Dancing with the Tiger (26 page)

The dirt moved easily. The looter had to laugh. If his Divide buddies could see him now, humping for Jesus, digging for Guadalupe. To keep his mind off his aching back, his knees, his thin skin, he remembered the books he'd read about brave warriors who'd faced danger or challenge.
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward.

The plan was simple. A tunnel. The chapel's hillside location was perfect, miraculous, really. He could dig forward without first having to dig down. The woods hid his mess. The church's foundation was already crumbling.

He thought of Anna. Nice girl but a wreck. She seemed fearless or maybe numb. Malone had attacked her. Reyes's tiger was chasing her. He had tried to reassure her—
Reyes would never hurt an American
—
but the truth was, heads were rolling down the streets of Acapulco, seventy-two immigrants blindfolded and shot in Tamaulipas, six tortured and dumped in a cave outside Cancún, hearts carved from bodies like cantaloupe balls. This was the new Aztec nation, only these killings had nothing to do with the sun. Had Feo told Reyes that he was still alive?

Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die . . .

It was easy to be a hero in a poem.

By noon, his stomach hurt. The looter located a cigarette, sat back, smoked. He pictured Chelo. Lovely Chelo. Like a cello. He wondered if she looked like a cello, but couldn't remember what a cello looked like. He should have taken orchestra in high school. Another regret. He could stack them like poker chips.

He picked up his shovel, his mind caressing her body. He wanted her, all of her, even the baby. The straightness of her hair broke his heart, the openness of her forehead. They made a good pair. She had faith. He had experience. He'd traveled. She did laundry. She'd ironed his shirt that first morning. It was still warm when he slipped it over his chest.

Fucking tree root.

He crawled out for a saw. He'd like to take his girl to the beach, make love in the waves. He'd seen that in a movie once. As he dug, he tinkered with this fantasy. Sometimes her bathing suit evaporated in the water. Sometimes Chelo wasn't pregnant anymore. The baby was napping in a hammock. He'd been a proud fool. Let the girl have her religion.

A dog barked. The looter grabbed his gun, scampered out. On the
bluff, a scrappy white dog pressed its snout through the wire fence. The looter aimed, thought better of it, chucked a rock instead. The dog went nuts.

“¡Faustino!”
Angry Spanish. Maybe the housekeeper.

The looter retreated to the tunnel. He could kill the dog, but not the maid.

“¿Qué haces ahí?
”

Branches crackled. More barking.

“Someone's digging. Who's down there?”

The looter closed his eyes, pictured the Virgin. At Mari's house, he'd memorized the folds in the Virgin's green cloak, her face, which conveyed serenity and motherly love. Now he asked her to make the housekeeper leave, for her
señora
to call, her kettle to boil, her period to start. Praying gave wishes someplace to go.

“Basta,”
the woman snapped. “Let the workers alone. You're covered in burrs.”

The dog whimpered. Footsteps retreated. Birds. The knife sharpener's beckoning song. The looter dropped his shovel. Forget the tunnel. He wanted the girl.

—

He couldn't find her house
. The streets all looked the same. He stopped a few people and asked if they knew a girl named Chelo. “About so high. Freckles.
Lunares
.” The women shook their heads, scarcely masking their distrust. When a plump woman pushing a stroller asked, “Is Chelo in trouble?” he knew he had her.

“No, no. I am a friend, a visitor, and I lost her address. Maybe I
should yell,
Chelo, Chelo
.” He pantomimed calling her, hand to his mouth, wondering if he looked insane. She told him her house was two blocks ahead. Number 48 did not look familiar until he saw the white cat tiptoeing along its wall.

He needed a present. There was a
papelería
on the corner, but that wouldn't do.
Sorry I was a jerk. Here are some crayons.
Next, a shoe store. One summer he'd worked in a shoe store, and he knew the difference between leather and man-made uppers. He'd like to buy Chelo decent shoes, but didn't know her size. After that, a flower shop, thank God. He bought pink tulips and a toy puppy with a red felt tongue. Mexican girls like stuffed animals. He'd noticed this. He was proud of himself, spending money on the girl, thinking about what might please her.

He rang her bell. He was sweating, but who wasn't?

The door opened. Chelo looked like a stick figure a child would draw. Moon belly. Thin arms and legs. Straight hair. A splatter of freckles. A dopey smile took his mouth by surprise. He might love her. Or maybe this was the part before that, before love had a name.

“I found you.” He held out his gift.
“Lo siento.”

He'd learned
Lo siento
back in grade school.
Hello. Good-bye. I would like. I'm sorry.
A man could travel the world with four simple expressions. Let his dick and wallet handle the rest. It was easier to apologize in Spanish. The words slid off the tongue.
Lo siento. Lo siento
could be the sound track of his life.

The girl accepted the gifts without expression or thanks. He couldn't read her face. Dirt smudged her cheekbone. She'd been gardening. His grandmother had gardened, had let him drop seeds into holes he poked in the dirt. When sprouts emerged, he'd felt like a father. His pride curled inside him. He might lose his temper or melt at her feet. He
gazed past her, hoping the aunt wouldn't show up, hoping the aunt had a debilitating case of elephantiasis.

He tried again. “I prayed to the Virgin and then a pig told me . . . You were right. I came back because I was wrong and I missed you.”

Chelo consulted her womb, like the baby had equal say.

He would not grovel.
“¿Puedo pasar?”

Her hand dropped from the door. He cupped her hip with his palm. A cello. He could picture it now. He didn't deserve this girl, but he could become a man who did. The Maddox Principle of Opposing Equilibrium maintained there was always time to turn the boat around. Work hard. Care. Live by his word.

He kissed her cheek, his lips brushing the dirt. When he pulled back, she was smiling. He could draw her with six easy strokes. Two circles, four lines. But she was simple only on the outside.

She touched his face. “Can you help me in the garden? I can't bend over anymore.” She giggled. “I can't even see my feet.”

“From now on, your feet are my business.”

He said this. He meant it.

Daniel Ramsey couldn't sleep. Nausea. Regret. The stale metallic taste in his mouth. He gazed through the prison bars, into the hallway, which, through an unseen window, was shifting from darkness to light.

A man appeared outside his cell. Six-foot, lanky, with the soapy good looks of a baseball player, a catcher maybe, a man who could call tricky pitches, throw out a runner on first. His cap shadowed everything but the strong line of his jaw. He gripped the bars, hesitant, making up his mind.

“You related to Rose Ramsey, the art teacher?”

Daniel hadn't expected this. “She was my wife.”

“Mrs. Ramsey taught me art in middle school. Nice woman. Patient with kids with no talent, like me. She that way with you?”

“Who are you? The warden?”

“Night guard.”

“I was on my way to bury her when the cops pulled me over. Damn fools.” This was mostly true.

“How long has it been since Mrs. Ramsey passed?”

“Twenty years.”

“Took your time.”

“She wanted to be buried in Mexico. I was flying there.”

“Been saving up?”

“In a way.”

“But now you're in jail with a DUI.” The guard tapped the door with his foot. “You're supposed to drink
after
you get to Mexico.”

“I wasn't drunk.”

“You blew a .15.”

“I can handle that.”

“Report says you nearly smashed a van full of kiddies and ran up over the curb.”

“That makes it sound worse than it was. I'll pay the fine.”

“You'll pay with your license. Three-month suspension.”

“Can I leave the country?”

“You'll have to speak with the judge.”

“I'll be back in a week.”

“It depends on his mood. Connecticut state law demands two days in jail. Two days to six months. I'd count on a week. Friday, if you're lucky. I wouldn't tell the judge about burying Mrs. Ramsey. It doesn't ring true.”

“You got a better story?”

The guard thought for a minute. “Tell him you just retired and this trip was a present from your kids. You're a nervous flier and went a little
overboard self-medicating. Tell him how sorry you are, but you can't get a refund on your tour. Promise you won't drive in Mexico.”

Daniel nodded, patted his vest, felt his antacids, his compass that glowed in the dark.

The man tilted back, holding the bars. “What do you do for a living? You teach, too?”

“I'm retired and my children just gave me this trip to Mexico—”

“That's good, but I mean really.”

“I'm an art collector.”

“Paintings?”

“Masks. Pre-Columbian objects. Some folk art.”

“Masks?” The man held his palm over his face like a starfish.

Daniel nodded.

“What does an art collector
do
, exactly?”

“You study art, travel, meet dealers, visit artists, locate works of value, or works that will accrue value, either monetarily or culturally, pieces that are exceptional in some way. Rare or old. Unusual. Striking.”

“How do you make money?”

“You can sell the collection or sell individual pieces for a profit.”

“So you deal art?”

“No, more collect.”

“While Mrs. Ramsey was teaching?”

“While Rose was teaching.” He wasn't going to explain the economics of their marriage. This was another thing he and Thomas Malone had in common. They had both married money.

“But do you ever finish collecting? What's the end point?”

Daniel sighed. He was tired of explaining. His head hurt. “With
masks, you're done when every village or style is well represented. Or you could lose your passion, start collecting something new, or run out of money or make one particularly large purchase, a capstone.”

The fact that he was a prisoner struck him with new force. He didn't belong here. His tone grew irritable. “A collection is complete when the whole becomes more than any one part. When it fuses into something meaningful and lasting.”

The man chewed this over. “Like family.”

Daniel frowned. “Some families. Not all.” He was in no mood for sentimental comparisons. “Actually, no collection is ever complete.
I have every stamp. I have the perfect collection of Tiffany glass.
There are always subtleties, offshoots, curiosities. A collection ends when you die. Even then, it isn't done. You are.”

“Always more to want.”

“More to
learn
.
Appreciate.
It's like love. Where does that end?”

“You buying more masks when you're down there burying Mrs. Ramsey?” The light was getting stronger now. Dust mites swirled in the air.

“Am I going to buy more masks?” He repeated the question, realizing how the truth would sound. “No, burying my wife. That's it.”

The man released the bars. “I had your wife's class twice, I mean for two years. She decorated her classroom with all these posters and quotes. I only remember one. Monet or Matisse, maybe. You might know since you study art.”

Daniel couldn't remember Rosie's classroom. Had he ever been to see it? These little resurrections were gifts—as when a friend uncovered a forgotten letter, a photograph or story—and he could add this new memory to the mix of old ones, another collection, forever dwindling, as he and his memory aged.

“What was the quote?” he asked, nervous somehow. Afraid this artifact would prove disappointing, unworthy of her.

“What have you done for color today?”

“What?”

“It was a question:
What have you done for color today?
”

Daniel looked around the cell. “Not much. How about you?”

The man shrugged. “So far? Nothing. But I'm getting off work. Start by cooking my wife breakfast. It's her birthday.”

“That's color?”

“Red watermelon. Green rind. I don't know. I'm not an artist.”

Daniel Ramsey pictured Rose sitting in her chair, surrounded by art books. Rose had brought color to his life. Love, yes. But spirit and vigor. And Anna, of course. But more than that, Rosie noticed things. Like how the fuchsia blossoms of bougainvillea were not in fact blossoms, but leaves. The actual flowers were tiny and yellow, buried, nearly lost in all that showiness.

He looked up, ready to share this detail, but the man was gone.

Daniel Ramsey listened to the sounds of morning. Crackling scanner. Coffee brewing. The horrors of the previous night belonged to yesterday. Color. What had he done? What would he do? He leaned against the bars, straining to see the window where the light was coming from.

Emilio Luna looked confused. He had done commissions, but never in stone. The carver kept gazing past Anna as if Salvador might appear. He studied the photograph.

“Lo necesito rápido,”
Anna said, spinning her hands. The ugly American. It had come to this.

Emilio Luna lowered his chin, his voice soft as dust. “It's not my specialty. You need to go to the coast, where they work stone.”

“I don't have time.”

“I have other work.” The carver gestured to a pile of heart-shaped boxes. “My brother Javier would have to help. It will be too expensive.”

“¿Cuánto?”

Emilio Luna looked through the trees. “Four thousand pesos.”

Anna winced. “Three thousand?”

His dog sauntered over, settled its rear in the dirt. The carver
looked in its blue eyes, letting the animal decide. “Three thousand, five hundred.”

“Three thousand.”

“The stone is very expensive.
Sería mucho trabajo.
”

“Three thousand five hundred. Three days.” She held out her hand. He grasped it with a feathery touch.

“Do you want a deposit?” A bluff. She had only five hundred pesos. Emilio Luna shook his head. No deposit.

One more thing, Anna said. “If you please,
señor
, this is a secret. Don't tell anyone. Not even Salvador.”

—

At the bus stop,
Anna's phone rang. Constance Malone.

“You didn't come to work today. We were worried and finally I said, ‘I have to call.'”

“Montezuma's revenge,” Anna said. “I could barely form sentences. Please tell Thomas for me. I hate to miss work.”

Constance invited her to dinner Saturday night. “You'll be human by then.”

Saturday night. That would put Anna on the Malones' patio a day after her meeting with the Tiger, assuming she survived that encounter. The timing was perfect. The party would keep Thomas clear of the chapel. The noise would mask the looter's racket.

“I'd love to come,” Anna said. “Tell me what to bring.”

“Just you,” Constance said. “And Salvador.”

“I'm not sure I can. We've fallen out of touch.”

“Then bring another handsome painter.”

Anna promised to try.

She climbed on the local bus, feeling tall and blonde and thin, a flamingo in a duck pond, the wrong color and all out of proportion. As the bus rumbled out of San Juan del Monte, she took pictures through the window, not stopping to focus or compose. Super Medino. A
bicitaxi
.
Papel picado
hanging like lace. Blue wall. Green wall. Canary-yellow wall. And she thought:
There is more color on one Mexican street than in all of New England.
And she thought:
I belong in this place where I do not belong.