Day of the Dead (19 page)

She'd hoped for something else. A defense of Daniel, testimony that he was a good guy, so that she could have some measure of trust in her own perceptions.

Failing that, definitive proof that what Gary said was true.

That was the worst part of this situation in a way, that she didn't think she could accurately read anyone or anything around her.

She used to think she was good at that.

‘So what about Ned?' she asked.

‘It might have been a robbery.'

‘Do you really think it was? That robbers would go to all the trouble to do … that?'

‘Probably not.' Charlie sighed. ‘That restaurant of his never did great business, but somehow he kept it going. A lot of people guessed he was selling drugs on the side. You know, to the gringos who didn't want to deal with the locals. There's all kinds of ways that can go bad.' He paused to refill her tequila. ‘But that's just a rumor.'

The last year with Tom, she'd promised herself that she was going to make some changes. It wasn't enough, the way she'd been living; she wasn't doing enough, wasn't truly engaged in anything. She'd go back to school, maybe. Get more serious about the photography again. Or go in a completely different direction. Adopt a kid – someone who needed her, whom she could care for. Volunteer to do something, something hard and meaningful. Dig wells in Africa. Build orphanages in Peru. She'd drag Tom into counseling, and if he wouldn't go or it didn't help, maybe she'd leave him. What was even keeping them together anymore?

She was going to make some changes, she really was. As soon as things calmed down a little. When Tom's business had improved.

When she figured out what it was she really wanted to be when she grew up.

Then Tom had died, and the changes weren't choices anymore.

‘Hey there, Michelle.'

‘Hi, Ted.'

‘Just wanted to touch base,' he said. ‘It's been a couple days since we've talked.'

As usual, he'd called her early in the morning, six-thirty Vallarta time. He probably did it to keep her off balance, get to her before she'd had a chance to talk to anyone else, when she was still unused to speaking.

‘I haven't seen Danny, if that's what you want to know.'

‘Well, aren't we cranky this morning?'

‘You better fucking believe I'm cranky,' she spit out before she could stop herself. ‘Did you hear about Ned? Somebody lit him on
fire.
Like … like a fucking birthday candle.'

‘Yeah, I heard about it. Listen, we don't know who did it. It might not have anything to do with—'

‘Oh, come on, Gary. He talks to Danny. I tell you. And the next day he's dead.'

There was a silence on the other end of the line, then a raspy breath. ‘See, this is why we do the things we do, Michelle. I know you've felt … well, pretty put out by all this. But this is what's at stake. The people we're up against, this is what they do. You need to understand that.'

Michelle lay on her bed, holding her iPhone at arm's length. ‘I do understand,' she finally said. ‘But you can't expect me to go up against people who do this kind of thing. I'm not a cop or a spy. I'm just …'

A housewife, she almost said. That wasn't really who she was, was it?

‘Sure, Michelle. I hear what you're saying. But you're not going to be in any danger as long as you keep doing exactly what I tell you to do. Just give me another week, okay? Can you do that? I promise you, that'll be the end of it. And you'll be compensated for it. Trust me on that.' A snorted laugh. ‘Check your accounts in a couple of hours.'

After Tom died, she'd figured it out. How he'd used a credit card to put money into the household account. How he'd used another card to pay the first one off. Frantically moved money from one account to the other. Kept up appearances, while the mortgage went into default.

It was, on a much larger scale, what he'd done with his business.

Some of what Tom had told her was true. Financing on a project had fallen through, like he said, and he'd made some bad investments. A hedge fund was involved, the assets of which were ‘rehypothecated,' whatever that meant.

He hadn't told her the rest. That he'd counted on the housing market's continuing to rise to make up the difference, and when the bubble had started to deflate, how he'd taken clients' money that was supposed to be reinvested into other real estate and instead used it to pay off clients he already owed.

Her lawyer had tried to explain it to her. How what Tom had done was something between a Ponzi scheme and a shell game. He'd started drawing a diagram, with various investment funds and projects, holding companies, warehouse lenders, brokers, ‘holders in due course,' ‘asset-backed pass-throughs,' ‘tranches.'

‘Do you actually understand all this?' she'd finally asked him.

‘Are you kidding?' he'd said. ‘No one does. Not even the guys who invented this stuff.'

The beach was brutally hot. She'd already gone into the water twice to cool off. The second time she stayed in awhile. Bobbed up and down in the surf, thoughts circling in her head like they were caught in some kind of whirlpool.

A week. Would that really be the end of it? How did she know that Gary wouldn't just bury the evidence when he was done with her, like he'd threatened to do?

They find all kinds of things up at that dump!

When she retrieved her bag with her wallet and cell phone from behind the bar, she saw that she'd missed a call.

Unknown caller. A U.S. number, area code 561. No message.

Wrong number?

Her finger hovered over the touchscreen.

She tapped the number.

‘Hello?'

A woman's voice. Unfamiliar. American, she thought.

‘You called me?'

A throaty giggle. ‘I did.'

‘Who is this?'

‘Emma. We met at María's party.'

‘Oh.' Michelle remembered her now, the pretty woman with the forties pinup look.

The one whose father Daniel worked for.

‘Right,' Michelle said. ‘How nice of you to call.'

‘Are you busy tonight? I thought we could get together for drinks. And conversation.'

Michelle hesitated.

It was one thing, she thought, to risk going over to Charlie's.Charlie, whom she'd had no real reason to suspect of any involvement in the craziness that had somehow taken over her life.

Emma, however, she'd encountered in the thick of it, at María's party.

‘I'm not sure if—'

‘Oh, come on,' Emma said. ‘Just meet me for a drink. It'll be fun. Besides …'

There was a burst of music on the other end of the line, then silence, like someone had turned down a radio.

‘I can tell you some things you need to know.'

The place Emma wanted to meet was a club north of downtown, past the marine terminal. ‘It's new,' she said. ‘Close to the Walmart.'

The name was El Pirata, which, if Michelle had to guess, she figured meant ‘The Pirate.' She really hoped it wasn't a theme bar.

‘This is the place,' the taxi driver said. He hesitated. ‘You don't look like the kind of lady who goes there.'

From the street it looked fairly bland: a multistory stucco box with neon trim and an unavoidable Jolly Roger graphic above double doors flanked by bouncers. A few people waited outside, a couple of young women, almost girls, wearing tiny dresses and ridiculous heels, accompanied by young men wearing more gold jewelry than the women, several middle-aged men – Americans or Europeans, she thought – in shorts and polos or Hawaiian shirts. She could already hear the boom of music reverberating through the walls. It was late, midnight – the earliest Emma said she could meet.

Michelle hesitated in the taxi. Do I really want to do this? she thought.

It's a public place, she told herself. It had to be pretty safe. Worth the risk anyway. So far Emma was the only person she'd met who seemed more than willing to speak openly about who and what people really were.

That is, if she was telling the truth.

There was a cover charge at the door.

Great, Michelle thought, handing over the two hundred pesos.

Inside, what she noticed was not so much the pirate theme as the stripper pole, and the topless girl gyrating around it.

Just great.

The place was a quarter full at best, dimly lit, with disco lighting on the dance floor where the stripper worked. Michelle scanned the club looking for Emma. Jolly Rogers on the walls, rope rigging, and an exaggerated topless figurehead with huge breasts on a fake ship's prow.

Toward the back, in a high leatherette booth, a woman lifted her arm and waved.

‘There you are,' Emma said loudly as Michelle approached. She patted the seat next to her. ‘I was afraid you'd wimp out. Isn't this place cute?'

‘It's … um … I haven't been to many clubs like this.'

‘I thought about a gay club,' Emma said, ‘but my boyfriend doesn't approve. What do you want to drink? We could have champagne. Do you like that?'

‘Whatever you're having is fine.'

Emma ordered champagne. Dom, of course. The pirate waitress brought the bottle in an ice bucket.

‘Cheers!' Emma said, lifting her flute.

‘So you've known Danny awhile?'

Emma shrugged. ‘Oh, like you know the family chauffeur. A couple of years.' She laughed. ‘He's sort of in and out.'

Michelle forced a smile and had a sip of her champagne. It was hard enough to talk over the music, nearly impossible when your companion only wanted to drink and chatter and occasionally provoke.

But she had to try. She'd risked coming here to get information; the evening would be a total waste of time if she didn't at least try.

She moved closer to Emma, so that she wouldn't have to shout. ‘I like Danny a lot,' she said. ‘Even though we got off to a pretty bad start.'

‘I heard. Did they ever catch them?'

‘Not that I know of.' She shook her head. ‘I guess I'm kind of surprised at how much crime there is here. Like with that guy Ned. Did you hear about that?'

Emma gave an odd little lurch. ‘You knew Ned?'

‘Not really – I mean, I met him a couple of times. But, you know, what happened … it's pretty awful.'

‘Yeah. Kind of over the top.' Emma looked down at her hands, at her champagne, then back at Michelle. Smiled shakily.

‘I'm sorry,' Michelle said. ‘I shouldn't have just … Were the two of you close?'

‘We weren't bosom buddies or anything like that. But I used to go to his restaurant. He did good salads.' She lifted her glass, smile back in place, slightly crooked, just the right degree of irony. ‘To Ned's salads.'

Michelle raised her glass and took a sip. ‘Danny and I almost went there on Friday,' she said, a lie that could have been true.

Emma sighed a little. ‘Ned had such a man crush on Danny. Danny was, like, the guy he wanted to be. The player. Poor Ned. He was never going to be that guy. He shouldn't have tried to hang with Danny.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Look how he ended up.'

Emma stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, lower lip trembling. Then she burst into giggles. ‘Oh, my God, if you could see your face!' She reached out and grabbed Michelle's hand. ‘I'm kidding!'

‘Very funny,' Michelle said. She nearly rose from her seat right then, but she stopped herself. Finish the glass of champagne, she thought. Make one last attempt at getting some information. Then leave.

‘What does your father do anyway?' she asked.

‘Venture capital. Can we talk about him later?' She sounded almost plaintive. ‘I need a few more drinks first.'

A light pulsed inside Emma's little purse – her cellphone.

She retrieved it, stared at the screen. Smiled again. ‘It's my boyfriend.'

She slid out the keyboard and started typing. Peered up at Michelle through eyelashes thick with mascara.

‘He wants to meet you,' she said.

Michelle nursed her champagne while Emma drank and laughed and pointed out the call girls in the club—‘PV Playmates. They're really expensive. Do you want one?' – wondering when she should make her exit.

The boyfriend hadn't arrived. ‘He's working,' Emma explained. Michelle wasn't too sure that she wanted to meet him in any case. Who knew what kind of men Emma liked to play with?

Not worth the risk.

‘Look,' she finally said, ‘it's really late, and I'm getting tired.'

‘But you need to meet Oscar. You'll like him. He knows everything about what goes on here.' She clutched Michelle's arm. She already seemed pretty drunk. ‘Come on, you're on vacation! You can sleep in tomorrow. It'll be fun.'

‘I'm sure it would be. How about a rain check?'

Emma wasn't going to tell her anything useful. She was just a tease and a drama queen.

What a waste of time, she thought.

Emma's grip tightened. ‘No, really. You need to meet my boyfriend. I bet you don't have a clue what you've gotten into.'

‘I …' Her mouth had gone dry. ‘I don't feel comfortable.'

‘You shouldn't,' Emma whispered, and then she snickered.

Michelle scanned the street outside the club for a taxi. ‘He's on his way,' Emma said, staggering a bit as she followed her out onto the uneven sidewalk. ‘Let's go back inside. There's a patio we can go where it's quiet.'

‘Emma, it's almost two in the morning. Why don't we do it some other time?'

‘Look, I'm sorry. I was just teasing you. There's nothing to be nervous about. And if you're going to keep seeing Danny, you really should talk to Oscar.'

There was a cab coming, and it was empty, but Emma held onto Michelle's arm and a couple of college students stumbling out of the club flagged it down first.