Getaway (12 page)

This was too much. The whole thing was too much, but this really was too much.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Gary said. “You can do videos, too. Sound and everything. And when you’re done, you can upload ’em to your phone and send them to me.”

Like a little kid. Playing spy.

“You can’t be serious.” She took in a deep breath. “This is out of control. I’m not … I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can! Lemme tell you how it works. It’s easy.”

She listened in disbelief as Gary babbled on about the pinhole lens, the Bluetooth connection, the USB port, and battery life.

“Gary,” she finally said, “it’s just not my style.”

“Well, yeah, I know you’d usually wear something classier. Cartier or whatnot. If I’d had a little more time, maybe I could’ve managed something more designer. But this one’s not bad. We spent some money on it, you know?”

“I mean, taking pictures of somebody with a watch!” Cleansing breathes, she told herself. “I wouldn’t be comfortable.”

“Now, come on, Michelle, don’t go all soft on me.” Gary’s voice suddenly was far from soft. “You can do this. When are you seeing him? Got any plans set?”

“Maybe … I mean …” Get a grip. “I’m not sure. He said he’d call.”

“He’ll call. Trust me on that. I know Danny. I know what he likes to do when he’s stressed.” He smiled at her. “You play your cards right, maybe we’ll pay another one of them off.”

Don’t take the bait, she told herself. She drew in a deep breath. “Is this about drugs?”

“Drugs? Now, what makes you say that?”

“Because I’ve heard about those people,” she went on, “and they’re not just violent, they’re crazy. They cut peoples’ heads off. And you want me to … to do … I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

“I told you not to worry about any of that.” He stared at her, his eyes hard, and for a moment he frightened her. “All you have to do is exactly what I tell you to, and you won’t have any problems.”

You can’t let him intimidate you, she told herself. You have to stand up to him. “You keep telling me Danny’s dangerous, but you won’t tell me what he does. How do I know? How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” She stared back. “Maybe you’re the one who’s into the sketchy stuff, Gary.”

He chuckled at that. “I like your spirit, you know?” He took a long sip of his drink. “Well, let’s say you’re right, then. Maybe you should be worried about what
I’ll
do. I know an awful lot about you, Michelle. I know about your family, too.” He reached out and patted her hand again. “And there are just so many ways I could cause you trouble, if I were that kind of guy.”

For a moment she couldn’t say anything.

“But why?” she finally managed. “I mean, what if Danny and I just go out to dinner a few more times? What can I tell you that’s even useful?”

Gary leaned back against the red leatherette booth, taking a moment to intertwine his fingers and then stretch them.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Sometimes we just wanna keep tabs on somebody. Maybe you’ll see something useful, maybe you won’t. But you’re there, just in case.” He smiled again. “Keeps everyone on their toes.”

[CHAPTER TWELVE]

The credit cards had been her first clue
.

“Tom, what’s going on with the AmEx?” she’d asked. “And the United card?”

Balances had appeared on both of them, high balances, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Oh,” he’d said. “Yeah, I know. It’s this new accountant. He’s been moving money around. I keep telling him to leave the cards alone, but—I don’t know—he keeps looking for the best deal.”

“On credit cards? Don’t we have the money to pay them off?”

“Sure,” he’d said. “Sure. It’s just a fuckup. I’ll get on it.”

She should have pressed him then. But the balances went down to zero, just like he’d promised they would.

He’d never given her a reason not to trust him before that. Though now she wondered if she just hadn’t been paying attention.

“How’d you
feel about going to a cocktail party with me?”

After the lunch with Gary, she’d gone to Costco and picked up a yoga mat. Stopped at a Starbucks and had a cup of coffee. Then she’d hailed a taxi and asked the driver to drop her off at
the north end of the Malecón, so she could walk by the ocean and think.

It hadn’t been the restful experience she’d hoped for. Several cruise ships had come into town, and tourists mobbed the boardwalk, moving together in tight packs like single, ponderous organisms.

She wanted to cut through them all. Get them out of her way. Enjoy the fucking scenery without hordes of Americans wearing loud shirts and graceless shorts.

As she crossed the bridge that led over the river into Old Town, Daniel called.

Just like Gary’d said he would.

“It’s this charity thing,” he told her. “We don’t have to stay long. We can go someplace after.”

“Sounds great,” Michelle said, looking up the river, watching a pair of ducks paddle among the rushes. “Is it the Tiburón crowd?”

“Not really. More some local people I know. Pick you up at seven?”

I’d better go shop for a dress, she thought.

Crazy.

She found
a nice black dress at one of the shops on Basilio Badillo. Nothing fancy, but the cut worked for her. She’d found sandals there and a cute little leather purse at the purse store down the block, too.

After she changed for the party, she tried on Gary’s watch. Wasn’t this just the sort of occasion for it—a chance to capture Daniel’s associates? She stood in front of the mirror in the wardrobe of her room at Hacienda Carmen, in her new dress and sandals, holding the purse, the watch dangling on her wrist.

It looked ridiculous. Like she was a kid who’d tried on her daddy’s watch.

She took it off. Put it in her new purse, thinking maybe she’d wear it later. Maybe people would be drinking and wouldn’t notice how out of place the watch looked.

Maybe she’d take a chance and talk to Daniel.

• • •

“You look
fantastic.”

Michelle smiled and climbed into the passenger side of the Jeep. “You clean up pretty well yourself,” she told him.

He grinned and closed the car door behind her.

They drove across the river, into downtown Vallarta, then up the hill above the cathedral. “We’d better park here,” Daniel said. “You don’t mind walking a block or two, do you?”

“No, it’s fine. I like to walk.” Which was true, but she hated the idea of arriving in a sweat, and it was still hot. The sun hung over the ocean, full and ripe to the point of bursting.

“Where we’re going’s a great place to catch the sunset,” Daniel mentioned.

They walked down a narrow street that paralleled the ocean, the cobblestones so rounded in places that it was like walking on embedded baseballs. She could see why they’d had to park and walk, though—there was hardly any room for cars here, just occasional gaps in the raised concrete sidewalks where one or two small ones could maybe shoehorn in.

“This is it.”

It didn’t look like a bar or restaurant; there were no signs, no valets, just heavy wooden doors, splintering in places, worn smooth in others, bound with darkened iron. A private club, maybe, or a very big house.

By the doors stood several bulky men with the thick-necked look of bouncers.

Daniel produced a card printed on creamy linen and showed it to one of the men, who glanced at it and nodded.

“After you,” Daniel said, holding the door for her.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

The doors opened onto a wide foyer—more of a patio, really. A bar was set up to one side, under an awning. A young man served drinks there, dressed in black and white—catering staff, Michelle thought. They were the same everywhere. He was slight, with
drooping black hair and a gold earring, and she thought he might be wearing eyeliner.

“What can I get you?” Daniel asked.

“I’d love a glass of white wine.”

No margaritas, she thought. She needed to stay focused.

To do what, she wasn’t sure. Take pictures with Gary’s watch? It was still in her purse. She couldn’t imagine actually taking it out, putting it on.

Confide in Daniel?

A few other couples stood around the bar, on the patio that overlooked downtown Vallarta and then the ocean. Expensively dressed. Lots of jewelry on the women.

“It’s lovely,” Michelle said.

“Wait’ll you see the main room.”

He led her through an arched entrance into a spacious gallery. It looked like a church, Michelle thought, domed vaulted ceiling painted with murals of robed saints, pink cherubs, spires piercing storm clouds, and overflowing bowls of fruit. Heavy wood and wrought iron framed the walls and entries; Talavera tile formed borders around terra-cotta flooring. The space opened up onto a large balcony that she glimpsed between thick pillars. A quartet of musicians played: guitars, marimba, guitarrón. Long tables bearing platters of food were set up along the open wall; small, round tables, chairs, and benches were placed here and there for guests to pause and eat and rest their drinks. There was a banner hung on one wall with a silk-screened design of children, palms, waves, and dolphins, and the legend
PARA LOS NIÑOS
. More thick-necked men were spaced at intervals against the wall.

Someone had spent some money.

“Whose party is this?” she asked.

“This woman I know, María, put it together. She’s got this charity thing she runs. They’re kicking off a fundraising campaign for the summer.” He shrugged a little. “It can be tough around here during the summers, after the tourists go home.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“You wanna go catch the sunset?”

“Sure.”

They went out to the balcony, where a few tables had been set up, found seats at one end. The table had a small centerpiece with a card on a metal stand that featured the same graphic as on the banner inside.
PARA LOS NIÑOS
. By now the sun lit the surrounding clouds in great streaks of pink and orange, purpling above like a deepening bruise.

“I thought this was going to be a good one,” Daniel said with satisfaction. He lifted his glass—he’d also gotten white wine.

She raised hers in return.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he said.

“It’s not exactly a chore. This seems like a nice party.”

He shrugged. “Not really my kind of thing.”

“So why come?” And why ask me? she thought.

He gave her his half smile, his eyes holding steady on hers. “Rich people, private jets, you know, they go together. I’ve got some clients here. I have to show face sometimes.”

Rich people and private jets might go together, but in her experience that didn’t mean the pilots came to their parties.

You don’t know that for sure, she told herself. You don’t know how things work here.

“So how long are you staying in town?” he asked, still watching her.

“Maybe two weeks. Probably not longer than that. I can do some of the estate stuff from here, but I’m going to have to figure out the rest of it at some point.”

Like where she was going to live. And how.

Daniel let out a brief, quiet laugh. “Yeah, I hear that. I need to make some changes myself.”

They finished their wine as the sun dipped into the ocean.

He reached over and gently squeezed her hand. “Let me take care of business, and we’ll get out of here.”

They went inside.

The party had picked up some while they’d been on the balcony. Chatter, laughter, and the clatter of plates nearly drowned out the musicians.

She tried the red wine this time. It tasted corked. Daniel had a beer.

The two of them made their way through the main room, Daniel stopping now and then to greet people, men in short-sleeved shirts and linen slacks, women in silk and gold and Jimmy Choos, introducing her as “my friend Michelle, from Los Angeles.”

She couldn’t keep track of the names, the professions. There were too many of them. Developers, city officials, charter-boat operators, real-estate investors, restaurateurs, gallery owners, introduced and quickly dispensed with.

She felt on the edge of panic, as if she were in one of those dreams where she’d walked into a final exam unprepared. What would she tell Gary when she called him? That she’d been to a party, met a bunch of people, and couldn’t remember any of their names?

If
she called Gary.

Call Gary or tell Daniel?

Leave here and go someplace the two of them could talk, in private.

Not Hacienda Carmen.

They’d reached a tile fountain set in a cement nook on one side of the gallery. A woman standing there looked up and saw them.

“Danny, how nice of you to come.”

“María.” There was a peculiar weight to the way he said her name. “Michelle, this is the woman who put this all together. María Aguilar. María, this is my friend Michelle, from Los Angeles.”

“Encantada.”

They air-kissed, something that Michelle had thankfully had much opportunity to practice in Brentwood.

María was in her fifties, at the point where the skin on her face had started to thin, conforming to the bones of her skull like soft, moist putty. She was still striking, her eyebrows slashes of dark ink, her eyes a luminous topaz.

“This is a lovely party,” Michelle said.

“Thank you. It is an important one. For the children. I’m glad to see that so many in Vallarta are willing to help, in spite of the difficult economic times.”

María turned to Daniel. “I think Carlos is looking for you.” She glanced toward the balcony. “I see him over there. My husband,” she said to Michelle.

Daniel lifted a hand, and a man standing beside one of the columns by the balcony returned the wave. Wide, fleshy face, wellcut silk shirt worn untucked.

“Hey,” Daniel said. “Do you mind if I— This won’t take long.”

“Don’t worry,” Michelle said. “Take your time.”

After he left, María tilted her head and studied Michelle. Michelle thought she recognized the evaluation: Her clothes. Her shoes. Her purse. How she did her makeup.