Day of the Dead

by Lisa Brackman

  The policeman rapped his knuckles on the backseat window. ‘Señora.’

  ‘What? Excuse me?’

  The policeman gestured for her to open the door. She did.

  ‘Su bolsa.’

  ‘My … ?’

  ‘Purse.’

  She could feel her heart pound in her throat. Was this some kind of shakedown? A robbery in the guise of a traffic stop? What was she supposed to do?

  She handed him her purse.

  The policeman opened it, rifling through the main compartment, opening the interior zip, then moving to the exterior pockets. It was a Marc Jacobs hobo, and there were a lot of them.

  The policeman extracted a brown paper packet. Folded. A square the size of a lopped-off business card. He opened it.

  ‘Come out of the car.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Out of the car.’

  ‘What is that?’ Michelle asked. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘That’s not mine!’

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lawyer. How did you say ‘lawyer’? The only word Michelle could come up with was albóndigas, and that, she was fairly sure, meant ‘meatballs.’

  Sitting in the back of the squad car seemed so unreal that she couldn’t process it. The seat smelled like beer-scented puke. The policeman had cuffed her, hands behind her back and tight enough to hurt. Taken her luggage out of the taxi and thrown it next to her. Was he even a real policeman? He looked like one, she thought – a big man with a big belly and a mustache and aviator sunglasses. His uniform looked real. The squad car looked credible too. Now and again the radio squawked and broadcast chatter.

  ‘¿Dónde vamos?’ she managed.

  ‘A la cárcel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jail.’ The policeman barked out a laugh. ‘Tienes drogas, go to jail.’

  ‘Drugs? I don’t have any drugs.’

  He shrugged fractionally, shoulders tense, hands gripping the wheel.

  A setup, she thought, it was some kind of setup. A con, a way to extort money. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘This is a misunderstanding. Can’t we work this out?’

  As soon as she said it, she knew she’d made a mistake.

  ‘What do you think, lady? You want to give me something?’

  ‘No, I, just …’

  ‘Money, maybe? Something else?’ He laughed again, all the while staring straight ahead.

  ‘It’s a misunderstanding,’ she repeated. ‘I’m not trying to insult you.’

  ‘You want to give me something, you want to stop right here?’

  The squad car slowed.

  On one side of the road, there were cinder-block buildings: apartments mostly, a few downtrodden businesses, peeling hand-painted signs, rusting cars, broken-down fences. On the other a steep hill, dirt roads, shacks interspersed among browning vines and palms.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’

  The car sped up again.

  The jail was in a neighborhood like the ones she’d seen from the road, cement-slab and cinder-block apartments, unpaved streets in places, hardly distinguishable from the surrounding buildings except for its iron bars and guards with machine guns.

  There was paperwork to fill out. They searched her and had her take off her jewelry and empty her pockets – the pants she wore, thin linen, had only a rear patch pocket anyway.

  ‘I want to make a phone call,’ she said, but no one listened.

  Then a guard took her back to a cell. Cement floors, a cement bench, and a toilet that looked as if it hadn’t been flushed in a week. There was a woman passed out on the bench, one stilettoed foot dangling off the edge at a wobbling right angle.

  ‘When can I make a phone call?’ Michelle asked the guard again. ‘¿Cuándo … teléfono?’

  The guard raised a finger. ‘Espérate,’ he said.

  Maybe that meant he’d come back.

  She couldn’t sit on the bench because of the passed-out woman (a hooker? Michelle thought she looked like one anyway), so she leaned against the wall opposite the barred front of the cell.

  From here she could see into the cell across the way. It was filled with men, five or six of them, who milled around and muttered things she couldn’t understand. One of them, a young guy, came over to the bars of his cell and pressed his face against them. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Hello!’

  Michelle ignored him. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her head on them. It was stifling hot in the cell. No breeze came in from the small barred window above her.

  This couldn’t go on, could it? She couldn’t stay here.

  But she’d never make her flight, even if they let her out right now. And they weren’t going to do that. Weren’t going to suddenly decide it was all a mistake, that she was free to go.

  They’d taken her watch along with her necklace and bracelets, so she had no way of marking the time beyond the square of darkening sky visible through the window. After it grew black, there was no way to tell at all.

  Her head pounded; her body ached from sitting on concrete. I shouldn’t have had those drinks, she thought. There was a barrel of water, a sort of Sparkletts bottle in a wrought-iron stand that tipped to fill a solitary plastic cup, in one corner of the cell.

  One cup? Michelle thought. One cup for everyone who’s come in and out of here? And how clean was the water?

  The woman on the bench stirred, moaned, and turned onto her side. She gagged a few times and threw up on the floor.

  I should get up, Michelle thought, I should do something. Call for a guard. Make sure she doesn’t choke.

  She stayed where she was. The woman rolled onto her back, one arm flung over her eyes, and was mumbling to herself. Obviously she could breathe.

  Not my problem, Michelle thought, and her own problems at the moment were nearly too long to list.

  How had the drugs gotten in her purse? The policeman, most probably, but why? He hadn’t seemed interested in a bribe.

  Of course she hadn’t checked in all of those pockets when she’d packed. There were several she rarely opened. It could have happened before that.

  What were the penalties for drug possession in Mexico? Weren’t they more serious than in the United States? And without a good lawyer … How would she find a lawyer? How would she pay for one?

  Tears welled up without her even realizing. This was too much, too much to take in, too much to handle.

  A fight broke out in one of the other cells. That was what it sounded like anyway: sudden shouts, grunts, thuds.

  Michelle stopped crying and wiped her nose on her gauzy sleeve. I have to keep it together, she told herself. There’s no one to look out for me but me. Not anymore.

  She’d get to make a phone call eventually, wouldn’t she? The American consulate, that was who you called in situations like this. I’ll call the consulate, she thought. They’ll help me. This will all work out somehow.

  Guards came to break up the fight, barking commands, slapping truncheons against the iron bars. The woman on the bench stirred again, spoke a few words seemingly in her sleep, and turned over to face the wall.

  I have to drink something, Michelle thought. Her mouth felt as if the surfaces had been coated with glue. She stood up, tried to stretch out the cramps in her legs and back, and approached the water bottle.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself as she tilted the bottle and filled the communal cup. I’ll just have to get a gamma globulin shot after I get out of here. Better that than passing out from dehydration.

  After that she thought she might as well pee. Don’t even look, she thought. Just go and get it over with. She squatted over the toilet, the backs of her thighs skimming the seat, willing her bladder to let go while she held the pose.

  In the cell across the way, the young man had come back to press his face against the bars, watching her.

  ‘Fuck off!’ she spit, surprising hers
elf.

  The young man laughed and kept watching.

  Whatever, she thought. What difference did it make at this point?

  When she finished, she went back to her place against the wall, as far from the toilet as possible. She lay on the concrete floor on her side, head resting on her arm, and closed her eyes.

  She didn’t sleep – that was impossible. But she dozed, on and off. The murmurs of the woman on the bench, the laughs and cursing of the men in the cell across the way, all combined into a dream-narrative soundtrack that could not be precisely translated to waking life.

  By midmorning even that poor half sleep was out of the question. The temperature in the cell rose steadily, the stink from the vomit and the toilet given fresh potency by the heat.

  They took the other woman out of the cell around lunch, whatever time that was. Lunch was beans and tortillas and a Coke.

  ‘When can I use the telephone?’ Michelle asked. ‘Teléfono. I want to talk to the American consulate.’

  ‘Ahora no. Espérate.’

  ‘I have been in this cell for an entire day—’

  She stopped herself.

  Don’t scream. Don’t yell. Don’t cry.

  She took a few deep breaths, like she’d do in yoga class. ‘When do I get to make a phone call?’

  ‘Sorry, señora. Soon.’

  A few more hours went by. They brought a couple of women into the cell, a beach vendor who’d gotten busted for selling trinkets without a license and a college student from Canada.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ the college student kept saying. ‘Oh, my God. It was just a fender bender. I mean, that was all it was. And they put me in jail?’

  Obviously yes, Michelle thought, but she didn’t say that, just shook her head and made sympathetic noises. ‘Things are a little different here.’

  ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe this.’ The student started sobbing. ‘What … what happens next?’

  A very good question as well.

  Around sunset a guard called Michelle’s name.

  Finally, she thought, following him down the corridor. And then, Great. It had to be nearly 8:00 P.M. Would anyone even be at the consulate? What was she supposed to do, leave a voicemail?

  The guard led her out of the cells, past the iron bars that separated them from the administration area, to the small green-and-beige lobby that was the gateway to the outside world.

  Gary sat on a wooden bench against the wall, texting on his BlackBerry. Seeing her, he rose.

  ‘Michelle, hey.’ He crossed the room and rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘How’re you doing?’

  She flinched. She didn’t know Gary, but she didn’t think she wanted his hands on her. ‘I’m okay. Why—’

  ‘First things first. Let’s get you out of here.’

  He cupped her elbow, fingers pressing against the back of her arm, guiding her toward the door.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ll explain in the car.’ He grinned at her. ‘First things first.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘The consulate called me.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Michelle repeated. ‘I didn’t call them.’

  They rode in Gary’s car, a black Land Cruiser with tinted windows, looping around the airport on the highway, heading north. Leather seats. Gary seemed to do pretty well with his consulting, whatever it was.

  ‘Mexican authorities are supposed to contact the consulate when they take an American citizen into custody,’ Gary explained. ‘That doesn’t happen a lot of places, but Puerto Vallarta’s better than most.’

  ‘And the consulate called you?’

  ‘I help them out now and again. I’ve got some experience with Mexican law.’

  ‘I see.’

  She must have sounded skeptical. Hell, she was skeptical.

  ‘Well, their staffing’s not what it should be,’ Gary said. ‘Not always enough to help out Americans in trouble. And when they mentioned your name, of course I wanted to do what I could.’

  The sign on the two-lane highway said they were heading toward Tepic, wherever that was. The surrounding landscape was flat, green splotched with brown, broken up by the occasional gas station, cinder-block building and cluster of scrubby palms. There was a lot of traffic, and the Land Cruiser’s air-conditioning could not entirely filter out the raw diesel fumes from the buses in front of them.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Thought you might want to shower and change your clothes.’ He tilted his head over his shoulder. ‘Your stuff’s in the trunk.’

  They drove awhile in silence, the air conditioner drying the sweat on her skin to salt. Dirt from the jail powdered her arms and legs. Probably the rest of her as well.

  ‘What’s my situation?’ she finally asked. ‘Am I out on bail or … or what?’

  ‘Looks like they won’t be filing charges. At least not yet.’

  ‘What does that mean, “not yet”? Do I need to get a lawyer?’

  ‘Well, you got me,’ he said, turning to smile at her. ‘And right now that’s enough to keep you out of jail.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He turned back to watch the road, left hand on the wheel, right arm resting on the center console, hand drifting close to her thigh. ‘You know, in Mexico you’re guilty till proven innocent. If they’d charged you, the bail would’ve been pretty substantial. Or maybe they wouldn’t have granted bail at all. Depends on the charges and the judge. Then the trial … well, it can take a while for the trial to even begin. A year’s not unusual. You know the percentage of folks in Mexican prisons who haven’t been convicted of anything? Then the sentences …’ His plump lips parted slightly as his smile broadened. ‘Not a nice situation, especially not for a woman like you.’

  ‘As opposed to a woman like someone else?’ The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  Gary chuckled. ‘You’re a cool customer, Michelle. I sussed that out about you right away.’

  They turned off the main highway and took a sudden turn to the left, toward the coast. Now they traveled on a two-lane road landscaped with evenly spaced palm trees. Michelle glimpsed tennis courts, swimming pools, brightly painted townhouses shaped like honeycombs.

  ‘Here’s what I don’t understand: What was someone like you doing with cocaine? I’d of thought you’d know better.’

  ‘It wasn’t mine.’ She didn’t know if Gary would believe her or not, and she honestly didn’t care. ‘Somebody planted it. Probably the policeman.’

  ‘A shakedown? Then how’d you end up in jail?’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe you ought to think about how else those drugs might’ve gotten into your purse.’

  Michelle remained silent. She didn’t have an explanation. Nothing made sense, no matter how she looked at it.

  Gary sighed. ‘You gotta be careful, hanging out with guys like Danny. Not that you had any way of knowing that.’

  Daniel could have done it.

  She felt like she’d swallowed an ice cube.

  That night at the hotel, maybe. Or when she’d gone to return his clothes. Or he could have hired someone else to do it. Maybe even the policeman.

  But why?

  She wasn’t going to ask Gary. Not yet. She didn’t trust Gary at all. But there was something else she could ask him.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’

  ‘You’re a suspicious person, aren’t you?’ His grin broadened. ‘Well, the way I see it, we’re helping each other.’

  Michelle took a long, hot shower. She was truly filthy, for one, and sore. Being in the shower also gave her time away from Gary. Time to think.

  He’d taken her to a condo in a gated complex on the bay, a series of ten-story towers flanked by a golf course. On one side of the complex, the towers were only half built, still bare concrete and rebar, and even the completed towers had an unfinished look to them, uncluttered by any signs of occupancy. ‘Yep, these just came on the market,’ Gary had said.
‘I practically have the whole floor to myself.’ His unit, on the seventh floor, overlooked the golf course. ‘It’s a great course. You like to golf, Michelle? Maybe you and I could play a few rounds sometime.’

  I should have just asked him to take me to the airport, she thought. I could have cleaned up in the restroom or something, gotten on a plane to somewhere, anywhere in the United States. But she’d been so tired, so out of her own element, that she hadn’t thought of that soon enough. She’d just sat in Gary’s expensive car, on Gary’s expensive leather seats, and let him take her here.

  There was something very wrong with this situation.

  The attack in the hotel room. The pig’s head. Two acts aimed against Daniel. And her. But it couldn’t really be about her, could it? She was just a tourist who’d hooked up with a good-looking man she’d known nothing about.

  So it had to be about Daniel. Until the drugs planted in her purse.

  Maybe Daniel blamed her for what had happened to him, for the break-in and his injury. Maybe he thought that she’d set him up somehow, and this was some sick form of revenge.

  The way Gary had shown up at the jail, playing her rescuer, everything suddenly fixed – she didn’t believe that performance at all.

  She felt dizzy and sick, like she was going to throw up. Which could have been from the jailhouse burrito and not just her nerves. Keep it together, she told herself. Get dressed and figure out some way to get out of here. Just get to the airport.

  Figuring out what she’d landed in wasn’t nearly as important as getting out of it.

  She toweled off quickly, put on a clean blouse and knee-length shorts – because a dress felt too vulnerable – unlocked the bathroom door, and stepped out into the hall.

  She could hear the TV blaring from the living room – a comedy, she thought, because suddenly Gary laughed out loud.

  Heart thumping, she stepped into the bedroom where her things were.

  First things first. Make sure there were no more surprises in her luggage.

  She searched her suitcase as quickly and thoroughly as she could. Nothing there, at least that she could find. She could tell that the suitcase had been unloaded and hastily repacked, but there was nothing unfamiliar here.