Getaway

by Lisa Brackmann

  Some of what Tom had told her was true. Financing on a project had fallen through, like he said, and he’d made some bad investments. A hedge fund was involved, the assets of which were “rehypothecated,” whatever that meant.

  He hadn’t told her the rest. That he’d counted on the housing market’s continuing to rise to make up the difference, and when the bubble had started to deflate, how he’d taken clients’ money that was supposed to be reinvested into other real estate and instead used it to pay off clients he already owed.

  Her lawyer had tried to explain it to her. How what Tom had done was something between a Ponzi scheme and a shell game. He’d started drawing a diagram, with various investment funds and projects, holding companies, warehouse lenders, brokers, “holders in due course,” “asset-backed pass-throughs,” “tranches.”

  “Do you actually understand all this?” she’d finally asked him.

  “Are you kidding?” he’d said. “No one does. Not even the guys who invented this stuff.”

  The beach was brutally hot. She’d already gone into the water twice to cool off. The second time she stayed in awhile. Bobbed up and down in the surf, thoughts circling in her head like they were caught in some kind of whirlpool.

  A week. Would that really be the end of it? How did she know that Gary wouldn’t just bury the evidence when he was done with her, like he’d threatened to do?

  They find all kinds of things up at that dump!

  When she retrieved her bag with her wallet and cell phone from behind the bar, she saw that she’d missed a call.

  Unknown caller. A U.S. number, area code 561. No message.

  Wrong number?

  Her finger hovered over the touchscreen.

  She tapped the number.

  “Hello?”

  A woman’s voice. Unfamiliar. American, she thought.

  “You called me?”

  A throaty giggle. “I did.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Emma. We met at María’s party.”

  “Oh.” Michelle remembered her now, the pretty woman with the forties pinup look.

  The one whose father Daniel worked for.

  “Right,” Michelle said. “How nice of you to call.”

  “Are you busy tonight? I thought we could get together for drinks. And conversation.”

  Michelle hesitated.

  It was one thing, she thought, to risk going over to Charlie’s. Charlie, whom she’d had no real reason to suspect of any involvement in the craziness that had somehow taken over her life.

  Emma, however, she’d encountered in the thick of it, at María’s party.

  “I’m not sure if—”

  “Oh, come on,” Emma said. “Just meet me for a drink. It’ll be fun. Besides …”

  There was a burst of music on the other end of the line, then silence, like someone had turned down a radio.

  “I can tell you some things you need to know.”

  [CHAPTER NINETEEN]

  The place Emma wanted to meet was a club north of downtown, past the marine terminal. “It’s new,” she said. “Close to the Walmart.”

  The name was El Pirata, which, if Michelle had to guess, she figured meant “The Pirate.” She really hoped it wasn’t a theme bar.

  “This is the place,” the taxi driver said. He hesitated. “You don’t look like the kind of lady who goes there.”

  From the street it looked fairly bland: a multistory stucco box with neon trim and an unavoidable Jolly Roger graphic above double doors flanked by bouncers. A few people waited outside, a couple of young women, almost girls, wearing tiny dresses and ridiculous heels, accompanied by young men wearing more gold jewelry than the women, several middle-aged men—Americans or Europeans, she thought—in shorts and polos or Hawaiian shirts. She could already hear the boom of music reverberating through the walls. It was late, midnight—the earliest Emma said she could meet.

  Michelle hesitated in the taxi. Do I really want to do this? she thought.

  It’s a public place, she told herself. It had to be pretty safe. Worth the risk anyway. So far Emma was the only person she’d met who seemed more than willing to speak openly about who and what people really were.

  That is, if she was telling the truth.

  There was a cover charge at the door.

  Great, Michelle thought, handing over the two hundred pesos.

  Inside, what she noticed was not so much the pirate theme as the stripper pole, and the topless girl gyrating around it.

  Just great.

  The place was a quarter full at best, dimly lit, with disco lighting on the dance floor where the stripper worked. Michelle scanned the club looking for Emma. Jolly Rogers on the walls, rope rigging, and an exaggerated topless figurehead with huge breasts on a fake ship’s prow.

  Toward the back, in a high leatherette booth, a woman lifted her arm and waved.

  “There you are,” Emma said loudly as Michelle approached. She patted the seat next to her. “I was afraid you’d wimp out. Isn’t this place cute?”

  “It’s … um … I haven’t been to many clubs like this.”

  “I thought about a gay club,” Emma said, “but my boyfriend doesn’t approve. What do you want to drink? We could have champagne. Do you like that?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine.”

  Emma ordered champagne. Dom, of course. The pirate waitress brought the bottle in an ice bucket.

  “Cheers!” Emma said, lifting her flute.

  “So you’ve known Danny awhile?”

  Emma shrugged. “Oh, like you know the family chauffeur. A couple of years.” She laughed. “He’s sort of in and out.”

  Michelle forced a smile and had a sip of her champagne. It was hard enough to talk over the music, nearly impossible when your companion only wanted to drink and chatter and occasionally provoke.

  But she had to try. She’d risked coming here to get information; the evening would be a total waste of time if she didn’t at least try.

  She moved closer to Emma, so that she wouldn’t have to shout. “I like Danny a lot,” she said. “Even though we got off to a pretty bad start.”

  “I heard. Did they ever catch them?”

  “Not that I know of.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m kind of surprised at how much crime there is here. Like with that guy Ned. Did you hear about that?”

  Emma gave an odd little lurch. “You knew Ned?”

  “Not really—I mean, I met him a couple of times. But, you know, what happened … it’s pretty awful.”

  “Yeah. Kind of over the top.” Emma looked down at her hands, at her champagne, then back at Michelle. Smiled shakily.

  “I’m sorry,” Michelle said. “I shouldn’t have just … Were the two of you close?”

  “We weren’t bosom buddies or anything like that. But I used to go to his restaurant. He did good salads.” She lifted her glass, smile back in place, slightly crooked, just the right degree of irony. “To Ned’s salads.”

  Michelle raised her glass and took a sip. “Danny and I almost went there on Friday,” she said, a lie that could have been true.

  Emma sighed a little. “Ned had such a man crush on Danny. Danny was, like, the guy he wanted to be. The player. Poor Ned. He was never going to be that guy. He shouldn’t have tried to hang with Danny.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Look how he ended up.”

  Emma stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, lower lip trembling. Then she burst into giggles. “Oh, my God, if you could see your face!” She reached out and grabbed Michelle’s hand. “I’m kidding!”

  “Very funny,” Michelle said. She nearly rose from her seat right then, but she stopped herself. Finish the glass of champagne, she thought. Make one last attempt at getting some information. Then leave.

  “What does your father do anyway?” she asked.

  “Venture capital. Can we talk about him later?” She sounded almost plaintive. “I need a few more drinks first.
”

  A light pulsed inside Emma’s little purse—her cell phone.

  She retrieved it, stared at the screen. Smiled again. “It’s my boyfriend.”

  She slid out the keyboard and started typing. Peered up at Michelle through eyelashes thick with mascara.

  “He wants to meet you,” she said.

  Michelle nursed her champagne while Emma drank and laughed and pointed out the call girls in the club—“PV Playmates. They’re really expensive. Do you want one?”—wondering when she should make her exit.

  The boyfriend hadn’t arrived. “He’s working,” Emma explained. Michelle wasn’t too sure that she wanted to meet him in any case. Who knew what kind of men Emma liked to play with?

  Not worth the risk.

  “Look,” she finally said, “it’s really late, and I’m getting tired.”

  “But you need to meet Oscar. You’ll like him. He knows everything about what goes on here.” She clutched Michelle’s arm. She already seemed pretty drunk. “Come on, you’re on vacation! You can sleep in tomorrow. It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m sure it would be. How about a rain check?”

  Emma wasn’t going to tell her anything useful. She was just a tease and a drama queen.

  What a waste of time, she thought.

  Emma’s grip tightened. “No, really. You need to meet my boyfriend. I bet you don’t have a clue what you’ve gotten into.”

  “I …” Her mouth had gone dry. “I don’t feel comfortable.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Emma whispered, and then she snickered.

  • • •

  Michelle scanned the street outside the club for a taxi. “He’s on his way,” Emma said, staggering a bit as she followed her out onto the uneven sidewalk. “Let’s go back inside. There’s a patio we can go where it’s quiet.”

  “Emma, it’s almost two in the morning. Why don’t we do it some other time?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I was just teasing you. There’s nothing to be nervous about. And if you’re going to keep seeing Danny, you really should talk to Oscar.”

  There was a cab coming, and it was empty, but Emma held onto Michelle’s arm and a couple of college students stumbling out of the club flagged it down first.

  “Just wait,” Emma said. “He’s on his way.”

  Enough, Michelle thought. “Emma, I don’t have time for this. Danny works for your father—if there’s something I need to know about him, why can’t you just tell me?”

  “Because I don’t want to,” Emma said sharply. “And Oscar wants to meet you.” She leaned toward Michelle, then put her hands on either side of her face, like someone taking in a sculpture.

  “Unless this whole thing of yours, this innocent-lady-from-L.A. thing, is just an act and you already know. Is that it? Are you playing all of us?” She smiled. “That would be funny.”

  Michelle swallowed hard. “I’m not,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “My husband died. I used to work in a photo gallery. I came here on vacation, and I met Danny. That’s all.”

  Emma studied her face a moment longer.

  “Okay,” she said brightly. “Then let’s go back inside and have a drink. Little Ms. Michelle from Los Angeles.”

  She followed Emma back inside the club, first stopping at the bar so Emma could buy shots of tequila, then past the dance floor where another stripper hung upside down from the pole, wrapping her legs around it and doing a sort of handstand, her big breasts flopping down toward her collarbones. Behind the dance floor was a corridor lit with black lights, a Plexiglas door at the end. “This way,” Emma said loudly over the music. “There’s a patio—it’s nice.” She pushed the door open. Michelle trailed behind her.

  It was much quieter outside, the music turned down low, so that what Michelle mostly heard was the ringing in her ears.

  Emma led her through the patio, which was larger than it seemed at first glance, winding back between two buildings into a narrow passage and then into a larger alcove. Hardly anyone was out here, probably because it was much cooler inside the air-conditioned club.

  There, in the back, behind a fountain, was a statue dressed in bone-white cloth robes trimmed in lace like a bridal gown: a life-size statue of a skeleton. In one outstretched hand, she—it?—held a globe, in the other a scythe. Different-colored candles ringed the statue’s base.

  “Santa Muerte,” Emma said, making a curtsy in the direction of the statue. “The patron saint of prisoners and criminals.”

  “Is this from the Day of the Dead?” Michelle asked.

  “No. The Church calls it a cult. But it’s more than that.”

  Emma leaned over, passing her fingers through the candles’ flames, the way Michelle and Maggie used to do when they were kids, taking such delight that the fire didn’t burn them.

  “The colors she wears and the candles you light depend on what you want. Bone is for peace and harmony. Gold to achieve wealth and power. Red brings love and passion. Green for justice, yellow for healing, from disease or addiction.”

  She grinned. “Guess which color candle Danny lights?”

  “I don’t know,” Michelle said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Emma giggled. “Wait, I forgot one.” She put her shot glass down on the brick that ringed the statue, pulled her blouse off her shoulder, and half turned.

  On her shoulder and back was a tattoo, a background of red and purple roses. Against it was a skeleton holding a globe and a scythe, robed in lace-trimmed black, the outlines still red, as if it had been recently inked.

  “Black is for protection against bad magic and evil spirits,” Emma said. “And to bring harm to your enemies.”

  She tugged her blouse back up over her shoulder, stumbling a little. “Why don’t we sit down?” Michelle suggested.

  “Okay.”

  They sat. Emma rested her chin on her hands. For a moment she looked older than Michelle had thought she was. Maybe it was just a trick of the light.

  “Emma?”

  A man approached their table. Youngish. In his mid-or late twenties, Michelle thought.

  “Oh, it’s Oscar!” Emma said, lifting her head, smiling broadly. “Oscar, mi novio.” She let her head fall back against the chair, tilting up her face to receive his light kiss on her lips.

  “This is your friend?” he asked. He had a soft voice, soft brown eyes. He was clean-shaven and wore a short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar, open at the neck. Good-looking in a pleasant sort of way.

  He didn’t look dangerous. He looked like a businessman, or an accountant.

  That didn’t mean anything, Michelle knew.

  “Michelle,” Emma said with a giggle. “This is Michelle.”

  “Mucho gusto,” Oscar said.

  What was she supposed to say?

  “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. “I am sorry I’ve come so late,” he said. “I can see you both are tired.”

  “I’m not tired,” Emma said, stretching out her hand, stroking his thigh.

  “Oh, I know you, sweetheart,” he said with a small smile. “Here, we can all have one drink before I take you home.”

  The bartender came out with a tray of shotglasses—tequila, accompanied by orange-red sangritas.

  “Salud,” Oscar said, lifting his glass.

  Michelle tasted the tequila. This was much better quality than what she’d had before, and the sangrita, a blend of fruit juices and chili, was perfect to cleanse the palate between sips.

  “Delicious,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “This is your first time in Vallarta?” Oscar asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Very much.”

  Emma laughed. “Liar.” She picked up her shot glass and drank half of the tequila down.

  Oscar acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “This place, do you like it?” He meant the club.

  “Oh, well, it’s … a
change of pace for me.”

  Oscar smiled a little. “I don’t like it very much myself. It’s loud. And tasteless. But useful, as an investment.”

  “Do you own it?” Michelle asked.

  “I work for an ownership group. We recently have bought it.”

  “Are you from Vallarta?” she asked.

  “No. From out of town.” He gestured toward the skeletal statue dressed in a bride’s gown. “Like her. She is still new to Vallarta. Not as popular here as Jesús Malverde. Have you heard of him?”

  Michelle shook her head.

  “An outlaw who was hanged a hundred years ago. The patron saint of border crossers.”

  “And smugglers,” Emma mumbled, resting her head on his shoulder. Now she looked impossibly young.

  “Emma does not understand as much as she thinks,” Oscar whispered, still smiling. “About Santa Muerte. She came from the barrios. She is the saint of the poor. And the desperate. The hopeless. When you are always so close to death, you should befriend her.” He raised his shot glass. “Maybe you will see more of her here soon.”

  “Baby, I’ll stay awake.”

  “No, Emma, I know you. You can ride in the back and sleep.” Oscar guided her into the third row of the black Suburban, which he’d parked a block away from the bar, half up on the sidewalk. “Michelle can sit in front and keep me company.”

  Michelle didn’t want to ride in front. She didn’t want to ride in the Suburban at all. Black? Tinted windows?

  He hadn’t asked her anything. Had told her nothing. Why had he wanted to meet her?

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just catch a taxi,” she said.

  Oscar laughed. The street they stood on was empty. Quiet, except for the vague echo of music from the bar.

  “You won’t find a taxi now,” he said.

  “I’ll find one,” she said. “I really don’t want to take you out of your way.”

  “I think you should come with us,” he said. “Vallarta, it’s not so safe this time of night.”

  He pointed down the end of the block. “You see those guys?” he asked, his voice hushed.

  She looked to where he pointed. A couple of young men, wearing oversized Tshirts and surf trunks, laughing and drinking from paper bags, had just stumbled around the corner.

  “They see an American lady like you, maybe they will try to rob you. Because they don’t have money, and they think you do.”