The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

  He turned, took her in his arms, kissed her deeply with pent-up passion. She drew him to her with one hand while fumbling at his belt buckle with the other.

  The two of them, tearing one another’s clothes off.

  Rain roared on the cab.

  Afterward they lay entwined, locked together in an afterglow of peaceful euphoria, the fierce intensity spent. She had briefly entertained a fear of after-sex remorse—it had happened before, the self-loathing that came with the knowledge of having been badly used.

  Rivas came to mind, the one man, a Mexican diplomat, she had left Helmut for. A week later, she discovered he was married to a Venezuelan heiress. When Ana voiced her dismay, he threw her out. Helmut had taken her back. But he hadn’t let her forget it.

  Now, not only was she regret-free, she couldn’t remember when she had enjoyed such a sense of wellbeing.

  She felt the hardness of him again, swelling against her thigh, his breath comingling warmly with her own. Again she opened herself to him in a flood of lustful joy.

  Only later did they laugh about it, what the human body was capable of in such narrow confines when driven by desire and—perhaps, she thought—love?

  Only later, too, did she weep over it, ashamed that in her passion she had forgotten the dead girl entirely.

  28

  Oaxaca

  IT WAS AFTER six that evening when in a state of dreamy exhaustion Robert brought the pickup to a stop before the Puesta del Sol Hotel and Restaurant in San Del Pacifico. He had driven from the abandoned fruit stand, fluctuating between mild euphoria and utter despair—exhilaration over Ana overshadowed by images of Mickey. As with other degradations from his past, she would remain indelible in his memory forever.

  Ana read aloud of San Del Pacifico from the guidebook: “A beautiful little mountain community halfway between Pochulta and Oaxaca City, the best—and probably the only—place to stop overnight.”

  He eyed the combination restaurant and office. “Boy,” he said, “I could put away a big sirloin steak about now.” Other than a banana each, they hadn’t eaten since Sybil Delonious made breakfast on the beach.

  “Shouldn’t we get a room first so we can shower and change?” Ana said.

  The main building with its wood-beamed ceilings and plank walls looked more like a North Woods lodge than a restaurant in the nether regions of Southern Mexico. They arranged for one of the cabins in back. All the while he kept an eye out for Helmut and the two men.

  The cabin was equally rustic and overlooked a scattering of similar cabins on the slope below. The shower and toilet were in good working order and there was even a fireplace and a little stack of firewood on one end of the patio. Apparently the nights got cold in the mountains.

  Ana helped bring the luggage inside. He wiped the tire down while she showered, then he took his things into the bathroom and pulled the door closed. He started the shower, opened his Dopp kit for the shampoo, and then stepped back with a short intake of breath.

  Mickey’s finger.

  He had been so shaken he had forgotten to bury it with her. A fresh wave of remorse flooded him as her gum-chewing smile bloomed full in his face. It seemed everything he touched went south. Again he recalled his psychological profile, which stated basically that while his skills were superior, he had no stomach for the business. He questioned that as he had been willing enough to kill the two men at the eatery. But then, they were trying to kill him, while the kid, Mickey, was an innocent.

  He considered flushing her finger down the toilet. But that wouldn’t do. He had to get rid of it, but in some decent manner. He put it back, took another Vibramycin, chased it with a slug of mineral water, then stepped out of his clothes and got in the shower, hoping that, in addition to getting clean, he might wash away his headache.

  By the time he finished, Ana had gathered their dirty clothes. She rubbed the knuckles of both hands together in an animated scrubbing motion: “What we call that old Peace Corps Maytag,” she said. Between them, they hand-washed their clothes in the sink and hung them up to dry.

  He tucked the Beretta and the holstered .380 under his shirt, and they made their way to the restaurant.

  The restaurant was fairly large, the tables draped with colorful oilcloths. Half a dozen customers—all Anglos, all a little drunk—looked up with rowdy cheer from two tables they had drawn together as Robert and Ana entered. Robert politely refused invitations to join the group, whose individual members it seemed were trying to outdo one another with boisterous tales of driving the Sierra Madre from Oaxaca to the coast. Robert smiled to himself, thinking how these adventurers might react to the story he and Ana could tell. A real conversation stopper.

  They ordered chicken-stuffed chiles rellenos slathered in tomatillo sauce, black beans with a dollop of sour cream and Spanish rice cooked with spring onions and garlic. Coffee and flan for dessert. Robert felt a little swim-headed, as if floating in a dream.

  He asked for the check and paid out and was about to get up to leave when his gaze locked on Mickey sitting alone at a table. Watching him. His legs refused to move, his arms, he couldn’t talk. Smiling, smacking her gum with her mouth open, Mickey fluttered the fingers of one hand at him in cheerful greeting, the black nub bobbing.

  “Robert? What’s wrong? What’re you looking at?”

  He brought his hands to his face, rubbed his eyes, and then she was gone.

  Ana’s gaze followed his. “You’re scaring me,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he managed. “I’m just tired.” The headache was back and he needed to catch up on his sleep.

  Back in the cabin, he built a fire in the fireplace and poured them each a brandy. The brandy would settle his nerves. But they hardly touched the drinks. Ana lay curled next to him on the sofa, her face wet against his shoulder. He tried to comfort her, but couldn’t stop thinking about the apparition, or whatever it was. Nerves, he told himself; anybody would slip a gear now and then having gone through what he had these last couple of days. But she was so…so real.

  Ana fell asleep on the sofa and then he did. He woke soon after and led her to the bed and they both crashed, still in their clothes, and slept, anxiety and remorse dulled for the moment.

  ROBERT WOKE IN the night, Ana spooned in his arms. She snuggled against him. They made love, rather lackluster, and went back to sleep.

  He woke again with the first light, made a trip to the bathroom, then lifted one of the slats in the window blind and looked out. Fog filled the valley, stringy wisps crawling ghostlike along the ground outside. The fireplace had burned down and it was cold in the room. He stirred the coals to life and added a split of wood. Ana slid out of bed and went to the bathroom. She came out, took his hand, shivering, and led him back to bed. Their lovemaking was more ardent, more impassioned this time. Then they went back to sleep.

  When they woke again, the fog had lifted. They showered again, ate a late breakfast in the restaurant, then packed and re-bagged the luggage, once again covering everything in the pickup bed under the cane. He poured in another quart of oil as Ana returned from the restaurant with two one-gallon jugs of water. He topped off the radiator then downed another Vibramycin.

  The weather was pleasant along the high mountain road. The edge of anxiety had dulled a little with rest. Even so, he checked the rearview mirror often.

  “What are you smiling about?” Ana asked.

  “Ratios.”

  She watched him, a small light of anticipation in her eyes.

  “You know, the ratio of your waist size to your butt size.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder, playful. Then sobered a little. “Does it bother you that I’m crippled?”

  “Crippled?” He frowned. “I guess I haven’t thought about it. The word doesn’t fit you.”

  “Oh, come on now.”

  “Rug weavers in the Mideast, they create borders around their rugs in order to isolate their beauty from the shabbiness of the world. It’s said they weave a fl
aw into the rug because true perfection exists only in God.”

  She gave him a skeptical look.

  “So God looked on you and said, Hey, we can’t have this! and he bunged you up a bit, which in my book only makes you more interesting. Frankly, you’ve got the sexiest walk alive.”

  “Frankly,” she replied, “you’ve got the silverest tongue alive. And frankly, I don’t believe a word of it. But frankly, I like it.”

  IT WAS LONG in the afternoon and two quarts of oil later when they wound their way down out of the mountains into the foothills of the Oaxaca Valley. Thunderheads piled up in the distance. Traffic picked up a little as they drove through the outlying settlements. They slowed through the village of Cayotepec, easing over speed bumps. A few miles farther, Robert braked and turned off at an exit sign: AEROPUERTO INTERNACIONAL XOXOCOTLAN.

  Ana bolted upright. “What’re you doing?”

  Wordless, Robert drove toward the airport, half a mile in the distance.

  “Robert…” she began, alternately watching him and the airport ahead.

  He drove across a narrow creek, then turned left into an oval parking lot and took a space. The engine coughed and died when he pulled the wires loose.

  Ana perched forward on the seat. “Robert…what are we doing here?”

  “First, I’m going to let the air out of that tire. Get you some money.”

  “What?”

  “Then you’re going back to the States.”

  She stared, eyes large and glassy-green. “Leave this truck here right now and let’s go back together. Both of us. Right now.”

  “I have to deliver those photos.”

  She crossed her arms, shook her head in dismay.

  “I’ve got it figured out—”

  She turned on him, eyes brimming. “I thought we had something.”

  “—how to get the money across,” he finished.

  “I see I was wrong.” She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, dug in her pockets for tissues.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “I don’t know what I ever saw in you in the first place.”

  “I’m going to give you, say, twenty thousand dollars. You can put that much in your pocket.”

  She paused, focused on him again. “What’re you talking about?”

  “What we do is, you go on back to Texas. You buy a decent used car. Register it, then drive it over into Acuña, Mexico. That’s just across the border from Del Rio. When I’m done here, I’ll take the bus and meet you there. Then we’ll drive on back into the States together. Weekend shoppers, the usual junky knick-knacks.”

  “Are you serious? You can’t get away with that.”

  “No? Why not?”

  She looked at him, incredulous. “Customs. They have dogs. They check under the cars with mirrors. They’ll search you and find the money, that’s why not.”

  “So? There’s no law against bringing money into the US. They might ask about it, but so what?” He went into an act, staging a scenario: “So, hey, I got myself into a big game down there in Acapulco, you know? Bunch’a Texas highrollers. Private party. Danged if I didn’t clean them old boys out pretty good, too! Yes-sir-ree! So what’s a gringo gonna do with that kinda cash on his person down there in Mexico with all them banditos and cartels and whatever? Help me out here, huh? You dang well hide it the best you can, that’s what.” He shrugged, the performance over. “The worst I can see is we have to pay taxes on it.”

  Ana lifted her hands, palms up, and let them fall back into her lap. “That’s too easy. It can’t possibly work.”

  “That’s the beauty of it.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Well, I do. That’s the plan.”

  “No,” she said, equally firm. “That’s your plan, not mine.”

  “Okay. I’m open to suggestions—except leaving without delivering the photos. You can forget that one.”

  “Why do I have to go on back to the States now? Why can’t I go to Acuña with you? Then I cross into Texas by taxi, buy the car and come back for you and the money?”

  “Because I want you out of here in case those crazies show up again. I want you long gone when I check out this Valdez guy. I want you somewhere safe so I don’t have to worry.”

  She darkened. “You want, you want, you want! How about what I want?”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m going wherever you go.”

  “Sorry. Can’t let you do that.”

  “You don’t seem to understand. You don’t let me do anything.”

  He studied her a long hard moment. “You’re wrong there, lady. I can kick your ass out on the pavement right here, right now. Period.”

  Her gaze locked on him, eyes large and green, shiny with the unshed tears of anger. “Okay,” she said huskily. “You’re the big man. I suppose you could do that. You can go straight to hell, too!”

  He sat for a minute, looking across the parking lot at the terminal. His was a solid plan, best for the both of them. However, not only did he not want to put her out, he actually couldn’t afford to—not with all she knew—not when she was showing every symptom of temper-fit vindictiveness.

  “Dammit, Ana! Dammit to hell shit!” He twisted the ignition wires together, hit the starter and slammed the shifter into gear.

  THE SKY DARKENED. The rain came quick and hard. Just as suddenly the sun fanned rays down through the clouds breaking up over Oaxaca. The city glittered like wet crystal in the valley before them.

  They parked before the Hotel Principal, a sand-colored two-story building, sharing a similar facade with other buildings for the entire block, most with ironwork in the windows and pocket balconies overhanging the street. The only parking was parallel, a narrow strip directly in front.

  The Hotel Camino Real—the hotel with the gift shop and supposedly the mysterious Valdez—was only a couple of blocks up, but much larger; one massive two-story structure covering the entire block.

  The Principal’s manager, a smallish man in khakis, sat inside the open courtyard in a wooden chair leaning back against the wall next to his office. He roused himself long enough to sign them in, then sat back and watched as Robert and Ana brought their bagged luggage inside. The air was cool and clean as they sidestepped pools of rainwater reflecting a multi-colored patchwork of low clouds. They trudged up the outside stone steps to their second-floor room overlooking the street. Robert went back for the tire. The manager watched, obviously amused, as he carried the tire around the puddles in the courtyard and up to their room. He and Ana had hardly spoken since leaving the airport.

  The room was standard Mexican cheap. A high ceiling, tiled floor, a heavy chest-of-drawers and a bed low to the floor. A plaster saint looked down from above the door to the little balcony. The door itself was heavy with narrow panes of beveled glass. The occasional noise from a car or truck on the street below rattled up at the room.

  “You go ahead,” Robert said, nodding toward the bathroom.

  Wordless, she gathered the soap and shampoo. He waited until he heard the shower running. Then he hung the haversack on his shoulder, stepped outside and quietly pulled the door closed. The tire was another matter—too cumbersome to take on this mission, but also too cumbersome for Ana to make off with.

  The Hotel Camino Real was monolithic, two stories of seventeenth century Spanish Baroque elegance, walls of stone and plaster four-feet thick. Dark Spanish paintings hung in arched recesses along the inside corridors. A plaque informed that the hotel originally housed the Convent of Santa Catalina. Opening off the corridors were manicured gardens, pools and patio restaurants. At one end dining tables with white tablecloths were visible under a portico bordering a garden lush with wisteria and flowering bougainvilleas.

  Robert strolled through the shadowy coolness affecting the casual attitude of a browsing tourist. The gift shop sat back from the entrance. He went past, checking it out, then wandered inside and stood looking over the indigenous weaving
s, the paintings on bark, the Inca pottery reproductions. A smartly dressed woman and a teenage girl attended to the few customers. There was no sign of a man, no one who looked like he might be a señor Valdez.

  The woman, radiating an aura of cosmopolitan luster, glided up as he smoothed his fingers over a fine silk scarf. “These rebozos are hand-woven in San Luis Potosi,” she said, smiling a bright practiced smile. “Aren’t they exquisite, though?”

  “Very nice.”

  “So delicate you can slip them through a wedding ring.” She had blond hair and hazel eyes. Under a sheen of makeup her tanned skin was beginning to web from too much sun.

  “I’ll take it,” he said.

  She folded the scarf into a box lined with tissue and snapped a silver tie over the corners. “Will there be anything else?”

  Robert handed over two twenty dollar bills. “Thank you. I’m looking for señor Valdez.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered and locked on the bills in her hand. “Pardon?”

  Robert fixed her with a flat, non-expressive gaze. “Valdez. I was told to ask for him here in the gift shop.”

  “Valdez. Ah…yes. Valdez. He isn’t here. He has been gone for some time now.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  The woman absently smoothed the bills with her thumbs. “Señor, who told you Valdez is to be found here?”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He left one day—poof!—like this, and has not been seen since.”

  “Yeah? Well, that’s too bad. I have something he wants.”

  The woman made change and handed it over the counter with the gift box. There was a stiffness in her bearing now, the timber of her voice changed. “Something for señor Valdez?” she ventured.

  “From a Mr. Soffit in Acapulco.”

  “Soffit?”