Dancing with the Tiger (25 page)

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.

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.

We must remove the mask.

—Michel de
Montaigne

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 . . .

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.

“You cut your cheek.”

“It just got worse.”

The man dug into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. His meaty thumb rubbed his eye socket. He looked exhausted, like a man who had never
learned to take care of himself, and no woman had volunteered for the job. Then it came to her, an electric realization. She knew him. He knew her. He held out a cigarette and a lighter. She took both. Still, no recognition.
How can you be so fucking unobservant?
Look at me, idiot. Look at my face.

Anna inhaled, mustering her strength. “So what are
you
doing here?”

“Mexico?” He gestured outward to nothing. “Looking for something I lost. Sold, really. I need it back. Then, tonight, I lost my girlfriend at a café.”

“You should be more careful.”

“I'll get it all back.”

“What did you lose? The thing, not the girl.”

The man hesitated, like he was debating between the long and short version. “A million-dollar mask.” He gave a quick grin.

Maybe it was the way his hoodie hung off his shallow chest, or the fact he didn't recognize her from five feet away, or how the only thing he had to brag about was something he'd lost, but Anna felt a wave of sympathy. Things weren't going to end well for this guy. He had burned his mind for kindling. He wore his sadness like clothes. Still, she couldn't resist playing him.

“Let me guess. You lost the death mask of Montezuma.”

He recoiled, amazed. “What the . . . How did you know that?”

“Simple,” Anna said. “So did I.”

—

When each story had been told,
retold, parsed and compared, when the last of the mescal had been drunk and cigarettes shared, when they'd lain on the steps and gazed into the night sky, gotten philosophical
about the passage of time and astrology, how little we humans knew, when they had talked about death and the trickiness of being fully alive, like they were right now, staying up all night, stargazing, when exhaustion set in and they got giddy and made fun of themselves, two American fuckups who'd met at church, two American fuckups who'd lost everything, the same priceless art treasure, the loves of their lives (Anna exaggerated this fact to keep him company), when they'd reviewed the impending threats, Thomas, the Tiger, Reyes, when the looter told her Reyes was missing half his right ear, when they'd laughed about this, speculating where the missing piece had gone, when Anna described the assault and the looter vowed to avenge her, when he lifted his fishing box and told her his gun now had bullets, when the sun ushered in the new day and the birds would not shut up about it, when they agreed to go for coffee, but couldn't move, Anna turned to the looter and said exactly what she was thinking: “We both want the same thing, but only one of us can have it.”

“I've been thinking about that,” he said.

“This whole story is like
lotería,
that Mexican bingo game.” The looter nodded vaguely. “Only we've got The Tiger, The Dealer, The Expatriate, The Drunk—”

“Who's that?” He looked hurt.

“My father.”

The looter shook his head. “We'll flip a coin.”

“I know a trick how to win.”

“No tricks. No lottery. Just fate.”

“We need the mask before March fifteenth. After Thomas's opening, everyone will know it's his. Game over. We've got what . . . a little more than two weeks.”

The smell of breakfast grease beckoned, but Anna had no desire to
leave. She felt oddly close to this man, as if they'd taken a long car trip together, shared junk food and confessions, or seen something big, like the Grand Canyon, and decided not to take any photos, just remember whatever stuck and let the rest fall away. You could tell strangers things you could never tell a lover.

The looter lay on his back, ankles crossed. “Malone has the mask. We just need a plan.” He'd said this many times.

A priest scurried past them, purring good day. He unlocked the church, propped the doors. Anna said, “If I don't find the mask by Friday, the Tiger is going to kill me.” How many times in her life had she tossed out this expression?
So-and-so is going to kill me.
Only now, it was true. “
And
chuck my mother's ashes in a dumpster.”

The looter pointed to the church doors. “I'm going in. Get some advice.”

“From him?”

“No, her.”

Anna hadn't expected this. A pious junkie. He'd told his whole life story without mentioning addiction, but you didn't get a face like his from sunbathing.

“You really think the Virgin is going to help you?” She resented his confidence. Other people had God and she didn't. It was like having family money, health insurance, a back hundred acres. Maybe her father needed religion to stop drinking. God was one of the Twelve Steps, she seemed to recall. Maybe the first step. Maybe the whole staircase. “She's saved your life once. Now you're back asking for more. Maybe she's got other customers.”

The looter shrugged. “Why wouldn't she help?”

Anna could think of a half-dozen reasons. Or none. “That's Chelo talking.” He looked peeved. “No, that's good, I mean. You're doing
it.” She had no idea what “it” was. “I'll wait here. Let me know what she says.”

He walked up the steps, toe dragging. As soon as he left, Anna missed him. The rest of the city would work today, ferry children to school, come home tired, sleep in their beds, as the donkeys brayed, as the dogs howled, as the moon rose, as water refilled the cisterns, as corrupt coyotes led Mexicans over the border, as gangs trafficked narcotics, as
putas
disrobed, as mariachis blasted their trumpets, as moths banged against flimsy screens, desperate to reach the light. None of it would stop for her, just as none of it had stopped for her mother.

Anna remembered something she'd read in the guidebook. This cathedral was famous for its
retablos
, small oil paintings done on slabs of tin or wood, thanking saints for blessings and miracles. Her father owned a few. She dragged herself vertical, went inside, found a chapel jammed with paintings, each the size of a hardback book, each relating a story of calamity and salvation.

I give thanks to the Virgin for saving my life. I was working in the circus when an elephant went crazy—

I give thanks that I found work as a prostitute here in La Merced. Take good care of me so I can send a few pennies to my parents.

San Judas Tadeo, I bring you thanks because my magueys are giving me lots of delicious pulque.

Thank you, sweet Virgin of Juquila, for Viagra.

Thank you, blessed Virgin, for sending me in time to rescue my son who was hanging himself.

Blessed art thou, San Sebastián, because my father accepted my homosexuality.

Thank you for getting the gang off that glue-sniffing shit.

There was an earthquake,

A lightning bolt,

A brutal storm at sea.

My friend's hair accidentally caught on fire.

Thank you, San Isidro the Plowman, for sending the rain.

Pablo lost his hand to a pig.

Esteban fell in a lake.

I had blasted rheumatism.

The iron fell.

Our nopales are better than last year's.

Thank you, sweet Virgin, for curing my sheep.

Anna walked outside. Her heart felt filled up, overflowing with the ten million ways life could go wrong—and then, miraculously, be saved. She sat, holding herself, rocking just a bit, imagining the
retablo
she would paint should her own string of calamities be resolved.
Thank you, blessed Virgin, for helping me rescue the death mask of Montezuma, for saving me from the Tiger, for getting my father off booze, for bringing
my mother's ashes to rest in Mexico, the country she loved, for making the fickle painter from the zócalo fall in love with me, for sending Miss Venezuela on a Mormon mission to Bora-Bora, for burning Thomas Malone at the stake.

There would be no room for a painting.

The final gratitude was the hardest to admit:
Thank you, blessed Virgin, for saving me from a marriage that would have failed.

She wished she were eating a steaming plate of huevos rancheros. She wished she were wearing more clothes so that none of her skin was exposed.
Endure,
she thought. This moment will lead to the next. She must have looked pathetic, because when the looter reappeared, he patted her back tentatively, as if he wasn't sure he was doing it right. The small kindness broke her down.

“Don't worry,” he said. “We'll get the mask back.”

“It feels like everything . . .”

She stopped herself, rubbed her forehead, thankful for this person, whoever he was. He couldn't solve all her problems, but perhaps he could help her with one.

“What did the Virgin say?” she asked.

The looter said, “She told me to dig.”