by Danny Lopez
“What do you say we have a couple more drinks,” Malcolm said, and placed his empty on a side table. “Then go downtown. There’re some freaky strip joints with live sex acts in Garibaldi. You ever experience a Mexican table dance?”
“I’m not here on vacation.”
“So? Take a break. Have a little fun.”
“I can’t. Not just yet.”
“I thought you said you found the bird you were looking for.”
I shook my head. How he managed to write articles for major international publications was beyond me.
“I need to talk to Toni,” I said.
“Good luck.”
I grabbed a beer and made my way through the crowd to the front of the living room. I snuck up from the side and tapped Toni’s arm. “Remember me?”
She smiled. Her gesture seemed exaggerated, as if she was really glad to see me. “But of course. Dexter, my dear. Any news?”
“Of Maya?”
“Wasn’t that who you were looking for?”
I smiled. One of the Mexican reporters was raising his voice, barking questions at Aurelio Hernández who was cowering behind Toni.
Toni grabbed his arm. “Déjalo en paz, no? Dale chance de disfrutar la fiesta.”
The man backed away. Toni rolled her eyes and laced her arm around mine. “Aurelio is putting together a very politically charged exhibit. There’s a rumor going around that the PRI, Mexico’s ruling political party, is funding the whole thing.”
I nodded.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“I just got here a few days ago.”
She laughed. “How refreshing.”
We walked together to the side of the living room near where the band had just stopped playing.
“I asked around for Maya.” She looked genuinely concerned. “But no one appears to have seen her in weeks. I don’t know what I can tell you. If it’s Narcos, she’s probably doomed. She could be dead. Have you considered contacting the embassy?”
“I saw her,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
“Yes, at the park. We spoke. Briefly.”
“Is she all right?”
“Seems to be. She’s doing her thing. She didn’t want her family to chase after her. It’s all taken care of.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” She waved at someone behind me. “Will you be staying long?”
“Maybe a couple more days.”
“You should come for dinner. I’m having a few people over on Wednesday.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be staying that long.”
“Either way.” She moved to the side and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I like you, Dexter. Don’t be a stranger.”
I grabbed her arm. “Thank you, Toni.”
“I didn’t do a thing.”
“But you did.” I wasn’t sure if it had been she who set up my meeting with Maya. But just in case, I threw the question out there: “Any chance you know a Mike Boseman?”
She stared at my chest. Then she shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
* * *
Malcolm and I shared a taxi back into town. He had his sights on the live sex shows in Garibaldi. I wanted two things: to go home and try and clear my name from this fiasco, and to stay longer so I could spend more time with Flor. But right now, I was bushed. I wanted to catch a solid eight hours of sleep.
The taxi dropped me off on Reforma Avenue. Malcolm continued on toward downtown. I crossed the large avenue and was crossing the next narrow side street about a block from my hotel when a black SUV screeched to a halt in from of me. Two men jumped out. One grabbed me from the side, the other punched me high in the gut. I lost my air, my knees buckled. Before I hit the ground, I was grabbed and shoved into the backseat of the SUV. It sped away, the engine roaring, gravity pulling me back.
One of the men yanked me by the shirt collar and sat me up. Another put a canvas bag over my head, held it tight around my neck. I gasped. Pushed forward. They punched me in the ribs. Again. I doubled over. Tried to breathe. The bag folded into my mouth. I got another punch on the back below my neck. Stars.
I heard something like “Pinche gringo.” Then something hit me hard on the back of the head. I faded.
I was pulled out of the car, dropped on a hard floor. Someone held me up. I was dizzy. My head throbbed. They pulled the bag off my head. Everything was bright, then dark. A blur. My legs were weak.
“Where is the girl?” There were three of them standing around me in half a circle. The man who spoke had a thick Spanish accent. “Talk.”
I nodded, trying to get air, get my bearings.
One of the men stepped forward, swung a right. He caught me high on the cheek, threw my head to the side. My body followed. The man to my side held me up.
“Where is she?”
I shook my head.
Another punch to the side of the face. I tried to raise my hand, but my brain and body were disconnected. I opened my mouth. Then someone hit me from behind. I fell to my knees, on all fours. I spat. Blood. Nausea.
“Where is the girl?” the man asked again.
“I don’t know.” It came out of me weak and raspy, like a whine.
One of them kicked me in the ribs. I fell on my side. Coughed, took a deep breath.
“Maya Edwards,” he said again. “Where the fuck is she?”
I raised my hand. I gasped for air, shook my head. “She found me,” I said. “She came to me. Then she left. I … I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how to find her.”
I moved to get up. Another blow to the side. I curled up into a fetal position, hands on my head, arms covering my face.
“I swear. I don’t know.”
They kicked me like a football. I held on to the words: where is she, Maya, the girl, where. Where. The man’s Spanish accent faded.
The kicking stopped. I was lying on my side, curled up like a baby, sides throbbing. Two of the men were in front of me. They were big, dressed in black. But it was too dark to distinguish anything. I couldn’t see faces, just shapes. One of them lit a match. His face was momentarily illuminated, yellow, shoulder-length hair.
He lit a cigar. The flame swelled. The end of the cigar glowed red. He tossed the match to the side and laughed. Then he nodded. A man behind me dropped on me, knee on my back, hands on my shoulders, holding me down.
The man handed the cigar to another man. He knelt before me, placed his hand on my cheek, pressed my head down against the ground.
“Now hear this,” the man standing over me said, his Spanish accent completely gone. “You go home. Leave Mexico. Don’t come back. Now, here’s a souvenir for you.”
The man holding my face pressed the lit end of the cigar against my ear. The whole side of my face burned. I screamed. He pressed the cigar hard into my ear canal, twisting the cigar like he was putting it out in an ashtray. It was like a bomb had gone off in my head.
They let go. I turned over, brushed my ear, pressed my hand to it, shut my eyes tight against the pain—excruciating.
Someone laughed. I heard shuffling, the car doors closing, engine starting, revving, wheels turning over gravel, fading. Then the car honked the first five notes of “La Cucaracha” somewhere in the distance.
I stayed on the ground with my hand on my ear. Every breath brought pain to my sides. I figured broken ribs. I didn’t move for a long time. My ear buzzing, my brain spinning.
After a long while I staggered to my feet. The ground tilted. I was dizzy. Cars in the far distance. Lights. I checked my pockets. I still had my wallet, my cash—but they had taken my cell phone. I walked, one small step after another, unsure of my direction. I was in a field, a long flat field of some kind. Not a park, the country, somewhere in the outskirts of the city.
I walked for an hour until I reached a highway. Cars raced by. No taxis, no people. I started walking on the side of the highway, my hand to my ear. The pain and ringing driving me insane.
Then a car pulled over in front of me. Two men got out. I waved at them. Cops. Mexican cops.
We tried to communicate. I said, “Asalto. Ayuda.”
One of them looked at my ear. I thought I heard one of them laugh. I couldn’t hear properly. The cars were buzzing past. My head throbbed.
“Hospital,” I said. “Por favor.”
This they seemed to understand. They helped me to the backseat of their patrol car and drove. I leaned my head back and to the side and closed my eyes. The dizziness was killing me. I was going to vomit. But I held it in. I thought of Flor. I kept seeing her face smiling at me, her fingers running along the side of my face, telling me it was all going to be fine.
* * *
When I woke up, I was lying on a couch in a small room lit by a single fluorescent bulb that kept flickering. There was a large metal desk, a couple of chairs, and a pair of file cabinets. The door was closed, but there was a large window that looked out on a large office.
I sat up. My right hand was handcuffed to the arm of the couch. Every inch of my body ached. My head was pounding. My ear burned. I touched the side of my face, looked at my fingers. Blood.
I was dizzy. I rubbed my side, my left temple. I made an effort to clear my head, collect myself. All I could remember was the beating. The men in the darkness. The man’s voice: Where is the girl? The back of the cop car.
I could hear someone working on a typewriter, voices, the tinny sound of music coming from a small speaker, maybe a radio. I stretched my head to look out the window into the large open office space. The walls were blue and white. A policeman in a blue uniform sat behind a large desk, engrossed in whatever he was reading. Behind him the Mexican seal of the eagle eating the serpent was painted on the wall, the words Seguridad Publica, public safety, in big block letters. At the center of the office a man was typing. Four others were gathered around a small TV. Two cops in uniform were eating at a table in the far corner.
This was no goddamn hospital.
I felt around my pockets. My cell phone and wallet were gone. I pulled at my right hand. The cuff was tight. No way to slip my hand out. I checked the couch, an industrial office throwback to the 1970s. Metal with hard gray upholstery seats. No, I wasn’t going anywhere.
I glanced at the desk. A computer, papers, a half-empty Pepsi bottle. My passport, my wallet folded out, my Florida driver’s license on top.
I scooched down on the floor to where no one could see me through the window. I dragged the couch across the floor to the front of the desk, reached over, and grabbed the passport and my wallet. Credit cards, license, picture of Zoe. It was all there. But no cash. The goons last night had left my money. I remembered that perfectly. The cops. They had taken my money.
I felt over the desk for a key. Nothing. I reached to the top drawer, pulled it open, searched blindly, feeling for anything.
A paper clip.
I heard men outside. I peeked over the window. Two cops were standing a few feet from the office where I was. I pushed the couch back to its original position and lay down on my side.
I tried to unlock the cuffs with the paper clip. They make it look so easy on TV.
It’s not.
One of the cops came in, closed the door. I faked sleep. I opened my eyes slightly. He looked over the desk and back at me. Then he glanced out the window. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the filing cabinets. He opened the bottom drawer and produced a fat bottle of Potosí rum. He took a long swig and then put the bottle back in the drawer.
“Ramón.” The other cop cracked the door open and poked his head in. “Nos quiere ver el sargento. Ahora mismo.”
I wasn’t sure what it meant, but the cop slammed the drawer shut and walked quickly out of the office.
He left his keys in the lock of the file cabinet.
I waited a few seconds. Then I glanced over the window. The two cops walked quickly away and disappeared down a set of stairs.
I sat down on the floor and pulled the couch with me to the desk. I reached for the keys on the file cabinet, but it was too far. I pulled the couch as far as it would go. Not good enough.
I looked around the office. I felt woozy. I figured a mild concussion. My ear and my left side just below the armpit hurt the most, maybe a broken rib. Either way, I had to get the keys. I had to get the fuck out.
I shoved the couch between the desk and the wall as far as it would go, but it was still too far—about two feet. I glanced out the window at the office. I turned around and stood on the couch and reached for the keys with my foot.
It took me a few tries to kick them off. They fell on the ground. I grabbed them with my left arm and unlocked the cuffs.
I peeked out the door. The stairs were to my right, about twenty feet. I took a long breath, straightened my back, and stepped out. Each step brought a sharp pain to my side. I walked quietly, casually, like everything was normal. When I reached the stairs, I stopped and leaned against the rail, took a deep breath.
“Hey!” someone yelled. “El gringo!”
I took off, two flights down to a lobby. About a dozen people sat in chairs, waiting their turn to face judicial bureaucracy. Everyone raised their eyes. A woman pointed at me, her expression blank. I looked down, blood on my shirt.
There was a big commotion upstairs: chairs scraping the floor, doors slamming, steps coming quickly down the stairs, someone calling, “Jiménez, García. El gringo!”
I bolted around the stairs to the side of the lobby and pushed open the door closest to me. It led outside to a parking lot. A young man, probably the lot attendant, approached me and started with some gibberish. I waved him off and ran across the lot to the street.
There was a line of parked cop cars, six or seven of them. I glanced back at the attendant. He was standing in the middle of the parking lot, his arms hanging at his sides, staring at me. Behind him, the door flew open. Three cops ran out.
I took off as fast as I could. But I seemed to move in slow motion, like a nightmare where my effort was useless—a lot of hard work for nothing. My side and head throbbed. The people I passed on the street stared at me.
I kept going to the end of the block, my chest burning. I looked back. The three cops ran toward me, forty, fifty feet away.
I kept going. I turned the next corner and crossed the street. Three green VW taxis were cruising down the road one after the other like a little train. I raised my hand. They zoomed past, didn’t even slow down.
I kept moving, walking backward looking for a taxi. The three cops appeared around the corner, moving quickly, looking everywhere. One of them pointed at me. They ran across the street, weaving between the cars. People moved out of their way, stared. They were getting closer.
I turned the next corner. A taxi merged to the side, moving slow. I raised my hand, stepped out onto the street. It pulled over and I hopped in.
“Hotel Maria Cristina. Rapido!”
I slouched down on the seat. When we crossed the street, I glanced back at the cops. They’d stopped running. One of them smacked the other on the chest with the back of his hand. They turned and started walking away.
I told the driver to swing by an ATM so I could get some cash. Then I leaned my head back and caught my reflection in the rearview. The side of my face was swollen like a balloon. I had a gash on my left cheek just below the eye. Blood everywhere.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I DIDN’T LEAVE my room for two days. I wouldn’t let the maid in to clean. I ate room service, downed Motrin every four hours, wrapped my torso tight with one of the bedsheets. I cleaned up my face and ear as best I could. I had a serious cut on my cheekbone and a split lip. The burn in my ear turned to blisters, some of which popped and oozed—red mushy welts that hurt and were at risk of infection.
I didn’t bother to update my Maya document. I just lay in bed with a bag of ice on my face, thinking. Who the fuck was trying to find Maya? Who were those men? What did they want wit
h her? I played the events of the night over and over in my head: pushing me out of the car, the questions, the beating, and that souvenir of a smoldering cigar against my ear. The only thing that seemed off was the man who spoke. He had a Spanish accent, but it faded near the end of our encounter. Or maybe the way I heard it wasn’t the way it happened. I was scared, beat up. I’d lost proper perception.
They hadn’t taken anything from me except my phone. They’d left my passport and my money. Left it for the damn cops. They wanted Maya. They wanted me to leave Mexico. But why?
Hired muscle. They had to be. I was no expert, but I’d heard a few stories, seen enough movies.
But who hired them?
The obvious answer, the one that kept coming back to me and smacking me in the face, was Mike Boseman. It had to be him. He’d freaked when he saw me. But if this was true, then he hadn’t hooked up with Maya. They were not an item. They were not in it together. This destroyed all my theories.
Maybe Maya was running away from him, too. One possibility was that Boseman went looking for Maya at Nick’s place, killed Nick, and then came to Mexico to find Maya. But why was he after her now?
Unless those goons weren’t hired by Boseman.
There were two items hanging in the back of my dizzy head: insurance and inheritance. Maya was the one who had the most to gain, unless she wasn’t in Nick’s will or named as the beneficiary in his life insurance policy. That’s what I had to figure out.
I called Flor and left a message, telling her I’d lost my cell phone and to call me at the hotel. I lay on the bed, watched Mexican soaps on TV, drank some chicken soup, trying to regain my strength. By the third day Flor hadn’t called. I imagined she was out, diving in the canals of Xochimilco. I called her again and left another message. I told her I needed to see her. That it was urgent. I wasn’t trying to spook her but I was afraid that whoever sicced those goons on me might go after her.
I showered and shaved and went to a pharmacy, bought antibiotic cream for my ear and cheek. I felt better, but I looked like shit. The swelling had gone down some, but my face was a sad cartoon with blue and purple around my eye and lip.