A Small Fortune (10 page)

Scraping. Something digging in dirt. I open my eyes to see Benicio at the edge of the clearing, thirty feet away. He’s shirtless beneath a ray of sunlight slanting through the trees. For a moment I float in ignorance, thinking I’m at the pool and Benicio is working in the garden. I savor the cut of his shoulders, the curve of his back. Then I remember how intimately I know his hands. His mouth. His body inside me.

Then the memory of Roberto floods in. I ache everywhere. My muscles are wet rags wringing beneath my skin. I don’t even try to move.

Benicio is digging a grave with a large branch. The ground appears stiff, dry from the winter months. He chops at it like a farmer with a pickax. How long have I been out? How long has he been digging? The sun sits lower in the sky. It appears as if Benicio has managed nothing more than a shallow rut in the ground.

I make an effort to sit, but the side of my head feels as if it’s been slammed with a cinderblock. I must’ve whacked it on the ground when I fainted. I unclench my fists and lay my head back onto the bag of clothes Benicio has slipped beneath me.

I watch as he tosses the branch to the side and empties Roberto’s pockets of a cell phone and cash. He stuffs them into his own pockets, and then he wipes his forehead across the back of his forearm and drags Roberto by his wrists into the shallow hole. He rolls the dog next to him, and then he covers them both with dirt and vines, branches and leaves, creating a mound that animals are sure to tear apart in the night.

He sees I’m awake and holds up a finger to say just a second. He jogs to the water and washes his hands. Then jogs to my side.

“How’s your head?” he asks, helping me to sit.

“Fine.” I lie, wondering just how much pain I’d be in if it not for the codeine.

“How about the leg?”

The pain seesaws from moment to moment. I take several deep breaths. “Better. I think.”

He appears skeptical.

“Really,” I say.

He lowers himself beside me. Neither of us mentions what’s happened, and the silence mushrooms between us.

“I’m sorry about Roberto,” I finally say.

“It’s not your fault.” He glances toward the river. Does he finally regret not joining the family business? Anything has to be better than this.

An armadillo saunters through the clearing. Then another. Exclamation points to a life so surreal it’s beyond belief. We’re living on the outside of logic. Anything seems possible.

Benicio takes out Roberto’s cell phone and flips it open. “No coverage up here.” He snaps it shut.

The minute we’re in range I’ll use it to call Oliver. The thought of this fills me with the urge to get up and run.

“When Roberto doesn’t return they’ll come looking for him,” Benicio says. “They’ll figure it out by tonight.”

“What should we do?”

“Not stay here.”

“How far are we from the kiosk?”

“Too far for you to walk. We need to think of something else.”

“What else is there?”

“We could go back down.”

“And walk right into them?”

“Of course not.”

Benicio empties a plastic garbage bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to run ahead and make it to the kiosk. I’ll grab a raft and some supplies and meet you back here.”

Fear rises to my throat. My skin begins to itch. My arms and legs are covered in horrible red bites. Ants? Mosquitoes? What else is there? “How long will you be gone?” I grab the insect repellant and spray myself again. I spray the air and ground, but there isn’t an insect in sight.

“No more than a few hours.”

“A few
hours
?” I can’t imagine the kind of dark that comes to a jungle in the middle of the night. “I’d rather come with you.”

“You know you can’t. You need to stay here and wait.”

He’s right. But still. “What if someone comes?”

“If I don’t spot the kiosk before they close I’ll never find it in the dark.”

I look around, sick with fear, trying my best not to show it.

“Keep your gun close. Here’s an extra just in case.” He hands me Roberto’s gun, a small smear of blood on its side.

I turn away. He places the gun on the ground.

“I want you to wait by the river just after sunset,” he says. “I’m going to tie this garbage bag to a tree so I can spot it on my way down.”

I have little faith that any of this is going to work. It seems far more likely that one of Leon’s men will find me, and even if they don’t something will eat me alive before dawn.

“Where does the river lead?” I ask.

“We won’t take it all the way. We’ll cut across a few miles before the end and follow a trail to Mismaloya.”

Mismaloya. This is the town I read about online when Jonathon showed me Puerto Vallarta. It’s the place where
Night of the Iguana
with Richard Burton and Ava Gardner was filmed. It looks exactly the way paradise is supposed to look.

“What are we going to do there?” I ask.

“Hide in plain sight.”

“With that face and this leg?”

“Yes.” He loads some things into another bag, explaining how everything will unfold.

“Are you sure about this?”

“You’ll see,” he says, and I sit back, settling into a feeling I can’t name. “I’ll take care of everything,” he says, and I wish he hadn’t said it. It sounds so much like something Jonathon would say that I can’t help recoiling when Benicio leans down and softly kisses my cheek.

He says a few more things about a plan when he returns, and then he’s gone.

Exhaustion, like a cast, sets my bones, making it harder and harder to move. Everything I’ve endured over the last few days has collected inside me. I’ve lost track of how much codeine I’ve taken. I drift in and out of a trance, never quite losing my awareness of the mound near the trees. With every rustle of leaves or crackle of branch I’m sure someone or something is unearthing the man I killed. The man I killed. The idea is so unthinkable that I question more than once if Roberto isn’t really alive after all. If perhaps the sounds I hear in the jungle are actually Roberto coming up for air.

I force my arms and neck into a stretch, though neither gives much. I drink water and think in a thickheaded, nonsensical way of how so many years of my life have passed and yet very few memories can be retrieved. How have I filled the hours? I don’t know. How you fill your days is how you live your life goes the adage.

Coming here has changed everything. If I live through this I’ll always be able to recount nearly every second of what’s happened since I got off the plane. Much like my days with Seth. For all the years I had stopped thinking about our time together, I can still reach in and pull up moments, days as clear and easy as plucking shiny apples from a bowl. I can recall the smell of his dish soap (lemon), the color of his bath mat (aqua marine), and dozens of conversations we had about life, about books—
I would not, could not, become a fan of Vonnegut
, I told him, which sounded so much like Dr. Seuss that he replied—
Would you, could you, on a train?
I recall the timbre of his voice, the soft lilt of his accent, especially when close to my ear. I recall the first time I heard him say, “Dude’s paralytic” (drunk) as he looked down from his kitchen window at a man on the sidewalk doing a slow search for his balance between the street sign and the bike rack. I recall a particular shirt Seth wore (coffee-colored, short-sleeved with bone-white buttons) in the bookstore on a day when he told a group of twelve-year-old boys to quit acting the maggot (fooling around), and I could recall, too, that it was raining outside, a light Portland mist, the daylight already vanished by four o’clock in the afternoon when Seth smiled his lopsided smile near the paperback stand as he turned to put another log on the fire. Ironically, I could recall the many times he’d said, “Your only man,” as in the thing one can most rely on, the thing most appropriate to one’s need. “If you want to get around town, a bike’s your only man,” he’d said, unloading his panniers of the chocolate chip cookies he gave away on a white saucer near the register. “If you’re looking for melancholy,” he’d told me, rolling a mint inside his cheek as he rested in the faded purple armchair near the Mystery aisle, “then
What We Talk about When We Talk about Love
is your only man.”

“I love you,” he’d said, breathless in my ear.

Goose bumps rise on my skin as if I’m hearing it still.

The woman who took over the old house that used to be Reilly’s Books—where wedding cakes now bake on one side and wedding dresses are sold on the other—told me that Seth married a woman named Julia in Minneapolis, where they had two daughters and together opened another Reilly’s Books. Reilly’s II. I recall the exact moment I heard this, the crisp sunny morning, the dry sidewalk, the cold feeling in my chest as I wandered away.

By contrast, my years with Jonathon have been like one long predictable day of breakfast (cereal and yogurt and one-and-a-half cups of coffee), followed by work (mine—
primal, sultry, hot, moist
. His—well, who knew a thing about that?) followed by dinner (pasta or chicken, a burger every now and again) followed by the weekend when the lawn needs mowing (summer) or the gutters need cleaning (fall), and then maybe there’s something good on TV.

And yet, I can’t forget the months after my mother died when Jonathon couldn’t have been more caring, more sympathetic to my constant tears and distraction. And the way he cried the moment he laid eyes on Oliver. He used to race me to the crib when Oliver woke, never hesitating to change a diaper or give him his bath. When Oliver was four, he had a series of imaginary friends, including a white dog named Poopsie. Oliver had insisted that Jonathon put him in the back of the car when he drove him to preschool. Once there, Jonathon had to open the hatchback, take the dog out, and leave him tied up outside the door where he waited all morning for Oliver. When Jonathon arrived at noon he had to untie Poopsie and let him back into the car. The pediatrician had told us that imaginary friends were a sign of intelligence and imagination, and Jonathon was happy to play along. When he once forgot to put Poopsie in the car, he didn’t hesitate to turn the car around in the midst of Oliver’s screams and kicks against the back of the seat, and return to the preschool, jump out, untie the invisible dog, open the hatchback, and coax him in. The dog needed convincing, Oliver had told Jonathon in so many words, because he was sad and mad that they’d left him behind.

I had stood in the kitchen while Jonathon told me this story, my eyes welling with tears of love and gratitude. In that moment I was so thankful I’d cut things off with Seth. I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world.

“I love you,” Jonathon had said the night before we left for Mexico, and I’m beginning to think, even now, even after knowing what I know of Benny and Isabel, even when it doesn’t make a bit of sense, that some part of him actually meant it.

Above me, long-legged monkeys croak and bark in the trees as if signaling one another that I’m still there on the ground. The jungle is beginning to take on new sounds as if preparing for nightfall. Clicking, squawking, and every now and then a long, haunting squall like a peacock. Benicio never mentioned peacocks.

The wait drags on as the heat blossoms. How much longer can I stay awake? I’m worn to the point of delirium. How much codeine is too much? I’ve taken plenty, and it seems to be toying with my mind and my emotions. I’m high, though not so high that I’m unaware of it. Still, with every passing minute it becomes easier to convince myself that Benicio has no intention of coming back. He’s kind enough to care what happens to me but realistic enough to think of me as the thing I truly am. Dead weight. A thorn in his side. An albatross around his neck. Too many adages to count. I’m all those and a murderer, too.

I flip the phone open and check for coverage. None. The battery is dangerously low. I turn it off. I need to get out of here and call Oliver. Maybe even Jonathon. What would he say to me? I love you? It sounded like the truth. Doubt creeps like vines, twisting, strangling the thoughts I want to have, giving voice to the ones I try pushing away. What if he’s actually a victim in all of this just like me? What if Benny is the result of a one-night stand? A mistake he was trying to fix. I should have run back to the condo first thing. He’s probably pacing the floor with Oliver, the two of them worried sick, police searching for me everywhere. For all I know the State Department is involved. The cable news networks have been running my story for days. People all over the world are going to let out a sigh of relief when I stumble out of the jungle alive. It’ll be the miracle they’re all praying for. Why have I so easily put my trust in Benicio?

“Once we get into town we’ll get a room at a villa called Casa Romero on the edge of Mismaloya,” Benicio had said just before he left. “You’ll be wearing Isabel’s jeans to cover your leg, I’ll wear sunglasses and a hat. We pay cash upfront. Believe me, they won’t ask any questions.”

“I hear hiding in plain sight didn’t work out so well.” The words had slipped through my lips before I could stop them.

“Live and learn,” he said, and jetted across to the water’s edge where he tied a large white garbage bag with a red tie onto a branch sticking out across the water. It’s still there, flopping in the breeze, signaling him that I’m waiting.

Before he ran off he knelt down close and said, “You’ll be fine. But just in case, I mean, it’s not going to happen, but if we somehow get separated…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lump of cash he’d taken from the drawer. The hundred dollar bills. He handed me what looked like half. Then he told me he’d take care of everything. “I’ll be back,” he said, in a way that mocked the mocking of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had smiled but nothing seemed funny. By the time he was walking away, even as he turned and waved, my mind was already filling with the possibility that he had no intention of ever seeing me again.

If I have a shred of sense I’ll get up right now and follow the river back down the way I came. But I’m high on painkillers. Is this really the time to be making that kind of decision?

Yes. Maybe. Doing something seems better than doing nothing. I stand, light-headed in the heat, dizzy in my codeine haze. White sparkles at the corners of my eyes take a moment to clear. I hobble back to the river and soak my leg in the space Benicio fixed for me. Small lizards dart in and out of the large rocks on the bank. I close my eyes and listen to the rushing water, feeling the jungle as if it’s a living, breathing thing, something that could choose to leave me alone or eat me alive.

My eyes are still closed when I feel the prickly sensation of being watched. At first I refuse to give into it. But the tingling grows into a burn. Where’s my gun? In my daze I left both guns by the tree.

My eyes spring open to find a four-foot iguana staring at me from a rock a few feet away.

I yank my leg from the water and scoot sideways into the dirt. It’s like staring into the face of a dinosaur. Scales and spikes, long, ancient-looking claws. The creature flicks his tongue as if tasting me on the air. Is this one of the poisonous iguanas Benicio told me about? After all this I’m going to be eaten alive.

I’m too vulnerable down on the ground like that. I look for a stick, anything to hold in my hand, but there’s nothing but dirt and boulders the size of chairs. He flicks his tongue, takes a step forward, and then freezes.

Am I supposed to make myself look large the way one does with cougars and bears? Or stay small and nonthreatening? I rise, slowly, preparing to run. I step backwards to see what it will do. Nothing happens. I step once, then again, taming the jerky movements caused by codeine, fear, and pain.

I can’t even stand the sight of a spider on the ceiling. A raccoon once burrowed its way into the attic and I nearly jumped out of my skin when it scratched the insulation.

“Nice iguana,” I whisper, now slightly farther away. “Good boy.”

I continue to slog backward, the iguana to the right of me, a dead man’s grave to the left. I finally reach the safety of the tree, and it appears that the creature has no other intention than to sun itself on a rock.

I sit down near my gun and let go of the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I remove the sloppy bandage on my leg and without hesitating pour the rubbing alcohol onto the wound. It sizzles like white fish on a grill. The pain is losing its hold on me. I think again of giving birth to Oliver, how badly it hurt, the shock causing me to scream with every contraction, and yet by the end when it should have been worse, when I was so exhausted I could no longer speak, I’d come to accept it for what it was. Another wave of pain, another push, and it would soon be over.

One way or another, this will soon be over, too. I rewrap the wound, using the last of the gauze. I tie the final knot, and that’s when I look up to see the iguana hissing in my face.

I knock the safety off the gun, cock the hammer, and pull the trigger.

The next thing I know it’s raining sticky rags of green and red and brown. Chunks land in my hair and on my face, across my arms and legs. A smell quickly follows, vinegary, sickening. I have no idea if it’s coming from the strewn iguana or the bad taste in the back of my throat.

I scream. Loud and for as long as I can. When I run out of air, I do it again. Scream until my lungs burn. I pass over into a place without reason. I don’t care about my leg. I don’t care about the gunshot ringing in the jungle. I don’t care if someone hears it and comes to find me. I don’t give a goddamn if Benicio hears the gun, hears my screams, and thinks someone shot me. I’m getting the hell out of this jungle before I pull the trigger on myself.