Day of the Dead

‘I don’t know where to start. But write down Gary Wallace. And Daniel. Daniel …’

Christ, was it possible? Did she still not know Daniel’s last name?

‘Fuck,’ she muttered. ‘I … I have their cell-phone numbers. And some other information. I’ll get it to you.’

‘Michelle, can’t you just … can’t you just tell me—’

‘No. I mean …’

If Daniel was involved with drugs … or if Gary was …

Could they do something to Maggie? To Ben?

She couldn’t think right now.

‘I’m fine,’ she finally said. ‘I’m probably here for another two weeks. I’ll let you know what’s happening. I …’

She didn’t know what to say. She watched an older Mexican woman walk her Chihuahua down the street, stopping to scoop the dog into her arms before she stepped down off the tall curb.

‘I’ll let you know when I book the flight.’

I’ll write a letter, she thought. A real letter, and I’ll send it through the mail. Maybe to Maggie’s office. Just in case …

She couldn’t finish that thought. She stood there, hot and sweaty and unable to think at all.

Internet.

There were things she should look up. Things she should know. How the legal system worked here. What kind of trouble she might be in.

The chairs in the café were plastic and uncomfortable, the computers old and set to Spanish-language keyboards, but it still felt like a refuge, a place where she could sit and think and try to understand what had happened to her.

From what she could find out online in an hour, Gary had told her the truth. At least about how the legal system worked. And the prisons – not that the prisons in the United States were much better, but someone in her position could probably avoid prison there. Here not so likely. Not while the case dragged on and on, waiting for trial.

The Mexican president had proposed decriminalizing small amounts of street drugs, but she didn’t even know how much she was accused of possessing.

Before, she’d heard of a crackdown on drug smugglers by the Mexican federal government; she’d read stories about border massacres, headless bodies, corruption at every level of society, stories that had formed part of the fuzzy background to what little she’d known about Mexico. But she’d never associated any of that with resorts like Puerto Vallarta. Things like that didn’t happen here, or so she’d thought.

Not often anyway.

Sinaloa cowboys. Narcos. Assassinations. Street battles with grenade launchers.

The cartels had infiltrated everything here. Police forces, judicial offices, even American embassies. There were former presidents whose relatives were awash in drug money from one cartel. A current president whose top officials were in the service of another. The cartels slaughtered cops, politicians, journalists, and mostly, each other.

Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She didn’t know that the conflict between Gary and Daniel was about drugs.

But the money.The coke in her purse. And Daniel. He’d said he was a private pilot. Flying Gulfstreams. Wasn’t that how you smuggled large amounts of drugs? In planes?

The air-conditioning chilled the sweat on her skin.

When she went outside, the police car was still nowhere in sight.

She started walking back to the hotel. The streets were quiet. A few tourists wandered in and out of the store-fronts. An older gay couple stood on the corner, accompanied by a little dog straining at its leash. She passed a tiny stall, tucked between a money-changing window and a condominium building, that sold fresh juices, a youngish woman in a tight T-shirt grinding oranges, a small boy bouncing a soccer ball on his knee by the scoured wooden table where she worked. Then a boutique, with cocktail dresses and hand-tooled and beaded bags displayed in the window.