Day of the Dead

She tried to remember where she’d put the phone last night. It had been in her tote at the beach, she remembered that.

Where she’d found Daniel’s phone.

She checked the tote. Her phone wasn’t there.

Then she remembered: the tote, knocked over, its contents spilling out onto the floor. The man, going through Daniel’s shorts.

If she had Daniel’s phone, maybe Daniel had hers.

The phone rang again, and she lunged for it. ‘Hello?’

‘Look, I’m really sorry to keep bugging you.’ It was the man who’d called before – Ned. ‘But if Danny doesn’t want to talk to me, could I, like, leave a message or something? It’s kind of important.’

Ned. That was the man who’d come up to Daniel in the restaurant the previous night. Tweaker Ned. Daniel didn’t seem particularly happy to see him, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close, close enough at least for Ned to maybe know where Daniel lived.

‘Is this Ned?’

‘Yeah, it is.’ He sounded relieved, like he was happy to have been recognized. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Michelle. We met last night at the restaurant. I’m Daniel’s … Danny’s friend.’

‘Great. So can you give Danny a message for me?’

‘No, he. …’ How to put it? ‘He had a little accident last night. They took him to the hospital. … He. …’

‘Fuck. Shit. Really? What kind of accident?’ It was more than concern in his voice, she thought. There was a distinct note of panic.

‘A robbery. I mean, he’s okay,’ she said, even though she didn’t know that for sure, ‘but he probably needed some stitches. And I ended up with his phone, and I think he has mine.’

‘Oh, man,’ Ned said. ‘Oh, man.’

‘So I was wondering … do you know where he lives? Because I’d like to get this back to him.’

‘No. No, I don’t know. I always just … you know, call him.’

‘Great,’ Michelle muttered. ‘Okay, thanks.’

Well, that was useless, she thought, hitting the red ‘disconnect’ bar.

She couldn’t call Daniel’s contacts. Couldn’t access any information he might have on the phone.

Maybe she’d try the hospital.

‘Discharged,’ the woman at the hotel front desk said.

Michelle had asked her if she would make the call, in case the hospital receptionist didn’t speak good English.

‘So it must not have been serious?’

The woman gave the suggestion of a shrug. ‘I think probably not.’

‘Did they tell you … is there any way I can get a hold of him?’

As soon as she’d said it, she knew it was a waste of time. Hospitals weren’t going to give out that kind of information.

‘They say if you want, you can leave a note with them. That he must come back in a week or so for removal of the stitches.’

A week. She couldn’t wait that long, could she? That would mean staying here till next weekend, at least.

Today was Friday.

Friday was when Daniel’s friends met. At El Tiburón. The Shark.

El Tiburón was one of a string of bars just north of the small cement pier at Los Muertos Beach, where people caught fishing charters and the water taxi south to villages like Yelapa. Like most of the beach bars, it had a palm-thatched roof, wood floors, and a wooden rail running along the front, where a few vendors quickly draped their serapes and blouses and sarongs to display to customers before a waiter shooed them away.

We hang out, watch the sunset, Daniel had told her.

One of his friends would know how to find him.

She’d brought his things, on the off chance that he’d be there. Stopped at one of the little stores by the pier to buy a tote bag to put them in. Her choices were Frida Kahlo and Che Guevara, their faces outlined in black against fluorescent shades of green, red, and yellow, stamped on woven plastic. She chose Che.

Now Michelle stood on the beach boardwalk a few yards from the rail, squinting into the darker bar. That group at the long table, was that the board meeting?

She climbed the three steps that led into the bar, stood there a moment. It must be that table, she thought. There were about a dozen people there, and she thought they mostly looked like Americans, or maybe Canadians. White people, mostly. One black woman, an Asian man, and a guy who might have been Mexican.

Mostly middle-aged or older. Ordinary.

Certainly not dangerous.

Stupid, she told herself, it was stupid to even think that way. What had happened in the hotel room, that was just a robbery. Not Daniel’s fault. Nothing involving any of these people.

‘Miss? Would you like a table?’

‘I … I’m looking for … There’s a group that meets here?’

The waiter, a young man tanned as dark as strong coffee, gestured at the long table she’d already noted.

She took a tentative step forward, toward the table. Stopped.

This is silly, she thought. Just get it over with.

‘Here for the board meeting?’

The man who spoke was hollow-cheeked thin, with a white-stubbled beard. He wore a Clash T-shirt, collarbones protruding above where the neck had been cut out. A blurred tattoo ran down his shoulder, below the ripped-off sleeves.

‘I’m … a friend of Daniel’s. Michelle.’

He might have been in his sixties, but he looked like he’d lived hard. ‘I’m Charlie.’ He smiled, revealing yellow, channeled teeth, an obvious hole where a tooth should have been and a bridge wasn’t. ‘Danny’s coming tonight?’