Day of the Dead (20 page)

‘Just wait,' Emma said. ‘He's on his way.'

Enough, Michelle thought. ‘Emma, I don't have time for this. Danny works for your father – if there's something I need to know about him, why can't you just tell me?'

‘Because I don't want to,' Emma said sharply. ‘And Oscar wants to meet you.' She leaned toward Michelle, then put her hands on either side of her face, like someone taking in a sculpture.

‘Unless this whole thing of yours, this innocent-lady-from-L.A. thing, is just an act and you already know. Is that it? Are you playing all of us?' She smiled. ‘That would be funny.'

Michelle swallowed hard. ‘I'm not,' she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘My husband died. I used to work in a photo gallery. I came here on vacation, and I met Danny. That's all.'

Emma studied her face a moment longer.

‘Okay,' she said brightly. ‘Then let's go back inside and have a drink. Little Ms. Michelle from Los Angeles.'

She followed Emma back inside the club, first stopping at the bar so Emma could buy shots of tequila, then past the dance floor where another stripper hung upside down from the pole, wrapping her legs around it and doing a sort of handstand, her big breasts flopping down toward her collarbones. Behind the dance floor was a corridor lit with black lights, a Plexiglas door at the end. ‘This way,' Emma said loudly over the music. ‘There's a patio – it's nice.' She pushed the door open. Michelle trailed behind her.

It was much quieter outside, the music turned down low, so that what Michelle mostly heard was the ringing in her ears.

Emma led her through the patio, which was larger than it seemed at first glance, winding back between two buildings into a narrow passage and then into a larger alcove. Hardly anyone was out here, probably because it was much cooler inside the air-conditioned club.

There, in the back, behind a fountain, was a statue dressed in bone-white cloth robes trimmed in lace like a bridal gown: a life-size statue of a skeleton. In one outstretched hand, she – it? – held a globe, in the other a scythe. Different-colored candles ringed the statue's base.

‘Santa Muerte,' Emma said, making a curtsy in the direction of the statue. ‘The patron saint of prisoners and criminals.'

‘Is this from the Day of the Dead?' Michelle asked.

‘No. The Church calls it a cult. But it's more than that.'

Emma leaned over, passing her fingers through the candles' flames, the way Michelle and Maggie used to do when they were kids, taking such delight that the fire didn't burn them.

‘The colors she wears and the candles you light depend on what you want. Bone is for peace and harmony. Gold to achieve wealth and power. Red brings love and passion. Green for justice, yellow for healing, from disease or addiction.'

She grinned. ‘Guess which color candle Danny lights?'

‘I don't know,' Michelle said. ‘Why don't you tell me?'

Emma giggled. ‘Wait, I forgot one.' She put her shot glass down on the brick that ringed the statue, pulled her blouse off her shoulder, and half turned.

On her shoulder and back was a tattoo, a background of red and purple roses. Against it was a skeleton holding a globe and a scythe, robed in lace-trimmed black, the outlines still red, as if it had been recently inked.

‘Black is for protection against bad magic and evil spirits,' Emma said. ‘And to bring harm to your enemies.'

She tugged her blouse back up over her shoulder, stumbling a little. ‘Why don't we sit down?' Michelle suggested.

‘Okay.'

They sat. Emma rested her chin on her hands. For a moment she looked older than Michelle had thought she was. Maybe it was just a trick of the light.

‘Emma?'

A man approached their table. Youngish. In his mid- or late twenties, Michelle thought.

‘Oh, it's Oscar!' Emma said, lifting her head, smiling broadly. ‘Oscar,
mi novio.
' She let her head fall back against the chair, tilting up her face to receive his light kiss on her lips.

‘This is your friend?' he asked. He had a soft voice, soft brown eyes. He was clean-shaven and wore a short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar, open at the neck. Good-looking in a pleasant sort of way.

He didn't look dangerous. He looked like a businessman, or an accountant.

That didn't mean anything, Michelle knew.

‘Michelle,' Emma said with a giggle. ‘This is Michelle.'

‘Mucho gusto,'
Oscar said.

What was she supposed to say?

‘It's very nice to meet you.'

He pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘I am sorry I've come so late,' he said. ‘I can see you both are tired.'

‘I'm not tired,' Emma said, stretching out her hand, stroking his thigh.

‘Oh, I know you, sweetheart,' he said with a small smile. ‘Here, we can all have one drink before I take you home.'

The bartender came out with a tray of shotglasses – tequila, accompanied by orange-red sangritas.

‘Salud,'
Oscar said, lifting his glass.

Michelle tasted the tequila. This was much better quality than what she'd had before, and the sangrita, a blend of fruit juices and chili, was perfect to cleanse the palate between sips.

‘Delicious,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

‘This is your first time in Vallarta?' Oscar asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Are you enjoying yourself?'

‘Very much.'

Emma laughed. ‘Liar.' She picked up her shot glass and drank half of the tequila down.

Oscar acted as though he hadn't heard her. ‘This place, do you like it?' He meant the club.

‘Oh, well, it's … a change of pace for me.'

Oscar smiled a little. ‘I don't like it very much myself. It's loud. And tasteless. But useful, as an investment.'

‘Do you own it?' Michelle asked.

‘I work for an ownership group. We recently have bought it.'

‘Are you from Vallarta?' she asked.

‘No. From out of town.' He gestured toward the skeletal statue dressed in a bride's gown. ‘Like her. She is still new to Vallarta. Not as popular here as Jesús Malverde. Have you heard of him?'

Michelle shook her head.

‘An outlaw who was hanged a hundred years ago. The patron saint of border crossers.'

‘And smugglers,' Emma mumbled, resting her head on his shoulder. Now she looked impossibly young.

‘Emma does not understand as much as she thinks,' Oscar whispered, still smiling. ‘About Santa Muerte. She came from the barrios. She is the saint of the poor. And the desperate. The hopeless. When you are always so close to death, you should befriend her.' He raised his shot glass. ‘Maybe you will see more of her here soon.'

‘Baby, I'll stay awake.'

‘No, Emma, I know you. You can ride in the back and sleep.' Oscar guided her into the third row of the black Suburban, which he'd parked a block away from the bar, half up on the sidewalk. ‘Michelle can sit in front and keep me company.'

Michelle didn't want to ride in front. She didn't want to ride in the Suburban at all. Black? Tinted windows?

He hadn't asked her anything. Had told her nothing. Why had he wanted to meet her?

‘Thanks, but I think I'll just catch a taxi,' she said.

Oscar laughed. The street they stood on was empty. Quiet, except for the vague echo of music from the bar.

‘You won't find a taxi now,' he said.

‘I'll find one,' she said. ‘I really don't want to take you out of your way.'

‘I think you should come with us,' he said. ‘Vallarta, it's not so safe this time of night.'

He pointed down the end of the block. ‘You see those guys?' he asked, his voice hushed.

She looked to where he pointed. A couple of young men, wearing oversized T-shirts and surf trunks, laughing and drinking from paper bags, had just stumbled around the corner.

‘They see an American lady like you, maybe they will try to rob you. Because they don't have money, and they think you do.'

He gave her arm a little squeeze. ‘Can I show you something?'

She nodded mutely.

He reached down, hitched up his pants leg. There was a holster strapped just above his ankle. A black gun.

‘I think you should let me take you home.'

They drove south – or at least she hoped they did. It felt to her like they were going in the right direction, and finally she glimpsed the ocean over her right shoulder.

We're going the right way, she thought. We're going the right way. The gun, it's for protection. He's going to take me home.

They drove through city streets, but this time of night there were few cars; between that and the sealed Suburban it was eerily quiet, like being inside a space capsule.

‘When Emma told me about you, I knew I wanted to meet you,' Oscar said.

‘I'm just a tourist from Los Angeles. I'm really not that interesting.'

‘She knows what interests me.' He glanced briefly over his shoulder at Emma, who lay curled on her side in the backseat, asleep. ‘She is very intelligent. It is too bad, about her weaknesses.'

Get me home, Michelle thought. Just get me home. Or to Hacienda Carmen. Close enough. ‘She doesn't really know me. We only met once before tonight.'

‘She told me about your friends.'

Michelle thought she recognized the road they were on now, one of the main north-south-running streets that crossed over the river. She couldn't remember what it was called. Something having to do with a revolution, probably.

‘I don't have many friends here,' she said. ‘I'm new. The friends I've made, I don't know them very well.'

Almost home, she thought. She'd lie on the hard bed, and it would feel like salvation.

Oscar chuckled. ‘When I was young, I prayed to Santa Muerte all the time. My family was poor. I think probably you don't know what being poor this way is like.'

‘Probably not.'

‘You think all the time about wanting things. Simple things. Food. Shoes. A bed. I could only dream about a car like this. In another world they drove them. I could see this world sometimes, passing me on the streets. So close.'

‘You're doing well now.'

‘Yes.' He nodded. ‘Maybe Santa Muerte heard me.'

‘Or you're talented and capable.'

He grinned. He had a gold tooth, just next to his canine. ‘And lucky.'

He turned the steering wheel left. Away from the ocean, toward the mountains.

‘This isn't the way to my hotel,' she said. Her mouth had gone dry. She swallowed, the sides of her throat sticking together.

‘I know. I just want to show you something. Something interesting.'

It must have shown on her face, the fear. Oscar smiled. ‘Don't worry. You will be home soon.'

They drove on a narrow road along the river, a rippling shadow that she could now and then glimpse through Oscar's window, through gaps in the drooping trees.

‘Across the river, that place is called Gringo Gulch,' Oscar said. ‘Very rich people live there. I will have a house there, someday soon.'

‘Please,' she said, ‘could you just take me to my hotel?'

He shook his head. ‘In a few minutes. I promise. Don't worry.' He tilted his head toward the backseat. ‘You are a friend of Emma's. You're safe with me.'

She could hear Emma moan and sigh from the backseat, then settle into sleep again.

They drove a while longer.

‘Here we are,' Oscar said.

They had reached a rise that Michelle thought might be the first undulations of the mountains that cordoned off Puerto Vallarta from the interior. Nestled here were a series of buildings under construction, gray slabs of concrete studded with rebar that thrust out of half-built walls like bamboo shoots. They looked to be five or six stories high.

Oscar drove along the chain-link fence that that ran from the first building to the second, and then he parked the car, leaving the engine idling, the headlights on, pointing toward the blank gray wall of the next building.

‘Get out,' he said, ‘so you can have a better look.'

I don't want to get out, she thought.

Or maybe she wanted to get out and run, run fast and far away.

‘It will only take a minute,' Oscar said. ‘Don't worry.' He opened his door and hopped out.

Michelle stared at the keys in the ignition. Could I do it? she thought. Scramble across the bank of cupholders and storage compartments and into the driver's seat? Put the car in reverse and pull out of here?

By the time she'd thought it, Oscar had reached the passenger door. He opened it. Extended his hand toward Michelle.

‘Let me help you.'

Behind her, Emma giggled, then smacked her lips a few times, her sigh catching on a snore.

It's a game, Michelle thought, it's one of Emma's games. Nothing bad will happen.

She took Oscar's hand, her own hand trembling, and climbed out.

Their footsteps crunched on gravel, the car's headlights throwing their shadows ahead of them.

Along the wall were heaps – bundles of clothing.

‘Go on,' he said.

She took a stumbling step forward, then another, and she knew that he was going to kill her, no matter what he said, and she didn't even know why.

‘Don't worry,' he said again from behind her.

It wasn't clothing; she knew it wasn't, but it was easier to pretend that it was, just for another moment or two. Like when she was driving and would see a dead animal on the road and she'd tell herself, it's not that, it's a plastic sack, it's someone's lost sweatshirt. And sometimes it was, and she'd feel a flood of cool relief, that she wasn't going to see some poor mangled cat or dog with its guts spilled out on the asphalt.

The bundles were bodies, propped against the concrete wall, and she knew that they were; she could already smell the spoiled-meat smell of them; if she drew closer, she'd see the maggots, like on the pig's head, except she couldn't see their heads. They didn't have them anymore.