Desert Angel

by Charlie Price

  Angel stopped climbing, looked down over her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. Get out of here. Save your family.”

  Rita didn’t look up. “Climb now, talk later,” she said, poking Angel in the butt. “Move, girl.”

  Slowly, taking more care, Angel made it to a metal grate that formed an edge around the roof.

  “Get on up,” Rita said. “Watch out for the furniture so you don’t knock anything over, and slide yourself across to the edge by the street. It’s like a deck.”

  Angel had never seen anything like this before, a platform where a roof ought to be, but it was mostly flat except for some buckling where the plywood seams came together. Looking ahead she saw a thin-legged table surrounded by a few folding chairs. More chairs were strewn around the deck as if a storm had knocked them over. A tiny barbecue not much bigger than a cinder block sat near the table close to a couple of milk crates. She looked to be above everything but the palm trees. Okay, she got it. If she stood she would be a silhouette that could be seen by anyone.

  When she reached the front edge, the town spread below her. Lights peeking out windows in the occupied houses seemed like holiday decorations. She could see all the way to the shore and the dark water beyond. A short distance to her right, past Rita’s house, three street lamps marked the main road in from the highway and the StopShop glowed with a soft neon rainbow that was almost festive. The store’s parking area was halfway screened by the building, but she didn’t see anything that looked like Scotty’s pickup.

  She looked in the yards below for anyone with a flashlight or anyone smoking a cigarette but the homes and streets seemed deserted as usual. Maybe he left. She felt Rita move close, turned to watch her prop on her elbows, heard her groan with the effort.

  “Now we watch,” Rita said, still getting her breathing quieted.

  “I’m sorry,” Angel said, but maybe it was too soft for Rita to hear. Angel bit her lip until she tasted blood. She kept getting caught off guard. How dumb was she? She hadn’t done one thing right. Should have kept running. Now it was too complicated because Rita couldn’t run. Her whole family was going to pay big-time.

  “Did you bring a phone?” Angel asked.

  Rita reached for her handbag but stopped. “In the car,” she said. She shook her head. “Too scared to think right.”

  Angel thought she could see water in the corners of Rita’s eyes. She’s so beautiful. She reached for Rita’s hand but froze as headlights turned off the main road onto their street.

  A pickup moved slowly toward them, too slowly, and stopped in front of Rita’s house. The headlights went out, the driver’s door popped open, and a man ran at full speed through Rita’s driveway and into her backyard. The sound of wood splintering carried softly up to where they lay. The house lights came on. While they were straining to hear more, Rita’s front door burst open and the man strode out to his truck, looking north and south along the road. When he stopped moving and became very still, Angel knew. Scotty. First scan for movement, then get quiet and listen. Just like he’d described, telling her how to hunt. Travel till you run across their track, make tighter circles till you find them.

  * * *

  SCOTTY STAYED IN THE STREET FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, moving only to reach in and turn off the truck. First he faced north, looking toward the edge of town and the house where they perched. Angel could feel Rita tense and wondered whether they were back-lit and visible. He didn’t look up.

  After a minute he turned to look east. Angel resumed breathing. The town spread in that direction five or six blocks to the sea. Head Start was one block past his truck and two down, but he may not have known that, may not have asked about it. On the other side of the pickup, to the west, the land was mostly open desert with very few buildings. Angel watched as he took off his cap and rubbed his hair with his arm. The night wasn’t that hot. He’d probably worked up a sweat breaking into Rita’s.

  Finally, he climbed in the pickup, started it, and rolled backwards to a dirt rut near where Vincente’s semi had been parked, about a quarter-mile across bare ground from the highway and the StopShop parking lot. He’s leaving! But he wasn’t. He turned and continued backing two or three hundred feet onto the path, braked, and shut off the engine. He could sit in the truck and watch Rita’s home. The house platform was now peripheral, off to his left. Angel was pretty sure he couldn’t see them.

  “Do you think he has night goggles?” Rita asked.

  Angel’s relief evaporated.

  “We better cross again. Get the phone,” Rita said. “He can’t see us in the street from his angle.” Rita pushed herself on her stomach back to the edge with the stairs. Angel watched as she swung her legs off the roof and moved carefully to place her feet back on the steps.

  Angel hesitated, aware of a strong urge to just lie still; hide, sleep. Let Rita save herself. Again Rita must have read her mind. She returned, took hold of Angel’s sleeve, and towed her the first couple of feet, sliding back to the stairs.

  * * *

  THE GARAGE WHERE THEY’D HIDDEN THE CAR smelled sharp, rank. Cat spray, rat pee, who knew what else. Angel levered herself in through the open passenger window. No sense opening the door and triggering the light if she didn’t have to. Rita dug her purse out of the seat and found the cell phone. Walked to the edge of the garage door to keep watch on the street.

  “TJ? Rita. Hey, I got trouble. Serious. Guy’s after a friend of mine. Broke in my house.”

  It was so dark inside the garage that Angel could see the glow of the cell phone, and she listened while a male voice buzzed through the receiver. When she couldn’t follow the man’s side of the conversation, she sank back in the seat, unable to concentrate, unable to keep her eyes open. She jerked when Rita started the car.

  “Let’s wait at LaDonna’s,” Rita said, twisting to look out the rear window.

  Bad idea. Angel knew it. They’d be visible again, moving, maybe brake lights. “He could see us,” she told Rita. “If Scotty asked what you drive, if he knows your car, he could find us when you stop.”

  Rita didn’t answer. She hunched over the steering wheel, careful, quiet, slow-rolling out of the driveway, shifting, gliding away at idle speed.

  * * *

  LADONNA ANSWERED THE DOOR in a soft pink nightgown, hair in curlers, pillow creases on her face. She let them in and nodded toward the couch. “What’s going on? You okay?” she asked. “Fight with Vince?”

  “Weird school parent,” Rita said. “No big deal. We just don’t want to be hassled anymore tonight.”

  “You safe?” LaDonna asked. “Want me to wake Ricky?”

  “No. Let him sleep. We’re fine. We’ll rest here a bit and then we’ll lock up when we leave. And, hey, there’s some chance you’ll need to open school tomorrow.”

  “Whatever,” LaDonna said, turning. “You want anything, kitchen’s yours.” She nodded toward the room on her left as she padded away. “You need anything, call me.”

  * * *

  “GUTIERREZ CHECKED HIM OUT, let him go before I got your call. Far as we can tell, he’s left town.”

  Angel opened her eyes to see a man in a khaki uniform and cowboy boots, flat-brimmed hat in hand, speaking to Rita, who was seated on the couch beside her.

  “Guy said he got sleepy driving. Pulled off the highway, found that open area to take a nap,” the man said, rolling and unrolling his hat brim. “Gutierrez checked his plates, license. No warrants. Guy pulled out and drove off.” The man shook his head. “Goot’s been off a few days. Wife’s sick.”

  Rita nodded her head. “Inez? I heard. Chemo?”

  The officer nodded. “Looks bad. Anyway, Goot missed the heads-up from Cathedral City. This guy fits the person of interest in a federal investigation over by Joshua Tree.”

  “He killed my mother.” Angel couldn’t believe she said it. Sleepy, groggy, stupid. She could feel Rita looking at her while she herself studied the brown man’s face. He was hard to read but Angel didn
’t think he believed her. Or maybe he just didn’t hear what she said. The extended silence told her she was wrong. He heard her. He thought she was a liar and wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Your name?” he asked. “You made a report? Filed charges?”

  Angel said nothing.

  He shifted his gaze to Rita for a cue.

  “This guy’s been chasing her. Tore up my house looking for her,” Rita said. “Something pretty serious happened.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s a serious charge,” he said, looking back at Angel. “Evidence?” he asked her.

  She thought about it. Trailer burned. If he moved her mom’s grave … She shook her head.

  “Maybe you ought to think it over before you say things like that to a law officer. False charges get you in trouble.” He looked at her for a moment longer. “You already in trouble?”

  “She’s been helping me at the preschool,” Rita said. “Take a look at my house. We haven’t been back but we saw the guy go in. Heard him break things. The guy’s stalking her. She’s underage. You got to stop that.”

  Angel pushed herself to a sitting position so she wouldn’t seem like a child.

  “You sure it’s the same guy? You weren’t home at the time, right? You can make a positive I.D.? What color’s his hair?”

  Rita looked away.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  “Brown, green eyes,” Angel said.

  “That’s pretty good night vision at a distance,” the man said, looking up and away as if he found LaDonna’s curtain rod interesting.

  “Hey, TJ, cut her some slack,” Rita said, putting her arm around Angel’s shoulders. “She’s been through a lot.”

  They were distracted by LaDonna entering the room, now wearing a quilted robe and a scarf over her curlers.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Rita, as she came to stand by the couch.

  “Not much, honey,” Rita said, putting her other hand over LaDonna’s on the sofa arm. “TJ’s just helping us deal with a nutcase that’s been following Angel. We’re trying to get it squared away,” she said, standing to join LaDonna.

  “So, it wasn’t a parent?”

  Rita shook her head.

  “He’s coming here?” LaDonna looked back toward her bedroom, alarmed.

  “He’s gone,” TJ said.

  “He doesn’t know we came here,” Rita said. “He left town. It’s okay.”

  Angel made herself be still, face blank. Scotty might have driven off, but it wasn’t okay. Not even close. And it was getting worse.

  * * *

  ANGEL FOLLOWED RITA AND TJ OUT TO THE STREET.

  “Just to make sure you two are safe,” TJ said, opening the squad car door, “and I want to see the house damage. Maybe we need to put a BOLO on this guy.” He noticed the look of confusion on Rita’s face. “Be on the lookout,” he explained.

  She nodded.

  “We’ll give this guy another scan. Call Cathedral and see if they’re still interested.” He offered Rita his hand and helped her follow Angel into the backseat.

  “He catches eagles and sells them,” Angel said, but the noise of the car door shutting covered her words. She had very bad feelings about getting into the back of a sheriff’s car, even for a two-block ride. She was starting to get caught in the system and the system was going to get her killed.

  15

  “I know you’re tired, but we need to talk.” Rita was standing directly in front of Angel in the middle of her living room, where they’d waited while TJ investigated the break-in damage.

  Angel could see TJ’s cruiser through the living room blinds. He’d left telling them not to touch the doorknobs or light switches. Said he’d have a lab person come tomorrow morning and check for prints. Said he’d wait outside till a female deputy arrived to spend the night.

  “Talk tomorrow,” Angel said. “I’m wiped.”

  “No. No way,” Rita, adamant. “You’ll wait till I sleep and then you’ll run? I don’t want to stay up all night neither, but I have to know what all’s happened, what you think this guy’ll do next. I need my own plan. Protect my kids. And hear this clear,” she said. “I really like you and I don’t want you to leave. I—do—not—want—you—to—leave.”

  Angel looked away from her to the front door, picturing walking out and wondering what TJ would do if she did. “You’ve seen it,” she told Rita, trying to decide if the front door was dead-bolted. “He’s chasing me. When I disappear for good, he’s home free. Mom had no family, I got no family. Nobody wanted either of us. We were there for the taking. Scotty knew that.”

  Angel was antsy to get on her way but she didn’t want to seem obvious. She took her eyes off the door and surveyed the nearby furniture like she wanted to sit.

  Rita walked over and steered Angel to the love seat by the standing lamp, where she often read stories aloud to her children. She sat as Angel sat and angled herself till they were touching knees. “So tell me,” she said.

  Okay, no rush, Angel thought. In a while I’ll say I have to pee and I’ll go out the bathroom window. She closed her eyes and was quiet for a minute, uncomfortable about retrieving those memories. “When this all started I wasn’t ready. For any of it. I just knew I didn’t want to die. I wanted to kill him for what he did.” Angel felt in her jeans pockets, made sure the folded money was still there. She looked back to Rita. “I don’t care so much now, either way, but I don’t want to take anybody with me. No need for anybody else to…” She stopped, not knowing how to end the sentence.

  Rita waited.

  “We’d only been with him a few weeks and every night he and Mom would drink and snort stuff and fight. If he was loaded and Mom locked him out of the bedroom, he would come to get with me. I started leaving the trailer and sleeping outside.” She rested her head against the back of the couch and let the story spool into the room, floodwater slowly pushing over a door’s threshold.

  After Angel told the part about Scotty burning the trailer and nearly killing her, Rita leaned over and smoothed Angel’s forehead with her thumbs. Ran her fingers lightly over the healing burns and scrapes on Angel’s face. “Why don’t we take a little break?” Rita said, her voice as soft and smooth as her fingers. “Let’s go to the bathroom, get some juice…”

  They did, both in the small room together, one finger-combing her hair in the mirror while the other finished. Angel knew this messed up her plan to leave but she was tired and she knew another opportunity would come up, maybe when the woman deputy arrived.

  Rita listened to the rest of the story, not interrupting with questions, and making a sound only once: a chuckle when Angel told how Abuela fooled Scotty by swapping clothes at the church. When Angel was done, Rita rolled her head around her shoulders, loosening her neck, and took a long breath.

  “That’s a lot more trouble than I imagined,” Rita said, “more than anyone should have to go through.”

  “There’s probably a lot worse happens everywhere,” Angel said. “I’m still breathing and he didn’t get on me that last time.”

  “You know if you leave, he’ll find you,” Rita said. “That’s what he does.”

  “Yeah, well, I run. That’s what I do. Easier to hide than find.”

  “Not much of a life,” Rita said.

  Angel shrugged.

  “And there’s another thing you’re kind of losing track of,” Rita said.

  It didn’t matter to Angel but she said “What” because the rhythm of the conversation was soothing.

  “You can’t do it alone. Alone you’ll die, ’cause you don’t have any resource. If you steal, sooner or later you’ll get caught and he’ll get you.”

  All these words. Angel was having trouble making herself pay attention.

  “So you have to bring other people into it,” Rita said. “How many so far?”

  Angel heard that all right. Not good. Didn’t want to think about it. She started to get up and was stopped by Rita’s hand. />
  “You’re tough. We both know it,” Rita said, “but how many people you brought into this?”

  Angel tore her arm out of Rita’s grasp.

  “What’s it cost so far?” Rita asked, shifting until she could look right into Angel’s face.

  “That’s not my fault. I didn’t ask for help.” Angel could hear how loud she was getting and jammed her fingernails into her palms for the control that pain would bring.

  “What about Matteo? What about Celina’s car and the Gomez livestock?” Rita asked, her voice gentle against Angel’s volume. “Gomez family chose to pay that price?”

  Angel stood and Rita stood with her.

  “Ramón, Carmen, Momo, me, Vincente, Jessie? We just fence posts you running past? Too bad if we got trouble? You just doing what you got to? We pay our money, take our risk, tough titty if we don’t like it?”

  “Shut up!” Angel didn’t want to hit her but she might.

  “You a little like Scotty? No heart, no conscience? Owe nobody nothing? Everyone for himself?”

  That was way too much. She was not like Scotty. Never like Scotty. Never in a million years.

  “Are you nuts?” Angel’s voice echoed. She glanced out the window to see if TJ was getting out of his car. “You know I’m not—” Surprise tears washed from her eyes, ran from her nose, collapsed her words into staccato hiccups. She wanted to stay on her feet but her wail took all her energy and she fell against Rita, pounding at her chest. Rita stepped inside the blows and Angel’s punches went wide, glancing off Rita’s shoulders. Rita held the girl tightly, turning her face to the side so Angel wouldn’t butt her.

  * * *

  WHEN THE DEPUTY ARRIVED WITHIN THE HOUR, she found them on the floor, Rita wrapped around Angel, arms and legs, like you’d hold an enraged four-year-old to keep her from hurting herself during a tantrum. The woman walked them to Rita’s bedroom, covered them with a blanket, put a chair outside their door, and sat waiting for daybreak.