Dancing with the Tiger (8 page)

She wore no jewelry. She carried no map. This was Mexico City, the largest metropolis in the western hemisphere, a city so dangerous tourists who climbed into the wrong taxi might never reach their hotel. The sky was slathered with a mayonnaise-like haze. Anna found a
taxi de sitio
, gave the driver the address.

“Tepito?” the driver muttered. “Not safe.”

“Yes,” Anna agreed. “I know.”

The cab roared north past blockish apartment buildings with stacked terraces, past billboards of big-chested blondes hawking hair spray and sugary fruit drinks. Ten lanes of traffic skimmed along Reforma. It was hard to believe this megalopolis was once an island in the middle of a lake. Mexico City was literally built over Tenochtitlán, the Aztecs'
glorious city of canals. By 1500, the population of Tenochtitlán was four times that of London, and for all the Aztecs' notorious barbarousness, their culture was advanced, with a 365-day calendar, poetry performances, a vibrant market selling gold and gems, feathers and spices. Produce grew in sunken gardens. Aqueducts transported drinking water. After the Conquest, the Spanish drained the lake, demolished the temples, or simply erected cathedrals over them. Today, like Venice, Mexico City was sinking. Drainage, subway lines, building foundations had settled and cracked. The Basilica of Guadalupe tilted so much the walk to the altar was uphill.

There's a metaphor,
Anna thought.

Right on Matamoros. Anna sat rigid, focused. Red cabs scurried like the cochineal bugs Indian women crushed to dye wool. The wind was filthy and soft. She didn't chat with the driver. Not here.

David never did shit like this. The most dangerous thing he'd ever done was order sushi in Pittsburgh.

Anna double-checked the e-mail. She'd scarcely looked at the photograph of the mask. She didn't care about the object, only what it would fetch. A small fortune. Her father's reputation. Her mother's museum wing. The humiliation of her ex. She practiced the words she would need to complete the transaction.
Máscara.
Mask.
Comprar.
To buy. A regular
ar
verb. What the hell was she doing here? She ought to have her head examined. No, drilled. The way the ancient Peruvian healers did, boring into the skulls of sick patients to release the misery trapped inside.

The taxi swung onto Jardineros, stopped mid-block in front of a sketchy-looking joint with a sign reading
TRES PERROS FEROCES
. The place was closed. For lunch? For good? Chairs were upturned on tables. The picture window was smeared. By comparison, the cab felt safe
and familiar, with its lingering smell of sausage and smoke. Anna had eight grand in a pouch under her shirt. A two-grand emergency fund in her wallet. No Gonzáles.

She paid the driver, asked him to wait. “I'm going to return to the bus station right after.”

The driver gave her an odd expression, like he trusted her less and respected her more. “How long?”

“Twenty minutes, maximum.”

He turned off the motor, left his meter running. Anna got out. A copper-colored dog limped down the road, followed by a wandering vendor selling
migas
. Pop music mixed with the hip-hop of mufflerless cars. Anna half hoped the restaurant door was locked, but it opened easily.

“Aló.”

No answer.

A meat carver lay on the bar, along with food-encrusted plates and discarded beer bottles. Garish orange walls were painted with cartoon dogs wielding pistols. The air smelled faintly of vomit. Anna tiptoed.

“Aló.”

The kitchen door swung open to reveal a face. Anna was expecting a Mexican, but this guy was Anglo. Jeans hung off his hips and belled around work boots. He appeared hungry, exhausted. His eyes looked like gumballs he'd popped in that morning. This was not Gonzáles. This was his twigger.

“Soy Anna, de la parte de Señor Ramsey. El coleccionista.”

He answered in English. “You're Daniel Ramsey?”

Anna nodded. Close enough. He waved her into the kitchen, the last place she wanted to go. She checked the window. The cab was already gone.

The kitchen reeked worse than the dining room. A sour-milk stink of defeat rose from stainless-steel sinks and bare shelving. Three windows struggled to let in light. A table had been dragged to the center of the room. Two chairs. A spit cup. A shiny cell phone. The twigger sat. His office. His face kept changing expression, film frames spliced in odd places. Who knew what he was seeing? Anna had read about meth. The idiots blew up houses. Lost their teeth. They were scab pickers, TV set disassemblers. The initial euphoria degenerated into paranoia and hallucinations. An addict would sell his mother for a high so rapturous it ruined his life.

“Daniel Ramsey sent me,” Anna said, relieved not to have to navigate the encounter in Spanish. “Is Lorenzo Gonzáles here yet? He's meeting us.”

The man checked behind him. “Not here.”

Anna tamped her impatience. She didn't see the mask, but it could be anywhere. The freezer. The oven. “I have the money.”

The looter made for the sink, his strides overly long, like he'd forgotten what little effort simple things took. He put a pot to boil for no apparent reason, returned to the table, tapping two fingers like a tuning fork.

“I wasn't expecting a woman.”

Anna spoke the same basic sentences she'd rehearsed in Spanish. “You contacted Daniel Ramsey. He's my father. I'm his daughter. We would like to buy your mask.”

“You're late.” The digger scratched his scabbed arms. Meth users had the sensation that bugs were scurrying under their skin. Termites. Beetles. Ants.

“Actually early,” she corrected. “We have until tomorrow.”

“I already sold the mask.”

“What?”

His head jerked. “You're late.”

Of all the terrible scenarios Anna had imagined, this one had not occurred to her.

“We had an exclusive.” She repeated this, the second time using the Spanish word,
exclusivo
, which sounded more emphatic. She checked the door, willing Gonzáles to walk through it.

The looter squinted. “Guess I lost track of time.”

“We sent a deposit.” Given the setting, this sounded hopelessly naive.

“I've got no record of that on my books.”

Anna scanned the kitchen. There were no books. There wasn't even a pen. “Who bought the mask?”

“It's still here.” More head-jerking, some botched reflex. “In back.”

Anna used her sweetest kindergarten voice. “Since we're here first, I'll buy the mask
now
, and you can have your money right away.”

The twigger slammed his fist into the table. Anna jumped. He slapped his face. Clarification. Reboot. This seemed to help. He loped into a back room and returned with a box the size of a toaster. A bungee cord held down four flaps.

“I have another offer, so the price has gone up,” he said.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five percent.”

Anna said okay. The guy was so cranked he probably couldn't count. She'd give him the full ten grand, which meant forfeiting all that delicious travel money, but oh well. Where the hell was Gonzáles? The looter hoisted his jeans. She looked at him, not the box. He seemed to appreciate this.

“Do you want to see the mask?”

Anna said she did. The looter put his finger to his lips, as if a baby bunny might be sleeping inside. Gingerly, Anna lifted the flaps.

The Mixtec were master stoneworkers, and this was a masterwork. Hundreds of turquoise shards had been cut, sanded, polished, and glued into place. The mask's seven teeth were fashioned from iridescent conch shell, neat as typewriter keys. One eye was missing. Had the looter smashed it? The intact shell eye was lined with gold leaf; its pupil was an elliptical black stone. The mask was surprisingly heavy, as if it carried metaphysical weight, a man's soul, his history, his quest for immortality.

Until now, Anna had pursued the death mask solely for what it could give her, but now she was overwhelmed by its cultural import. She remembered the facts she'd read. During his eighteen-year reign, Montezuma II wore sandals festooned with jewels, a nostril ring, a magnificent headdress with four hundred shimmering quetzal feathers mounted in gold. (This stunning relic was owned by Austria, which after five hundred years had agreed, in principle, to “loan” it to Mexico.) After his death, Montezuma's loyal servants placed a funerary mask with his urn so he would be ready to greet the gods. This journey had been disrupted by a twenty-first-century drug addict who needed a fix. It was unsavory to think about, so Anna didn't. She thought about how much she loved her father, how proud the mask would make him, how thrilled he would be to show the world this icon of Mexican history, to have it join the Ramsey Collection.

Her father was right: This mask would save the rest. All his journeys and bargaining, his forays into huts and jungles, his struggles with Spanish, his reading, his study, his courage, and even the death of his wife, had led him to this climactic moment. The death mask would not make Daniel Ramsey immortal, of course, but it might ease the sting of departure.

Anna dug up her money. It was her turn to shake as the looter counted the bills.

“My father told me you're an amazing digger,” she said. “That you work hard and are trustworthy.”

The looter puffed his thin chest. “I know where to look.”

Anna wondered if he'd lost count. Sure enough, he started again. You could almost pretend this was okay. Buying vegetables at a farm stand. She was getting used to his face. He reminded her of a boy from high school, a lifeguard driving to the pool on a quarter tank of gas. This twigger guy was not much older than she was. Drugs had muted his sheen, but not extinguished all light. Her fear melted to sympathy. To give him money was to feed his habit, but she had her father to think about. Her mother.

“We appreciate the call, the opportunity.” She was babbling.

An explosion cut in. Car or gun. The precariousness of the situation flew back at her: Mexico City, the addict, no cab. The mask sent a warning.
Get the fuck out of here.

“Okay, then,” Anna said. “Thank—”

The kitchen door flew open. A man appeared before them, black face mask, a pistol. They all just stood there, together. Two men, a woman, a mask, and a gun.

The gunman spoke first.
“¿Dónde está la máscara?”
He was looking right at it. His gun swerved. A mermaid tattoo swam up his forearm. “Who's she?”

Anna's hand darted in front of her face. A superhero, ready to catch bullets. With sickening clarity, she understood that of the three people gathered in this shitty restaurant, only one would get what he wanted.

“Another interested buyer.” The digger looked proud, like he was dating the girl everyone coveted. The gunman walked to the table, nudged the cash with his gun. The water on the stove was boiling over.

“This hers?”

“Hers,” the looter said. “Mine.”

The Mexican jammed the bills into his pants, took the mask, aimed the gun at Anna, daring her to object. She swallowed the wing nut lodged in her throat. The gunman grunted. “Mine now.”

Outside, life was still happening. Somewhere, a German tourist was buying a ticket to the anthropology museum. Somewhere, a mother was breastfeeding her infant underneath a woven
rebozo
. A world away, her father was watching the History Channel in his plaid chair, and here, at Tres Perros Feroces, a masked hit man was flexing his gun. Everything happened at the same time, but only certain things happened to you.

“I would appreciate if you didn't do that,” the looter began. Anna winced. The drug-addict idiot was challenging the masked man who carried a gun. “It took me two days to dig that out, and I deserve—”

The Mexican interrupted. “I've been told to kill you.”

The verb “kill” was
matar
. He'd used the future tense. Or some tricky form of subjunctive. The beginning of the verb was clear, the end less certain. And Anna thought:
A cockroach can live weeks without a head.

The gun clicked. Anna ducked under the table.

“Hombre. No hagas eso,”
the looter mumbled. Don't do this. “My mother wants to see her son in the morning.”

“
¿Tu mamá?
Where the hell is your mother?”

The gun danced loose in his hands.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A car alarm, then a siren. The sun came through the side window and made no difference. The gunman turned to the noise. The looter reached in a drawer and produced a pistol. His face ignited, no longer contrite but ecstatic.

“Aha, asshole, now what?” The looter zoomed his gun, a boy with a toy airplane.
“Pistola contra pistola.”

Anna tried to look worthless.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She thought of her mother and prayed. Not a real prayer, just a sloppy plea for more life. She was thirty. She could live three times this long. The refrigerator kicked on, then ranchero music, its shifty accordion sliding. And Anna thought:
Fire moves faster uphill than down.

The gunman moved back, money jammed in his groin, mask under one arm. Boots, black, pointed, stepped back, back again, then disappeared in a clatter.

The looter dumped the gun in the drawer, the boiling water in the sink. The car alarm had finally shut the fuck up. Anna stood. Her legs nearly gave way. She needed to leave, but wasn't sure how to make that happen.

“Who was that?”

“Some Mexican.”

There were twenty million Mexicans in Mexico City alone. “Yes, but which one?”

“Another buyer.”

“He didn't
buy
anything.”

“I didn't expect that shit. Armed robbery. I should have shot him.”

“Why didn't you?”