Getaway (31 page)

“Fuck
you
, Gary,” Michelle said. She had the controller in her hand, the one that worked the bed and the TV and called the nurse. Her finger brushed against the call button. “You think I care about Danny? Well, I don’t. But he didn’t steal my passport. And he didn’t blackmail me into some bullshit spy scheme with a fucking James Bond watch.”

“But he did try to kill you,” Gary said. Then he shrugged. “Fine if you don’t believe me.” He stood up, reached into his pocket, pulled out something flat and dark blue. “Here’s your passport.” He tossed it at her. It landed on her lap. “My advice is, soon as you
get out of this hospital, get yourself on a plane to the U.S. Forget about all this. And keep your mouth shut.”

He picked up the Frida tote bag and dropped it in the chair. “Though you might want to check in with Vicky first. She’s pretty upset, and I know the two of you are tight.”

Michelle knew she’d been out of it yesterday, but if anything, Vicky had seemed calm. Concerned yes, but certainly not hysterical.

“About what happened to me?”

“Oh. Right. There’s no way you would have heard.”

Gary stood behind the chair. Rested his hands on the back.

“You know Charlie Sloane? Older guy, kind of a drunk? Well, I don’t know the whole story, but Vicky went over to his place for some reason, and she found him there, dead. I guess he slipped and fell in the tub. Crazy, huh? But you drink the way he did, something like that’s bound to happen.”

[CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO]

“Here are your prescriptions,”
the nurse said. “You can fill them at any pharmacy. Here are your instructions for managing the … the healing. Remember, for the ribs you must breathe deeply and cough every hour. You do not want to get pneumonia. Try to lie on the side of the injury when you rest. It will actually feel better.”

“Thank you,” Michelle said. “I will.”

She’d put all the pills and the papers in her Frida tote bag. She didn’t have anything else to put them in. The clothes Gary had brought fit her at least, the shorts a little on the baggy side, the T-shirt a turquoise color she’d never wear, with cap sleeves, a scooped neck, and an embossed dolphin above one breast, with a Puerto Vallarta logo. He’d brought flip-flops for shoes. With her feet bandaged up, they barely fit, but they would do for now.

“What about the bill?” she finally asked.

“Oh, I think it’s taken care of. But we can check at the front desk.”

An orderly wheeled her to the lobby in a wheelchair. That was something she’d never understood: why they thought you were
well enough to leave a hospital but not strong enough to walk on your own.

“The bill is all settled, Señora Mason,” the clerk at the front desk confirmed. “Please take care of yourself and feel better.”

Fucking Gary, she thought.

They’d called a taxi for her. It waited at the curb, in the full glare of the afternoon tropic light.

The orderly helped her into the backseat of the cab, handed her the specially fitted aluminum cane. “Take care, Señora Mason,” he said.

“Thank you.”

The cabdriver craned his head toward her.
“¿Adónde vamos?”

Where to?

“Hacienda Carmen.” That was where her stuff was, what was left of it. And the money she had, so she could pay the driver.

Charlie was dead. He was dead.

“Oh, fuck,” she whispered. She wanted to cry. Don’t do it now, she told herself. Wait. Just wait.

He was dead. He’d tried to help her, and they’d killed him.

It’s my fault, she thought. If I hadn’t … if I’d stayed away …

They drove south along the Malecón. The sun glared off the ocean like spotlights on broken glass.

He’d just wanted to enjoy the rest of his life. Drink tequila. Watch the sunset.

No one had the right to take that time from him. No one.

“Oh, Señora
Mason, what’s happened to you?” Paloma came out from behind the counter, putting a tentative hand on Michelle’s uninjured shoulder.

The taxi driver, who had opened the gate for her and helped her through the courtyard, leaned the Frida tote bag against the counter.

“Can you pay him?” Michelle asked. “I have the money. I can … I can give it to you.…”

“Of course, of course. Please don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

“This is
terrible,” Paloma said, as she helped Michelle up the short flight of stairs to her room. “The crime here these days—I have another friend, and she has been robbed in her apartment three times! The thieves, they break in and they steal everything. Her iPod. Her laptop.”

“Sorry.”

“I tell her it’s the part of town she lives in. It’s better here, where we are.”

Paloma unlocked the door. “Can I bring you anything?” she asked. “Maybe some dinner, later?”

“Thank you,” Michelle whispered. “Some ice would be great, if you have it.”

Her little suite was closed, dark, and hot—hot like an oven. Michelle stood there in the sitting room while Paloma opened all the windows, turned on the fans, the air conditioner that barely worked.

“Okay. I’ll bring you some dinner later. The ice, I can bring you that now.”

Michelle nodded. She limped over to her bed, leaned the cane against the nightstand. Lay down on the bed, on her left side, where the broken ribs were.

It didn’t actually feel good at all.

Breathe deeply, she reminded herself. Cough. Wouldn’t want to get pneumonia.

“Do you have an Internet connection I could use?” she asked Paloma when the woman returned with several small bags of ice. “Just to write one e-mail to my sister. To let her know what happened.”

“Oh, of course. You can use my computer at the desk.”

She lay there for a while with the bags on her hip and her ribs, until water from the melting ice started to soak her clothes. Then
she limped downstairs. By now some of the residents had gathered in the patio for their evening cocktails.

“What happened to you, dear?” one of the elderly women asked. “Did you have an accident?”

Michelle forced a smile and nodded. “Yes. Doing better now, thanks.”

She made her way to the front desk. Paloma guided her over to the round table where the grimy computer sat. “Take as much time as you need,” she said.

Six o’clock here. Four o’clock in Los Angeles. Maggie would still be at work. Wouldn’t she?

“What day is it today?”

“Saturday, Señora Mason.”

“Oh.”

Michelle typed Maggie’s home e-mail in the address line, and CC’ed her work account, just in case she was pulling overtime. Maggie had gotten cautious about personal e-mails in the office in the last couple of years, with all the surveillance that went on by management, but this qualified as an emergency, didn’t it?

“I have a problem,”
Michelle typed.
“I was robbed and just got out of the hospital. I’m okay, but I need you to cancel my credit cards and report my phone stolen. Can you do that? There’s a folder in the bedroom in the green file box with all my personal accounts in it. That should have all the credit cards. The phone I think you can do just calling AT&T and giving them my number. Would you mind?”

Her head throbbed.
“I am going to get a flight home ASAP. I’ll let you know as soon as I book it.”

How to get home?

She’d never actually bought a plane ticket with cash, and cash was all she had. How did one even do that? Go directly to the airport? Buy a ticket at the airline counter?

Maybe a travel agent, she thought; they had them here, didn’t they? All those people who stood on street corners, in shops, asking you if you wanted to take a boat ride, a jungle-canopy tour, maybe they could book plane tickets, too.

She could ask Vicky. Vicky would know how.

Then she thought about what she’d already asked Vicky. Vicky had helped her, and she’d sent her to find Charlie. Vicky could have walked in on whoever had killed him.

People who helped her died.

I’ll figure it out myself, she thought.

Besides, she didn’t have Vicky’s number anymore.

Was there any point in trying to warn Maggie about what had happened? Would it do any good? Could she tell her to take Ben and get out of town?

“With what vacation?” Maggie would snort.

Besides, if anyone else read this e-mail …

There was something more she wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure what it was; she couldn’t come up with the words.

“Hope everything is okay there. Will see you and Ben soon. Take care.”

Forget all this. Keep your mouth shut
.

Back in
the courtyard, the older woman who’d greeted her listened to her companion telling some kind of story, the other woman gesturing animatedly, leaning over and whispering.

When they saw Michelle, they stared for a moment and quickly looked away.

She turned
down Paloma’s offer of dinner. “I think I’ll just go across the street,” she said. She didn’t want to be in her closed little room, trying to eat at the desk or on her bed, listening to the noise from the bar up the block. I can walk across the street, she told herself. It was probably good for her to try to walk. Of course, the doctor had told her that rest was what she needed, but maybe walking would ease the horrible stiffness in her leg and her back, the pain across her shoulders.

Failing that, there were always the pain meds, which she thought might be Vicodin.

The restaurant, with its gaily painted murals of skulls and skeletons and musical instruments, was practically deserted.

“Something to drink?” the waiter asked her.

“Just water, please.” A margarita was probably out of the question.

She thought about drinking tequila with Charlie, up on his balcony.

Don’t cry, she told herself again. You can’t cry here.

She ordered chicken enchiladas, beans and rice.

It was hard to eat. Maybe the meds were affecting her appetite. She picked at the food, had a few bites of rice, of chicken.

“Ms. Mason?”

“Can’t you just leave me alone?”

She’d nearly shouted. Morales shook his head, pulled out the chair across from her, and sat.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

“So am I.”

Do not cry. Don’t.

“I talked to Vicky. Vicky Fallows. She told me a story that was pretty interesting. Something you’d told her, about how you went to jail. Something about a car accident.”

Oh, Christ. What had she told Vicky? She could hardly remember it now.

“But that wasn’t the truth, was it? There were some drug charges, right?”

She closed her eyes. “I didn’t have drugs,” she said. “It was some kind of a setup. Extortion. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it.”

“Well, the charges weren’t ever filed, which is good for you. But I still have to wonder. Charlie Sloane, right now they say that was an accident. Maybe it was. But now we’ve had two Americans die in Vallarta, in just a week. One was your friend. And you, almost killed.”

“So it’s my fault?” Her voice shook. “My fault someone beat me half to death with a baseball bat? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. What I’m saying is I don’t want to arrest you.” His voice was gentle. “I don’t think you killed anyone. And jail wouldn’t be
good for you. You get arrested here, you can sit in prison for a long time before you even have a trial. And the trial …” He shook his head. “Things are different here.”

“So what do you want? What do you want from me?”

He sighed. “You know about the economy in Mexico, don’t you? How bad things are? A place like Vallarta, we depend on tourists and foreigners who live here. And they come because it’s safe. If it’s not safe, if nobody comes.…” He lifted his hands, a gesture of surrender. “Then what happens?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“I need to know why these men died and why you were attacked. Maybe I can’t fix the problem, but I need to know what it is. If it’s
narcos
, okay. We tell people, they know if they don’t get involved, it’s safe here for them. But if it’s something else …”

There was a passion, a sincerity to his voice, and she wondered if it was real, if an underpaid Mexican detective in a seaside resort town might actually care.

“Just tell me the truth, Ms. Mason. Tell me what’s going on, before this gets any more out of hand. We can get you some protection—”

“Really? When your cops plant drugs on me? When they …?”

She couldn’t finish.

“I’ll see to it myself,” he said, but she could see the doubt in his face.

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re one of the good guys? Why should I?”

“Maybe because you don’t have a choice.”

“So that’s a threat?”

A frown furrowed his brow, and he appeared to consider. “I don’t like making threats.”

He leaned back in his chair, cocked his head like he was stretching out his neck, and sighed.

“You know why I left the States? I got deported when I was eighteen. All the time till I was sixteen, I thought I was a citizen,
but I wasn’t. Then I wanted to get a driver’s license, and my parents told me the truth.”

He smiled at her. “I was so dumb. I got caught with a bunch of weed. No jail time, but they checked my status, and that was that.” A shrug. “So here I am. At first I was pretty pissed off, but then I decided I could have a good life in Vallarta. And I do. That’s the most anyone can ask for, right?”

She wondered if it was really that simple. Was that the best you could hope for?

A good life. What did that even mean?

Then he shrugged again. “Okay, I’m not a hero. There aren’t too many heroes in my position, you know? But I want Vallarta to be a good place to live. And I’ll do my best to help you. I promise you that.”

She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Except he sat there, waiting for her to say something.

“Thank you,” she managed at last. “But I don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t.”

“Okay.” He suppressed another sigh. “You’ll need to stay in town until this is settled. Call me if you want to talk.” He stood up. “It’s better if you don’t wait too long. I don’t want to take your passport.”