekbones. The human skeleton is an amazing sculpture. What's that at the end of your necklace?”

“San Antonio.”

“You're Catholic?”

“It was my mother's. He's the patron saint of the traveler.” Anna held out the amulet. “I rub it when there's turbulence, or trouble. I don't know if it works, but I'm too scared to take it off. I'd like to believe in a higher power, but . . .”

“You can't. Organized religion is so damn conventional, so limiting. It makes me—”

Just then, four beaming mariachis in black suits with gold buttons
appeared at their table, blasting “Guantanamera.” Thomas put down a bill. More shots appeared. Thomas gave Anna a leading look that said,
I wanted to please you. Soon it will be your turn to please me.
The music was too loud to speak over. Anna let the mescal's roar meet the trumpets, ceding control to whoever took over when her inhibitions faded. She was a better date drunk than sober. More witty. More bright. One man had actually told her this.

Yo soy un hombre sincero

De donde crecen las palmas

Anna imagined sex with Thomas. Would he feel bony or kind, or kind of bony, a friendly skeleton? Would he maintain his avuncular scorn? Imagining sex made it difficult to speak. It was like trying to talk while watching a movie. Her mouth tasted like ashes. The guacamole lay untouched.

The mariachis drifted to the next table. Anna didn't know what to say anymore. She and Thomas had reached a new level. Beyond small talk and banter. Anna had done things like this, but not this. Thomas spoke in a whisper that felt like a spell: “Come with me,
mi flaca
. There's something I want to show you.”

He led her up a staircase, following a sign saying
TERRAZA
. Anna watched her step, remembering the Hitchcock movie where Jimmy Stewart pushed a woman off a tower, or did she jump? All she remembered was, Kim Novak wound up dead. They reached a roof deck. He led her to the edge. The stars were scattered. Two fuzzy blue crosses shone above the distant cathedral. The air was soft as skin. Beneath them, cars jostled over cobblestones. Anna waited. The illicitness of the
encounter aroused her, as bad things often did. There were many reasons to let this happen.

Her mother was dead. Her fiancé was unfaithful. The cute painter on the
zócalo
thought she and her father were American fools.