“Wait,” she said. She showed him the key.
He grinned. “I was hoping you’d ask me in.”
The room was stifling. She’d turned the air conditioner off, out of habit. She switched it on, and the unit rattled to life. It smelled musty, like the spoiled damp of an old refrigerator. Still, with the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony left open, you could hear the ocean, catch a whiff of its brine.
Daniel stood and watched her, a dark silhouette.
“Come here,” he said.
By the time they’d made it to the bed, the air conditioner had chilled the room enough that Michelle was grateful for the warm breeze that blew in from the balcony.
“You have a beautiful body,” Daniel said, running a hand lightly over her belly.
“So do you.”
The words sounded stupid as soon as she said them. You don’t tell men they’re beautiful.
Daniel didn’t seem to mind. He looked pleased. “Gotta keep in shape for the things I enjoy.”
He had a nice body, he really did. Lean but not stringy. Energetic. She hadn’t been with anybody like him in a long time. Certainly not Tom, and she’d stayed faithful to Tom.
Tom with his big belly, his barrel chest. Twelve years older than her and not exactly a stud.
“Hey,” Daniel said. “Hey, what is it?”
She was crying, goddamn it. She rarely cried. She hated it.
“Hey.” He smoothed the hair around her face.
He was looking at her now, and she could tell what he was thinking: Great, I’m in bed with a crazy woman.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. Don’t … It’s stupid.”
“Listen, I mean, if you’re not into this …”
He tried but could not quite keep the irritation from his voice.
“I am. I’m sorry. It’s just …” She tried to smile. “I haven’t dated in a while. My husband …”
“So … you’re married?” Now the irritation seemed mixed with curiosity.
No disapproval at least. Perhaps a calculation about whether this was worth it.
“No. Not anymore.”
“Oh.” Daniel rolled over onto his side, propped himself up on his elbow. “Yeah. It’s tough getting back into things after you split from somebody you’ve been with for a long time.”
“My husband died, actually.”
She enjoyed it in a way, getting the reaction, seeing the look on his face, the shock, the embarrassment.
“I’m really sorry,” he said.
The way he said it, so simply, made her flush with guilt.
“No, don’t be, I really …” She wanted to reach out, wanting to touch him, to encourage him, but it felt so awkward, so phony.
“I want to,” she finally said. “It’s just a little hard.”
Daniel extended his hand, rested his palm on her cheek for a moment. “Look. We both had a lot to drink. This is all kind of intense. Maybe I should just go.”
This time she did reach out. “No. Stay. If you want.”
They tried again. But the energy that had gotten them into bed was gone now, dissipated, and after a few perfunctory thrusts Daniel stopped and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m really tired.”
“Don’t apologize.” She tried to smile. “You’ve been great. I haven’t.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
His face was dark above hers, but she thought his expression was kind.
She kissed him, slowly.
“Mmmm. That was nice,” he said.
After that they both fell asleep, not spooning but close together, Daniel’s hand resting on the hollow above her hip.
So many noises here. The familiar: unmuffled motorcycle, snatches of music, pounding surf. The unfamiliar: songbirds singing foreign tunes, parrots squawking, the toc-toc cry of geckos.
What woke her?
A muffled thud. A clatter. She blinked her eyes open. Two men, one entering from the balcony, the other crouched over the chair, Daniel’s shorts in his hand, her tote bag on the floor by his feet.
“Hey!” Daniel flung the sheet off, bolted out of bed.
Now Michelle saw they wore kerchiefs over the lower halves of their faces. The second pulled something from his pocket, something dark that he gripped in his fist. For a moment Daniel froze as the man took two quick strides to him, raised the hand that clutched the black pistol, and smashed it against his temple.
Daniel crumpled, as surely as if he’d been shot.
It happened so quickly that Michelle didn’t scream; instead she gasped and clutched the sheet.
The man with the gun turned to her.
He was close to the bed. She could see that he wore dark clothes, a black T-shirt, jeans, and he took another step toward her. He had on a belt, woven brown and white leather; she could see it clearly in the light that leaked in from the balcony.
The buckle was a gun, and there were letters in the weave. She saw those as he tugged at the tongue of the belt to unbuckle it.
“¡Pendejo!” the other man spit, gesturing toward the balcony.
The man with the gun stared at her a moment longer before he turned and followed his companion out the sliding glass door, into the night.
[CHAPTER TWO]
There was a lot of blood.
Head wounds bleed a lot, Michelle thought vaguely. She’d read that somewhere. Or seen it on television.
It didn’t mean that Daniel was dying.
But by this time the blood had covered one side of his face, was dripping onto the tiled floor, and he was unconscious, moaning now and again. Michelle couldn’t decide what to do next.
Clothes, she thought, I have to put on some clothes. And I have to call someone. And get a towel, for the blood. Which first?
Phone.
She wasn’t sure whom to call or how it worked, so she punched “zero” on the room phone, and finally a woman’s voice answered, asking a question. “A sus órdenes,” Michelle made out.
“Help … I need help … in Room 452. I need a doctor.”
“You are having an emergency?”
“Yes. Someone’s hurt. They came in, and … Please, just send help.”
She grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, thinking, I’m putting on clothes, and this naked man is bleeding on my floor. I should be doing something for him, but I need to get dressed, don’t I? And it took only a minute or two, and by the time someone pounded on the door, she’d crouched down by Daniel, had covered him with a sheet, was pressing a towel to the bleeding gash on his scalp. No one needed to know she’d gotten dressed first.
Two hotel workers had come, men who handled luggage, patrolled the grounds. Seeing Michelle at the door holding a bloody towel, Daniel lying on the floor behind her, one immediately reached for his walkie-talkie.
The first set of police arrived just before the ambulance did.
“He’s not my husband,” Michelle tried to explain. “He’s a friend. Un amigo.” The blood had soaked the towel, had gotten all over her hand, and she wiped her hand on her shorts.
One of the policemen handed her a fresh towel. White, like the uniform he wore, white polo shirt and cargo shorts, black baseball cap.
The other policeman knelt down next to her. “Let me help you, señorita,” he said, taking the towel. “You can rest if you like.”
Suddenly she felt dizzy. “Thank you,” she said. Somehow she made it to the bed, her hand reaching blindly for the solidity of the mattress. She sat on the edge of the bed, watched the ambulance attendants arrive and tend to Daniel with a minimum of fuss, bandage his head and lift him onto a gurney.
By now he was conscious, somewhat. “Hey,” he said. “What …?”
“Where are they taking him?” Michelle asked the policeman.
“CMQ Hospital. Don’t worry. It’s a good place. He’ll be fine.”
Two more men arrived. “Judicial police,” the patrolman explained. “They can take the statement from you.”
The
new policemen wore plainclothes. Polo shirt again and khakis on one, a madras plaid and Dockers on the other, ID and badges hung on lanyards.
One of the ambulance attendants asked her a question. It took a couple of times for her to understand.
“Su nombre,” she heard. He pointed at Daniel. His name.
“Daniel.”
“The family name?”
Of course she didn’t know.
The faces of the ambulance attendant and the policemen stayed studiously blank.
“So he is not your husband,” one of the new policemen stated, the one in khakis. “Or a boyfriend.”
“No.” Her face flamed red. “Just a friend.”
His partner lifted Daniel’s shorts off the floor, patted the pockets, and retrieved his wallet. The policeman in the khakis gave a little wave to the ambulance attendants, who bundled Daniel out the door.
He was younger than she was, the policeman, in his early thirties, she thought: tall and well built, with a relaxed, loose way of carrying himself. Something about his accent, the cadence of his speech, was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place what it was.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
There wasn’t much to tell, really. She skipped how she and Daniel had met. They’d had dinner. Come back to the hotel. Were sleeping.
“So these men,” he said when she’d finished. “Anything you can tell me, about how they looked? Were they tall? Short? If we showed you photos, could you identify them?”
“No.” She shook her head “No. They wore scarves across their faces. They were … I don’t know.” She tried to picture them, that moment when she saw them entering from the balcony. “One was skinny. Not very big at all. Short. The other, he wasn’t tall either, but he was stocky. Like a wrestler.”
The one who’d approached her bed.
“He had on a belt,” she said suddenly. “With a buckle shaped like a gun. And there were letters woven in it. ERO.”
“Guerrero?” the policeman asked.
“Maybe. Yes. I think so.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said, standing up. “Sorry this has happened to you and your friend. It’s not so common in Vallarta, but it happens. If you give me contact information, I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
“What’s Guerrero?” she asked.
“State next door. Lots of thieves come from there.”
The other plainclothes policeman nodded. “And narcos,” he said. “Always causing problems. Even now in Vallarta.”
After the policemen left, Michelle stayed where she was, sitting on the edge of the bed. Little piles of clothes lay scattered about, like the aftermath of a freeway car wreck. She could see the blood as well, the blood on the tiled floor. She’d gotten blood on her T-shirt and shorts, too.
What was she supposed to do now?
There was a knock on the door.
“Señorita?”
And naturally there was blood on her hands. She almost laughed at that. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she still felt guilty. “Señorita Mason?” It was a woman’s voice. “Can we come in?”
“Who is it?”
“Claudia, from the front desk.”
She thought she remembered a Claudia, but she couldn’t be sure. She got up, went to the door, put on the chain, and cracked it open.
A woman stood there, middle-aged and stout, wearing a blue shift that looked like a nurse’s uniform. Michelle recognized her. Behind her was a man she’d seen sitting at a stand resembling a portable bar up at the entrance to the hotel driveway, where taxis dropped off guests.
“We are here to help you,” the woman said.
Michelle nodded. “Okay.” She undid the chain. “Thank you.” It made sense, she thought, that they’d send someone. To clean up.
They came in. The man spotted the bloody towel on the floor. He picked it up and put it in a trash bag. He wore latex gloves, like you’d use to do dishes.
Michelle sat back down on the bed. She didn’t know what else to do.
The woman immediately squatted by Michelle and covered her hand with her own, which was dry and a little rough.
“This is terrible,” she said, “and we are so very sorry. These things should not happen in Vallarta.”
“Things like this happen everywhere,” Michelle murmured.
“I think we can move you to another room, right? A better room.”
Michelle thought about it. She stared at the heaps of clothing, the puddle of blood now drying in the refrigerated air.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I don’t want to stay in this room anymore.”
They moved her to a suite in a newer wing, one with a separate bedroom and a bar, a wide balcony with wrought-iron furniture. She checked the balcony first thing. It could not be reached through another suite; there was no way to climb up to it that she could see.
After the woman from the front desk and the man from reception moved all her things, hung the clothes that had been in the closet, arranged her toothbrush, cosmetics, and moisturizers on the bathroom counter—after all that had been done, the offer of tea by the hotel staff turned down, Michelle stepped into the shower. Stood under the spray for a very long time.
When she got out, she slipped into the silk pajamas she’d packed, the sleeveless top and shorts. She considered having a whiskey from the minibar, thinking it might relax her, might help her sleep, but she already had the beginnings of a headache, so instead she took an Ambien. Tom’s prescription. Why let them go to waste?
She climbed into bed, closed her eyes. What replayed in her head was not the robbery, the assault, but Daniel’s face, over hers.
Maybe I should have gone to the hospital, Michelle thought as the drug began to take hold. Would that have been the right thing to do? But she barely knew Daniel, after all. Couldn’t even ask for him by name.
The breeze from the ocean billowed the gauzy curtains on the balcony. I should get up, she thought. I should close the door. But she was safe here, wasn’t she? And she was so tired, and the air smelled good.
She watched the curtains expand and contract, as though they were breathing.
Eventually her breaths slowed down to match, and then she slept.
“We hope you can stay a little longer, Ms. Mason.”
The woman behind the front desk, a different woman from the one last night, briefly rubbed her hands before composing herself. She was trim, perhaps Michelle’s age, carefully made up, with a gold necklace and gold earrings that looked to be a set. Even in the heat of the patio that served as the hotel lobby, only the faintest dewy perspiration dampened her forehead. Michelle was already dripping sweat.
“We are so sorry about what happened. We’d like for you to stay as our guest and enjoy yourself.”
Everyone was being very kind, Michelle thought. Probably they were worried about lawsuits.
The robbers had somehow gained access to a vacant room next to her old room, climbed from that balcony onto hers. Obviously the security was not what it should have been. If she were in America, she could probably sue.
But in Mexico? How did things work here? Would it be worth it to try?
“Right now I’m scheduled to leave on Sunday,” she said.
“Of course, of course. We could make an arrangement for you to stay here in the future, if you’d like to return. Or if you decide you’d like to stay a little longer, we can do that as well.”
“Thank you,” Michelle said. “I’ll think about it.”
Even with what had happened, it was tempting. Spending time on the beach, drinking margaritas on the hotel’s dime, sounded better than her current life in Los Angeles. Living in her sister’s spare room. Listening to Maggie’s fights with her boyfriend, to her son Ben’s tantrums. It was why she’d come on this vacation in the first place, to get away from all that for a few days.
A giggle rose in her throat as she walked up the stairs from the reception area to her tower. Maybe she just wouldn’t
leave. See how long the hotel’s free room was good for. They hadn’t really said.
I’ll live off room service and peanuts from the minibar, she thought. Let my hair go gray, my thighs get fat, get a couple of cats and a Chihuahua. Fill the room with purchases from the beach vendors: loud serapes, wooden dolphin statuettes, flying Batman parachute toys, piled in stacks, all smelling vaguely of cat piss. Take her Chihuahua on walks down the Malecón. Maybe one of the cats, too.
She felt, for the first time in months, light. Unencumbered. Free.
The feeling wouldn’t last long, probably, but why not enjoy it?
Maybe I’ll take some pictures, she thought.
Get out the good camera. Wander around. See what caught her eye. She hadn’t done that in ages, hadn’t done it here at all, not even a few snapshots with her point-and-shoot, and she was a pretty decent photographer—or had been, once.
She decided to change out of the sundress and into some shorts and a tanktop. Better for taking photos, in case she needed to climb or crouch.
The hotel people hadn’t arranged things the way she would, naturally, and she had to hunt inside the wardrobe to figure out where they’d put her clothes.
Underwear on one shelf. Blouses and skirts neatly hung. Sandals lined in a row.
Including one pair that didn’t belong. A pair of Tevas, too big to fit her feet.
Hanging on the closet pole, a faded batik shirt.
Daniel’s clothes.
She found the swim trunks on the shelf with her bathing suit and sarong.
Holding up the trunks, she felt a surge of irritation. How could they have forgotten his clothes? What was she supposed to do with them?
Maybe she’d give them to the beach vendors, to one of the Indian kids peddling garish magnets made in China.
It’s not right for me to feel this way, she thought. She should care—shouldn’t she?—about what had happened to him. Maybe he’d just needed stitches, maybe he was resting at home right now, or even back on the beach looking for some other tourist to fuck, but what if he’d been badly hurt? A skull fracture, bleeding in the brain, something like that.
But ever since Tom had died, she didn’t seem to feel the things she was supposed to feel.
And maybe it wasn’t so strange, not wanting to see Daniel, after what had happened. What did she know about him, really? Just that he was attractive, and after she’d taken him to her room, they’d been attacked.
Getaway Page 2
