Day of the Dead

by Lisa Brackman

  They drove south along the Malecón. The sun glared off the ocean like spotlights on broken glass.

  He’d just wanted to enjoy the rest of his life. Drink tequila. Watch the sunset.

  No one had the right to take that time from him. No one.

  ‘Oh, Señora Mason, what’s happened to you?’ Paloma came out from behind the counter, putting a tentative hand on Michelle’s uninjured shoulder.

  The taxi driver, who had opened the gate for her and helped her through the courtyard, leaned the Frida totebag against the counter.

  ‘Can you pay him?’ Michelle asked. ‘I have the money. I can … I can give it to you . …’

  ‘Of course, of course. Please don’t worry.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘This is terrible,’ Paloma said, as she helped Michelle up the short flight of stairs to her room. ‘The crime here these days – I have another friend, and she has been robbed in her apartment three times! The thieves, they break in and they steal everything. Her iPod. Her laptop.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I tell her it’s the part of town she lives in. It’s better here, where we are.’

  Paloma unlocked the door. ‘Can I bring you anything?’ she asked. ‘Maybe some dinner, later?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Michelle whispered. ‘Some ice would be great, if you have it.’

  Her little suite was closed, dark, and hot – hot like an oven. Michelle stood there in the sitting room while Paloma opened all the windows, turned on the fans, the air conditioner that barely worked.

  ‘Okay. I’ll bring you some dinner later. The ice, I can bring you that now.’

  Michelle nodded. She limped over to her bed, leaned the cane against the nightstand. Lay down on the bed, on her left side, where the broken ribs were.

  It didn’t actually feel good at all.

  Breathe deeply, she reminded herself. Cough. Wouldn’t want to get pneumonia.

  ‘Do you have an Internet connection I could use?’ she asked Paloma when the woman returned with several small bags of ice. ‘Just to write one e-mail to my sister. To let her know what happened.’

  ‘Oh, of course. You can use my computer at the desk.’

  She lay there for a while with the bags on her hip and her ribs, until water from the melting ice started to soak her clothes. Then she limped downstairs. By now some of the residents had gathered in the patio for their evening cocktails.

  ‘What happened to you, dear?’ one of the elderly women asked. ‘Did you have an accident?’

  Michelle forced a smile and nodded. ‘Yes. Doing better now, thanks.’

  She made her way to the front desk. Paloma guided her over to the round table where the grimy computer sat. ‘Take as much time as you need,’ she said.

  Six o’clock here. Four o’clock in Los Angeles. Maggie would still be at work. Wouldn’t she?

  ‘What day is it today?’

  ‘Saturday, Señora Mason.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Michelle typed Maggie’s home e-mail in the address line, and CC’ed her work account, just in case she was pulling overtime. Maggie had gotten cautious about personal e-mails in the office in the last couple of years, with all the surveillance that went on by management, but this qualified as an emergency, didn’t it?

  ‘I have a problem,’ Michelle typed.’ I was robbed and just got out of the hospital. I’m okay, but I need you to cancel my credit cards and report my phone stolen. Can you do that? There’s a folder in the bedroom in the green file box with all my personal accounts in it. That should have all the credit cards. The phone I think you can do just calling AT&T and giving them my number. Would you mind?’

  Her head throbbed. ‘I am going to get a flight home ASAP. I’ll let you know as soon as I book it.’

  How to get home?

  She’d never actually bought a plane ticket with cash, and cash was all she had. How did one even do that? Go directly to the airport? Buy a ticket at the airline counter?

  Maybe a travel agent, she thought; they had them here, didn’t they? All those people who stood on street corners, in shops, asking you if you wanted to take a boat ride, a jungle-canopy tour, maybe they could book plane tickets, too.

  She could ask Vicky. Vicky would know how.

  Then she thought about what she’d already asked Vicky. Vicky had helped her, and she’d sent her to find Charlie. Vicky could have walked in on whoever had killed him.

  People who helped her died.

  I’ll figure it out myself, she thought.

  Besides, she didn’t have Vicky’s number anymore.

  Was there any point in trying to warn Maggie about what had happened? Would it do any good? Could she tell her to take Ben and get out of town?

  ‘With what vacation?’ Maggie would snort.

  Besides, if anyone else read this e-mail …

  There was something more she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure what it was; she couldn’t come up with the words.

  ‘Hope everything is okay there. Will see you and Ben soon. Take care.’

  Forget all this. Keep your mouth shut.

  Back in the courtyard, the older woman who’d greeted her listened to her companion telling some kind of story, the other woman gesturing animatedly, leaning over and whispering.

  When they saw Michelle, they stared for a moment and quickly looked away.

  She turned down Paloma’s offer of dinner. ‘I think I’ll just go across the street,’ she said. She didn’t want to be in her closed little room, trying to eat at the desk or on her bed, listening to the noise from the bar up the block. I can walk across the street, she told herself. It was probably good for her to try to walk. Of course, the doctor had told her that rest was what she needed, but maybe walking would ease the horrible stiffness in her leg and her back, the pain across her shoulders.

  Failing that, there were always the pain meds, which she thought might be Vicodin.

  The restaurant, with its gaily painted murals of skulls and skeletons and musical instruments, was practically deserted.

  ‘Something to drink?’ the waiter asked her.

  ‘Just water, please.’ A margarita was probably out of the question.

  She thought about drinking tequila with Charlie, up on his balcony.

  Don’t cry, she told herself again. You can’t cry here.

  She ordered chicken enchiladas, beans and rice.

  It was hard to eat. Maybe the meds were affecting her appetite. She picked at the food, had a few bites of rice, of chicken.

  ‘Ms. Mason?’

  ‘Can’t you just leave me alone?’

  She’d nearly shouted. Morales shook his head, pulled out the chair across from her, and sat.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ he said.

  ‘So am I.’

  Do not cry. Don’t.

  ‘I talked to Vicky. Vicky Fallows. She told me a story that was pretty interesting. Something you’d told her, about how you went to jail. Something about a car accident.’

  Oh, Christ. What had she told Vicky? She could hardly remember it now.

  ‘But that wasn’t the truth, was it? There were some drug charges, right?’

  She closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t have drugs,’ she said. ‘It was some kind of a setup. Extortion. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘Well, the charges weren’t ever filed, which is good for you. But I still have to wonder. Charlie Sloane, right now they say that was an accident. Maybe it was. But now we’ve had two Americans die in Vallarta, in just a week. One was your friend. And you, almost killed.’

  ‘So it’s my fault?’ Her voice shook. ‘My fault someone beat me half to death with a baseball bat? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No. What I’m saying is I don’t want to arrest you.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I don’t think you killed anyone. And jail wouldn’t be good for you. You get arrested here, you can sit in prison for a long time before you even have a trial. And the trial …’ He shook
his head. ‘Things are different here.’

  ‘So what do you want? What do you want from me?’

  He sighed. ‘You know about the economy in Mexico, don’t you? How bad things are? A place like Vallarta, we depend on tourists and foreigners who live here. And they come because it’s safe. If it’s not safe, if nobody comes. …’ He lifted his hands, a gesture of surrender. ‘Then what happens?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I don’t see what this has to do with me.’

  ‘I need to know why these men died and why you were attacked. Maybe I can’t fix the problem, but I need to know what it is. If it’s narcos, okay. We tell people, they know if they don’t get involved, it’s safe here for them. But if it’s something else …’

  There was a passion, a sincerity to his voice, and she wondered if it was real, if an underpaid Mexican detective in a seaside resort town might actually care.

  ‘Just tell me the truth, Ms. Mason. Tell me what’s going on, before this gets any more out of hand. We can get you some protection—’

  ‘Really? When your cops plant drugs on me? When they … ?’

  She couldn’t finish.

  ‘I’ll see to it myself,’ he said, but she could see the doubt in his face.

  ‘And I’m supposed to believe you’re one of the good guys? Why should I?’

  ‘Maybe because you don’t have a choice.’

  ‘So that’s a threat?’

  A frown furrowed his brow, and he appeared to consider. ‘I don’t like making threats.’

  He leaned back in his chair, cocked his head like he was stretching out his neck, and sighed.

  ‘You know why I left the States? I got deported when I was eighteen. All the time till I was sixteen, I thought I was a citizen, but I wasn’t. Then I wanted to get a driver’s license, and my parents told me the truth.’

  He smiled at her. ‘I was so dumb. I got caught with a bunch of weed. No jail time, but they checked my status, and that was that.’ A shrug. ‘So here I am. At first I was pretty pissed off, but then I decided I could have a good life in Vallarta. And I do. That’s the most anyone can ask for, right?’

  She wondered if it was really that simple. Was that the best you could hope for?

  A good life. What did that even mean?

  Then he shrugged again. ‘Okay, I’m not a hero. There aren’t too many heroes in my position, you know? But I want Vallarta to be a good place to live. And I’ll do my best to help you. I promise you that.’

  She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Except he sat there, waiting for her to say something.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed at last. ‘But I don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t.’

  ‘Okay.’ He suppressed another sigh. ‘You’ll need to stay in town until this is settled. Call me if you want to talk.’ He stood up. ‘It’s better if you don’t wait too long. I don’t want to take your passport.’

  Her passport.

  She stared at him for a moment, and then she started laughing.

  Lying in the dark of her room, she wondered what Morales would be willing do to keep her here. Could he have her arrested? On what charges? Or maybe he didn’t need any. Maybe being a witness, a material witness, or whatever you called it, maybe that was enough.

  Or he could just phony up some more drug charges. Or file the ones that were already there . …

  Would he try again? The man who’d hurt her?

  Morales must be counting on that, she thought, that she’d feel threatened, would want to turn to him for protection.

  It was tempting. Maybe she was being stupid, naïve, but she thought that he meant what he said. That he actually wanted to help her.

  But what could she really tell him? About Gary? About Daniel?

  If he really is honest, he’s better off not knowing, she thought.

  By now it was about 10:00 P.M. Early for Vallarta. Late for her. She felt doped up, drowsy, but everything still hurt. Maybe a book, she thought. Maybe she could read, if the pain in her head would let her.

  There was a knock at the door.

  She felt her heart jump into her throat. Stupid, she told herself. It’s probably Paloma. Probably.

  As long as it wasn’t fucking Gary.

  ‘Just a minute.’

  She hobbled to the door.

  It was Daniel.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I …’ He looked past her, into the room. ‘Can I come in?’

  She hesitated. All her trouble had started when she’d let Daniel into her room the first time. And she still didn’t know how dangerous he really was.

  Maybe I’m being stupid, she thought. Maybe Gary was right.

  She stepped aside and let him pass.

  He had his small canvas bag slung over one shoulder, and as soon as he shut the door, he reached into it and pulled out what looked like a walkie-talkie, like the kind her friends in TV production used.

  ‘What—’

  He shook his head a little, touched a finger to his lips. ‘Got anything to drink?’

  ‘I think there’s beer in the fridge,’ she said.

  She lowered herself, with difficulty, onto the bed, watched him as he pushed a button on the device, stared at it, and opened the refrigerator door.

  ‘There’s a few. You want one?’

  ‘Sure.’ Might as well.

  Daniel pushed another button on the device. It started playing a sound, something between running water and one of those rain sticks that the pseudo-hippies at Venice Beach liked to shake. He put it on the nightstand.

  ‘It’s white noise,’ he said quietly. ‘Just in case anyone’s listening that this didn’t pick up. Where’s your cellphone?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not here. Gone.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘I know Gary. A cellphone’s the easiest thing in the world to use. He could hack the GPS, and there’s spyware you can put on it that turns it on, makes it act like a microphone. So he’d have some idea when you were coming and going, where you were. And he could hear some of what you said if the phone was close by.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She thought about it. Her stomach twisted ‘Charlie. And you and me. That’s how …’

  ‘Yeah.’ He pulled the desk chair up next to the bed and opened the beers with a pocketknife, handed her one. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone hit me on the head, threw me in a car trunk, took me up to the dump, and tried to kill me. Then they killed Charlie. And where the fuck were you?’

  ‘I …’ He stared at her. He’d gone pale. ‘Jesus.’ He took a long pull on his beer. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘I tried to call you,’ he said. ‘I came here, I looked everywhere for you. I finally found out you were in the hospital but that you were gonna be okay. I thought … I thought it was better if I didn’t go to the hospital, if I waited until you got out.’

  ‘Why? In case the police were watching?’

  He flinched, and she knew she’d called that one right.

  ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them anything about you. I didn’t tell anyone, except Charlie.’ A surge of acid burned her throat, and she swallowed hard. ‘And Gary.’

  ‘You told Gary?’

  ‘I had to. He caught me when I was trying to get out of town.’

  ‘Shit. What did you tell him?

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. What you told me I should tell him. You know, how he should lay off me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s not good enough!’ Daniel looked away. Drank more of his beer.

  ‘Look at me, Danny,’ she said. ‘Look at me. I didn’t ask for any of this. I talked to Charlie because I was desperate. He tried to help me, and he died. And you come in here with some spy toy, and then you just sit there, like, like … Shit!’

  She�
��d moved the wrong way. Pain stabbed down her shoulder, her arm. It hurt to breathe.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He came and sat on the bed next to her, started to put a hand on her shoulder, stopped.

  ‘I have two broken ribs and a broken arm, you asshole.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He chugged the rest of his beer, went to the fridge and grabbed another one. ‘You could’ve stayed with me.’

  ‘Oh, right. After you said you wanted to kill me.’

  ‘Look, I was pissed off. I mean, how’d you think I was gonna feel? Come on, Gary was paying you to fuck me!’

  ‘Like I had a choice? Like I could count on you?’

  He sat down on the bed, next to her but not touching her, as though she were surrounded by some invisible barrier.

  ‘You don’t think I’m the one who did this, do you? Do you trust me now, at least?’

  ‘Trust you? You must be joking.’ She drank some of her beer. One beer with Vicodin, that wouldn’t hurt, would it? ‘But no, I don’t think you did this. It’s not how you operate.’ Funny, how she was suddenly sure of that, if nothing else. ‘I mean, the dump. Why the dump? It was hard to get up there. There were people who might have seen him. He could have just killed me on the street. Or anywhere. But it was making a point. Like the pig’s head. You know? It was …’

  Performance. That’s what it was.

  ‘Gary has a funny sense of humor. You said that. It’s some kind of a game to him, isn’t it? It’s fun.’

  Daniel nodded. Hung his head and studied his beer. ‘He’s a sick fuck,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re … you’re what? Who are you, Danny? A good guy? A spook? Some sleazy bus driver for drug lords?’

  ‘The less you know, the better off you are,’ he said tightly. ‘Look, I’ll get you out of here. I’ve got an idea how to do it. But you have to play along.’

  Was it better to play along with Daniel or trust Morales? And not just Morales but the system behind him as well. The corrupt cops.The suspect judges.The drug cartels, with their fingers in everything.

  And the system behind Daniel? Did she even know what it was?

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  It wasn’t even the devil she knew. It was the devil she knew better.

  They sat there for a while in silence.

  ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ he finally asked.