Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  El Apache looks down at the photos but doesn’t touch them.

  “She may be somewhere in Mexico or she may have crossed into the U.S.,” Rolando continues. “She has relatives there, I think, in Los Angeles.”

  “Mexico’s a big country,” El Apache says. “And L.A.’s a big city.”

  “So I’m lucky you know your way around both,” Rolando says.

  “Jefe—” El Apache begins.

  Rolando cuts him off. “I’ll set you up with a car, cash, everything you’ll need.”

  “You’re asking too much of me,” El Apache says. “I’m a taxi driver.”

  “Simply for looking for her, I’ll pay you $50,000,” Rolando says. “Return her to me, and you can keep all of the money she took. And you won’t have to go back to La Mesa either. I’ll see to that.”

  El Apache swallows the next excuse he was about to make, lets the offer dance in his head. Rolando smiles to see it.

  “How’s that sound, taxi driver?” he says.

  “Respectfully, jefe, I’m not the man for this,” El Apache says. “I only want to finish serving my time and get back to my wife and kids. I’m done with the crazy life.”

  “I know your family is important to you,” Rolando says.

  “The most important,” El Apache says.

  Rolando nods thoughtfully, but inside he’s gloating. Today’s lesson, you fucking idiot, is Never love anything too much.

  The air-conditioning is on high in the office, but sweat still skitters down Jerónimo’s chest. Once again, here he is, sitting across from El Príncipe and a gun, telling him he doesn’t want to work for him. The proposal is definitely tempting. The money would be great, but more important is the free pass out of La Mesa. If the officials investigate the killing of Salazar, he could be looking at twenty years tacked on to his sentence.

  El Príncipe motions for Ozzy to leave the room. He runs his fingers lightly over the pistol on his desk.

  “Do you know where the name Jerónimo comes from?” he says.

  “He was an Indian, an Apache,” Jerónimo says. “My dad’s hero.”

  “Yes, yes, but why was he called Jerónimo?”

  Jerónimo shrugs, wonders if the man is going to shoot him, wonders if he can get to the gun first.

  “He had another name in the beginning,” El Príncipe continues. “Big Bad Wolf Dick or something, Man Who Smells Like Horse Shit. But one night his god came to him in a dream and told him he had special powers, that he’d be a great leader, and that no bullet could ever kill him.

  “The next morning he and his warriors ambushed a squad of Mexican soldiers. Believing the words he’d heard in his dream, Old Owl Tits led the charge, riding into battle carrying only a knife. All the soldiers shot at him, and all of them missed. People said the bullets swerved around him like bees returning to a hive.

  “This scared the shit out of the soldiers, of course, and they began to cry out to Saint Jerome for help, ‘Jerónimo, Jerónimo,’ as this crazy Indian tore into them with his knife, cutting throats and gutting fuckers left and right. ‘What better way to frighten my enemies than to take the name they shout when they’re about to die,’ the Indian thought, and from then on he called himself Jerónimo.”

  “That’s a good story,” Jerónimo says.

  “That’s history,” El Príncipe says like he’s giving him a magic word. He then picks up one of the photos of the beautiful woman, his wife, the one in which she’s wearing a red dress and a flower in her hair, and stares down at it.

  There’s a knock at the door. The Prince drops the photo and picks up his gun.

  “Come in,” he says.

  Jerónimo falls off a cliff when his daughter, Ariel, walks in, followed by Irma carrying Junior. Rising to his feet, he doesn’t know whether to go to them or to rip El Príncipe’s head off. The gun pointed at his belly decides for him. He hurries across the room to gather Ariel into his arms and hug his wife and son.

  “A gift from me to you,” El Príncipe says. “The best gift a man can receive, right?”

  Jerónimo ignores him. His son is confused. He was only two when Daddy went to La Mesa, has only seen him in photos since, and doesn’t recognize him now.

  “It’s me, mijo,” Jerónimo says. “Your Papá.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry about them while you were away, so I brought them here, where they’ll be safe until you return,” El Príncipe says.

  Jerónimo kisses Irma, Ariel, Irma again. He should have known that El Príncipe didn’t spring him from prison to ask him to find his wife; he’s ordering him, and neither he nor his family will leave this house alive if he refuses. Newly elected officials down here often receive a package in the mail containing a bullet and a bundle of cash. It’s a message from the local cartel: Plata o plomo?— Silver or lead? Cooperate or die. That’s what El Príncipe is asking him now: Plata o plomo? Your choice.

  “Did they hurt you?” Jerónimo whispers to Irma.

  She’s close to crying but keeps it under control. “No,” she says.

  “And the kids, they’re all right?”

  “What do you think? Two men come to the house in the middle of the night, carry them out, drive them all over town.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jerónimo says.

  “So this is your fault?” Irma says.

  It’s a difficult question. She always asks the difficult questions. That’s one reason he loves her.

  “I can’t explain right now,” he says, glancing at El Príncipe’s gun, directing Irma’s eyes toward it. “Do what they tell you, and I’ll be back in a day or two.”

  “Do you promise?” she says.

  He straightens the collar of her blouse and pats Junior’s head. “What good would that be, coming from a cabrón like me?” he says with a grim smile.

  “Promise me, Jerónimo,” Irma says. “Promise your wife.”

  “On my life,” Jerónimo says.

  “So, listen,” El Príncipe says. “Why don’t you spend this evening with your family, and you can get started in the morning.”

  Jerónimo kisses Ariel once more, then sets her down and turns to face the Prince. His rage has contracted into something small and hard that beats like a second heart in his chest. He can go for days like this, without sleep, without food.

  “I’m ready now,” he says.

  El Príncipe smirks, his gun still trained on him. “See, I knew you were the right man for the job,” he says.

  You don’t know how right, Jerónimo thinks. And you better hope you never find out.

  9

  LUZ IS RELIEVED WHEN SHE AND MALONE ARRIVE SAFELY IN Tecate, happy to be farther away from Rolando and closer to Isabel. They drive into the grim border city on a badly paved road lined with tire repair shops and taco stands, ending up at a tree-filled park a few blocks from the crossing. Malone circles the park and pulls over in front of the Hotel Tecate.

  “How’s this?” he says.

  “Why are you asking me?” she says. “It’s your job to handle this stuff.”

  “Right,” Malone says.

  Not wanting to wait in the car alone, she accompanies him when he goes inside to see if there are any rooms available, taking the backpack with her.

  The hotel is on the second floor of the two-story stucco building, above a Subway sandwich shop. Luz follows Malone up a flight of stairs to the reception desk, which is staffed by an old woman in a wheelchair. Malone’s Spanish is terrible, so Luz steps in and handles the negotiations. She asks for two rooms, but the woman says there’s only one, with a double bed.

  “Take it,” Malone says when Luz relays this to him. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “There’s got to be someplace else,” Luz says.

  “Maybe, but it’s late, and I don’t want to go looking.”

  Luz starts to push it, then decides not to. She tells the woman fine, and Malone pays in cash.

  The woman grabs a key from a hook on the wall and hoists herself
onto a set of crutches. Her left leg is shorter than her right, and a child’s bare foot dangles uselessly from the ankle. She leads them down a dimly lit hallway lined with numbered doors. A baby cries in one room, the TV is on in another. The hall smells of cigarette smoke and disinfectant.

  When they reach their room, number 10, the woman unlocks the door and motions them inside. It’s tiny. A bed, a wooden chair, and a TV. The woman turns on the light, and a ceiling fan begins to spin, stirring up shadows. The window looks down on the park. There’s music playing somewhere.

  “Don’t put paper in the toilet,” the woman says. “Use the can next to it.”

  She hands Malone the key and heads back to the desk, the rubber tips of her crutches squeaking on the linoleum. The door to room 9, across the hall, opens a crack, and whoever’s inside peeks out. Malone closes the door to their room and twists a flimsy deadbolt that wouldn’t stop anybody. Luz is glad she has the gun.

  Malone doesn’t say anything, and neither does she. The room is too warm, and the air tastes like all the oxygen’s been breathed out of it. Luz sits on the tropical print bedspread and closes her eyes, the full weight of the day pressing down upon her. She’d kill for something from her old stash right now, a pill to round off the edges and mute the clanging in her head.

  Malone walks to the window and slides it open. The noise from the park is too loud, so he closes it again. He sits in the chair and looks down at his hands as if he’s never seen them before.

  “I’m going for a sandwich,” he finally says. “You want something?”

  “No,” Luz says.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Don’t leave me, Luz wants to say, but that’s ridiculous. She can take care of herself. As soon as the door closes behind him, she bolts it and drags the chair over and wedges it under the knob. She then pulls the gun from the backpack and sits on the bed with it. Everything’s going to be fine. Rolando has no idea where she’s run to. Still, a cough in the next room makes her bones itch. Maybe a shower will help.

  She steps into the bathroom and turns on the water. A dead beetle lies on its back in a corner of the stall. She picks it up with a handful of toilet paper and drops it into the trash can. She wants to be finished before Malone returns. He might get the wrong idea if he catches her, might think she meant for it to happen. She places the gun on the counter, within easy reach, then strips down.

  The water is lukewarm, the stream not much more than a trickle. She unwraps the tiny cake of soap and passes it quickly over her body and between her legs, scrubs herself with the thin washcloth.

  A loud bang stops her cold. She reaches for the gun and points it at the bathroom door. After a few seconds she steps dripping from the stall and eases the door open to look into the other room. Nobody there. Back in the shower she rinses quickly, cupping her hands to collect enough water.

  By the time Malone shows up again, she’s dressed and sitting on the bed, the gun lying beside her, hidden under a pillow. The door is stopped by the chair after opening only a few inches.

  “What’s going on?” Malone says.

  Luz gets up and moves the chair out of the way. Malone smiles when he comes in and sees her standing with it.

  “So that works, huh?” he says. “I thought it was a movie thing.”

  Luz doesn’t respond.

  He sits in the chair and pulls a sandwich out of the Subway bag, then tosses the bag onto the bed.

  “I got you one too,” he says. “They were two for one.”

  Luz ignores him, but her mouth waters as she watches him tear into his turkey and Swiss out of the corner of her eye. She hasn’t eaten since morning and is feeling lightheaded. She decides that it’s dumb to be stubborn at a time like this. She needs to keep her strength up.

  When she reaches for the bag, Malone digs into another one at his feet and brings out a bottle of Coke.

  “There’s one of these for you too,” he says. “Can I turn on the TV?”

  They eat watching an old movie about high school kids in the U.S. Luz remembers seeing it on television with her mother, who knew all the songs and sang along in English. Mamá’s favorite was one that went “Don’t you forget about me.” Hearing it now makes Luz think of Isabel. It makes her sad to realize that the little girl probably has no memory of her after all these years.

  “Something weird’s going on, isn’t it?” Malone says.

  “Weird how?” Luz says.

  “You with that money and that gun, always looking over your shoulder.”

  “I’m going to L.A. to be with my daughter. What’s the problem?”

  “Should I be scared too?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Luz says. “I’m not scared.”

  “Okay,” Malone says.

  “Just do your job. Drive.”

  “All right.”

  “And don’t say shit to me. Mind your own business.”

  Malone stands and brushes crumbs off his shirt. He drops his sandwich wrapper into the wastebasket and walks to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Luz blurts before she can stop herself.

  “Wherever I want,” Malone says.

  “When will you be back?”

  Malone gives her a look like You’ve got to be kidding and slams the door on his way out.

  Luz props the chair under the knob again, then tries to finish her sandwich but can’t get any more down. She opens the window and stands for a moment looking down at the park. Couples stroll hand in hand along lighted paths and circle the bandstand. Laughing children chase one another from tree to tree. An ice cream vendor, a sidewalk preacher, a fusillade of accordion bleats from the radio of a passing pickup. It’s all so familiar, yet all so strange, like the last image of an otherwise forgotten dream, an orphaned instant that haunts the dreamer forever.

  She goes back to the bed and sits against the headboard with the money on one side of her, the pistol on the other. She glances at the clock: 9:30. Morning is a long way off.

  Malone gets a sidewalk table at a restaurant facing the park. He orders two beers at once, downs the first in a gulp, takes his time with the second. It’s cooler here than up in the room, a nice breeze blowing. He wipes his sweaty forehead with a napkin, and the paper comes away black. Dampening another napkin with the condensation beaded on his beer can, he rubs his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

  The locals are out in force in the park. The old people take the benches while the teenagers congregate on the edges, where they can keep an eye on who’s driving by, sometimes stepping out into the street for quick conversations. A family—mom, dad, a pack of kids—approaches a clown twisting balloon animals. The kids are shy at first, but warm up when presented with colorful giraffes and poodles. The youngest throws a fit when it’s time to go, and his cries carry all the way to Malone’s table.

  A trio of mariachis stroll up, one of them strumming a guitar.

  “A song, señor?”

  “No, gracias,” Malone says. He doesn’t want to pay five bucks to hear “La Bamba” or “Guantanamera” and doesn’t know any other songs to ask for.

  The musicians move on. If they’re hoping for tourists, they’re out of luck. The retirees who come over during the day to have lunch and tour the Tecate brewery are long gone, and the rich women staying at the luxury spas scattered across the surrounding hills have been locked in for the night. That leaves trouble like the two shitbirds at the next table: a rangy, hawk-faced dude with a collection of random tattoos and his fatboy buddy, who’s dressed preppy in khaki shorts and a pink polo but looks like he’s about to hit bottom after a long, slow slide.

  The border closes at eleven, but these two are in no hurry. They’re making an evening of it. They’ll stock up on Valium and Viagra at one of the pharmacies, score some blow at whatever strip club they stumble into, then end up in a brothel, drunkenly trying to put it to a couple of bargain-basement whores. A bowl of menudo and a couple of beers for breakfast, and if they stagge
r back across the border right when it opens at five, they’ll be home in Santee or wherever by six.

  Malone has another beer and, why not, a shot of tequila too. He planned on keeping it together tonight to show Luz she was wrong about him, but, really, what does he have to prove to the bitch? Pretty funny how she acted all badass until he got up to go, then all of a sudden didn’t want to be alone.

  “I’m going to be with my daughter,” she said, like that excused everything.

  Yeah, well, hey, I had a daughter too, he could have said.

  Annie, my Annie.

  The only thing that upset him about Val getting pregnant was her being sneaky about it, not telling him when she went off the pill. She knew he hated working for his dad’s construction company, and they’d agreed to hold off on having a baby until he got his own thing going. It’d be a couple of spec houses to start—green-certified, solar-heated, gray-water-reuse system, all the trendy bells and whistles—and then he’d find investors and bump up to apartment buildings and office complexes. Val couldn’t wait, though, wanted what she wanted, and suddenly faced with having to provide for a child, Malone lost his nerve and decided to stay under his dad’s thumb for a few more years.

  The old man had always ridden Malone hard. Every opinion he ever had was wrong, every decision he made a bad one. By the time Malone was twelve he’d given up trying to figure out why his dad hated him and had set about plotting his revenge instead. He knew other boys who were at odds with their fathers, and many of them threw themselves into booze or drugs, attempting to punish the bastards who’d brought them into the world and then made their lives miserable. But Malone went another way with it.

  He took every insult and every bit of abuse the old man dished out, stood tall under the constant barrage of criticism and unexpected verbal jabs, and never let the son of a bitch see that he’d hurt him. His plan was to outlast him, to let him punch himself out, and then lean over him as he lay gasping for air and spit in his face. He’d leave the ring having proven himself the stronger man without ever laying a hand on him.