by Aitana Moore
A thief wasn't allowed more than two strikes.
She felt a familiar excitement rushing through her. She wasn't done with her old life; she wasn't any better, although the shiny things in Diego's safe hadn't quickened her heart.
The possibility of finding out his secrets had. She wanted to find out for James.
Lying on the soft coverlet, Lee allowed the withdrawal symptoms she had been repressing since Cuernavaca to take hold of her. She had had James for two days and then none of him for over twenty-four hours. Her body was awake, bothering her. A pulse beat on her lips when she thought of him kissing her — for a long time when he made slow love to her, roughly when he took her fast. There was a throbbing almost all the way to her stomach and she lay on her face, pressing against the perfectly made, chaste bed she shared with Diego.
How different from the bed in James' hotel room with its knotted sheets full of his semen and their sweat. Her insides hurt when she thought about that bed.
Why did her desire for James feel like torture? If she could find him she would probably go to him, and there were just two words for what she wanted him to do to her; one of those words would have gotten her a mouth full of soap once.
She could ask Sol where he lived or call Pete Hadley at the embassy. She could do something crazy.
She did nothing at all. When Diego returned from work, Lee’s hair was freshly-washed, and she sat in designer sweatpants and a T-shirt in front of the TV. She had managed to lock the door between the office and the terrace, but she hadn't had another opportunity to look at his tablet.
"Didn't go out?" he asked.
"Took your advice and just stayed by the pool."
"Estás guapisima, a little bit tanned like that. But go easy on the sun, we're high up. You can get burnt and not even notice.”
He went to have a shower before dinner and returned with the tablet. Lee wasn’t aware of anything else but the device in his hands, until the maid announced that dinner was served. Having downed a couple of beers, Diego set down the iPad and went to the bathroom. Lee leapt onto his place. Safari was open on a sports page, and she pressed History.
All empty.
There was no email account on the tablet, and there were no images. In fact, there were almost no apps apart from Kindle, iBooks and Zinio for magazines.
She left Safari back on the sports page and went to the dining room. He found her there.
"Que bueno!” he said when he saw the food. "You like mole, don't you? Did you have it in Cuernavaca?"
"It's a bit heavy for me at night."
He motioned toward another dish. "Have some chicken, then."
Lee took a sip of wine, trying to look as if she weren't toying with her food. When her phone beeped, she jumped. For a mad second, she believed it to be a message from James.
"It's Luz," she said, picking it up.
Diego nodded at the phone. "Go ahead, I don't mind. I know you've been worried."
Opening WhatsApp, Lee read: Hola Ashley. im sorry I didntt call. am very upset will call you when I can talk. I will just rest in my parents for a little bit.
The mistakes in English and the typos ought to be Luz's, yet Lee had the distinct feeling that the girl had never written a single letter of those messages.
"Is she OK?" Diego asked.
"She's upset."
"Well, that's normal. But like you said she's young. She will get over it."
"Doesn't your brother worry?"
"About what?"
"Things these girls might know about him. In case they decide to get revengeful."
His eyes searched hers for a long moment before his lips made a curve of dismissal. "What could they know that would hurt him?"
She shrugged, and he stared at her for another second before he also shrugged. "I can't think of anything.”
"You're probably right," Lee said.
After he fell asleep, she tiptoed back to the TV room and texted Luz: I'm so sorry about what happened. I hope we can speak soon.
The reply came almost immediately. I hope so. Thanks. Going to sleep now.
Lee exited the chat and texted Quinn. I know I haven’t written in a while, but pls find this phone for me. She gave him the number.
"OK, I'm your bitch," he texted back after a few moments.
She sat looking at the screen until the next message appeared: That phone seems to be a few yards away from yours.
Like in a horror film. It's inside the house ...
Except that, in this case, she was quite sure that Luz's phone was inside the apartment next door.
FOURTEEN
An envelope was waiting by Lee’s dish at breakfast the next day, and she recognized Sol's handwriting. It must be an invitation to one of her openings.
But when she tore the envelope, a photograph fell out. There Lee was, standing in the middle of six flower girls in Cuernavaca. Although everything in the photograph was interesting — the girls and their black braids, the flowers, the cart behind them ─ she knew that she looked better than she ever had on any image. The colors of her skirt and the white of her blouse were dazzling, her eyes were shining and her lips, wanting so badly to be kissed by James, were blood red.
It was the photograph of a woman in love.
She turned it around and it said: Cuernavaca, Día de mi inocente.
“My innocent”: as if James were absolving her of all her crimes.
There was something else in the envelope, and she got up from the table, hastening toward the bedroom to see it in private. She fished out a sheet of paper with a childish drawing of a house and an address in Condesa, the city's most bohemian neighborhood.
James must have asked Sol to address the envelope; he wanted Lee to go to him without creating suspicion. There was no way to call him, since she didn't have his number: she only had a map and an address.
She couldn't get dressed fast enough.
It would be strange for her not to be driven by Julio. She asked him to leave her at a spa she frequented sometimes, mentioning that she had a long treatment booked. Walking right through reception, she reached the back of the building, where there was a line of taxis.
The driver weaved through busy avenues to Condesa, turned into a quiet, leafy street and stopped before a semi-detached house with an Art Deco façade. "I think it's here."
"I know it is," Lee said, paying him.
The gate squeaked as she pushed it, and when she tried the front door she found it open. She locked it behind her. The house was full of light and surrounded by a garden, but Lee barely stopped to look out the windows. She walked through a room full of antiques into a library, but James wasn't anywhere. A wooden staircase spiraled like a seashell and she ran up the steps, still unable to call his name.
There was only one door and she rushed through it, screaming when he grabbed her by the waist.
"There you are," she said, breathless.
"There you are."
They kissed where they stood, as if both were dying of thirst and both were water. Lee vaguely heard something ripping as he took off her clothes. His skin was hot and smooth, and the muscle of his belly flat as he entered her.
"Feels so good," she whispered.
They didn't speak another word for the next half hour.
"Sorry," he said then, sounding British and polite. He rolled on his back. "That was a bit of a trap."
She turned on her stomach. "I didn't know where you were, or I'd have tried your hospitality before."
His eyes were warm as he smiled. "Would you? Well, now you know where I live. I did think that we needed time to heal." He picked up a tube from the bed table and wriggled it. "This pretty much glues everything back together, so now we can make love until we die."
Lee fell back, laughing. "Shall we try?"
"Don't mind if I do."
She let him look at all of her in the bright light of the room until he was the one who shut his eyes. He held out until she was done, and then came. Out o
f breath, she watched him bite his lip and groan with his head thrown back, as if he couldn’t help it; he opened his eyes as he lowered himself onto her body, his heart thumping next to hers.
They lay entangled, lips to lips, and felt too weak to move — or perhaps just happy to stay like that. It was as if Lee had spent her life in a parched land, and he were water; and water was life.
Lee finally looked around. The windows of the large bedroom looked out onto a garden and at the red spires of a church. The floor was black and white ceramic, and his bed was wide and old, with an antique headboard that featured hand-painted images of saints.
James' eyes followed hers and he said, "Ooops," as he threw a blanket over the saints.
“A bit too late,” Lee said.
“I know, don’t they look pop-eyed to you?”
“They’re thinking, ‘That’s what I missed?’ ”
“Poor buggers.”
“So glad you took the ‘Saint’ out of your name …”
After another half hour, he ran downstairs to get them something to drink. Lee wrapped the bedsheet around her body, moving to his desk. The photographs he had taken in Cuernavaca were tacked to the wall. They showed people dressed like death, the skulls, the red devils, the flowers and the graves. There was the old woman with the altar to her son, Hernán, a man with a big hat and the volcano behind him, beautiful girls in their expensive costumes. There was the photograph of her having a coffee — a burst of white against the dark background of the bar — the doors of cantinas, the debris of the fiesta in the street.
"The photos are beautiful," she said when he returned with two glasses of iced tea. She wanted to say that it felt strange not to want anything from the room, except more of him; it was strange not to have to look for any object or any information, for once.
He sat and pulled her onto his lap. "In Mexico you just point the camera and it's all there."
The ice cubes tinkled as she sipped the tea. "True. It isn't an easy place, though."
He nuzzled her shoulder. "Is anything that's good ever easy?"
Nothing worth possessing can be quite possessed …
Among the prints on the table, Lee found the image the American tourist had taken of them, laughing as they stood against a red wall. She understood why the woman had to tell them they were beautiful. "Can I have this one?"
He nodded.
"We seem so happy,” she said.
"Seem, madam? Nay, we were. We are." He made her turn around and straddle him. "What's not to be happy about? The day is blue, the clouds are fat, you have the greatest arse in Christendom. And beyond, I’m sure."
She touched the corner of the photograph. "Did you develop these?"
"I made a darkroom downstairs."
"You really are a man from another time, aren't you?"
"Yes, I should wear one of those loose white shirts, polished boots and call you 'darling'."
"You called me 'darling' once.” She glanced at him. “When we were in that hotel room and the security man knocked. You so didn't mean it, but I still liked it."
"No, that day I was possessed by a devil and wanted to call you something else." He considered her for a moment. "That same day the fuckhead called you his 'amor'."
She scoffed. "Diego would call a pet hamster that."
"Still, that's a big word, wouldn't you say?” James asked. “Love?”
"I think so."
"Then punch him in the mouth for me next time he calls you that."
Lee took a deep breath before she said, "I got into his safe."
"Oh? And?"
"He keeps his iPad in there, but I had no time to look through it. Later he had it in the living room and I managed to open Safari — he had erased the history."
"I see — so he is looking at things and doesn't want anyone to know?"
"Could be porn."
"I thought you said he was on heroin and had no interest in sex?"
"He's not interested in me, anyway."
"Wouldn't he know about that thing, whatsit, where you go in through a hidden page?"
"Incognito?"
"Yes."
"You truly are from another century."
He plucked the photo from her hand and set it down. "Talking of people finding out other people’s secrets, you'll leave this here for safekeeping. And now I'll show you how we used to do things back in my century ..."
When it was time for her to go, she discovered that the shoulder of her dress was torn. James rummaged inside a couple of drawers, found a needle, threaded it and darned the dress.
Lee brushed the hair away from his eyes. "I can't believe you know how to do that.”
He shrugged. "Had to learn. Couldn't take a lot of clothes with me when I traveled. I sew wounds too."
"Would you leave a nice scar?"
"Wouldn't swear to it." He helped her put on the dress and closed the zipper, and they went downstairs together.
“You have a pretty garden,” she said, looking through the glass doors.
"You’ll get to see it. Shall I drive you?"
"Not a good idea."
"I'll run out and get you a safe taxi, then. There's a stop down the road." He put his back to the door before he opened it. "But the rules of the house are that you can't leave until you book the next appointment."
"Tomorrow,” she said, and the word sounded wonderful and distant at the same time.
James ran out and came back with a taxi, but he kissed her behind the door for a few minutes before he let her go. Then he watched her leave, leaning against the threshold. He didn’t wave. He never did.
FIFTEEN
James awoke with a start the next morning.
He had dreamt of Lee, that much he knew. It was rare for him to remember a dream, but he couldn't help feeling haunted. His subconscious might have been trying to warn him about something.
What had he dreamt?
Before breakfast he sat in the garden to meditate and let his mind wander where it willed. To get lost was often the way to find things.
Mi amor.
Diego called Lee "my love" to make up for the fact that he couldn't sleep with her.
How was it possible? Even when Lee had been cold to the touch, apparently inaccessible, she had been irresistibly sensual. Diego might not be able to discern the special fascination she held, but he must see the obvious: she was beautiful.
Was Diego so addicted to heroin that he couldn’t muster any desire for her, or the remote ability to function? Wouldn’t he then look less healthy than he did and show other signs of his habit?
James meditated until his mind was clear of thoughts — but while he was having breakfast, he called Pete. "Didn't you say the Aguirre boys go to your club?"
"Indeed, indeed. They play Jai Alai every Saturday, come rain or come shine."
"Invite me tomorrow."
"Seriously? What are you going to do, brain Diego with the ball? Suffocate him with the basket?"
"Perhaps."
"All right, then. Just don't make me play with them. They're competitive bastards."
The next morning, Pete considered James as they sat in the veranda of the club. "You're such a ponce!"
James looked down at his white uniform. "I'm in disguise."
"I dearly wish you'd let me into your plan for—"
"There isn't a plan. Just want to talk to that villain.”
"—Diego!"
"Yes, that arrant villain, Diego."
"I mean he is behind you."
Pete was already standing, and James turned in time to see Diego bearing down on them with a smile and an outstretched hand. He stood as well.
"Pete. And Mr. Bryce. How are you?"
James shook his hand. "Call me James, please."
Diego seemed calmer than the first time they met, having probably arrived at the conclusion that Caitlin hadn’t told James about his blackmail.
"Never seen you here before," Diego said.
"I'm Pet
e's guest. He was going to teach me to play Jai Alai, as you see, but he hurt himself like a fool."
Pete touched his ribcage. “Made the tiniest movement and I'm in terrible pain."
Stepping back, Diego motioned toward his Jai Alai outfit. "Then we can do each other a favor. I was supposed to play with my brother, but he dropped out this morning. I'm looking for a partner."
"What a coincidence," Pete said brightly.
"I'm not sure I'll be worth your game, but I'm willing to give it a try,” James added.
"There's a court just for two people — it won't be a real match, but we will break a sweat and exercise a little. Come on."
Diego walked ahead of them to get the keys to the court.
"You're not going to show off, are you?" Pete asked James.
"How can I show off if I don't know the game? He'll trounce me."
"You can pick up this physical stuff in three minutes."
"I'm not here to win a stupid game."
"You can't stand to lose. And I could be of more help if you'd tell me the plan."
"It's a blind mission," James insisted. "Just trying out a couple of things."
"Wouldn't you love it if civilization didn't exist and you could just beat him within an inch of his life for what he did to Cat?"
"Civilization doesn't exist," James said. "Jail makes me think twice, though. Most of the time."
The court consisted of three walls, and a box full of balls had been placed right outside; it was a sign of how violent Jai Alai could get. Diego handed James a narrow, curved basket whose lower extremity held a glove for his right hand. Pete took James' bag and sat in the gallery behind them, protected by a net.
"So, the only important rule is that you can let the ball hit the ground only once, or not at all, and you can't hold it for any length of time," Diego explained. "It has to be a continuous movement, catching and throwing."