Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  By the time the old woman in the frilly apron brings his food, he’s doing okay. He opens another beer and digs in. The cocktail is served in a tall Styrofoam cup. Malone pours ketchup and Tapatío into it and mixes everything with the shrimp and chunks of tomato and avocado.

  A skinny brown stray with sad eyes and enormous teats watches him eat. He tosses the dog a saltine. The traffic still bucks and roars, and the cell phone store next door is blasting banda at tooth-rattling volume, but it doesn’t feel like the end of the world anymore, just another day, no harder, no easier.

  Malone walks back to the motel when he finishes. It’s a two-story cinderblock bunker with bars on the windows. Looks like a hot pink prison. He always gets a room on the second floor in case there’s an earthquake, envisions himself riding the building down if it collapses. The mattress sags, the TV only gets three channels, all in Spanish, and the air conditioner gives off a smell like mildewed towels. Stay drunk, though, and you don’t even notice.

  He sets the beers on the dresser and goes into the bathroom to take a shower. The water temperature veers back and forth between lukewarm and scalding hot every thirty seconds, keeping him on his toes. He cuts his chin shaving, presses toilet paper to the wound. Another beer and he’ll be ready for the walk up the hill to the track. He stares out the window while sipping, watches a VW bug try to make a U-turn, everyone ignoring the driver’s frantic hand signals.

  The boys bring the dogs for the third race onto the track and parade them past the grandstand. Malone moves to the rail to check them out. There’s no reason to, really. He doesn’t know squat about greyhounds, what signs to look for that one will run any faster than another. He normally makes his bets based on some combination of name and odds. This race he has his eye on Prometheus, going off at 8 to 1. Who the fuck would name a dog Prometheus? That alone is enough to pique his interest.

  He walks back into the Hippodrome to place his wager. Most of the seats in the grandstand are empty. A few old Mexican men chattering in the shade, a couple of day-trippers down from San Diego. The clerk at the betting window takes his money and slides him his ticket without interrupting her cell phone conversation. Ten bucks on Prometheus to win.

  His morning buzz is wearing off, so he stops at the bar for a rum and Coke, drinks it standing there, listening to the electronic chortles of the casino’s slot machines bounce around in the rafters of the grandstand. Walking this tightrope gets mighty old. Sober, he can’t stand himself, and drunk it’s even worse. That’s when he thinks about jumping off a bridge or getting hold of a gun.

  The bartender, an old man with dyed black hair and mustache, is shuffling a deck of cards. He smiles at Malone and fans the deck, facedown.

  “Pick one,” he says.

  Malone finishes his drink and sets the plastic glass on the bar. “The race is about to start,” he says over his shoulder as he walks away.

  He’s at the rail again when the dogs come out of their boxes. They run past, chasing the lure, a scrap of fur attached to the end of a pole. Prometheus is out of it before the pack reaches the first turn. Malone crumples his ticket and drops it to the ground. His phone rings.

  “You winning?” Freddy says.

  “What do you think?” Malone replies.

  “Some people here need a ride,” Freddy says. “Come on over.”

  Malone’s anxiety kicks in during the cab ride to Freddy’s house. The only thing that gets his blood pumping anymore is making these runs, but he also swears he’s going to have a heart attack every time.

  He met Freddy one rotten night in a bar in National City, a bar he shouldn’t have been in. Freddy pegged him right off the bat as a bad machine and said he had a job that would be perfect for him. Malone’s bank account was about to bottom out, so he couldn’t afford to be choosy. Ever since then he’s come to TJ once or twice a month to drive a load of illegals across the border into the U.S. Pollos, Freddy calls them. Chickens.

  It’s nothing fancy: You stack them in the trunk of a car, head to the crossing at San Ysidro or Otay Mesa, answer the inspector’s questions without stuttering, and say thank you when he passes you through. And the odds are excellent that he will pass you through. With sixty thousand to seventy thousand vehicles crossing every day, the inspectors can only be so thorough. Put a halfway respectable-looking white man behind the wheel, and it’s practically a sure thing.

  If you do get sent to secondary and asked to open the trunk? Again, the odds are in your favor. All those cars and trucks coming across, and only about three hundred people a year are actually prosecuted for bringing in illegals. Malone has never been caught, but he knows someone who has. The border cops sent the load back over the border and cut the driver loose in a couple of hours. They aren’t going to waste their time trying to hold back the ocean.

  Once on the U.S. side, Malone off-loads the pollos at a drop house, gets rid of the car, and goes home to his place in Imperial Beach. At $500 a head, it’s the easiest money he’s ever made.

  The cabbie shifts into low and grinds up a steep, rutted dirt road leading to a hilltop neighborhood of rambling cinderblock and stucco houses all crowned with bare rebar, the first hopeful step toward second floors. Freddy’s house is the nicest on the street, with a two-car garage, lime green paint job, and tile roof.

  Freddy is standing on the porch, yelling into his phone, when the cab pulls up. Whoever he’s talking to is a pinche pendejo and can kiss his fucking culo.

  “Are you hungry?” he calls out as Malone is paying the driver. “My mom is making chicken.”

  Malone tells him nah, he’s fine, had a big breakfast. Last time he took Freddy up on the offer of a meal prepared by his mother, some kind of goat stew, he was chained to the toilet for a week. Even now the thought of it makes his stomach flip.

  He walks up the driveway past a couple of flunkies with buckets and rags who are washing an old Crown Victoria. Freddy bops around, pointing out spots they missed. He’s short and wiry and weighs the same as he did when he used to box in club matches all over town. His hair and goatee are going gray, but there’s still a fighter’s bounce in his step, a disquieting quickness to his movements.

  “Check out your ride,” he says to Malone.

  “A narcker.”

  “I got it at auction, real cheap.”

  A pack of children are playing in the yard, some kicking a soccer ball, others reciting sing-songy chants and rhythmically clapping their hands. There are always children around: Freddy’s sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, even a few grandkids. Malone can’t keep them straight, and they only add to his nervousness. Whenever one of them takes a tumble or starts to cry, he has to stop himself from running over and scooping her up, and every wail stiffens his spine and tightens his throat.

  He and Freddy walk into the house and back to the kitchen. Along the way Freddy points out some new furniture he bought recently at Ikea in San Diego.

  “This one’s called Gustav,” he says. “Can you believe it? A fucking chair named Gustav?” He reaches out and pats the chair. “Hello, Gustav. How are you?”

  His wife and mother are chopping vegetables. Malone says hola, and they smile and nod. Freddy opens the refrigerator and pulls out a Budweiser. “You want beer or a Coke or something?” he asks Malone.

  “Coke’s good,” Malone replies.

  They step through a sliding glass door onto a patio, and Freddy motions Malone to a deck chair. Malone sits and sips his soda. The view is to the west here. Tijuana lies gray and smoking beneath a milky sky, an ugly city spread haphazardly across a series of ugly hills. A small patch of ocean sparkles in the distance, something Freddy is extremely proud of, something he’s worked his whole life for.

  The little man picks up a watering can and chatters away about the bugs eating his gardenias as he sprinkles the flowers growing in various pots. He’s always moving, can’t sit still, and Malone bets this means he wasn’t much of a fighter. Probably couldn’t stick to any kind of plan, j
ust got in the ring and punched and punched until he ran out of gas, at which point his opponent turned him into hamburger. That would explain the scars on his face and his ruined nose. The crowd must have dug him, though. Nothing gets them going like a bleeder.

  After a few minutes, Freddy checks through the slider to see where his wife is, then says to Malone, “Hey, when you were married, did you have women on the side?”

  “No,” Malone says. “No, I didn’t.” This is the last thing he wants to talk about. He watches a buzzard circle in the sky above a trash heap in the distance.

  “But you were only married how long? A year?” Freddy says.

  “Five years,” Malone says.

  Freddy hisses between his teeth and gestures dismissively. “See, I been with Sonia twenty years,” he says. “Twenty. Think about that. I love her, okay, but she’s not the same woman I married. After six kids.” He mimes a pair of sagging tits, a giant ass. “She’s not the same.”

  Malone shifts in his chair, uncomfortable. He’d rather not be privy to the details of other people’s lives. They’re too often sad and too often lead him to places he’s trying to avoid.

  “So I have girlfriends,” Freddy continues, lowering his voice to a whisper. “One or two, only for fucking, to remember what it’s like with someone who wants it. My friend says, ‘Man, you spend too much money on those putas.’ He says, ‘You should go to the Internet’”—he pumps his fist in front of his crotch, as if masturbating. “But I tell him, ‘Hey, I’m not a schoolboy, I’m a man, and I need a real woman.’ This”—he pumps his fist again—“makes me feel stupid. I’d rather fuck my wife.”

  Freddy’s phone rings. He detaches it from the clip on his belt and is yelling into it before he even puts it to his ear. Malone stares out at the man’s prized glimpse of the Pacific. The sun hits it and turns it so bright, his eyes have trouble adjusting. He finishes his Coke and taps his fingers on the can.

  “You ready to make some money?” Freddy says, holstering his phone.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Malone says.

  A loud bang makes them both jump. One of the kids, a toddler, has run smack into the sliding glass door and is now screaming his head off on the kitchen floor.

  “No, no, no, mijo,” Freddy coos as he opens the door and bends to gather the little boy in his arms. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

  Malone drives the Crown Vic through the gate in the chain-link and razor-wire fence surrounding Goyo’s, a body shop in a gritty neighborhood not far from the San Ysidro crossing. Freddy is right behind him in his dented Nissan pickup. Goyo is a fat man in a dirty blue work shirt with a patch that reads Sam sewn to the breast pocket. He slides the gate shut, and he and Freddy begin to argue in Spanish, speaking too fast for Malone to follow.

  Malone climbs out of the Vic and stands in the dirt lot. It’s about time for another drink, but he’ll wait until he gets over the border. His nervousness about the crossing is building. He can feel it in his back and neck.

  Goyo and Freddy agree to disagree, and Goyo walks into the shop while Freddy yells at Malone to open the Vic’s trunk. A few seconds later Goyo herds five frightened men into the sunlight, where they stand staring at the ground and shuffling their feet. Malone doesn’t look into their faces, doesn’t want to know them.

  Goyo moves to the gate to check the street and signals Freddy that it’s all clear.

  “Ándale, ándale,” Freddy says to the pollos. He practically has to kick them in the ass to get them moving toward the car. One by one they climb into the trunk, lying on their sides so they all fit. Freddy gives them last-minute instructions: Don’t panic, there’s plenty of air. Stay quiet, and in an hour you’ll be in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

  “Tiene agua?” he asks them as he prepares to close the trunk.

  “Sí,” they reply in unison, one man holding up a bottle of water.

  “Buena suerte,” Freddy says, and slams shut the lid.

  Freddy’s mechanic did a good job modifying the Vic’s suspension. The rear end doesn’t sag a bit, even with all that weight in the trunk. Malone slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine, and Freddy bends down to talk to him through the open window.

  “You cool?” he says.

  “Coolissimo,” Malone says.

  “Then get the fuck out of here.”

  Goyo opens the gate and Malone backs out. He takes it nice and slow, trying not to jostle the load too much, but it’s difficult with all the potholes.

  A few minutes later he’s in line to cross the border with a thousand other cars, twenty-four lanes in all. This far back he figures it’ll be at least half an hour. He waves over one of the vendors working the creeping traffic and buys some water. Other entrepreneurs hawk churros and ice cream, sombreros, and plaster statues of Bart Simpson. A juggler tosses oranges, and a kid blows fire for tips. Last chance to score that good American green before it disappears back into the U.S.

  Malone clenches and unclenches his jaw in time to the music playing in the truck beside him. He used to dive in high school and got the jitters like this before every meet, felt like he wanted to rip his skin off. But the anxiety went away as soon as he launched himself off the platform and was replaced by the peacefulness that came with the inevitability of falling.

  The Vic wobbles a little, someone moving around in back. Malone turns the air conditioner on high and hopes the cool air reaches the trunk. He had a kid freak on him once, start screaming and trying to kick his way out when the car was less than fifty yards from the crossing. The guy’s panic spread to the other pollos, and pretty soon they all lost it.

  Hemmed in by other vehicles, Malone did the only thing he could think of: He got out, opened the trunk, and took off running back to TJ, abandoning the car. The other drivers sat there open-mouthed as, one by one, six Mexicans scrambled out of the trunk and fled the same way.

  This time they settle quickly. Someone’s arm must have fallen asleep or something. The Vic continues to crawl toward the border, and Malone removes his sunglasses and cleans them on his shirt. His pulse is racing when he’s three cars away from the inspector. Two cars away, it’s even worse. But then, as always, perfect calm as he pulls up to the booth.

  The inspector is a heavyset Latina, almost busting out of her uniform. Her hair is dyed blond, and she’s wearing too much makeup. Malone hands her his passport, and she gives the car a quick once-over.

  “How long were you in Mexico?” she asks as she punches his info into her terminal.

  “Two days,” Malone replies.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Rosarito. My folks have a condo there.”

  “How much dope you bringing in today?”

  A funny one. You got them sometimes. “Come on,” Malone says.

  The woman shoots him a quick smile and waves him through, already focused on the next car in line. Malone keeps checking the freeway behind him until he’s a couple of miles down the road. Even after twenty-two runs, he still can’t believe it’s so easy. Rolling down the window, he pushes all the old scared air out of his lungs and fills them with fresh stuff.

  Per the plan, he exits the 5 in National City and pulls into a gas station. Freddy is all business when Malone calls for directions to the drop-off. No girlfriend talk now, just left here, right there, left here.

  The house is a rundown stucco ranch in a neighborhood of rundown stucco ranches. Someone’s dream home thirty years ago. Now you’ve got cholos on the corner, pit bulls in the yards, and a ten-foot-tall gang placa painted in the middle of the street. Everything goes to shit.

  Malone turns into the driveway of 1520 and honks once. A big bald gangster jogs out of the house and opens the garage door. Malone pulls inside, and the door goes down behind him. Two more thugs come into the garage from the house.

  “Whassup?” one of them, the one with 13 inked on his throat, says to Malone. It sounds more like a challenge than a greeting. Malone gets out of the ca
r and unlocks the trunk. The first pollo climbs out on his own, then helps the others. They’re red-faced and sweaty in the harsh light from the bare bulb overhead, and their eyes widen in fear when they get a look at their hosts. Malone doesn’t blame them. These goons scare him too.

  “Get in the house,” 13 barks at them in Spanish, and they shuffle off, heads down, looking more like prisoners than men about to start new lives. The one who helped the others out of the trunk shakes Malone’s hand.

  “Gracias, señor,” he says.

  “De nada,” Malone says. “Buena suerte.”

  13 hands Malone an envelope with $2,500 inside. Malone climbs into the car, and someone lifts the garage door so that he can back out. Five minutes later he’s on the freeway again, headed to the trolley station where he parked his own car. He’ll drop the Vic there, stash the keys under the bumper for whoever Freddy sends to get it, then drive home. Everything went fine today except for that fucker thanking him. Now Malone is going to remember him, wonder about him, hope for him, and, man, that’s not cool at all.

  3

  IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE LUZ HAS WALKED IN TIJUANA. SHE grew up roaming the city’s hectic streets but went north at thirteen and stayed away for six years. When she returned, it was as the mistress of Cesar Reyes, El Samurai, who put her in a beachfront condo in Playas. She didn’t walk then because Cesar was a jealous man and worried about her straying. He assigned a driver to take her where she wanted to go and to keep an eye on her. After that she was with Rolando, and he did the same. Pampered in this way, she began to think that only the poor and crazy relied on their feet to get around.

  She heads downhill now toward a busy thoroughfare and scuffs along beside it, following two uniformed schoolgirls. The noise is overwhelming, the stench of burning rubber, the heat rising from the concrete. A gritty blast of wind spun off by a passing truck almost knocks her over. She knew her first few hours back in the world would be difficult—she’s been away for a long time—but this, it’s as if her hometown has suddenly turned against her. She looks around for a taxi, but there are none in sight.