Dancing with the Tiger (33 page)

Soledad found Hugo back at the cottage, shaking under a blanket, murmuring nonsense about an eighth omen, a burning temple, a fallen empire.

“Don't worry, my love,” she whispered. “Tonight, we go.”

She made a beeline to the Malones' pink house, ran up to her mistress's bedroom. She opened her jewelry box, lifting the gold to judge its heft. In Constance's underwear drawer, under push-up bras and silk slips, lay a stash of dollars bundled with a rubber band. Soledad had asked the Virgin Mary about the morality of stealing from the wife of the man who had shot her husband, and the Virgin told her to take enough to pay for medical bills, back wages, and a new dress. In the bottom drawer, she discovered pesos and a gun, and collected those, too, holding the gun at arm's length like a dead mouse. She raced back to the cottage and said good-bye to her kitchen, the curtains, the honeysuckle breeze.

At dawn, she and Hugo began the long journey north on a second-class bus. They nibbled pork sandwiches and shared a bag of Sabritas. They held hands.

They arrived in Real de Catorce late in the day. The two-and-a-half-kilometer tunnel into the city was closed to cars because of a festival, so they entered in a horse-drawn carriage, clutching their bags in the half-light. Every minute, a carriage approached from the other direction. The shadowed faces of passengers whisked past them, stirring up the manure-laced breeze. Nauseated, Soledad nibbled salty crackers.

When they emerged, the city lay wide and open and bright. The air was thin at 2,750 meters and they panted up the hill, past vendors selling mementos of San Francisco de Asís
.
In the Templo de la Purísima Concepción, they prayed. It was the first time they had been to church together since their wedding. Soledad thanked the Virgin and asked for forgiveness. (Perhaps she had taken sufficient money to buy several dresses.) When she finished praying, Hugo's head was still bowed. Soledad wished she could read his mind—
What does he believe? Whom does he love?
—but it was enough to have him at her side.

He is mine now.

I no longer have any need to learn English. I have always hated English. It is not a musical language. Maybe I will learn Italian instead.

An odd group gathered on the morning after the fire. Anna, her father, Salvador, the looter, and Chelo clustered around a patio table at the Puesta del Sol. The looter looked like he'd slept in his clothes. Chelo's hand rested on her belly, protecting her baby from the next threat, though the patio was peaceful, bathed in sunshine, smelling like butter. Already the idea of a man in a tiger's mask seemed like a dream, a
pesadilla
, not quite credible, replaced by the much more palpable threat of the fire, which Anna could still smell on her fingertips and taste in her throat. She had barely slept, thoughts churning about this meeting, how to make everything come out right.

Salvador was sketching in a notebook, his face wan and depleted. Only Daniel Ramsey seemed bright-eyed, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup, nibbling a mint toothpick, tap-tapping a tourist map on the
table's edge, like he had places to go. Anna had two masks in her pack: the death mask of Montezuma and a fake fashioned by Emilio Luna's brother. The looter would fall for a lie. The truth would be harder to sell.

“Thanks for coming,” Anna said. “I thought we should talk about what to do now.” She gave the genuine death mask to her father. “You can confirm the mask for us?”

Her father's face softened as he ran his fingers over its bumpy surface. The looter snapped to his feet, lit a smoke, began pacing.

“An amazing piece of history,” Daniel Ramsey marveled. “Stunning workmanship, a true piece of art, and then when you consider its role in history . . .” He dropped his head, suddenly shy. “But as I told Anna last night, I don't want it.”

The looter stopped cold. Salvador did a double take. Anna had been just as stunned when her father had told her. At first, she'd been angry. Was he too proud to accept her gift? Was he collecting something new? Medieval sheet music? Fertility dolls?

“I don't want anything.” Daniel had used these same words the night before. “Collecting made me happy once, but it doesn't anymore. For years, I was chasing something that was already gone. I wanted my wife back and—”

He looked away, shrugged. “Maybe, in a strange way, I was looking for myself.
This is me. This is what I love.
Anyway”—he gave the mask a brisk salute—“the mask is precious, priceless, but it isn't mine. Even if I bought it.”

He handed it back to Anna.

“Then it's settled,” the looter said. “I'll take it to Marisol.”

“Mari?” Anna twisted her shoulders. “Actually, I've been thinking . . . this might sound crazy . . . but maybe we should just put the mask back.”

The looter glared. “In the chapel?”

“No,” Anna said. “In the ground.”

The looter cinched down his cap. Chelo read his body language. Understood trouble. “And why would we do that?” he said. “We had an agreement.”

“Right, we did, but I don't need the mask anymore, and you could give Mari this other one.” She handed him the reproduction. “It's the copy we had made. Frankly, it just doesn't feel right, stealing from the dead. Mari wouldn't approve of grave robbing. Bad karma.
Mala onda.
”

Chelo flinched. She understood those two words.

“Mala onda,”
the looter scoffed. “Speak for yourself. Good things are happening to me. Don't you want the money?”

Anna stared at the door of her shitty hotel room. She was becoming rather fond of it. The ceiling fan, despite appearances, had not fallen, and she'd been messing around with the old typewriter.

“Not this way,” she said. “Some other way, maybe.”

The looter kicked a chair, stubborn, sullen. Anna imagined that different versions of this same thing had happened to Christopher Maddox before. He'd failed a test of courage or character, disappointing those he'd most hoped to impress. She remembered how he'd looked in Tepito. Crazy eyes. Pistol jerking. That addict was still inside him, a skeleton from his past.

Anna said softly, “You could bring Mari some other wonderful thing.” She repeated herself in Spanish.

Chelo whispered. The looter shook his head. Before it was settled, Chelo piped up in Spanish. “He could give Mari my needlepoint. He helped make it.”

The looter gazed at her with wonder. “You should see this thing. It started out just a bunch of holes, but she's colored in the whole Virgin Mary.”

Chelo looked worried.
“¿No te gusta?”
The two of them bowed their heads, conferring, this time loud enough for Anna to hear.

“Of course I like it. But I couldn't ask you.”

“You didn't ask. I offered.”

“We could sell the mask. Buy a house for the baby. That's a lot of money to—”

“Not that way.”

The looter swore, kicked the bricks, outvoted by the women he'd come to trust. “All right, then. Back it goes.”

Anna lowered her shoulders. “You think you can find the cave?”

“You would hope. I spent two days down there.”

“You'd have to seal it up somehow.”

The looter perked up. “I could set an explosive and send a bunch of rock flying down. No one would ever find it.”

Salvador winced. “How about a shovel?”

“That would work, too.”

No one said anything. The mask had brought them together, but now nothing bound them, like a cast after its final performance. The looter, in particular, seemed reluctant to part. He put his arm awkwardly around Chelo. “I'm going to be a father.”

“¿Sabes si es un niño o una niña?”
Anna asked Chelo.

“I think it's a boy.” The girl looked happy, proud.

—

When Anna presented
the fake mask to Lorenzo Gonzáles, the dealer didn't even bother to pull out his magnifying glass. He was short with her. No pompous lectures about antiquities or the role of the collector.
“It's a cheap reproduction.” He pushed the mask back at her. “I have no use for it.”

Anna did her best to look shocked. “With all your connections, I'm sure you could find the right buyer.”

Gonzáles leaned in, curious now. “And who is the right buyer for such a mask?”

“A collector with discriminating taste and unlimited funds. Someone who lost a precious mask and urgently wants it back for an upcoming show. In fact, if such a mask appeared in a rival's show, the dealer might be blamed for having, well, screwed things up.”

Anna smiled sweetly.

Lorenzo Gonzáles gave her a look of pure hatred. He reached into a strongbox.

Anna couldn't resist one final jab. “I understand you've done a great job renovating your bathroom. Perhaps you'd give me a tour.”

Gonzáles stiffened. “Tell me how much this treasure costs.”

“It's very expensive,” Anna said, cheerily. “But I'm sure you could resell it for a handsome profit.”

“Yes, I suppose I could.”

“You've heard the line ‘
Art is what you can get away with
'?”

The fat man brightened ever so slightly. “That's good. Who said it?”

“Another man who loved masks,” Anna said. “Andy Warhol.”

—

Anna fed a sheet of
paper
into the manual typewriter. She typed without thinking. She did not check her facts.

I've worn a mask most of my life. Most people do. As a little girl, I covered my face with my hands, figuring if I couldn't see my father, he couldn't see me. When this didn't work, I hid behind Halloween masks: clowns and witches and Ronald McDonald. Years later, when I went to Mexico, I understood just how far a mask can take you. In the dusty streets, villagers turned themselves into jaguars, hyenas, the devil himself. For years, I thought wearing a mask was a way to start over, become someone new. Now I know better. A mask doesn't change who you are; it lets you be the person you've always been, the person you paper over out of habit or timidity or fear. Some people—people like me—have to try on a lot of faces before they find one that fits.

She ripped out the sheet and placed it in a folder.
There. A start.
Salvador was right: she didn't hate masks, though she would never collect them. Instead, she would write a book, part history, part memoir. She would interview carvers—with Salvador's help, yes, she
did
need a guide, or better, a partner—and weave their tales together with the story of her own family: her parents' collection, the accident, the hunt for the death mask.

Anna lifted the mescal bottle.
Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien también.
It was tempting. Tonight, maybe. Or tomorrow. But not alone anymore. Not every vice of her father's need be her own. She gazed out the window. Patio. Cherub. Pristine sky. She shuddered. Thomas Malone was out there. Somewhere. Everyone was somewhere, even when they were lost.

He had never been in a cave sober, and in this old haunt, his craving for meth slammed against him, a flat iron searing his heart.
I want you. You want me. Don't pretend otherwise.
In his memory, he'd built the cave to be a magical place, but it was a piss hole. Lighter, straws, tinfoil, razor blades. Artifacts of his mean existence. He was a grave robber. His chest tightened at the thought. What if, when he died, Chelo buried him with his dog or favorite boots, and some cranked-up nobody stole his stuff? Sold it to a fucking museum. Sold package deals to church groups. Who had that right?

He pulled out the mask, hunched down, back smarting. He'd lost the flexibility for this sort of contortion. He stuck his trowel in the ground. An amazing idea came to him. He was such an idiot. Montezuma wasn't buried with
just
a mask. A king would be buried with an urn, jewelry, royal who-the-fuck-knew-what. Emperor shit. Loot. He'd
been so damn tweaked he'd run off without digging deeper. Once again, he'd stopped short.

It wasn't too late to say
Screw you, Anna.
Pawn the mask in Tepito, get high as a gargoyle. Come back. Dig this place dry. Who was this Anna to tell him what was right? Pico awaited. Pimply Pico and his brown bag of goodies. He could turn Chelo on. They could smoke ice and do needlepoint. Finish the Virgin in twenty-four hours.

The death mask wasn't the end; it was the beginning.

Shivering, he curled into a ball, held himself, hating himself, stopping himself from being himself, whimpering
nonononono
. How could one sweet Mexican girl save Colorado's trash? He was a looter. A walking corpse. Rocking now. Crying. Piece of shit that he was. Fucking baby. Baby. Baby. He was going to be a father. Baby. He was sobbing now. Baby. His heart shook.
Focus on the baby.
He didn't know shit about babies. Why would any baby love him?
Focus, asshole.
Okay, the Gerber baby. Fat cheeks. Mouth open. Goo-goo eyes. Baby. Applesauce. Pureed peaches. Steady.
Focus.
Your son. That was easier.
Your son.
Throwing a ball in the yard. Hamburger smell. Beer can. Cute kid. American Dream. Fatherhood. Dad. Daddy. Da-da. Da.

He could die here with the mask. Just let his heart explode.

He uncoiled, jammed the mask in the crevasse, let it go. Inching backward, he grabbed his shovel, hurled dirt, filling in the hole before he changed his mind. What was the opposite of looting? Burial. Consecration. Dedication.
Hallowed be Thy name.
He was going to have a son. Baby. You could sing to a baby. Baby. He sang now, the Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia's honeycomb voice.
There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night.

The job got done. It was easier to bury things than reveal them. He'd known that ever since he'd had something to hide. He crawled
into the sun, thinking,
Adiós, amigo.
Christopher Maddox, the college dropout from Divide, Colorado, was never climbing into another cave. He wasn't a looter anymore. He was Cruise Maddox, honest man, expectant father. That was something. Good enough for today. Tomorrow. Amen.