Читать книгу Day of the Dead - Lisa Brackman - Страница 13

Five thousand dollars. Gary threw around five grand like it was nothing.

Granted, there was a time when Michelle hadn’t thought of five thousand dollars as a particularly large sum, from shortly after her marriage to Tom (she’d needed a while to get used to the idea) until shortly before his death (when some intuition had warned her that the way they’d been living was, on some level, not precisely real). But even then, five thousand dollars in cash stuffed casually into an envelope was not the way she was used to seeing money. Money was a concept, something represented by plastic, encoded in electronic transactions – abstract numbers to be moved from one account to another.

Five thousand dollars in cash, and more if I want it, she thought.

This just could not be good.

She briefly thought about asking Gustavo to take her someplace other than the hotel, maybe not to the airport but to the bus station, maybe. But though he seemed friendly enough – asking her where she was from, if this was her first time in Vallarta – he was Gary’s friend.

Gustavo dropped her off at a small hotel tucked in a steep, cobbled street off Los Muertos Beach, not too far from the hotel where she’d stayed before. The entrance was easy to miss: a wrought-iron gate between two whitewashed walls, a narrow drive that dipped sharply and then rose up to meet a pink-tiled courtyard with a fountain in the middle. The rooms were grouped around it in two-story wings. A few mangy-looking dogs lay by the fountain, and a calico cat stretched out on a second-floor balcony, twined between two terracotta planters. About a half dozen guests – she assumed they were tourists, mostly older women and several older men – reclined in lounge chairs around the fountain, chatting with one another, reading books, sipping iced drinks.

The office was in a lower unit immediately to the right of the entrance. The side that faced the courtyard was almost entirely open to the air, with a low wall about waist high where abandoned drinks and ashtrays sat, waiting to be cleared. Inside was a counter, a round table with a grimy computer and several shelves of books, most of which were English-language paperbacks.

It shouldn’t look so normal, she thought. It didn’t feel real; it was like she’d arrived here in a state of jet lag.

‘You’re in Number Thirty-two,’ the woman behind the counter said in lightly accented English. ‘Do you need help to your room?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so.’

‘We serve continental breakfast in the courtyard from seven to ten A.M.,’ the woman explained. She was in her thirties, solidly built, with tanned olive skin, streaked hair, and above her breast a rose tattoo that peeked out from her embroidered tank top. ‘And we have happy hour every night, from five until seven.’

‘Great,’ Michelle said. ‘You know, I can’t exactly remember. What’s the last date of my reservation?’

The woman consulted her computer. ‘You’re paid through the fifteenth,’ she said. ‘But if you want to extend, just let me know. It’s not so busy this time of year.’

Nearly two weeks. Was that how long she was expected to play this game?

At least the room was cute, almost a suite, with a mini-fridge, a microwave, a wardrobe that had a luggage stand and a small safe inside. Painted tiles formed borders along the walls; there were a few framed molas hung up as well, and the bed featured an elaborately carved headboard.

She put her suitcase down on top of the open cabinet by the wardrobe and stood there for a moment. The room was hot. It would take a while before the air conditioner cooled it down.

I have to get out of here, she thought.

She grabbed her purse and her good camera and bolted out the door.

In the courtyard the guests still sat, drinking, chatting, reading books. A dog trotted slowly past the fountain. It was as hot as her room and utterly still.

She slowed her steps so it wouldn’t look like she was running, managed a smile and a half wave at the woman behind the counter, and pulled open the wrought-iron gate.

Free.

Up the hill, she thought. She was pretty sure that if she walked up the hill, she’d come to a broad avenue running north and south, where there were buses that went downtown, maybe even to the airport. What was stopping her from just getting on one? She had five thousand dollars in her purse. She could go pretty far with that, all the way to the border, certainly. Just walk across and tell the customs people she’d lost her passport. They wouldn’t throw her in jail for that.

Behind her a car started with a misfire that sounded like a hammer on a tin can. She could smell the unburned gas. They probably didn’t have strict emissions standards here, she thought, not like California. She kept walking, past a gay bar, a lavandería, which she knew meant ‘laundry.’ If I stay here, I’ll need to wash my clothes, she thought; most of them were filthy. But it was crazy to think about staying here, wasn’t it? This whole thing with Gary, whatever the money was, it couldn’t be worth the risk.

It took a moment before she realized that the car she’d heard start matched her progress up the hill. It floated next to her, idling roughly, a presence she felt before she really took it in.

A police car. Not the Vallarta police, who drove white pickups with cheerful green geckos painted on them. A black-and-white sedan, with a shield on the door.

In the car just one officer: a big man with a mustache and aviator sunglasses. The man who’d arrested her.

When he saw that she’d noticed him, he leaned his head toward the window. Stared at her, eyes obscured behind the sunglasses.

Her heart hammered. She almost bolted and ran, but she stopped herself. Instead she turned away and continued to walk up the hill. Act like there’s nothing wrong, she told herself. Don’t try to run. Don’t give him an excuse.

The police car followed, cruising slowly up the hill, keeping even with her progress, past the Oxxo mart, past the yoga/Pilates studio.

The street dead-ended into a road that hugged the hill, curving out of sight a short distance ahead. At the junction were a sex shop and a tiny newsstand/Internet café.

She was aware of the police car turning left, toward downtown, though she wouldn’t look directly. She kept walking another half a block, toward the junction, and then she stopped and turned around. The police car was gone.

The adrenaline drained out of her, leaving her trembling after it had gone, and she stumbled a little on the uneven pavement.

The policeman had staked out her hotel. He’d waited for her. Followed her. He’d wanted her to know about it.

Her phone rang. The soothing classical tone she used for known callers.

For a moment she didn’t want to look. What if it was Gary, calling to threaten? To gloat?

It was her sister, Maggie.

Her hand shook, her finger slipped, and she almost missed the ANSWER key.

‘Hello? Michelle? Is that you?’ Maggie sounded frantic.

‘It’s me, listen … I’m fine …’

‘What the fuck happened to you? We’ve been going crazy here! I mean, when you weren’t home on Sunday, I thought, okay, maybe I got that wrong, but it’s Tuesday, and—’

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m still in Puerto Vallarta. It’s been—’

‘Jesus, Michelle! I mean, you could at least think about—’

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘But it’s been complicated. Look … I’m in a weird situation. There’s this guy named Gary, and …’

‘Oh, you met someone?’ Maggie’s tone suddenly lightened. A new man – the big Get Out of Jail Free card.

‘I wish. No, that’s not it at all. This guy, Gary. Gary Wallace. Write that down. But maybe that’s not even his real name. I …’

She took in a deep breath.

‘Michelle? What … ? What’s going on?’

She almost laughed. ‘I wish I knew. They planted drugs in my purse and—’

‘Are you in jail?’

‘No. No. I mean, I was, but not anymore.’

‘Jesus, what happened?’

Maybe I should write it all down, Michelle thought. Send Maggie an e-mail. But was that safe? Wasn’t somebody, some government agency, reading everyone’s e-mails?

If Gary was even part of the government.

‘I don’t know where to start. But write down Gary Wallace. And Daniel. Daniel …’

Christ, was it possible? Did she still not know Daniel’s last name?

‘Fuck,’ she muttered. ‘I … I have their cell-phone numbers. And some other information. I’ll get it to you.’

‘Michelle, can’t you just … can’t you just tell me—’

‘No. I mean …’

If Daniel was involved with drugs … or if Gary was …

Could they do something to Maggie? To Ben?

She couldn’t think right now.

‘I’m fine,’ she finally said. ‘I’m probably here for another two weeks. I’ll let you know what’s happening. I …’

She didn’t know what to say. She watched an older Mexican woman walk her Chihuahua down the street, stopping to scoop the dog into her arms before she stepped down off the tall curb.

‘I’ll let you know when I book the flight.’

I’ll write a letter, she thought. A real letter, and I’ll send it through the mail. Maybe to Maggie’s office. Just in case …

She couldn’t finish that thought. She stood there, hot and sweaty and unable to think at all.

Internet.

There were things she should look up. Things she should know. How the legal system worked here. What kind of trouble she might be in.

The chairs in the café were plastic and uncomfortable, the computers old and set to Spanish-language keyboards, but it still felt like a refuge, a place where she could sit and think and try to understand what had happened to her.

From what she could find out online in an hour, Gary had told her the truth. At least about how the legal system worked. And the prisons – not that the prisons in the United States were much better, but someone in her position could probably avoid prison there. Here not so likely. Not while the case dragged on and on, waiting for trial.

The Mexican president had proposed decriminalizing small amounts of street drugs, but she didn’t even know how much she was accused of possessing.

Before, she’d heard of a crackdown on drug smugglers by the Mexican federal government; she’d read stories about border massacres, headless bodies, corruption at every level of society, stories that had formed part of the fuzzy background to what little she’d known about Mexico. But she’d never associated any of that with resorts like Puerto Vallarta. Things like that didn’t happen here, or so she’d thought.

Not often anyway.

Sinaloa cowboys. Narcos. Assassinations. Street battles with grenade launchers.

The cartels had infiltrated everything here. Police forces, judicial offices, even American embassies. There were former presidents whose relatives were awash in drug money from one cartel. A current president whose top officials were in the service of another. The cartels slaughtered cops, politicians, journalists, and mostly, each other.

Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She didn’t know that the conflict between Gary and Daniel was about drugs.

But the money.The coke in her purse. And Daniel. He’d said he was a private pilot. Flying Gulfstreams. Wasn’t that how you smuggled large amounts of drugs? In planes?

The air-conditioning chilled the sweat on her skin.

When she went outside, the police car was still nowhere in sight.

She started walking back to the hotel. The streets were quiet. A few tourists wandered in and out of the store-fronts. An older gay couple stood on the corner, accompanied by a little dog straining at its leash. She passed a tiny stall, tucked between a money-changing window and a condominium building, that sold fresh juices, a youngish woman in a tight T-shirt grinding oranges, a small boy bouncing a soccer ball on his knee by the scoured wooden table where she worked. Then a boutique, with cocktail dresses and hand-tooled and beaded bags displayed in the window.