Desert Angel

by Charlie Price

  Norma grinned and ran to get the game.

  * * *

  THE CALL CAME ON RITA’S CELL ABOUT AN HOUR LATER. Angel couldn’t hear the conversation but she could tell by Rita’s face that something had happened. Bad news. TJ gave Rita the details and she passed them on to Angel after she hung up.

  Scotty had told the investigators he was a taxidermist living alone in a trailer near the ridges that bordered Joshua Tree Park. Said the trailer caught fire one night when he was in town drinking with friends. A couple of local businessmen corroborated his story, one a pawnshop owner, the other, a locksmith.

  Scotty told them the animal carcasses they found were either roadkill he’d salvaged or taxidermy projects he hadn’t started yet. Said the animals were long dead before the fire. The feds had lab guys checking that out but it would take at least a month to get the results. Scotty denied everything about drugs and said he’d kept some weapons for use in his guide service. He paid fines for burning and creating a nuisance on public land. He agreed to stay in the area if they needed to question him further. Since they didn’t have any conclusive evidence, they released him.

  They released him. The words made a vacuum. Angel filled it with rage. She shouldn’t have expected any help. The system had always been against her. Really, there was never any help, was never going to be any help. She was and would be alone, and hope for anything different was a stupid waste of time. She left the kickball game without looking back and exited through the rear door. A tall century plant at the front corner of the building hid her as she scanned the block for Scotty. Mid-morning no one seemed to be outside, no cars were moving.

  Okay, Angel would walk these streets and look at every vehicle. Get a sense of which ones belonged in this neighborhood, which houses looked vacant, what building or foliage could hide a pickup. In other words, get the lay of the land so she’d have an idea where Scotty could watch undetected. She turned right at the sidewalk. White house, black car; tan house, vacant; two empty lots; white house, red pickup; more vacant lots; trailer house, white Ford; and so on, turning right at each corner until she passed by Rita’s and retraced her morning route to the school. Did this make any sense? It was really only a rectangle of four streets that had good access to Rita’s. There weren’t that many cars and trucks, a few more probably away at people’s work. Well, it was a start, and the walking burned off some of the anger.

  Fifty miles north her mother’s killer was also walking. Heading to a Greyhound station, buying a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.

  * * *

  FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT MORNING, Angel stood behind the big saw-leafed plant at the corner of the school wondering what to do next. She couldn’t face going inside, talking, explaining. The longer she stood there, the more tired she felt. Or maybe not tired, exactly, more like what’s-the-difference. How could she possibly keep tabs on Scotty? She’d have to sit up on the roof platform with binoculars and watch every car that left Highway 86 and drove east into the town. She’d have to be sure that nobody parked along the highway and walked across the open land past StopShop to Rita’s street. Watch 24/7. That’s what it would take to see him coming … if he hadn’t already driven straight here and hidden someplace, waiting for night.

  The enormity of the task seeped into her, numbing as it went, until she lost the will to remain standing. Gravity pulled her to the ground and leaned her against the side wall. She couldn’t guard against Scotty. The thought echoed in the empty halls of her mind and Angel felt herself fading away, getting smaller, disappearing.

  * * *

  THE NEXT THING SHE NOTICED WAS THE PHONE RINGING. In Rita’s living room. She had no memory of getting there. Through the shades she could see it was dark outside. Had Rita led her home? Had someone carried her?

  Vincente answered. When he hung up, he told Rita and Angel. That was TJ. Police had found Scotty’s truck at a used-car lot in Indio. Sold for cash. The dealer said the seller had gone away on foot. Now nobody knew where Darrell Scott Kramer was, or what kind of vehicle he might be driving.

  Had Angel sensed he was going to do that? Was that why she reacted immediately, walked the blocks, noting the cars? Like Scotty had bored into her mind, transmitted his thoughts? She could practically feel him inside her, feel his invasion. This had become a competition he needed to win, had to win. Really, the smart thing for him to do would be to leave now, go to another state, operate his business somewhere else. And he might do that later. But not now. Angel knew it in her bones. Scotty was locked on to her, the hunt, the challenge, and he wouldn’t drop it. Wouldn’t stop until he’d killed her. And how she knew that, she couldn’t say, but she absolutely knew it. Dead certain.

  Rita interrupted Angel’s thinking. “Cente, you grew up with TJ. Would he be willing to make some copies of Kramer’s driver’s license picture, take it to the StopShop? Give us some to show?”

  “Probably don’t really look like him,” Vincente said, dismissing the idea, catching his top lip between his teeth, clearly wishing Angel had never brought his family all this trouble.

  “Better than nothing, mi ’sposa.” Rita was using that soft voice that seemed to disarm most arguments. “Don’t want him snaking around here invisible. You got no clue what he looks like.”

  “He won’t…” Angel’s voice was scratchy and she started over. “He won’t come here right away. He needs to let things die down.”

  “Yeah, like you’re the expert, right? You got him solved? That’s how come you’re begging around here?” Vincente, shaking his head.

  “Cente! Ya basta. She didn’t ask for this. Jessie could have this kind of trouble one of these days and you’d want alguien a ayudarla. Be there. Help her.”

  Vincente thought it over. Nodded. “I’ll call him.”

  Angel wanted off the couch. She needed to leave. She put her fists on the cushion to lever herself up but her arms were weak. Where was her energy? She should be afraid. She should be moving. She knew it but she couldn’t do it. Maybe Rita had given her a sleeping pill. Angel had seen her mom take those and turn into a zombie. She leaned over and rested her head on the arm of the sofa. That felt good.

  * * *

  SHE AWOKE TO AN EMPTY ROOM. As she sat up she realized her clothes were damp. Oh, no. But it didn’t smell. Sweat. She could barely see in the dimness, shards of light from a distant streetlamp coming through the shades. She stifled an impulse to part the blinds and look out. What if he was here already? Watching. What if he wasn’t but someone else was? Did he really have friends who would get involved?

  Her stomach boiled. Had she eaten? She didn’t think so. Maybe she was sick. Cancer. Like Goot’s wife. Maybe she’d die before Scotty got to her. Her face itched and she rubbed it. She moaned and shut up immediately, afraid she’d wake someone. She couldn’t stand for anyone to see her.

  What could she do? Shoot herself? Where was the pistol she’d found? Couldn’t she keep track of anything? She dug her fingernails into her palms for punishment. She was such a pathetic loser. She lay back down and shut her eyes. People could make themselves die. Hadn’t she read that? Just stop breathing. But a sound jarred her. She froze solid, listening. It came again. A howl. A cat. Outdoors. Prowling. That did it. She had to get out of there.

  The good thing about Rita’s? Unlike at the Gomez place, surrounded by flat desert, Scotty couldn’t cover Rita’s house from one vantage point. So how would she leave? She remembered two things simultaneously: the pistol behind the towels in the bathroom, and the platform. The pistol wouldn’t do her any good, because she hadn’t found the bullets yet and Vincente and Rita were probably sleeping in their bedroom. But the rooftop? What if Scotty had climbed it and was already scoping the house from that corner? If he was up there, was there a blind spot he couldn’t see? Where were the travel things she’d packed before? Never mind. She had to hide. She’d come back later.

  Angel slipped out the back door and snuck along the side of the house away from the lookout. At
the corner of the building she got on her knees and peered around. She located the high platform, scanned it thoroughly. Empty. Pretty sure. She stood and examined the street in front. No one in sight and nothing moving. She missed the cigarette butts that shouldn’t have been lying on the ground under the front window.

  Okay, so where could she go? On her way around the house she’d seen a play tent the kids had made out of a dark blanket over a clothesline in the backyard. That would do for tonight. It wasn’t like she needed to sleep. No, she needed to think whether there was any way out of this. She collected the blanket and wrapped it around her, more for protection than for warmth. She crept forward again and sat with her back against the front corner, remembering that Scotty had gone down the other side of the house when he broke in a few nights before.

  Did TJ pass her information on to the other police? She wasn’t sure. Probably not if he thought they’d dismiss it as just another runaway blaming everybody but herself. Would he follow up on what she had told him about the tire prints? Maybe. But even if he did, that could take days, and if the police went after Scotty seriously then, they wouldn’t know where to find him. How long did Angel have? Was Scotty out there now? Okay, back to her formula. First things first. Like Ramón had said, think!

  What would Scotty do? The feds let him go. He’d sold his truck. Now he was under the radar again. If he came after her immediately, got her, killed her, he’d be the prime suspect. He’d be wanted for kidnapping. Scotty wouldn’t choose that much heat. He’d let things cool off for a while … three weeks? A month? That way, when Angel disappeared it would seem like maybe she’d run off. It wouldn’t be like murder. She’d be just another face on a flyer.

  So he’d hide out and wait. With a friend? She didn’t think so. She never heard him talk about friends. She couldn’t imagine he’d room with anybody. He’d stay alone or find himself another woman. Either way, at first he’d need a motel. Or buy a new trailer. How much money did he have? Scotty wasn’t the saving type, but he’d have cash from selling his truck. He’d always kept his wallet chained to his jeans and maybe he had another stash buried near the trailer. How much? She had no idea. How much was a trailer? She stopped herself. Pure guessing wasn’t good enough. She didn’t know enough to figure this stuff out.

  Okay, motel. He would want a place close to Salt Shores, but not too obvious. He could stay to the north of the sea, Indio or Coachella, but that was probably too close to home, too visible for Scotty. When she drove down here with Momo, once they’d turned south off 10 she didn’t see any towns with motels. Just some dried-up settlements. The motel in Rita’s town had been long closed, boarded up. She’d have to ask about Brawley.

  Three weeks or a month in a motel would cost him. Angel did a quick guesstimate: last time she and her mom had to stay in a motel it had been eighty something a night. Times three weeks. That could run way over a thousand, particularly if he didn’t find a new woman right away. And he’d probably meet her in a bar and wine her and dine her at first. That’d cost a little. He’d need to have a bunch of money stashed or he’d have to keep working, and Angel didn’t think Scotty would take a real job. And he probably wouldn’t chance getting caught at something illegal so soon. So best guess, Scotty could maybe afford to lay low for a month, not much longer.

  Another thing she knew for sure: he’d get a new truck. Scotty wasn’t a car kind of guy, and if he wanted to pick up a new woman he wouldn’t drive a beater. He’d be tooling around in some kind of macho ride. So that’d cost megamoney. He wouldn’t rent one, ’cause that would leave a trail.

  Leave a trail … She was shocked at what she was thinking. Hunt Scotty!

  Could she find him? In a month? Maybe. Find him and shoot him.

  Angel was surprised how well she had come to know men like Scotty. She could make up a soap about his life on a moment’s notice. Like where would he stay? Not too far, ’cause he’d want to keep track of whether Angel was still around Rita’s. He’d stand out in tiny towns. A stranger staying too long in the only motel? People would ask questions. So he’d need a place with a little size. Okay, a pickup, a motel, maybe in Brawley, and the bar or dating scene. Could Angel find him before he found her?

  Wow. Tracking Scotty. Was that even possible? What would she do if she were right? If she actually found him? Tell TJ? Maybe. Maybe not. Would she shoot?

  The hum of an engine ripped her out of her concentration. Cars don’t make that much noise. A pickup. Slowing and stopping in front. Angel pulled the blanket off her shoulders and crouched, ready to flee. Should she warn Rita? She tugged the phone out of her pocket.

  This late at night there were no sounds, no radios or pets barking. Even the highway was quiet. Angel could hear the engine cooling, could see when the headlights were turned off. Waiting, she knew what she would do. As soon as he went around the side or up to the front door, she’d scoot over the fence and get to the empty tan house a couple of doors up nearer the main street. At least she could hide in the open garage until he left or something else happened.

  The quiet continued. She was afraid he’d hear her using the phone, so she held it, waiting for the right moment, but he didn’t get out. The truck door didn’t open. Angel frowned. He couldn’t just wait there. Way too visible. Too stupid.

  Angel heard the front porch door unlatch and the screen open. Uh-oh. Vincente. And Vincente would shoot him … but Angel had taken his gun. His biggest pistol. And Scotty would have a cannon. She was going to get Rita’s husband killed.

  “Hey! You crazy?” Vincente’s voice.

  The pickup door opened and Angel crawled closer, as if that would do any good. Should she scream?

  “I’m s’posed to knock on the door and get shot?”

  That wasn’t Scotty’s voice. But familiar … Momo? Angel peeked around the corner.

  “No, you s’posed to visit in the goddamn daytime, loco boy. So I don’t put a hole in you ’fore you can shake your pecker.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry, Uncle,” Momo said, holding his hands up like he was surrendering. “I was going to nap out here till you woke up. I didn’t want to cause no trouble.”

  “Right. I shoot you, kill your folks and Ramón with the same bullet. Use your cabeza, numbnuts. Call us. You know what’s been happening?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Right. So get in here before Angel whacks you with a rake. She’s around here somewhere.”

  Momo saw her as he walked toward the door. Stopped. Surprised. Didn’t know what to do.

  Angel stood, only then realizing she probably looked awful. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and crossed her arms. Felt even more self-conscious. She wheeled, deciding to enter the house from the back. Indoors, Angel went directly to the bathroom and checked her face in the mirror. Her hair looked like she’d chewed it off and, in spite of being almost comatose the past day, she had dark circles under her eyes. Where did this concern about her appearance come from? Was she going to turn out like her mom?

  20

  “I need help,” Angel said, back on the couch, knees pulled up in front of her.

  “Just now noticing?” Vincente said, cutting his eyes toward Momo.

  Momo was sitting in a chair to her right. His arms were like she remembered: brown, strong, veins like rivers. Wearing a dirty gray sleeveless sweatshirt, stained jeans, and thick-soled black boots, he must have just left work. His hair was damp from the baseball cap that rested on his knee, and there was a dark smudge on his cheek.

  “No, I mean it. I have to find Scotty.”

  “Know when he gets here?” Vincente clarified.

  “No, find him. Before he gets here.”

  That left both men speechless. They were still staring at Angel when Rita came in from the bedroom, barefoot in a long Raiders T-shirt. As soon as she saw Momo she went back to get dressed.

  “I think I know what he’ll do, where he’ll go to wait,” Angel said. “I have to find him before he finds me.” She sat on th
e couch at the far end from Vincente and tried not to look at Momo.

  “I don’t think so,” Vincente said, shaking off the surprise. “Pin in a haystack. Even if you found him, then what? Citizen arrest? Wise up.” He stood abruptly and followed Rita into the bedroom.

  Angel could feel her face flushing. Was she so stupid?

  “How you gonna find him?” Momo asked.

  “How much is a trailer?” Angel responded, suddenly full of questions for someone with more experience out in the world.

  * * *

  WHEN VINCENTE AND RITA RETURNED, Angel and Momo were on the couch with the Imperial Valley Press spread out between them. Momo had his finger on a picture of a truck; Angel had lined paper and one of Rita’s pencils.

  “’99 Ford 350, Super Duty, that’s big enough to haul a trailer, but it’s eighty-five hundred. He couldn’t get much of a rig for less.” Momo continued to run his finger down the page.

  “Hey, this is crazy,” Vincente said, turning to look at Rita for confirmation.

  “Take it easy, Uncle,” Momo said. “We’re just looking. She could be right.”

  “I told you,” Vincente said to Rita.

  Angel didn’t want to look up from her calculations, afraid of what she might see in Rita’s eyes.

  “Yeah, well, since everybody’s up, how ’bout I make chilaquiles? Give these two a minute to work on things and then we can talk at the table.”

  When Angel glanced up, she saw Rita had hold of Vincente’s arm and was pulling him into the kitchen.

  “So we should check the library,” Momo said. “They got computers and we can check Craigslist. Some cheaper trucks there, but no matter how you cut it, he’s gotta have several thousand for nice wheels and a motel to lay low the way you’re thinking.”

  “Will you help me find him?” Angel asked, keeping her eyes on her numbers.

  Momo looked away. Angel dreaded his answer. Everybody thinks I’m crazy.