Gradually, his heart pumped slower, no longer threatening to burst. When he finally mustered strength, he glanced toward Tash, whose eyes were closed contentedly, her body glistening with sweat.
“Don’t move.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” she murmured.
“I want to take your photograph.”
She didn’t answer for what seemed a long while. “Yes.”
When he stood and peered down, trying to decide what angle to use, he was so enthralled by the casual perfection of her unselfconscious nakedness that he almost forgot to reach for his camera. She was on her back, her arms spread with sensual exhaustion, her breasts at ease, gravity tucking her stomach in, her pubic hair a perfect triangle, her right leg straight, the left bent lazily.
He had never been with a woman who had so entranced him by the sheer fact of her being a woman. It was as if he felt attracted to her because of a subtle chemical signal that he was biologically programmed to find irresistible. But that didn’t explain it, even though the after-sex musk smell from her—it filled the room—made him feel intoxicated. His attraction was more than that. He had fallen in love with her long before he had met her. He had known her before and had been searching for her ever since.
He raised the camera, adjusted it, then lovingly sighted through the viewfinder, which heightened the impression she created. Her small, distant, yet close image became intensified, idealized. When he pressed the shutter button, he knew that this would be one of the finest photographs he had ever made. He took a dozen images from various angles, some of which were full shots, others half shots, a few of which showed only Tash’s breasts, one of which showed only her perfect dark triangle.
He knelt, easing his right hand onto her mound, luxuriating in its softness.
Tash placed her left hand over his. “That feels nice.”
Coltrane heard the forceful pounding of his heart.
“Do you think the photographs will be good?” Tash asked.
“Yes,” Coltrane managed to say.
“I’m surprised that I let you take them.”
“Thank you for letting me.”
“I trust you. I know you wouldn’t do anything with those photographs that would cheapen me.”
“. . . Never,” he said gently.
7
I N EYE - SQUINTING SUNLIGHT , the soldier, one of three at a roadblock between two Jeeps, held up his hand for Coltrane to stop. Coltrane was driving a five-year-old blue Ford station wagon with a crumpled fender and eighty thousand miles on it, the only vehicle that he had been able to find for rent. The car-rental agency had told him that the next day something better would be available, but Coltrane hadn’t wanted to wait. So, after making sure to get a good map and buy plenty of Mexican car insurance, they had headed south from Acapulco. Forty minutes beyond the airport, the rain forest–lined road had long since become two lanes, and the soldiers blocked their way.
Coltrane nodded in what he hoped looked like respect, asking in Spanish if anything was wrong.
Instead of responding, the soldier scowled into the station wagon’s backseat and rear compartment, both of which were empty except for an ice cooler on the back floor. The soldier lifted his right hand from his automatic weapon and motioned that he wanted the cooler opened. Tash bent over the backseat and complied, the two soldiers on her side of the car concentrating on her hips as she showed them that the cooler contained only soft drinks. With a dismissive gesture, the first soldier indicated that Coltrane could proceed.
“What was that about?” Tash asked.
“The man at the car-rental agency said the army’s been checking vehicles for guns and drugs.”
“They looked so sullen, God help anyone they decide to arrest.”
“This heat can’t have improved their humor.”
The temperature was almost ninety. The car’s air conditioning wasn’t working, forcing them to drive with the windows open. Away from the ocean breeze, the humidity seemed to have increased. But at least the air wasn’t hazed with automobile exhaust.
“If this map is accurate,” Tash said, “Espalda del Gato is the third village ahead of us—another thirty miles.”
“And if this road gets any worse,” Coltrane said as the station wagon jounced over a series of deep potholes, “it’ll take us all morning to get there.”
Tash handed him an ice-beaded can of Coke.
They got there in an hour. The first two villages were dilapidated, causing Coltrane and Tash to assume the worst when they rounded a foliage-rimmed curve and stopped to peer down at their destination. Surprised, they saw neat-looking thatch-roofed houses and shops in a small cove that had cliffs on the north and south and an inviting beach in the middle.
“It’s sort of a miniature Acapulco,” Tash said. “The way I suppose Acapulco once was.”
A few small boats were pulled up onto the beach. Other boats bobbed on waves beyond the cove’s entrance.
“Looks like a fishing village.”
“But not for long.” Coltrane pointed toward a yacht in the harbor. “It’s been discovered.”
When Coltrane got out to take photographs, something on the cliff opposite him made him focus his zoom lens in that direction. “Check this.”
He handed the camera to Tash, who peered through it toward a cluster of white structures on the cliff beyond the village. “Seems to be an estate.”
“Aim the camera farther to the right,” Coltrane said.
She did, then suddenly lowered it, turning toward him. “That rock formation up there.”
“A cat arching its back. The same as in Packard’s photograph. We found it.”
Excited, they got back in the car, but despite their eagerness to hurry into town, they were forced to drive slowly down a narrow switchback road. On the left, scarlet, pink, and white flowers thrived beneath a canopy of trees. On the right, a cliff dropped into the ocean. At last, the road leveled off, winding through rain forest. They passed a villager leading a burro laden with firewood. Several women carried baskets filled with bananas. The roadside activity increased. Rounding a bend, they came into the village, its picturesque buildings made of upright poles woven together, the palm-leaved roofs tied neatly, layered thickly. Locals glanced with curiosity toward the unfamiliar car and the two strangers inside it.
The plaza appeared, stalls set up for market day, villagers shopping, children scampering. A centuries-old church stood at one end. A stone well and a trough for watering animals occupied the middle. Coltrane parked outside a tavern called La Primorosa, the Beautiful Woman, and surveyed the activity. This far south, much of the population was Indian, their copper-colored narrow faces, sloped foreheads, and pointed chins looking especially strong in profile, reminding Coltrane of the sharp details on newly minted pennies. The men wore white cotton trousers and shirts, their large sombreros woven from what might have been strands of dried palm-tree leaves. The women wore ankle-length skirts and colorfully embroidered blouses. All were either barefoot or in sandals. Hoping that his camera wouldn’t offend them, trying to conceal it, he took several photographs through his open window, the possibilities exciting him. If he could capture the textures before him . . .
“Assuming that is your estate up there,” he said, “you live in a pretty good neighborhood.”
A teenage girl went by, selling yellow gardenias nestled in a banana frond. He called her over, bought one of the flowers, and gave it to Tash. “A homecoming present.”
“A little premature, but a lovely thought.” Tash smelled the flower, enjoying its fragrance.
Puzzled, Coltrane noticed that the girl hadn’t moved. What’s the matter? he wondered. Does she want me to buy more? Didn’t I pay enough? But the girl wasn’t gazing at him—only at Tash. “You’ve got a fan.”
Tash smiled at the girl, who looked startled by the attention, stepped back, and hurried into the crowd.
“You’re going to have to tone down your smile,” Coltrane said.
>
“Probably not used to outsiders.”
They got out of the station wagon.
Coltrane assessed the Coca-Cola sign on the exterior of the tavern he had parked next to. “I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask if anybody knows about the estate up there.”
But before he could enter, he paused for an elderly woman with waist-long braided hair who frowned as she approached them. Passing, she frowned back harder.
But not at Coltrane.
“First the flower seller. Now that woman. What’s going on?” Tash said.
A bandy-legged gray-haired man carrying a chicken by its feet looked astonished when he noticed Tash.
“What on earth?” Tash asked.
“I don’t get it, either,” Coltrane said. “I’m the one who looks foreign. If you were wearing a long native skirt and your hair was braided, you’d fit right in. They should be staring at me.”
Another woman stared.
“Come on. Let’s get off the street,” Tash said.
They crossed hard-packed earth, stepped under a canopy of palm leaves, and entered the tavern. Coltrane’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the softer light. The place was clean. It had a plank floor, simple chairs, and trestle-style tables. A child petted a dog in a corner. Americans, presumably from the yacht, looked up with mild curiosity, nodding before redirecting their attention to bottles of Corona beer. Locals, however, set down their drinks and looked startled.
So it isn’t just that we’re outsiders, Coltrane thought. Trying to seem oblivious, he escorted Tash to the worn mahogany counter. But as he started to ask the bartender what he knew about the buildings on top of the cliff, a row of photographs on a warped shelf behind the bartender caught his attention.
Simultaneously, the gangly bartender glanced up from washing cups, got a look at Tash, and couldn’t stop his mouth from hanging open.
“My God,” Coltrane said. He pointed toward the photographs. They were old and yellowed—a dozen eight-by-tens. They all depicted a beautiful woman, hence the name of the tavern, La Primorosa. The face of the woman was the same in each photograph. In unconscious imitation of what the flower-selling teenager had done when Tash smiled at her, Coltrane gaped. “Rebecca Chance.”
“They think it’s me,” Tash murmured.
“Un fantasma,” the bartender managed to say.
“No,” Coltrane said hurriedly in Spanish. “Not a ghost. My friend is the granddaughter of the woman in the photographs.”
“¿La nieta?”
“Sí,” Coltrane said. “De Rebecca Chance.”
“¿Señorita?” a frail voice asked.
They looked toward a stoop-shouldered, white-haired, white-bearded man in the doorway. Unlike the Indians in the village, he had a broader facial structure—of Spanish descent.
“¿Quién es usted?” Who are you? The old man seemed afraid to ask.
“Mi nombre es Natasha Adler.”
“La nieta,” the bartender said. The granddaughter.
The old man stepped uneasily closer. Behind him, a crowd had gathered beneath the portal.
“¿Es verdad?” The old man paused before Tash, studying her. Is it true?
“Sí.”
“Después de tanto tiempo.” After so much time. The old man continued in Spanish: “You must speak with Esmeralda.”
The name jolted into Coltrane’s memory. Esmeralda had been the first name of the woman whom Tash’s mother had said was Tash’s grandmother. But she couldn’t be. Rebecca Chance was Tash’s grandmother.
“Esmeralda Gutiérrez?”
“Sí. Mi esposa,” the old man said. My wife.
8
A SPLENDID FLOWER GARDEN SEPARATED THE SMALL COTTAGE from the rain forest. Sitting in chairs made of woven branches, with glazed cups of papaya juice on a table in front of them, Coltrane and Tash peered mystified toward a wizened, cinnamon-skinned, white-haired woman, who kept staring at Tash, shaking her head, and fingering her rosary.
“You look exactly like her,” the old woman, Esmeralda, said in Spanish, pointing toward faded photographs of Rebecca Chance that her husband had brought from the house.
“My mother claimed that you were my grandmother,” Tash replied in Spanish.
“No,” Esmeralda said, “although I did take care of your mother.”
How old must she be? Coltrane wondered in dismay. In her eighties?
“Especially afterward.”
“Afterward?”
“After your grandmother’s death.” Esmeralda’s voice was whispery with age. Coltrane had to lean forward to hear what she said.
“Then why did my mother lie to me?”
“Why does anyone lie? To avoid the truth.”
“Do you know the truth?”
The old woman nodded. “I regret so.”
“Drink,” Esmeralda’s husband said. “This talking will make you thirsty.”
Esmeralda dropped her rosary into her lap and used both hands, slightly atremble, to raise her cup of juice to her wrinkled lips, then set it back down. “Why have you come here?”
“Because of a man named Randolph Packard.”
The old woman grimaced.
“You know of him?”
“Too well. If he sent you here—”
“No. He died recently.”
Esmeralda’s aged eyes narrowed. “Randolph Packard is dead?”
“A few months ago.”
“Then the world is a better place, but I pity the poor souls in hell.”
“I inherited some property from him. We think it’s the estate on top of the cliff to the south of the village.”
“Burn it.”
“What?”
“Destroy it. It can only bring you harm.”
“What are you talking about?”
The old woman shook her head in distress.
“Tell them,” the old man said. “It was so long ago. If Randolph Packard is truly dead, you no longer have anything to fear.” He looked at Tash and Coltrane for confirmation.
“I saw his ashes sprinkled into the ocean,” Coltrane said.
Her hands more unsteady, the elderly woman again raised the earth-colored cup to her lips, drinking, then slowly setting it down.
9
W HEN SHE WAS SEVENTEEN , she said, the village was so isolated that Acapulco was a three-day trek along a snake-infested trail through the rain forest. Outsiders were unheard of. Then the first stranger she had ever met—and the first gringo—sailed into the harbor.
“He was amazingly tall. His leanness emphasized his height. But what I noticed most were his oddly handsome face, his shock of black hair, and his eyes, which never stopped searching.”
“Randolph Packard,” Coltrane said.
Esmeralda nodded. “He told us that he planned to live near the village, that he wanted to be a good neighbor, that he had brought us gifts of clothing, tools, and medicines. He would pay us generously to work for him, he said. So the corruption began. Each year after the rainy season, he returned. In the meantime, we built his estate up there, tended his gardens, kept everything clean and in repair, flowers in vases, fresh linen on the beds, ready on a moment’s notice for when the sails of his sleek boat would reappear, approaching the harbor. We grew dependent on him. If he was late, we worried that he might not come at all. Without the money, goods, and medicines he brought, we knew we would suffer.”
One year, Packard didn’t come alone. He brought many other boats and an army of gringos who unloaded electrical generators, cameras, lights, sound equipment, sets, tents, an invasion of movie equipment that the locals knew nothing about and that caused chaos within the village. Along with the invasion came more money and luxuries than they had ever seen. The corruption worsened. Esmeralda hated all of it. With one exception—an actress, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, to whom she was assigned as a maid.
Esmeralda’s wrinkled gaze lingered on the face in the yellowed photographs on the table. She redirected it toward
Tash, reverential, as if Rebecca Chance sat before her.
It soon became clear, she said, that the reason Packard had brought the movie company to the village was to ingratiate himself with Rebecca, to put her in debt to him for going to such extremes to advance her career. At the same time, it also became clear that Packard had a rival for Rebecca’s affections—the film’s producer, Winston Case.
The name brought Coltrane and Tash to greater attention.
Esmeralda learned about Rebecca’s situation because the actress, who spoke Spanish, confided in her. Winston Case had produced Rebecca’s previous three films. They had formed a close professional and personal relationship. Knowing her struggle to rise within the film industry, he had even given her a house that he owned in Los Angeles. She was indebted to him. But at the same time she was attracted to Randolph Packard, whom she had met one day when she discovered him photographing her house. A conversation had led to a dinner, then other dinners, then weekend outings. His flamboyance and wit had been irresistible.
Esmeralda felt helpless, watching the two men vie for Rebecca’s attentions, seeing how Rebecca was torn between them. But Esmeralda wasn’t the only one who noticed, for the film crew and the actors soon realized that their work was secondary to the greater drama developing behind the scenes. Several times, Winston Case and Randolph Packard exchanged angry words in front of the company. Packard wanted to take photographs of her whenever she wasn’t working. Winston Case wanted her to spend every evening with him. Their persistence so wore her down that she finally demanded that they both leave her alone, and there the matter remained when the film was finished and the cast and crew returned to Los Angeles, including Rebecca, who accompanied Winston Case, while Packard followed her.
“I never expected to see Rebecca again,” Esmeralda said, “but the boat came back in less than a year, Rebecca and Packard, no one else. To my delight, I was asked to be Rebecca’s maid again, but my delight became worry when Rebecca told me that she had not come willingly, that Packard had invited her onto his boat for a weekend cruise and then had kept sailing, refusing to let her off. Escape through the snake-infested jungle was out of the question. But Rebecca vowed to get away and prayed for someone else’s boat to enter the harbor.”
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