by Lili Wright
“You’re getting quite Mexican.”
“But how do we get inside? We’re right back where we started.”
“Un regalo from Soledad.” Salvador dangled a key.
“Where did she get—”
“Housekeepers . . .”
Anna touched his arm, stopping him. “There’s more.” She told him about Holly. Salvador didn’t believe her. Malone must have bought the skeleton somewhere.
“No, it’s her. He cleaned her down to the bone and dressed her up like Santa Muerte. He’s sick, crazy.”
“There’s no way—”
“He said, ‘It took so much water to clean her.’ We need to bring her out. For evidence.”
Salvador shook his head, disbelieving, believing. “So you are saying we need to steal a death mask and a skeleton?” The next string of swearing contained a puta, a chingada, and a cabrón.
Anna said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
—
Two a.m. The moon shined bright as a coin. Tree frogs chanted. They pushed through the Mendezes’ woods, frazzled and sweaty. The Malones’ yard was silent. The pink house, the cottage, the chapel, the pool. Anna imagined the course of events after the dinner party dispersed. No doubt Thomas had returned to the chapel, been stunned to discover she was gone. Would he look for her? Unlikely. No, as the mask was safe, he’d keep up appearances. Slip on cotton pajamas. Steady his lips as he pecked Constance good night. Take a sleeping pill to soothe his brittle nerves. He had nothing to fear from Anna. Nothing that could not be explained away with a lie.
In the darkness, the pink house sulked like day-old cake. Anna and Salvador stood braced, checking the yard for signs of life, for Thomas, for Morocco, Honduras, but the only sound was the whirl of industrial air conditioners churning white noise and cold. Salvador gave a tense nod. They crept to the chapel. Anna jiggled the key in the door. It turned. She hesitated. She could still see Thomas’s remote eyes, feel his weight on her wrists. The stink of mescal.
Sensing her distress, Salvador pushed past her. “Wait here. I will do it.”
“No,” Anna said. “You can’t carry her alone.”
As they entered, Salvador let out a hushed Híjole. Using his phone as a light, he scanned the masks, the ghouls, the bride, the banquet table set for dinner, then focused on a black stone mask hanging by a window. He moved closer, lifted the mask from its nail, flipped it over. “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” Anna had reached the altar. The death mask glared at her. Time to stop fucking around.
“We bought this mask four years ago. It’s from Teotihuacán, five hundred years after Christ. The face is a young boy, maybe a prince. It’s supposed to be in Puebla, but here it is. Gonzáles used me. Salvador Flores, the great protector of Mexican art, was another idiot Gonzáles . . .” He couldn’t find the right verb.
“Screwed over.” Anna stuffed the death mask in her pack. “He screwed both of us.”
“And where’s your looter?” Salvador hissed. “Smoking his pipe?”
“Hurry.” Anna ripped the skeleton’s dress. It smelled like bleach. Her heart was going nuts. Her hands felt like oven mitts. At any moment, Thomas Malone might appear. “Help me with this. It’ll be easier to carry without the stupid dress.”
Salvador scowled, which meant yes, the same way gracias can mean no. No sooner had she removed the dress than she realized her mistake. Without it, the skeleton was floppy, hard to maneuver. Salvador crossed the arms over the chest. Anna grasped the ankles, trying not to feel squeamish. Salvador held one hand under the back, cupped the skull with the other. The bones were surprisingly light. They hustled down the aisle, like EMTs without the stretcher. The masks watched them, hundreds of eyes and open mouths, horns and fangs and nostrils, seeing, seething, smelling, breathing.
Through the chapel door they went. The lawn was quiet. Fog had rolled in from somewhere. There was no way they could navigate the back woods, which meant having to leave through the front gate, a football field away, past peacocks, past the pool, past the pink house, which might, at any moment, light up. Salvador mouthed, Apúrate, but it was hard to hurry without dropping the skeleton or making a racket. At first Anna felt disgust—she was carrying a dead body—but her revulsion faded to tenderness for this puzzle of moving parts, each bone separate but connected. This is who we all become. No, this is who we are now, underneath.
She kept her eyes glued to the house. If they were caught, she would tell Constance everything, every sordid detail. They’d nearly reached the pool, a tapestry of algae, when she looked behind her, gave a muffled cry.
A man had emerged from the woods.
Anna froze, ready to run, but it was not Thomas’s angular frame. This man was smaller, slower, his face a blur that sharpened as he approached. Older, white, he looked a bit like her father. Then an entirely impossible thing happened. A fact beyond checking. Daniel Ramsey appeared through the fog, gave a short wave and a smile of recognition. He was limping, favoring his left side, the way he did when his knees hurt. His explorer’s vest bulged with God only knew what. Eyedrops. Compass. An expired EpiPen. Anna did not move to embrace him, because she wasn’t sure he was real.
“Dad?”
“I got to the Sunset late and—” Anna frantically shushed him. He began again, quieter. “Finally, a new clerk came on duty, a real pansy, and he gave me your note.”
Anna set down the skeleton, hugged her father, smelled his breath. Clean. She couldn’t name her feelings. She wanted to pound his chest and she wanted to cry. Salvador’s eyes danced with impatience, but he pulled back, giving them privacy.
“Did you bury her already?” her father asked.
Anna looked at the skeleton, confused.
“Your mother. The ashes.”
She wanted to say, I’ve been a little busy. Instead, she said, “I couldn’t decide where . . .”
“I want to be there.”
Anger curdled dangerously inside her. The fallen man had conveniently resurrected himself and now demanded a starring role. He wore a necktie. This detail touched her. He’d dressed for the flight. She looked at his knees, the ones that didn’t like to fly.
“We need to go.”
“You shouldn’t have to do everything.”
“But I already have.” She reached into her pack and handed him the death mask. His mouth pinched as his fingers traced the warts, the grout. He turned the mask over, his thumb stroking the patina. After a quiet moment, he gestured to the skeleton. “What’s that hideous thing?”
“It’s too much to . . .”
Branches rustled. The woods. Anna swung around. It had taken her a moment to recognize her father, but she knew the looter at once: square shoulders, the drag of his right toe. The pregnant girl had to be Chelo. A child with a child inside. It was getting to be quite a party by the pool: Anna, her father, Salvador, the looter, Chelo, the skeleton. The dead, the unborn, the living, all gathered at the home of the murderous American. Someone ought to serve drinks.
“Is that him?” Salvador murmured to Anna. Not waiting for the answer, he whispered loudly, “Where have you been?”
The looter glared at Anna. “Where’s the mask?”
“Where were you?”
“Tied up.”
“I was tied up, too.”
“Did you use the tunnel?”
“It had no opening.”
“Where’s the mask?”
Daniel Ramsey gave the death mask a teasing shake. The looter’s shoulders shot back. His eyes set. Anna watched the house. They couldn’t stay here. The night could explode in six million ways.
“We need to go now!”
The looter cursed. The patio light turned on. Anna’s legs melted beneath her. The kitchen door opened. Fireflies danced in the dark. Anna saw just how foolish she had been, trusti
ng air conditioners to keep them safe. Marching across the lawn in long, confident strides was Thomas Malone. He was holding a pistol.
They waited, transfixed by the gun and its deadly potential. Anna picked up Holly, as if to say, She’s mine now, not yours. Five people had trespassed the Malones’ enormous lawn, but when Thomas reached the group, he spoke only to Anna, his voice grim and mechanical.
“Put her down. Give me the mask.”
Daniel hesitated, then obeyed, all exuberance drained from his face. Malone took the mask. This loss felt predestined. No matter how many times Anna found the mask, she would lose it again. Like love. Lost. Found. Lost and Found. La oficina de objetos perdidos. She ought to rent a room there.
Her father held up a hand, an elder calling for peace. “Thomas, you have what you want now. Put the gun away. You and I have known each other—”
“Shut up, old man. You’re in over your head.” The collector pointed the pistol at Anna. “Put her down.”
Anna didn’t budge.
“Anna,” Salvador pleaded.
She set down the feet, backpedaled a few yards. Thomas stooped, lifted the skeleton, stepped backward. He was taking his dead lover hostage. It was a lot to manage—a skeleton, a mask, and a gun—but he was getting away, getting away with everything. Anna watched, amazed by her own poor judgment. She had craved this man’s admiration, wanted to prove she could keep pace, shot for shot, determined to succeed where her father had failed, and this vanity had put them all in peril.
A second-story window lit up. A miraculous sight.
Anna said, “Constance is awake.”
Thomas wheeled around. He ran in an awkward series of hops, but the skeleton was sluggish in the grass, arms flopping to either side. Eyeing the pool, Thomas shuffled past a planter to the water’s edge and gave the bones a mean push. In the commotion, the gun dropped into the pool. Gone, in an instant. With a final, frantic heave, Malone shoved the skeleton into the water. To Anna’s amazement, perhaps because of the algae or simple physics, it didn’t sink. Thomas threw a rock at it, but the rock bounced impotently off the ribs and sank, joining his pistol in the deep end.
Holly made a regal sight, lying on her green tapestry beyond everyone’s reach. Tibia, fibula, sternum, scapula. It had been years since Anna had taken human anatomy, and the words drifted back to her, as foreign and lyrical as Spanish. The pelvis resembled a butterfly. The ribs, May Day ribbons. Holly’s blue tiara drifted a few inches off her head. Free of Thomas and his atrocities, released from interpretations of the living, she floated, alone, at peace.
Across the lawn, Constance swooped toward them, her robe white and ghostlike. She carried her rifle.
Thomas called out before she arrived, his voice jaunty. “I’m sorry to wake you, my dear, but I’m afraid we’ve been robbed.”
Constance looked older without her usual grooming. Her light hair was pulled back in a headband and her pale eyes hovered, no longer anchored by a firm eyebrow pencil and mascara. She glared at each guest in turn.
“Why are all these people here? What’s that in the pool?”
Thomas held up his hands, palms open, an innocent man. “It’s just inconceivable. These felons broke into the chapel, stole a priceless mask, and were dragging my skeleton across the lawn. She’s the centerpiece of my show, my Calavera Catrina, and they’ve ruined her. Chlorine is terrible for—”
“Which mask?” Constance’s voice turned steely.
“A death mask,” Thomas said. “Montezuma’s death mask.”
Anna was about to object, but stopped herself when Constance pointed her rifle at the tiara and said, “What’s that?”
With a pitiful cry, Constance clambered to the side of the pool. She crouched and paddled the water with cupped hands, drawing the tiara closer, nearly falling in. When the crown was a yard away, she hooked it with the barrel of her rifle. The drenched scarf dripped black water on the flagstones. She set down the gun and held the tiara, fingered the scarf, held it briefly to her nose. Her hands trembled. She turned to her husband, her face drained of color and expression, features flat and stony as a Mayan mask. Her eyes begged for reassurance, explanation. What happened here? What has been happening? She was ready to believe, to follow his story wherever it led. Any peg to hang her coat on. Any wisp of plausible fact.
Thomas’s mouth twitched, formulating a fresh confabulation, but then he seemed to change his mind and gazed over the wall, down to the glittering lights of Oaxaca, like he was already down there, gone.
Anna turned to Salvador. He and the others watched Constance, wondering what she would do. The chapel, the masks, the petty affairs, the disappointments and deceit, all these she had borne. But this? Anna stepped forward, but for a second time stopped herself. She doesn’t want you.
Time slowed. The skeleton floated, white as alabaster, water licking its rib cage, its skull, its delicate fingers. Still crouched, Constance seemed unable to rouse herself. Her cheeks trembled. Her chin quivered. She held out a hand, then dropped it. The night’s silence was broken by a wretched sob. She crumpled, chest heaving, crushed by the weight of what she now understood. All masks had been lifted, and she saw her husband and she saw herself. A sadist and a sycophant. Two Americans lost in Mexico.
She twisted, her face runny and red. “What did you do to her? What have you done? You hurt her. You hurt me. Everyone.” Using the gun as a crutch, she staggered to her feet. “All those girls I pretended not to see. For what?” Tall again, she hoisted the rifle to her shoulder, braced her legs, took aim squarely at her husband.
For the first time, Thomas looked worried. He patted down the air. “Now, puppet, don’t fly off the handle. Holly gave me the crown before she left. It was a present. I didn’t tell you because I knew how upset you’d be—”
Constance cut him off. “You are a liar. You lie over and over again. I can’t stand the noise that comes out of your mouth. Give Anna the mask.”
Thomas did not budge.
Constance shook her rifle. “Squirrel, I am not asking you.”
The look Thomas gave Anna could have killed a snake. He shoved the mask into her chest. Its one decent eye rolled: You again. Thomas turned. A gunshot exploded. Anna screamed. Thomas buckled. Blood seeped through his pants. Daniel ran to his side. “Jesus Christ, she shot him.” Chelo backed up, hand protecting her belly. The looter stepped in front of her, a shield, arms spread, but Constance kept the rifle firmly aimed at Thomas. “That’s enough,” Daniel shouted. “You’ve hurt him.” With his belt, he fashioned a tourniquet around the sodden leg, murmuring about mistakes and violence and ridiculous and what the hell kind of circus was going on here anyway. Thomas was shaking, an animal in shock. Salvador spun behind a tree, frantically whispering into his phone, Amapolas . . . emergencia . . . accidente.
Finding herself unscathed, Anna rushed to check on her father, the looter, the girl. This moment of calm was shattered by the sound of crashing glass. An eerie whoosh swept across the yard, followed by a loud crack as the chapel burst into flames. A second later, the right side of the roof blew off. Masks flew across the lawn, and a series of low blasts shook Anna’s insides.
Salvador shouted at Anna to go to the house, then ran across the yard for a hose. Ignoring his directive, Anna went to stand by her father. Together, they watched.
The chapel burned quickly, as if by divine ordination. The wooden beams and pews kept the fire stoked. The soaring flames animated the masks’ ghastly faces, their charred mouths gaping. Skulls rolled in the embers. Daniel darted about, trying to save a few treasures. The two dogs barked themselves hoarse, and the peacocks screeched from their cage, and the neighbor’s donkey brayed in terror. Soledad appeared, breathless, still in her apron, hair frazzled. At the edge of the patio, she fell to her knees, crossed herself, lips moving, all sound lost in the chaos. Salvador yanked the hose across the grass and shot a stream
of water into the blaze, without any noticeable effect. He was screaming, “La casa, la casa,” and the Mendez family appeared and formed a bucket brigade. Anna joined in, horrified to see that the fire had reached the woods. Thin branches sizzled like tinder. It had not rained in weeks.
A fire truck roared up the street, followed by police and an ambulance. Salvador opened the gate. Men in yellow hard hats leapt across the yard. Curious neighbors snuck in behind them. They wore nightgowns and flip-flops and held toddlers, whose soft faces watched the fire like it was TV. One man shot a video with his phone. The firemen hustled out a sloppy hose. The chapel seemed bigger now that it was burning, its insides spewed on the lawn, a foul purging, a secret revealed. One by one, the walls fell, and when the belfry collapsed, the brass bell dropped like a severed head. Constance drank red wine straight from the bottle, rifle at her side, bony knees high in her slung-back chair. Two police officers questioned Salvador. Mexicans suspected Mexicans first. Chelo sat on the wall, rocking in the curl of the looter’s arm. Anna remembered Thomas, but he had disappeared somewhere. Perhaps to the hospital.
“Where’s Thomas?” she asked Salvador, who was clutching empty buckets, breathing hard.
“What?”
“Thomas.” Anna pointed to where blood stained the grass. “Where is he?”
“Ni idea.”
Anna checked the house—the living room, the couches—and the ambulance, vacant but for two EMTs smoking, then circled back to Constance.
“He took off,” Constance said, finger pointing to the woods.
“You didn’t stop him?”
Constance answered slowly, her eyes fixed on Anna’s throat. “I could never stop him.”
“But by law . . .”
“The law?” Constance gave her a withering look. Her face was smudged with soot.
Anna gave up. Her eyes stung from the smoke. Her dress was stained, its hem ripped loose and sagging, but she was okay. Salvador was okay. So was her father.
“How did the fire start?” she asked, changing tack. “Do they know?”
“Eventually,” Constance said, raising her wine bottle, “the small ones retaliate.”