The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

  “The melon looks good,” she said.

  “You go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for me.” He pulled the bathroom door closed and opened his shaving kit. He looked at Mickey’s finger, at the toilet. Again he told himself it was only a bit of inert matter. But Mickey ballooned in his mental vision, her big, open-mouthed gum-chewing smile, watching, seeing what he would do. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not like the old days. He had gone soft all right.

  He showered and shaved, brushed his teeth and put on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt.

  Ana waited in the chair at the foot of the bed, the clothes she planned to wash folded on her lap.

  “You didn’t eat much,” he said.

  “I did. It was good, too.”

  While Ana rinsed clothes in the sink, he ate a little, then went in and took over the laundry from her. He wrung the excess water out and hung the clothes over the shower rod.

  Ana followed him back in and sat on the bed, one of the pillows across her lap. He sat across from her in the upholstered chair. “Tired?”

  “Exhausted. You are too, aren’t you?”

  “What a day. All this is going to take some time.”

  “Time?”

  “To get over. To digest and then get over.”

  “A little time,” she repeated vaguely. She lay down on the bed, curled around the pillow in a fetal position.

  “That’s a lovely gown,” he said of her T-shirt.

  She looked back over her shoulder at him.

  “Victoria’s Secret, eat your heart out.” For a moment, he wondered whether she was about to smile. Or about to cry. She lay down again and closed her eyes.

  “You want to know what I think?” she said after a moment, opening her eyes again, looking at him.

  He braced himself. “Probably not. But you’re going to tell me anyway. Right?”

  “I think we should find some nice little Mexican town. Stay down here for a while.”

  He studied her, waiting.

  “Just for a while,” she said. “San Miguel de Allende. I know people there.”

  “Stay down here a while?”

  “I like your story about winning the money in a poker game.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m not crazy about walking it back across the border. What if we invest it in good, solid stocks here in Mexico?”

  “You’re serious.”

  “It might not even be something we want to do. I’m just saying we’ve been through a lot, and we don’t want to make any foolish decisions on the rebound. Why don’t we take a few days, relax and think it out?”

  He smiled a little. “You want to know what I think?”

  She drew her shoulders up. “Probably not. But you’re going to tell me anyway. Right?”

  “I think that’s a pretty good idea.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a little. She closed her eyes again, a faint smile. “You know, you may be nicer than you let on.”

  He watched her, curled around the pillow, falling childlike into sleep. He was moved in some way he couldn’t explain. Nevertheless, while he might be moved to some tenderness of feeling, that in itself was laden with vulnerability. It was susceptibility to emotion that did a person in. Emotion, the root of all his pain: Tricia, Nick, even the affection he had developed for Mickey… He shook the feeling off. Screw it. He still intended to get Duane Fowler. He just had to figure out how.

  Obviously Helmut had received the smallpox news from Fowler, so Fowler wouldn’t be expecting the diamonds. Neither Fowler or Helmut—if Helmut was still alive—knew Geraldo was dead, or had any idea as to his and Ana’s whereabouts, or that of the canister. If Helmut was dead, then Fowler would be in the dark on everything.

  Robert calculated that he and Ana still had roughly seven hundred and eighty thousand in cash, including the twenty grand from Valdez, give or take a grand or two. No one knew about that money. He and Ana could get a new start. If that’s what he decided to do.

  His gaze wandered to the painting above the headboard. Rather large, it was a painting of their room, representational except for a dead flower in a terracotta pot suspended in space against a colorless sky in the open window. Unnoticed in the painting until now was a thin, black-snouted dog, his head visible just above the foot of the bed, looking back over the coverlet.

  Robert shifted his gaze back to Ana. She lay on the bed, silent, watching him over her shoulder.

  41

  Civil Disobedience

  ROBERT MINGLED WITH a crowd in some large cavernous room. He felt over his pockets. I’ve lost my wallet, he said. Then, attempting to make light of it: Don’t leave without me or I’ll be homeless. He went out, trying to recall where he had been that day, where he might have left the wallet. He entered an establishment, something like a restaurant, where several people were gathered around a large table. He saw that Tricia and Stanford were at the table. You’ve lost your wallet, haven’t you, Stanford said smugly. Before Robert could answer, Tricia laid it on the table near her purse. He recalled that he had quite a bit of money in the wallet—close to a thousand dollars. He checked and saw that the money was still there. He hesitated, trying to determine what would be an appropriate reward. He picked out a ten-dollar bill. I hope you’ll accept this as a token of appreciation, he said. Everyone began to laugh, everyone but Tricia. She looked at him, solemn, an expression of profound sadness.

  HE WOKE TO the sounds of drums beating up from the zócalo outside their window. It was a military beat, a mono dum dum—de-dum de-dum repeated over and over, then trumpets screaming in.

  Ana raised herself on one elbow as he got up and went to the bathroom. He returned to the window, drew back the shutters and cranked open the casement window.

  Across the way a hundred or more soldiers stood at attention in front of the National Palace. The drum corps beat out the repetitive dum dum—de-dum-de-dum, louder with the window open, as ten soldiers in white helmets stepped forward in a side-slipping goose-step shuffle, moving to the beat while carrying the national flag of Mexico rolled under their arm like a snake. The first soldier climbed a short set of steps and snapped the flag to the line on the flagpole. The men let go as the flag unfurled, trumpets screaming as it leaped upward, its emblem of an eagle on a cactus with a serpent in its mouth billowing out on the sodden air.

  The plaza had filled with venders—Indians laying out their wares on the sidewalk and along the iron fence before the Great Cathedral, its towering facade black against the dawn. Early morning devotees drifted through the gate and disappeared inside. Taxis roared counterclockwise around the square, headlights trailing comet streaks.

  Ana stepped over, took a quick look and then carried her things into the bathroom.

  The dream kept playing in his mind. He couldn’t shake it. Why had he been so cheap? Ten dollars? It was only a dream but he felt shamed.

  ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, the prospect of getting out of Mexico City had them in good spirits. They had showered again. The swelling around Ana’s eyes had gone down, though the bruises were darker. He put a fresh bandage on her bite-wound and a band-aid on the little gash in her hairline. Again she fixed the scarf on her head do-rag style.

  She paused, leaning against the door facing into the bathroom, watching him shave.

  “What?” he said, being careful of his own tender bruises.

  “Something sexy about watching a man shave,” she said.

  “Cheap entertainment.” He rinsed the razor, washed his face and dried carefully on the towel. “Ready?”

  “I travel light.”

  “I was thinking, when we get back to the states let’s take a few days, go up to the Maine Coast. What do you say?”

  “Maine?”

  “Some place where they never heard of tortillas.”

  She brightened a little. “Lobsters and fishing boats? Yes, I’d like that.” She gave him a quizzical look. “You no longer want to look into investing the money?”

  “Sure. We’l
l get all of that out of the way, take our time. There’s no rush on getting to Maine.”

  She smiled, relaxing again.

  “Give me a minute in here,” he said. “Then we’ll grab some breakfast.”

  She stepped out and pulled the door closed. He took Mickey’s finger from his shaving kit. He had made up his mind to drop it in one of the trash receptacles on the street and forget it. Not great but better than the toilet. He put the Ziploc in his jacket pocket, flushed the john and washed his hands.

  When he came out, Ana was standing before the casement window, frowning out on the plaza. “Something’s going on out there,” she said.

  He stepped over for a look. The plaza was a soft misty gray, the globes of the ornate streetlights like full moons against the dark silhouettes of the cathedral and the National Palace against the dawn. Soldiers stood in file on the plaza, white helmets luminous in the cheerless light.

  A small crowd had gathered nearby. A few individuals carried hand-lettered placards.

  “Street vendors,” Ana said. “The government has been trying to clear the streets here in the historic district.”

  The soldiers held rank. The great flag of Mexico hung limp in the air. Pedestrians stopped to watch the demonstrators. A few trickled across the plaza and fell in with them.

  THEY ENTERED THE restaurant on the top floor at a little after seven. Robert carried the aluminum case. He had flattened the flared edges around the bullet hole so it was hardly noticeable.

  The maître d’ gave them a second look, then took up a coffee pot and led them through the main dining room into a smaller breakfast room adjacent to an outdoor terrace overlooking the plaza below. A waiter sat at a table near the breakfast room entrance, reading a newspaper.

  “Well,” Robert said, “here we are. Back in Mexico City.”

  “And the sooner we get out the better.”

  He smiled, pleased that she was in better spirits. Even so, her gaze drifted from time to time, her expression remote.

  The waiter put his newspaper down and came to their table. They ordered scrambled eggs, bacon and toast with marmalade. The waiter jotted on his pad and left.

  Robert eyed Ana, a sly smile. “You know that first morning when we met and you got up and walked out on Helmut? I knew then you were the woman for me.”

  She frowned. “You mean at the Hotel Hidalgo?”

  “Yep. Over breakfast. I said to myself, Robert, that’s the woman for you.”

  She studied him, taking measure. “You can’t love someone for something like that, walking out.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t the walking out. It was the walk itself. Like two pigs in a tow sack. That did it. I was a goner.”

  A smile touched at the corners of her mouth. “Excuse me? Two pigs in a tow sack?”

  He leaned toward her in mock seriousness. “A good eight-and-a-half. Shoot, I don’t know, maybe nine.”

  Ana laid her fork down and sat up straight. She looked at him down along her nose, eyes green, aloof. “Eight-and-a-half? Nine?”

  “If you can milk cows and slop hogs you might be just the woman I’m looking for.”

  Her smile grew a little. “You’re incorrigible. You know that?”

  Robert sighed dramatically. “You bring out the romantic in me.”

  The waiter brought their breakfast, poured more coffee and left. Noise reached up from the square seven floors below.

  Ana paused, fork in hand, sobering. “Do you think he killed Helmut?”

  Robert was surprised by the abruptness of the question. “You want to know what I think? Or do you want me to say what I think you want to hear?”

  “I don’t wish him dead,” she said quickly.

  “I know that.”

  She gazed into her plate. “Something happened to him. To his mind.”

  The distant sound of car horns had begun to sound from down on the zócalo. The maître d’ and the waiter went out on the terrace and stood looking down over the parapet.

  “What are you thinking about so seriously?” Ana said, leaning back, arms folded under her breasts. He realized she had been watching him, distracted as he was, thinking about the dream again.

  “I think I may have been less than fair with Tricia,” he said.

  She looked at him in surprise. “Oh?”

  “I wonder if she didn’t get rid of Nick’s things because it was too painful. He was no longer around, and she had to get rid of everything that reminded her of him. Including me.”

  “That’s so sad,” Ana said. “Sad and not very good mental health, either.”

  He looked at her, quizzical.

  “We can’t ignore the tragedies in our lives. We have to face up and go on.” She smiled a little. “We can’t run off to the Peace Corps and we can’t hide out in Florida.”

  He was encouraged, abstracted for a moment, taking delight in her presence, the ever-hopeful light in her eyes.

  She waved one hand before his face, looking from beneath her brows. “Hello, hello? Anybody in there?”

  He laughed self-consciously.

  She touched his hand across the table. “Let’s go see what’s going on out there,” she said, nodding toward the terrace where more people had gathered, looking down on the zócalo with its growing noise.

  “Sure. Then let’s grab our things and haul our butts out of here.” He picked up the aluminum case and followed her toward the terrace. He glanced at the newspaper on the waiter’s table in passing, then stopped, jolted by the front-page photos—six head shots in full color—the same photos he and Ana had delivered to Valdez two nights before.

  Ana turned, waiting.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  She stepped back to see what had stopped him. “My god,” she whispered, her whole demeanor suddenly altered.

  “Valdez must have gotten the photos out before they grabbed him,” Robert said.

  A moment passed as she studied the paper. “You don’t want to hear this.”

  “What?”

  “The photos. They’re fake.”

  Robert stared at the mug shots—disagreeable-looking men staring back. He looked at the headline and while his Spanish was minimal, he got the gist of it: ¡FOTOGRAFÍAS DE AL QAEDA FALSIFÍCADAS! “False? That’s what they’re saying?”

  “Worse. The photos have been digitally altered. The eyes, see the eyes? They belong to our President, Vice President, Secretary of State, the National Security Director. They’re saying US Intelligence is the butt of a terrorist joke.”

  “But Eduardo smuggled those…” The words died on his lips. He realized Eduardo had been, finally, on the side of the terrorists.

  “Eye-scan and facial-recognition experts detected the hoax immediately,” Ana said. “It isn’t known who leaked the photos to the press. A joint investigation is underway.”

  “Eduardo… Damn, I thought he was a standup guy.”

  “No, it says here that an Arab terrorist was responsible, Abda Mufti. He was murdered in Colombia, but authorities found documents at his home in Morocco— Wait a minute, you said Eduardo? Yes, apparently Abda Mufti was a double agent—” she read aloud: “…also known as Eduardo Agustino, he is survived by his father, Juan Ventura Agustino, a prominent Mexican diplomat who resigned last night and could not be reached for comment. Eduardo’s mother is Lebanese and resides with Eduardo’s wife and two children in Morocco. Oh, listen to this: According to documents found on the premises, Eduardo regarded his father as a philandering infidel, an instrument of Western decadence.”

  “Let’s take a quick look then clear out of here,” he said.

  Ana followed him out onto the terrace where the maître d’, the waiter, and what appeared to be several college students, stood looking down on the zócalo.

  Traffic had slowed around the square. There was nothing to be seen of the military now other than a handful of soldiers holding rank before the stilled flag. The mob, which had grown quite large, pulsed like a single live thing—surged for
ward, back, forward…

  A cloud of birds swept in over the cathedral, then turned up and away as a company of soldiers in riot gear poured out of the palace on the double. The soldiers fanned out before the demonstrators, shields up, visors down.

  “Let’s leave here, now,” Ana said.

  He set the case between his feet, took out his wallet and shoved a handful of bills into the waiter’s hand.

  The operator let them off on the third floor. The elevator door closed. They stepped across the hallway. Robert fit the key in the lock and swung the door back. Ana entered. He followed. Noise from the square resounded through the room’s open casement window. Ana stopped. He stumbled into her. In the same moment the door handle was jerked out of his hand from behind. He whirled around. Froze.

  42

  Shot

  ROBERT COULD ONLY watch, dumbfounded, as Helmut punched the door shut with a crutch anchored under his arm. In his other hand he held Soffit’s .45, cocked.

  Duane Fowler sat across the room in the club chair, a handgun balanced on his knee. Robert and Ana’s belongings were scattered over the bed, on the floor.

  “Drop the case,” Helmut shouted. “Turn to the wall. Your hands—put your hands on your head and turn to the wall!”

  Ana stared, slack-jawed-pale.

  Robert noted Helmut’s slurred speech, the “turn to der vall,” the crutch, the cast with its metal stirrup under his foot.

  By contrast, Fowler appeared relaxed, at ease in the chair, his smile enigmatic. “Robert Bohnert, agent extraordinaire,” he said, affecting a note of cheerful camaraderie.

  “Yeah, fancy meeting you here.”

  “Hands on your head,” Helmut shouted, eyes bloodshot, clothes disheveled.

  The moment Robert spotted the laptop at Fowler’s side, he realized his mistake: while he had field-stripped the .380, that hadn’t required removing the grips. “The gun,” he said. “That’s how you found us.”

  Fowler smiled. “I was a bit concerned in case you skinny minnied it.” It wasn’t uncommon in a covert operation to replace regular grips with a thin piece of cardboard wrapped with electrical tape. A fraction thinner, a little easier to conceal—a skinny minnie.