Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  Jerónimo has a small shank hidden inside his mattress, but this calls for something more certain. He walks down the stairs to the second tier. El Punisher is sitting on the edge of his bunk, doing bicep curls with a dumbbell and watching a beauty pageant on TV.

  “Órale, hombre,” Jerónimo says.

  The big man motions him into the cell with a nod.

  “I need something nice for like half an hour,” Jerónimo says.

  El Punisher drops the barbell and reaches for a Bible. The pages of the book have been glued together and a space carved out to hold contraband. There’s an ice pick inside, a steak knife, and two good-sized blades with duct-tape grips.

  “I can get bigger,” El Punisher says. A tattoo of two dogs fucking covers his bare chest.

  “I bet you can,” Jerónimo says, reaching for the pick. He tests the point with his thumb.

  “Seriously. You need a gun, give me an hour,” El Punisher says.

  “This’ll do,” Jerónimo says. He drops a twenty-dollar bill onto El Punisher’s bunk, stashes the pick in his sweats, and leaves the cell. Glancing up at the skylight in the ceiling of the corridor, he sees that night has come down.

  He did a year in the federal pen at Juárez for the TVs. With no money coming in from outside, he had to find a way to rent a bunk and buy decent food, because everything costs in a Mexican prison, right down to the guards charging fifty centavos a day to mark you present at head count.

  A stroke of luck saved him from having to shine shoes or wash clothes or fetch meals for the more well-off inmates. His second day in, a vato from L.A. who didn’t like his Inglewood tattoos jumped him. Jerónimo managed to twist the shank out of his hand and turn it on him. Dude was dead and Jerónimo was back playing dominos before the guards knew what was happening.

  Vincente, El Príncipe’s brother, saw it all go down and was impressed by how Jerónimo handled himself. He was doing time for shooting a judge and had a thriving drug business in the prison. He summoned Jerónimo to his cell and offered him a job delivering heroin to his customers. You didn’t say no to someone like Vincente, so Jerónimo spent the rest of his time in Juárez running tar and coming down hard on junkies who fell behind on their payments.

  When he was released, Vincente gave him a thousand-dollar bonus and told him to see his brother in Tijuana if he needed work. A month later Jerónimo joined El Príncipe’s crew. By day he acted as muscle for the Prince, collecting on loans he had on the street, and at night he lay in his tiny, noisy room—a room no bigger than his cell had been—and tried to figure out what next. Because death was closing in on him, he was sure of it. There were no old gangsters. You were considered ancient if you made it to forty, and Jerónimo wanted to live longer than that, didn’t want to be shot down doing someone else’s dirty work. Staring up at the ceiling, his mind aflame, he prayed and made promises. “Help me change the end of my story,” he begged.

  The central corridor of A Block is called Revolución, after Tijuana’s main drag. The inmates congregate there, playing cards on the picnic tables and sitting stoned against the concrete walls, seeing nothing and everything. Music blares out of a hundred radios, and cons stand in the middle of the corridor and carry on shouted conversations with other prisoners in the three tiers of cells towering above them. Jerónimo nods to a couple of acquaintances as he moves through the chaos. He keeps his circle small. The fewer motherfuckers who know your business, the better, especially if you’re trying to avoid trouble.

  When he reaches the guard station at the end of Revolución, he motions to the pig inside to get his ass up from his desk and come to the window.

  “Hey, boss,” he says. “I need to take a walk.”

  “So?” the pig replies. Tío Pelón, the inmates call him, Uncle Baldy. He has a thing for young cons, trades them cigarettes and Cup O’ Noodles for blow jobs. Jerónimo unfolds a twenty and presses it to the scratched and smeared Plexiglas that separates them. Baldy waves him to the door. When the buzzer sounds, Jerónimo steps into the sally port. Baldy is waiting for him there. He takes the money and signals another guard in the office through a barred window. Another buzzer goes off, and Baldy pushes the door that opens onto the yard.

  “How long?” he says to Jerónimo.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Jerónimo says, stepping outside.

  Baldy stands in the doorway and whistles. The guard in the east tower waves his rifle. Baldy points at Jerónimo and gives the thumbs up. The tower guard waves his rifle again. Baldy moves back inside the cellblock and closes the door.

  Jerónimo pauses for a few breaths of fresh air. The sounds of a Tijuana night rise over the wall and drift across the deserted yard. A car honks, music plays, a mother shouts for her children to come inside for dinner. The prison festers right in the middle of the city, surrounded by houses, restaurants, and shops. During the riot, people with loved ones inside climbed onto the roofs of neighboring buildings and tried to catch glimpses of their fathers, sons, and lovers when the assault team finally herded the surviving inmates onto the yard.

  Jerónimo sets out for B Block, walking across the basketball court and the weight pit. It’s a hot night but still a relief from the swelter of the cellblock. And he can see the stars out here, faint in the purple sky, at least until the tower guard decides to fuck with him by shining a spotlight in his face. Jerónimo raises a hand to block the beam and keeps his eyes on the ground, not missing a step.

  When he reaches B Block, he pushes a button next to the door that sounds a buzzer. A guard appears at the window in the door, and another twenty gets Jerónimo inside.

  He met Irma at the pharmacy where she worked. He liked how classy she looked in her white coat and pants, but she cut him off with a cold stare when he tried to flirt with her as she rang up his chewing gum and deodorant. Catching a glimpse of his shaved head and tattoos in a mirror on his way out, he couldn’t blame her. A woman like that could do a lot better than a thug like him.

  Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He found himself remembering her eyes while he ate lunch and mooning over her dainty hands as he drove to a barbershop to squeeze a payment for El Príncipe out of the owner. He returned to the pharmacy the next day for more gum and asked Irma if she could recommend some vitamins, said he’d been feeling a little run-down. She came out from behind the counter and spent ten minutes with him, explaining the different pills and what they were supposed to do for you. When he asked if she knew of anything that’d make him better looking, she smiled the faintest of smiles and said, “You’re a funny one, aren’t you.”

  “I’m trying,” he replied.

  He replayed this exchange over and over for the rest of the day, searching for deeper meaning in Irma’s every word, every gesture. And then, that night, as he once again tossed and turned in his narrow bed, feverish with visions of his bleak future, it came to him as suddenly as a bullet to the head: He loved her, and loving her was the only thing that would save his life.

  He began to court Irma with all the desperation this realization inspired, showing up at the pharmacy every day with a small gift and a compliment. After two weeks she agreed to have coffee with him, two weeks later, lunch. Every time he was with her, he found something new to admire. There had been other women in his life, but none like her. Her sincerity and kindness seemed to alter the composition of the air he breathed and transform the chemistry of his blood.

  He told her the truth from the very beginning, that he was a murderer, a thief, a weapon in the hands of evil men.

  “But there’s something good in me,” he said. “It’s growing every day, taking over.”

  Irma told him later that his honesty had taken her by surprise. She’d been expecting gangster posturing and crude boasts, but instead was moved by the tears she saw in his eyes when he expressed his desire for a new kind of life. After a month of listening to him lay himself bare, she finally reached across the table and took his hand.

  “That’s enough looking b
ack,” she said. “From now on, we only think about the future.”

  This was all the encouragement Jerónimo needed. He met with El Príncipe the very next day to tell him that he’d soon be starting a family and wanted to switch to a safer line of work. It was a dangerous announcement to make—you didn’t just up and walk away from El Príncipe’s crew—but Jerónimo was now determined to be a free man, dead or alive.

  At first the Prince scoffed at him. “What the fuck else do you think you’re going to do?” he said. “All you’re good at is scaring people.” Then he got angry, deciding that Jerónimo’s wanting to go straight was some kind of insult. He drew a gun and pointed it across his desk, called Jerónimo a traitor and threatened to kill him then and there.

  Jerónimo didn’t flinch. He stared down the barrel of the gun and again asked for the Prince’s understanding. “You know I’ve been loyal to you,” he said. “And I’m here now as one honorable man speaking the truth to another honorable man.”

  El Príncipe pressed the gun to his forehead.

  “On your knees,” he said.

  “Respectfully,” Jerónimo replied. “I’ll take it standing.”

  A clock in the room ticked five times, and then the Prince sat down, the gun lying on the desk in front of him. The agreement was this: Jerónimo wouldn’t be allowed to leave the gang. Instead, he’d be moved down into the reserves. He’d no longer work directly for El Príncipe but would still be called upon to do favors for the crew from time to time. And God help him if he ever refused such a request. It wasn’t the clean break Jerónimo had been hoping for, but he knew better than to push his luck.

  The main corridor of B Block has been converted into a dormitory. Rows of steel bunks stacked two high, narrow walkways between them, fill the cavernous space. The din is even more intense here than it is in Jerónimo’s block, a good thing in this case. Nobody even notices when he steps inside.

  As he makes his way across the room, he hardens into something less human than he was moments before and pulls the ice pick from his sweatpants. Arriving at the last row of bunks, he starts down it, a wrecking ball in mid-swing, prepared to smash anyone who gets in his way. The cons he encounters in the cramped aisle feel the heat coming off him and fall onto their racks or step aside to let him pass.

  All he hears now is his own breathing, a rasping in his head. Salazar is lying on his bunk, thumbing a PlayStation. He looks up an instant before Jerónimo reaches him. His eyes widen. Jerónimo thought he might try to reason with him, warn him, frighten him, but an image of the last man the fucker killed—splayed in the dirt, opened up from throat to groin—comes to him, and in one swift motion he clamps his hand over Salazar’s mouth and plunges the pick into his bare chest.

  One-two-three-four-five. He stabs him as quickly as he can yank the pick out and slam it back in. Six-seven-eight-nine. He leaves the pick in on the last thrust and jerks the handle back and forth in order to do as much damage as possible. Salazar dies without a struggle, without a sound, his eyes rolling back in his head, a trickle of black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

  Jerónimo withdraws the pick and wipes it clean on the sheet. He’s sweating like crazy, panting, as he makes his way back up the alley between the bunks. Nobody tries to stop him as he hurries to the guard station. Someone will toss a blanket over the corpse, someone else will steal the dead man’s shoes. It’ll be tomorrow morning before a guard finally discovers the body.

  The pig controlling the doors barely looks up at Jerónimo when buzzing him out. A dog barks somewhere in the night as he walks across the yard, a car alarm goes off, a plane flies low overhead. He blocks his nostrils one at a time and blows them clear. When he spits, he tastes blood. An empty plastic bag rolls toward him on the wind. Before he can get out of its way, it wraps around his feet and nearly trips him.

  After meeting with El Príncipe, Jerónimo used all the money he had saved to pay the various bribes that would allow him to drive a taxi. He rented a cab and began working sixteen-hour days ferrying passengers around Tijuana. He and Irma married and settled into a little house in a quiet neighborhood. He worshiped her, she rooted for him, and they were happy. Ariel came along, then Junior, and the plan was to save $10,000 and move to San Diego or L.A.

  The errands Jerónimo was required to do for El Príncipe were usually simple tasks. Every couple of months a call would come: Pick this up here and drop it off there. One night, however, he was ordered to torch a car, and on another occasion he beat an old man who owed money. That kind of thuggery weighed on him now like it never had before, and he looked forward to the day he and his family would cross the border and he’d leave the gangster life behind for good.

  They were three months from making the move when he drove his cab to an address El Príncipe’s man gave him, honked twice as instructed, and waited for someone to come out of the house and get the package he was carrying in the trunk. The car was suddenly surrounded by masked soldiers dressed in black. They laid him facedown in the street and kicked him in the head after showing him the five pounds of heroin he’d been hauling. Whose is it? they wanted to know.

  “Whose do you think?” he said. “It’s mine,” and he’s been in La Mesa ever since.

  El Príncipe rewarded him for taking the fall. He gets enough money to live like a man in here, and every month Irma picks up an envelope full of cash for her and the kids. Now all he has to do is survive the two years remaining on his sentence. He’s been keeping his hands clean and taking it day by day. Until now.

  Back in his cell he strips and washes up, then puts on aftershave and a clean T-shirt and shorts. Lying on his bunk, he aims the fan at his face and sets it to high. The Dodgers are playing. He plugs his headphones into the TV and turns it up so that the crowd is the loudest thing in his head. When Baldy comes for him, the pig has to step into his cell and jab him in the shoulder with his club to get his attention. Jerónimo takes off the headphones, and the clamor of the block returns.

  “Let’s go,” Baldy says.

  “Where to?” Jerónimo says.

  “Your friend wants to see you.”

  7

  NIGHT HAS FALLEN, AND LUZ IS STILL WAITING AT THE BODY SHOP for the driver to arrive. She asks again when he’ll be there, and again Freddy says, “Soon.” She needs to leave town now. It’s agony being stranded here in the dark and imagining Rolando moving from shadow to shadow, closing in, murder on his mind.

  She paces the parking lot, walks from the stack of tires she’s been sitting on to the fence and back. She keeps one hand in the pack, finger curled around the trigger of the pistol. Once or twice today she’s caught Freddy staring at her and going over in his mind various ways to take the money. She stared right back at him, thinking, Try it, you hijo de puta, and if he comes after her, she will, she’ll shoot him, no problem. The money is Isabel’s, the down payment on their future, the foundation for their new life.

  She reaches the fence, turns, and starts back toward the tires. When she’s halfway there the lot is flooded with light. A car has pulled into the driveway. Freddy and Goyo freeze, but Luz draws the .45 and crouches beside the fence. Dust swirls in the beams of the car’s headlights, and Freddy and Goyo, hands raised weakly against the glare, are bleached into ghostliness.

  The car’s horn bleats twice, and a voice calls out in English, “Open up, already.”

  Goyo waddles over and takes hold of the gate, drags it sideways. A beat-up silver BMW pulls into the lot. The engine sputters and dies, and darkness and quiet return. Luz lowers the gun into the pack but stays where she is, back pressed against the chain-link fence.

  A white man steps out of the car, some beach bum, tall and thin, older, maybe thirty, thirty-five. He’s wearing a T-shirt advertising a surf shop, plaid shorts, and black Converse tennis shoes. Surely this isn’t the guy Freddy’s been talking up all day, his best driver. This pendejo can’t even keep his hair out of his eyes, has to brush it back every time he turns his head
.

  “Just so you know, this isn’t going to be a regular thing,” he says to Freddy. “Nighttime is the wrong time to be fucking around down here.”

  “If you have trouble with anyone, tell them you know me,” Freddy says.

  “Yeah, right,” the bum says. “I do that, I’ll end up in the river.”

  “Hey, we’re all going to end up in the river someday,” Freddy says.

  He leans in close to speak quietly to the bum. The bum listens for a while, nodding agreeably, but then suddenly stops Freddy and says, “In the morning? You didn’t say anything about in the morning.” Apparently there’s a disagreement over the details of the trip. Not being able to hear what’s being said, all Luz can do is watch the men argue in urgent whispers. The bum puts up a fight, but Freddy is relentless and eventually gets his way. He slaps the bum on the back and steers him to where Luz is waiting.

  “Now come and meet our friend,” he says. “She needs our help.”

  “There any beer around?” the bum asks.

  “Goyo,” Freddy calls and tips an imaginary can into his mouth. Goyo grunts and walks into the office.

  Freddy brings the bum over, and Luz moves away from the fence, standing up straight to squint down her nose at him. His blue eyes are bloodshot, and he looks as if he could use a shower.

  “Señorita Luz, this is Kevin Malone, who’s going to take you across,” Freddy says.

  Malone lifts his chin by way of greeting, doesn’t even meet her gaze. It’s like he could take or leave this job. This infuriates Luz. She can’t believe she’ll be putting her life in the hands of this cabrón.

  “This is what I have arranged for you,” Freddy continues. “Tomorrow morning you two will drive to Tecate, where a friend of mine will be working at the crossing. At ten a.m., you and Kevin will pass through his station into the U.S. It will be very quick and very simple with no possibility of being stopped. You won’t even have to hide; you can sit right up front in the car. Then, once you are across, Kevin will drop you wherever you would like, and you can be on your way.”