Dancing with the Tiger (31 page)

Anna held still, held on.

His footsteps approached. She stopped breathing. A hand touched her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

Anna did not move or speak.

He repeated the question.

She whispered, “I wanted to see the collection.”

“For God's sake, get up. You look ridiculous.” Anna rose, steadying herself on the pew. Thomas was smiling, furious, bashful, proud. Maybe he'd secretly wanted to show off his creation. This could be another dark secret they shared.

“What do you think?” he asked. “I left the door open for you.”

“It's amazing. Scary, of course.” She was slurring. She didn't feel right. “All these faces. That's what you wanted, right? A haunted house, performance art.”

Thomas's face went blank. “I'm not mad.”

“You believe in Santa Muerte.” Each word took effort.

“Of course not. A religion for paupers and thieves. The saint of last resort. You might want to give her a shout.” Thomas grabbed her wrist, twisted it.

Anna fell back into the pew, too weak to stand.

“I am going to take back the death mask now.” He reached into her pack. “I can see you're tired. You should sleep soon.”

He had drugged her. Anna understood, but could do nothing to stop the chemicals easing into her bloodstream.

“I had high hopes for our collaboration, but your editorial skills were lacking. I am ready to enjoy you this time. I feel comfortable here in the chapel.”

He sat beside her on the pew, marking her veins with a finger.

“You are mad,” she said softly.

“I told you I am not mad.”

“I am not having sex with you.”

She was ill beyond speaking. Where was the looter? Where was Salvador? Thomas fetched a rope, tied her arms and legs. Anna watched this happen. She tried to scream but heard nothing. The chapel had bloomed into a cathedral, arches of light soared above her, and she floated, warm and remote.

“I will tell the others you fell ill and took a taxi home. Would you like to pick your mask tonight, or are you too tired? I am losing you, my dear. You are lost. Stay here with Holly while I dispose of our guests.”

Anna whispered the name.
Holly.
Sickness rose up her throat. She understood now. Yes, at last.

“Marvelous woman. Laugh like a bird, pout like a pin-up. I'd have given her anything, left all this, but she denied me. The more I begged, the harder she laughed.
I'd rather run away with Constance.
So many
games.
You can touch me here, but not there.
Her little mouth. Her dogteeth. She wore my masks.”

He had forgotten Anna entirely. His voice thinned to a pitiful whine.

“I don't ask for much. A little relief. A moment of pleasure. But each time, it gets harder. I paid her, but still she tortured me with her flirtations.
Think how much you'll miss me.
Nothing would change her mind. I brought her here. She wanted to see inside. They all do. But she wouldn't be quiet. She wouldn't obey. She was lovely. Blue scarf. Silly, vain crown. But she is lovely now, too. It took so much water to clean her, but I did it joyfully. She's a saint now. The center of attention, just like she always wanted.”

“You killed her.”

Intoxicating Holly with her tart smile and feather earrings was now a skeleton, festooned, hung up, revered in a perverse mix of religion and sex and obsession. The Grim Reaper. Lady Death. La Flaca.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Thomas scolded, with a burst of charm. “I'm a collector. I live for my collection, and I live with it.”

Thomas tugged each sleeve at the wrist, bowed before the altar, and left her. The chapel door clicked shut. Anna fought to hold on to consciousness. She pictured Salvador's face, marveling:
You Americans all come to Mexico to lose your minds.
Anna had not buried her mother's ashes. She had not told Salvador how happy he made her. Her father was drinking again, unattended. She was forever leaving things undone.

Soledad was rinsing plates in warm dishwater when Señor Thomas returned, letting the screen door slam, his eyebrows low and ugly over his eyes. The
señora
wanted to know where he had been, that much English Soledad understood, and she could tell by the
señora
's coiled body and tense voice that she was livid. “Where's Anna?” The
señor
stood at the end of the table, a corrupt senator, making a speech. Soledad caught only a few words.
Anna. Hotel. Taxi. Sick.

The
señora
was drunk, her jaw hanging like a car door, while the guests sat straight as cactuses, napkins folded, ankles crossed. The turnip one reached for his wife's hand under the table and gave it a squeeze.

The
señor
poured himself a brandy. The guests started talking, all but the Mexican, who looked like someone had punched him in the
panza
. Soledad caught his eye, telling him, wordlessly, that Thomas Malone was a liar.

“Soledad, make us some tea,
por favor
,” the
señor
said.

She filled the kettle, lit a match, watched the orange flames jump to life. The simple force of fire. Elemental. Purifying. Farmers knew this. Fire could clean a field or an entire city. Sodom or Gomorrah. She thought about Hugo. How pathetic he looked, thinner with his chest wrapped, the first gray hairs peeking over his bandage, how he had been weeping, like a man who wasn't a man at all, just a small boy who'd lived for decades. She fixated on the window, the mullions, crosses, the long sill. Timeline. Tightrope. Arrow. The housekeeper studied the window until she made up her mind.

—

Her hands fumbled
the key
in the moonlight. She looked back at the glow of the big house. At any moment, the
señor
might appear. At any moment, the
señora
would summon her. The key had a tag saying
CAPILLA
, but she couldn't make it work. She had never dared use the key, never admitted to anyone she had it left over from the previous
señora
, the cheap one, who counted bananas. Soledad closed her eyes.
“Querida
María, Madre de Dios y de todos nosotros . . .”

The key turned. She lifted the gas canister.

Inside, the chapel was even more terrifying than the glimpse she'd seen through the peephole. She kept her flashlight trained to the floor, afraid to look around, look back. The girl was laid out on a pew, a maiden in a fairy tale. She was pretty, even here. Soledad had a pang of envy that the girl lived in the United States and had the freedom to
travel, trade lovers, spend her dollars wherever she pleased. Americans cared little for family, which is why this Anna had wound up drugged in a chapel, reliant on a Mexican housekeeper for rescue. She could leave the girl here. There was no good reason to save her. And yet, of course, there was every reason.
Faith, without works, is nothing.

Something creaked. Soledad turned sharply. Devils, dragons, whores, lecherous Spaniards leered. The bones on the ceiling hung like poisonous mushrooms. Heart hammering, she lifted the girl by the shoulders, dragged her down the aisle. She was heavy, dead weight. Breathing hard, she set the girl down, then chastised herself for wasting time. She lifted her again and pulled her through the door, collapsing on the threshold. It was dark. She was alone.
He will shoot you, too.
A second voice inside her, which was her, another version of her, the brave Soledad who was on speaking terms with the Virgin, whispered,
He who knows the right thing and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

She counted to ten. This was her new habit. Many good things could happen between one and ten. Water boiled. The butcher took her order. She remembered how much she loved her husband, how lonely she would be without his touch. She could decide to forgive him for falling in love with a girl who sold paper.

A chill swept over her shoulder blades.

Someone was walking toward her. In the distance, somewhere in the hills of Oaxaca, a dog began to howl.

Hugo sat at the kitchen table of the cottage and pulled out the stationery he'd purchased from the paper shop so many months before. He lit a single candle. He picked up his pen.

Mi niña de amarillo,

Though much has happened since you left for Veracruz, my love for you has never wavered.

He touched his bandage. The doctor at the public hospital had asked no questions. He knew how such things happened. Hugo knew
he was lucky to be alive, and though Thomas Malone thought he was dead, Reyes did not, and the drug lord would not stop until this task was completed. Hugo had no right to put the girl in danger.

But I must let you fly away, little bird. I am too old for you. Too poor and too old. You will sing for a better man. Stay strong, my papershop girl. Remember me in your dreams as I remember you. The Aztecs chose the most beautiful young girls to be sacrificial maidens. I read this in your book. The girls would sing and care for the men chosen for sacrifice, making sure their final hours were blissful. You are such a maiden. I am that happy man.

Con gratitud,
Hugo

The gardener put down his pen.
If you were sacrificed, how long would your heart beat for me?
He would find out soon enough.

He thought of Soledad. His brave wife had gone to work that morning, weeping faked tears, confiding to the
señora
, who later told the
señor
, that Hugo had disappeared, run off with a younger woman. The
cabrón
had comforted her with soothing lies and rum in her tea while Hugo hid in the cottage,
callado como un muerto
. Silent as a corpse. They could not leave until he regained his strength. All day, hatred in her heart, Soledad had cooked and cleaned and fixed the Americans special coffee made with water from the toilet, brushing shoulders with a killer. But now it was past midnight, and where was she? The party had ended thirty minutes before.

The door burst open. Soledad stood before him, her expression ethereal, formidable. He quickly covered the letter.

“Where were you?”

“Doing God's work.”

“It's late. God is working overtime.” Hugo unfurled his hand, teasing out the story. “So tell me.”

“It's a secret.”

Hugo frowned. “It's dangerous out there.”

“The Virgin watches over me.”

“And what does the Virgin think about this work of yours?”

“She says, ‘
Buen trabajo, Soledad.
'”

“The Virgin sounds like a nun.”

“No. The Virgin is a rockstar.”

Hugo shook his head. “You know nothing about music.”

“I sing.”

“You are a beautiful woman blessed with a terrible voice.”

“A broken heart makes beautiful music.”

“Don't say that. It hurts me.” He reached into his pocket and removed a silver chain. A locket hung from the end. “This is for you.”

Soledad opened the locket, saw his picture inside. She smiled. His wife smiled upon him.

Hugo wrinkled his nose. “You smell gas?”

Soledad pushed her hands in her apron pockets, shook her head. No.

“Listen,” Hugo straightened in his chair. His body hurt all over. “I have memorized a poem. It's from the Huehuetlatolli, the lessons Nahua elders gave young boys. I have been studying them.

“The mature man:

a heart as firm as stone,

a wise countenance,

the owner of a face and a heart

who is capable of understanding.”

He meant the words as a prayer, a promise. His wife wiped her tired eyes. “I want that man.” She held out a hand.

Hugo hobbled to take it.

Anna woke up inside a car. Her head hurt. The digital clock said one in the morning. Someone was holding her hand. She snatched it back, then heard Salvador's soothing voice.
“Gracias a Dios
,
estaba tan preocupado.”
She fell into him and they held each other, tight as a planet, a circle of rock with its own weather and delicate clouds, light-years away from all they knew or who they had been.

“What happened?” It took effort to speak.

Salvador whispered the story, how he'd left the Malones', snuck back to the chapel, saw Soledad dragging her. Together, they carried her to the car.

And the looter?

Salvador shrugged.

And the mask?

“Still in the chapel, I guess.” He was caressing her forehead. “You don't want to . . .”

“No, I don't want to . . .” She sat up, kneaded her face, trying to think. “But Thomas can't have the mask. Anyone but him.”

“So we go
de ramate
?” That meant all the way.

Anna closed her eyes. She pictured the holes that scarred her father's living room walls, where the hooks had hung, the masks. She pictured her mother standing under an umbrella outside the van on the highway from La Esperanza, chatting in the window, pointing back to Anna. The car windows had filled with warm condensation, enough for Anna to draw hearts. She pictured a gallery with her mother's name, their collection, an homage to Mexico, to this amazing death mask, ferocious as God's spirit, resilient as man's spirit in a godless world.
Don't give up,
the mask told her. Or maybe that was her mother's voice. So far away now, difficult to hear. Anna breathed in, put a name to what she'd committed to. She was risking her life to save her father, to honor her mother, to protect the mask. She was risking her life to screw over Thomas Malone. Each reason was reason enough.

“Vamos de ramate.”

Salvador grinned.
“A todo dar.”
We give it all up.

Anna narrowed her eyes.
“A toda pinche madre.”

The whole fucking way.

“You're getting quite Mexican.”

“But how do we get inside? We're right back where we started.”

“
Un
regalo
from Soledad.” Salvador dangled a key.

“Where did she get—”

“Housekeepers . . .”

Anna touched his arm, stopping him. “There's more.” She told him
about Holly. Salvador didn't believe her. Malone must have bought the skeleton somewhere.

“No, it's her. He cleaned her down to the bone and dressed her up like Santa Muerte. He's sick, crazy.”

“There's no way—”

“He said,
‘It took so much water to clean her.'
We need to bring her out. For evidence.”

Salvador shook his head, disbelieving, believing. “So you are saying we need to steal a death mask
and
a skeleton?” The next string of swearing contained a
puta
, a
chingada
, and a
cabrón
.

Anna said, “I'll take that as a yes.”

—

Two a.m.
The moon shined bright as a coin. Tree frogs chanted. They pushed through the Mendezes' woods, frazzled and sweaty. The Malones' yard was silent. The pink house, the cottage, the chapel, the pool. Anna imagined the course of events after the dinner party dispersed. No doubt Thomas had returned to the chapel, been stunned to discover she was gone. Would he look for her? Unlikely. No, as the mask was safe, he'd keep up appearances. Slip on cotton pajamas. Steady his lips as he pecked Constance good night. Take a sleeping pill to soothe his brittle nerves. He had nothing to fear from Anna. Nothing that could not be explained away with a lie.

In the darkness, the pink house sulked like day-old cake. Anna and Salvador stood braced, checking the yard for signs of life, for Thomas, for Morocco, Honduras, but the only sound was the whirl of industrial air conditioners churning white noise and cold. Salvador gave a tense nod. They crept to the chapel. Anna jiggled the key in the door. It
turned. She hesitated. She could still see Thomas's remote eyes, feel his weight on her wrists. The stink of mescal.

Sensing her distress, Salvador pushed past her. “Wait here. I will do it.”

“No,” Anna said. “You can't carry her alone.”

As they entered, Salvador let out a hushed
Híjole
. Using his phone as a light, he scanned the masks, the ghouls, the bride, the banquet table set for dinner, then focused on a black stone mask hanging by a window. He moved closer, lifted the mask from its nail, flipped it over. “I don't believe it.”

“Believe what?” Anna had reached the altar. The death mask glared at her.
Time to stop fucking around.

“We bought this mask four years ago. It's from Teotihuacán, five hundred years after Christ. The face is a young boy, maybe a prince. It's supposed to be in Puebla, but here it is. Gonzáles
used
me. Salvador Flores, the great protector of Mexican art, was another idiot Gonzáles . . .” He couldn't find the right verb.

“Screwed over.” Anna stuffed the death mask in her pack. “He screwed both of us.”

“And where's your looter?” Salvador hissed. “Smoking his pipe?”

“Hurry.” Anna ripped the skeleton's dress. It smelled like bleach. Her heart was going nuts. Her hands felt like oven mitts. At any moment, Thomas Malone might appear. “Help me with this. It'll be easier to carry without the stupid dress.”

Salvador scowled, which meant yes, the same way
gracias
can mean no. No sooner had she removed the dress than she realized her mistake. Without it, the skeleton was floppy, hard to maneuver. Salvador crossed the arms over the chest. Anna grasped the ankles, trying not to feel squeamish. Salvador held one hand under the back, cupped the skull
with the other. The bones were surprisingly light. They hustled down the aisle, like EMTs without the stretcher. The masks watched them, hundreds of eyes and open mouths, horns and fangs and nostrils, seeing, seething, smelling, breathing.

Through the chapel door they went. The lawn was quiet. Fog had rolled in from somewhere. There was no way they could navigate the back woods, which meant having to leave through the front gate, a football field away, past peacocks, past the pool, past the pink house, which might, at any moment, light up. Salvador mouthed,
Apúrate
, but it was hard to hurry without dropping the skeleton or making a racket. At first Anna felt disgust—she was carrying a dead body—but her revulsion faded to tenderness for this puzzle of moving parts, each bone separate but connected.
This is who we all become. No, this is who we are now, underneath.

She kept her eyes glued to the house. If they were caught, she would tell Constance everything, every sordid detail. They'd nearly reached the pool, a tapestry of algae, when she looked behind her, gave a muffled cry.

A man had emerged from the woods.

Anna froze, ready to run, but it was not Thomas's angular frame. This man was smaller, slower, his face a blur that sharpened as he approached. Older, white, he looked a bit like her father. Then an entirely impossible thing happened. A fact beyond checking. Daniel Ramsey appeared through the fog, gave a short wave and a smile of recognition. He was limping, favoring his left side, the way he did when his knees hurt. His explorer's vest bulged with God only knew what. Eyedrops. Compass. An expired EpiPen. Anna did not move to embrace him, because she wasn't sure he was real.

“Dad?”

“I got to the Sunset late and—” Anna frantically shushed him. He began again, quieter. “Finally, a new clerk came on duty, a real pansy, and he gave me your note.”

Anna set down the skeleton, hugged her father, smelled his breath. Clean. She couldn't name her feelings. She wanted to pound his chest and she wanted to cry. Salvador's eyes danced with impatience, but he pulled back, giving them privacy.

“Did you bury her already?” her father asked.

Anna looked at the skeleton, confused.

“Your mother. The ashes.”

She wanted to say,
I've been a little busy.
Instead, she said, “I couldn't decide where . . .”

“I want to be there.”

Anger curdled dangerously inside her. The fallen man had conveniently resurrected himself and now demanded a starring role. He wore a necktie. This detail touched her. He'd dressed for the flight. She looked at his knees, the ones that didn't like to fly.

“We need to go.”

“You shouldn't have to do everything.”

“But I already
have
.” She reached into her pack and handed him the death mask. His mouth pinched as his fingers traced the warts, the grout. He turned the mask over, his thumb stroking the patina. After a quiet moment, he gestured to the skeleton. “What's that hideous thing?”

“It's too much to . . .”

Branches rustled. The woods. Anna swung around. It had taken her a moment to recognize her father, but she knew the looter at once: square shoulders, the drag of his right toe. The pregnant girl had to be Chelo. A child with a child inside. It was getting to be quite a party by
the pool: Anna, her father, Salvador, the looter, Chelo, the skeleton. The dead, the unborn, the living, all gathered at the home of the murderous American. Someone ought to serve drinks.

“Is that him?” Salvador murmured to Anna. Not waiting for the answer, he whispered loudly, “Where have
you
been?”

The looter glared at Anna. “Where's the mask?”

“Where were
you
?”

“Tied up.”

“I was tied up, too.”

“Did you use the tunnel?”

“It had no opening.”

“Where's the mask?”

Daniel Ramsey gave the death mask a teasing shake. The looter's shoulders shot back. His eyes set. Anna watched the house. They couldn't stay here. The night could explode in six million ways.

“We need to go now!”

The looter cursed. The patio light turned on. Anna's legs melted beneath her. The kitchen door opened. Fireflies danced in the dark. Anna saw just how foolish she had been, trusting air conditioners to keep them safe. Marching across the lawn in long, confident strides was Thomas Malone. He was holding a pistol.

They waited, transfixed by the gun and its deadly potential. Anna picked up Holly, as if to say,
She's mine now, not yours.
Five people had trespassed the Malones' enormous lawn, but when Thomas reached the group, he spoke only to Anna, his voice grim and mechanical.

“Put her down. Give me the mask.”

Daniel hesitated, then obeyed, all exuberance drained from his face. Malone took the mask. This loss felt predestined. No matter how many times Anna found the mask, she would lose it again. Like love. Lost.
Found. Lost and Found.
La oficina de objetos perdidos.
She ought to rent a room there.

Her father held up a hand, an elder calling for peace. “Thomas, you have what you want now. Put the gun away. You and I have known each other—”

“Shut up, old man. You're in over your head.” The collector pointed the pistol at Anna. “Put her down.”

Anna didn't budge.

“Anna,” Salvador pleaded.

She set down the feet, backpedaled a few yards. Thomas stooped, lifted the skeleton, stepped backward. He was taking his dead lover hostage. It was a lot to manage—a skeleton, a mask, and a gun—but he was getting away, getting away with everything. Anna watched, amazed by her own poor judgment. She had craved this man's admiration, wanted to prove she could keep pace, shot for shot, determined to succeed where her father had failed, and this vanity had put them all in peril.

A second-story window lit up. A miraculous sight.

Anna said, “Constance is awake.”

Thomas wheeled around. He ran in an awkward series of hops, but the skeleton was sluggish in the grass, arms flopping to either side. Eyeing the pool, Thomas shuffled past a planter to the water's edge and gave the bones a mean push. In the commotion, the gun dropped into the pool. Gone, in an instant. With a final, frantic heave, Malone shoved the skeleton into the water. To Anna's amazement, perhaps because of the algae or simple physics, it didn't sink. Thomas threw a rock at it, but the rock bounced impotently off the ribs and sank, joining his pistol in the deep end.

Holly made a regal sight, lying on her green tapestry beyond
everyone's reach.
Tibia, fibula, sternum, scapula.
It had been years since Anna had taken human anatomy, and the words drifted back to her, as foreign and lyrical as Spanish. The pelvis resembled a butterfly. The ribs, May Day ribbons. Holly's blue tiara drifted a few inches off her head. Free of Thomas and his atrocities, released from interpretations of the living, she floated, alone, at peace.

Across the lawn, Constance swooped toward them, her robe white and ghostlike. She carried her rifle.

Thomas called out before she arrived, his voice jaunty. “I'm sorry to wake you, my dear, but I'm afraid we've been robbed.”

Constance looked older without her usual grooming. Her light hair was pulled back in a headband and her pale eyes hovered, no longer anchored by a firm eyebrow pencil and mascara. She glared at each guest in turn.

“Why are all these people here? What's that in the pool?”

Thomas held up his hands, palms open, an innocent man. “It's just inconceivable. These felons broke into the chapel, stole a priceless mask, and were dragging my skeleton across the lawn. She's the centerpiece of my show, my Calavera Catrina, and they've ruined her. Chlorine is terrible for—”

“Which mask?” Constance's voice turned steely.

“A death mask,” Thomas said. “Montezuma's death mask.”

Anna was about to object, but stopped herself when Constance pointed her rifle at the tiara and said, “What's that?”