The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

Near Sybil’s cabana stood a ramshackle corrugated-tin roof, similar to a standalone carport. Bunches of onions and garlic hung from the underside. A six-foot-high pile of coconut shells stood out to one side. Sybil had a bed of coals going inside a stove made from the bottom half of a metal barrel resting on cinderblocks, a small opening cut out of its front, its open top overlaid with a piece of sheet metal. She turned leaf-wrapped tamales and sliced plantains on the surface with a metal spatula. Nearby, a goat nosed an old dish-shaped hubcap through the sand. A few chickens pecked about.

  Pointedly ignoring him, Ana cut slices of mango into a bowl on an enameled tabletop advertising Corona beer. Two mismatched plastic plates and flatware waited near a bowl of limes and plantains.

  “Anything I can do here?” he asked.

  “You can eat.” Sybil took one of the plates, shoveled three packets onto it, then three on the other for Ana.

  Robert drew one of the four chairs out for Ana, then took a seat himself.

  “Looks like you got yourself a gentleman here,” said Sybil with her knowing smile.

  “Smells good,” Ana said curtly, ignoring Robert.

  “Those tamales are wrapped in corn shucks,” Sybil said, “and no, you don’t eat them.”

  “This is very good of you,” Robert said.

  “We used to have eggs, but those prissy-ass chickens went on strike. It’s that damn rooster, you know? The chickens, they’re not happy with him.” She gave Robert a mischievous look. “You’ve got to keep your chickens happy if you want to get your eggs.” She lifted an old-fashioned coffeepot off the sheet iron and poured into blue-enameled tin cups. “That’s hot,” she warned.

  They drank the coffee with the tamales, fried plantains and sliced mangos squeezed over with lime juice.

  When they finished, Ana raked their scraps into the hubcap for the goat.

  Robert handed Sybil another twenty-dollar bill.

  “Now, hon, you already gave me a twenty. That’s more than enough.”

  “Forget it. That meal was the best.”

  Sybil smiled at Ana. “Like I said, a real sweetie.” Ana smiled politely by return.

  By the time they carried the tire and the backpack out to the car, a flawless blue sky promised a nice day.

  “Now what do we do?” Ana asked, then pointedly added, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Robert said nothing, but drove back up the dirt road, then angled the Nissan off into the brush.

  Ana sat forward. “What’re you doing?”

  He brought the car to a stop, fairly well hidden from the dirt track. “We’re going to make a little withdrawal from the bank,” he said.

  Her eyes searched his, a touch of alarm.

  “Helmut may have lost his ability to track us, but I’m sure Fowler’s keeping tabs. We’re going to buy another car.”

  Her gaze remained fixed. “Fowler?”

  “How about getting the map from the glovebox.”

  “Who is this Fowler?”

  “See if you can get an idea of where we are, how to find the road from here to Oaxaca.”

  “Yes. The airport.” She tilted her head back, looking down her nose at him. “You know, if you had any sense at all, you’d get out of here too.”

  He paused. “Listen, I didn’t take you back to the Puerto Escondido airport last night because I figured that’s exactly what Helmut would expect us to do.”

  She tossed her head, aloof, and opened the glovebox.

  Robert thumbed the button for the trunk latch in order to get the tire tool. Once he let the air out, he’d need the tire tool to pry the tire loose from the rim. But nothing happened. No customary thunk as the trunk popped open. He took the key from the ignition, but paused, seeing Ana recoil as something dropped from the folds of the map into her lap, bouncing off into the footwell.

  She stiffened with a guttural snort. Her shoulders drew up, her head began to shake back and forth in denial, feet churning as she clambered aside, falling out of the car onto the ground, clawing her way through the weeds on hands and knees.

  23

  Silverglitter Digit

  ROBERT’S GAZE FIXED on the bruised digit before he recognized it for what it was—a human finger—the nail painted black and dusted with silver glitter.

  The moment it registered, he swung from behind the steering wheel and around to the back of the car. He hesitated—a rush of dread, heart thumping in his ears—then he slotted the key into the trunk lock. The cylinder came out in his hand, the key still inserted. Carefully, he fit the cylinder back in the hole. He turned the key. The latch bumped loose. He swung the lid up.

  Even though he had known she would be there, it took a moment for his mind to accept what his eyes were seeing—Mickey—naked, briefs stretched over her head, hands and feet bound with wire.

  He slammed the trunk shut, hands pressed hard to the deck lid, as if she might come pushing her way out.

  With trembling fingers he fit the lock back in place, pulled the key out and stood back.

  In the same moment he was aware of Ana kneeling in the weeds, watching him with large terrified eyes. He eased alongside the car toward her. She lurched back.

  “Get away! Get away!” she cried.

  “Listen…” he began, taking another step, hesitant.

  “Stay back! Stay back!” she screamed, glancing about for any avenue of escape.

  “Ana, believe me, I had nothing to do with this.”

  She shifted a quick glance at the car, the skin drawn tight over the bones in her face. “Oh, god. Please, just let me go.”

  “Do you think I’d knowingly carry something like that?”

  “I won’t tell! I promise!”

  He stepped back to the car. A wave of revulsion swept through him as he picked Mickey’s finger out of the footwell with his handkerchief. In his mental vision he saw her clearly—the chopped hair, the freckled baby fat, her gum-smacking smile—calling to him: Hey, bootylicious. He caught his breath, rolled her finger in the handkerchief, and placed it behind his driver’s seat.

  Ana watched, pale. “Wha–what’re you doing?”

  “You can’t just trash somebody’s finger like old meatloaf.”

  Her gaze flicked between him and the car. “The trunk, there’s somebody in the trunk…that…girl…”

  “Ana, listen to me. Last night someone broke into my car in Puerto Escondido. It had to be Helmut, him or his men.”

  She stared. “Somebody broke into your car? And you didn’t even look?”

  He thought she might be settling a little—beginning to see he wasn’t responsible, probably because of his own shock over Mickey’s finger. Even so, she watched him with fear and suspicion.

  “Why would I?” he said. “I had everything in my room. The trunk was empty.”

  “What’re you going to do?” she mumbled, her gaze fixed on him with uncertainty.

  He straightened, scanning the surroundings, his old survival training kicking in: Think. Don’t let emotion override reason. Emotion or not, he couldn’t just leave Mickey in the car. In addition to the horror of her rotting in the trunk, eventually she would be found, the car traced back to Avis and then to him, or rather to one Otis Tandy Baker, which might or might not get back to Fowler. In the meantime, he and Ana would be afoot here in the middle of nowhere-Mexico. He could drag Mickey’s body out and hide it in the brush…but he couldn’t just leave her for the animals to get at. These objections, he realized, were based on emotion, were a threat to survival. He could bury her in the surrounding underbrush, but he had nothing to dig with, except perhaps the pointed end of the lug wrench, maybe use the marker plate to scoop the dirt out. But that was unrealistic. Besides, there was at least a fifty-fifty chance of a vehicle appearing on the side road. Not to mention locals cutting through the brush on foot.

  What’re you going to do? Ana had asked.

  That was the question all right.

  He held the door open for her. “Come on. We’ve
got to get out of here.”

  “I’m not getting back in that car.”

  “Okay then. What do you suggest?”

  “The trunk…it’s…it’s that girl?”

  “The girl you saw me with in Acapulco, yes. The girl in the elevator.”

  “How did she… Who…?”

  “Come on. Who do you think?”

  Ana watched him—the thousand yard stare. “No…he wouldn’t do that…”

  “Then why did you think of him?”

  Her gaze faltered. “How was she involved?”

  “She had hitched a ride with Soffit on his boat, the guy who was killed. I ran into her in the lobby. She was scared, going with me back to my room.”

  “Meaning what? You were passing her back and forth?”

  He shook his head. “Always looking for the best in people, aren’t you.”

  “I know men.”

  “You don’t know shit. Get in the goddamn car. Now.”

  She drew back.

  “I don’t have time for this.” He went around to the driver’s side, got in and slammed the door.

  “Wait!” she cried, a hesitant step forward. “You…you’re going to just leave me?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  He had no intention of leaving her, not with all she could tell the authorities, but he inserted the key and started the engine.

  She grabbed at the passenger door. “Wait! Wait!”

  He shoved the shifter in reverse, inching backward.

  She stumbled along, holding to the door. “Stop! Stop!”

  He shoved the clutch in. The car came to a halt. She climbed in and jerked the door closed.

  Wordless, he backed the Nissan out of the brush onto the sand track and then shifted into first. By the time they got back to the highway, she had recovered somewhat, nervously fingering the buttons on her shirt.

  “Where did you last see her?” she asked.

  His stomach clenched at the interrogation, but he supposed she was entitled to an explanation. “She glommed onto me after Soffit was killed. But I put her out back up the road.”

  “You put her out? What do you mean, ‘put her out’?”

  “Put her out. Abandoned her.”

  “But, she was just a child…”

  “Well, you’re all grown up, so that’s not an issue in your case, is it.”

  Ana stared, her mouth puckered in fear and revulsion.

  “Look. I gave her ten thousand dollars. Told her to go home, back to the States.”

  “Then you’re not responsible for her?”

  “I don’t need your judgmental blather, either. Get over yourself!” He told himself it wasn’t his fault. Mickey was the one who had insisted on tagging along. No one could have foreseen something like this. Nevertheless…

  “Helmut said you were picking up intelligence of some sort, that you were unreliable and they wanted to keep an eye on you. That’s what’s in the tire, isn’t it? Some kind of intelligence?”

  He said nothing, thinking he should put her out. Same as Mickey; just drive off and be done with her once and for all. But he couldn’t afford to chance her talking. It was more than that. Complicated.

  The coastal road was fairly straight, the surrounding terrain relatively flat now—coconut palms, a few plots of mango and papayas under cultivation. They came to the junction where Highway 175 intersected Highway 200.

  Official state signs, green with white lettering, pointing north read: POCHUTLA, CHACALAPA, SAN JOSÉ DEL PACIFICO, OAXACA. Similar signs pointing toward the beach read: PUERTO ANGEL, ZIPOLIT, TURTLE MUSEUM.

  Near the intersection Robert pulled off into a sandy plot and stopped some distance from a fruit stand with picnic tables shaded beneath a grove of palm trees surrounded by thick patches of coastal grass.

  “There’s a town just up the road here. I’d planned to put you on a bus to Oaxaca. But I can’t do that. Not now.”

  She looked at him, quizzical.

  “Put yourself in my shoes,” he said.

  “You don’t trust me, do you.”

  “Sure I do. About as far as I can throw this car. What I want you to understand is, you’re in this every bit as deep as I am. We get stopped by the federales, you talk to anybody, you can kiss your ass and the good old US of A good-bye. For good.”

  “But… You know I had nothing to do with any of this.”

  “And you know I didn’t, either.”

  “No, that girl, she…” Ana trailed off.

  “See? That’s why I can’t let you go.” He took a deep breath. “Bottom line, you teamed up with Helmut and his goons to put her body in my trunk, trying to frame me.”

  She stared, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’re going to stop in town, pick up few things, buy some clothes and whatever. If I can find a shovel, we’ll bury her. If not, we’ll just have to play it by ear.”

  Ana went pale.

  “I’ll bury her,” he added. “But you’re gonna be an accomplice. Like I said, you’re in this as deep as I am. We clear?”

  When she only stared in turn, he backed the car around and entered Highway 175 north. A thin scattering of ramshackle shops and businesses stood out of the scrub along either side, shallow drifts of costal sand blown over the paving.

  A few miles farther, Robert pulled in at a Pemex station to have the tank filled. He handed Ana a few bills. “Go in and get some bottled water. And remember what I said.” He popped open the gas cap cover, then got out and stood by, casually holding the trunk lid shut in case the latch kicked open—Mickey not even a foot from where the attendant fit the nozzle in. Ana returned with a gallon jug of water and a new map. She got in, silent, lips pinched, resolute.

  Just up the road, they drove into the bustling town of San Pedro Pochutla. The divided highway narrowed to two lanes, one in each direction. The street narrowed even more with wall-to-wall shops on either side, crowded in front with stalls and umbrella-shaded carts dangerously close to the traffic. A crush of people wandered the street. He sensed they were all watching, everyone aware of Mickey’s body in the trunk as he eased past.

  “Oh, there, a clothing store,” Ana said. She turned, watching as the shop drifted past behind a muddle of carts. He circled the block until he lucked out with a parking spot near the store’s entrance.

  “You’re going in,” he said, handing Ana a packet of bills. “I’m going to stand in the doorway with an eye on the car.”

  The air was warm and humid and smelled of grilled meat, hot tar and rotted fruit. Or maybe it was Mickey in the trunk, her smell oozing out.

  From the doorway he watched Ana threading her way through the narrow isles, picking through clothing piled in bins and hanging on wires. He also watched the street; not only did he have a white Chevy to worry about, but Helmut in an old blue Plymouth.

  While he waited, the car next to his backed out into the street and left. Almost immediately, another car pulled into the empty slot, POLICIA lettered on its doors. Robert leaned against the doorway and tried to appear relaxed as two policemen got out. They stood for a moment, looking up and down, adjusting duty belts and gear. Then they sauntered through the shoppers and across the street to a boxlike trailer painted green and orange with TAQUERIA ESTRELLA DE ORO lettered in rainbow colors above a plywood awning shading its service window.

  Robert watched both the cops and Ana as she paid for three shopping bags of merchandise. She brought two of them to him at the door and went back for the third.

  One eye on the cops across the street, he set the bags in behind the tire.

  “I saw a drugstore back there around the block,” Ana said, returning several bills and change. “I really need a toothbrush.”

  “Good. Keep the money. You’re going in.”

  Ana stiffened with a sudden intake of breath. “Oh, my god!” she mumbled, staring at the police car parked alongside.

  “They’re across the street,” he said, smiling artificially.
“Just get in. Shut your mouth and act natural.”

  He went around and opened his door and slid in behind the wheel. The cops paid no attention as he backed out and drove around the block.

  “I can’t do this,” Ana said when he double-parked in front of the pharmacia. “Not with them just around the corner.”

  “You can and you will.”

  She hesitated, then got out. He wondered if he was losing it, letting her go in alone like this. But she soon returned with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.

  What with watching for the cops, the white Chevy and a blue Plymouth, it seemed like forever, but in less than half an hour they had purchased two carry-ons from a vendor on the sidewalk—cheap, discolored by the sun, but functional. Four beach towels decorated with Tweety Bird, Wile E. Coyote, Elvis, and a Sacred Heart of the Virgin Mary. A bundle of twenty-four washcloths. A vinyl Dopp kit complete with razor, blades, nail file and clippers. Ziplocs, a box of tissues, two rolls of toilet paper, and a box of ten thirty-gallon garbage bags. He zipped Mickey’s finger rolled in his handkerchief into the new Dopp kit.

  They were on the way out of town when he spotted a dozen or more tables shaded under canvas awnings on a vacant lot—old electric motors, refrigerators, washing machines, air compressors, dented and rusted window air-conditioning units. Ana stood by the car while he took the keys and went in among the tables. She stared, grim, as he returned with a rusted short-handled shovel and fit it in the back seat with the other purchases.

  He drove past graffitied walls, muffler shops, and tire outlets displaying chromed wheels with spinners in the baroque style, then banana and cashew stands on the outskirts.

  They began a gradual climb, winding slowly into the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur, leaving the beaches, the tropical grasses, the eucalyptus and coconut palms behind.

  Ana busied herself removing price tags and stickers, placing items in their respective bags—his a black carry-on much like the one he had left behind, hers identical but with tan trim.

  “I got each of us two pairs of jeans and two shirts,” she said. “Underwear and socks. I hope yours fit.”

  “You did well. Thanks.”

  She seemed to have settled some. But that could be a ploy, lulling him into relaxing so she could make a run for it.