Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  The motel is an anonymous stucco heap wedged in beside an off-ramp from the 91. Nothing good has ever happened here, no happy reunions or thrilling trysts, nothing nice. It’s all husbands who’ve been kicked out, family members in town for funerals, and high-functioning dopers on weekend benders. Thacker pulls into the parking lot and backs into a space well away from the office.

  “You check in,” he says. “I’ll watch the kid.”

  “Why me?” Jerónimo says.

  “Number one, I don’t have any money,” Thacker says.

  “I want to go home,” Isabel whines.

  “Shhhhh,” Jerónimo says to her. “Carmen’s coming to pick you up in a few minutes.”

  “Number two,” Thacker says, “you fit in here better than I do.”

  Jerónimo can’t tell if the fat man is trying to be funny when he says shit like this, or if he thinks he’s getting away with something. Maybe soon he’ll beat the answer out of him.

  The Indian manning the office is asleep in his chair. Jerónimo slaps the counter to wake him. He writes the first numbers that come into his head where it asks for the truck’s license plate on the registration card and leaves the deposit in cash.

  “The swimming pool is closed,” the Indian says.

  “That’s okay,” Jerónimo says.

  “Spa too. Broken pipe.”

  “Whatever.”

  Isabel is in the throes of another tantrum when Jerónimo returns to the truck. He watches it through the windshield like a movie with no sound, the girl red-faced and thrashing, her mouth stretched wide in a silent howl, Thacker sitting glumly behind the wheel, jaw set, knuckles white. The kid’s fury spills out when Jerónimo opens the passenger-side door and slams into his chest like a two-handed shove.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he says. “What’s the problem?”

  “I want—” Isabel sobs, “I want—” but is unable to get the rest out.

  Thacker, meanwhile, slides out of his door and makes his escape.

  “Give me the key,” he says. “I raised two sons already, and that was enough daddying for a lifetime.”

  Malone pulls the beer from under the seat and opens a can as he watches Luz walk to the house. He’s in no hurry to get back on the road. It’s after three already, and traffic is going to be terrible all the way back to San Diego. The smart thing would be to go to a movie or find a bar and wait it out.

  Luz is on the porch now. A woman opens the door, and she and Luz talk briefly. All of a sudden Luz goes down. Malone is out of the truck and halfway across the lawn before he thinks about what he’s doing. The shotgun in the hands of the Mexican guy who steps out onto the porch brings him back to his senses, the shotgun that’s pointed at his head.

  “Stop!” the guy says in thickly accented English.

  Malone jerks to a halt and raises his arms.

  “I’m a friend of Luz’s,” he says. “It was me who drove her here.”

  “Go,” the guy says. “Now.”

  “I just want to check on her,” Malone says. “I saw her fall. Is she okay?”

  The guy consults with the woman, who’s now standing beside him on the porch. After a short discussion, he walks out onto the lawn, the gun still trained on Malone.

  “Lift you shirt,” he says.

  Malone pulls his T-shirt up to his chest.

  “Turn,” the guy says.

  Malone faces the street and shivers as the shotgun brushes his spine. The Mexican’s breathing is loud in his ear as the guy pats the pockets of his shorts. Malone watches the pale ghost of a plane descend toward LAX.

  “Okay,” the guy says. “Come.”

  He trails behind Malone as they walk to the porch. Luz is lying on her back with her eyes closed. The woman is crouched beside her. She reaches out to nudge Luz as if trying to wake someone who’s fallen asleep.

  “Hey,” she says. “Hey.”

  Malone goes down on one knee next to her.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” the woman says. “She fainted.”

  Malone can see that Luz is breathing, her chest expanding and contracting regularly. He lays a hand on her upper arm and gently squeezes it.

  “Luz,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

  Her eyes flutter, then open. She inhales sharply upon seeing everyone staring down at her, and a sudden spasm of fear curls her into a ball. In the next instant, however, she seems to remember where she is and relaxes a bit.

  “You passed out or something,” Malone says. “Are you okay?”

  Her reply is a desolate moan.

  “They took Isabel,” she says.

  Malone looks to the woman for confirmation. She nods curtly, her expression grim.

  “Fuck,” Malone blurts, raising a hand to his forehead. He’s at a loss about what to do next. “What’s your name?” he says to the woman. “You’re her aunt, right?” Turning to the man, he says, “Can I take her inside?”

  The man and woman exchange looks, and the woman stands and opens the door wider.

  “Only for a minute,” she says. “We have children.”

  “Can you walk?” Malone asks Luz.

  He can’t make out whatever it is she murmurs, so he slips one arm under her knees and one under her shoulders and lifts her from the porch.

  Inside the house he lays her on a couch in the living room. She’s shaking all over. The man closes the door and stands in front of it, shotgun pointed at the floor. The woman watches Malone and Luz warily.

  “I’m Kevin,” Malone says, trying to put her at ease.

  She ignores his outstretched hand. “I’m Carmen. This my husband, Bernardo.”

  Bernardo, a short, burly man wearing paint-stained coveralls and work boots, doesn’t acknowledge Malone’s nod in his direction.

  A little girl sneaks into the living room and stands against the wall. She’s hoping not to be noticed, but Malone points her out to Carmen, who says, “Back to your room.”

  “Where’s Isabel?” the girl asks.

  “To your room! Ahora!” Bernardo shouts.

  Frustrated, the girl stomps off down the hallway. A second later a door slams hard enough to rattle the photos hanging on the wall.

  “There’s two more that’ll be home from school soon,” Carmen says to Malone. “You and her have to go now.”

  Luz sits up, startling them all. Tears glisten on her face, but there’s a coldness in her eyes that spooks Malone.

  “Who took my baby?” she says to Carmen.

  “It was two of them,” Carmen says. “The one who did the talking looked like a narco. The other was a white man in a uniform. At first they said you were in trouble and that they were here to protect Isabel, but then they admitted they’d been sent by someone. To get you.”

  “How long ago?”

  “An hour, a little more. I tried to stop them, but they said if I didn’t give them Isabel, they’d kill us all.”

  Bernardo shifts uneasily and looks out the peephole in the door. Malone feels the tension too, like all hell could break loose at any second.

  “You have to call them, and then they’ll bring Isabel back,” Carmen says. She hands Luz a napkin. “Here’s the number.”

  Luz gets up from the couch. “Where’s your phone?” she says to Carmen.

  “You’re not calling from here,” Carmen says. “Go somewhere else and deal with this.”

  “Fine,” Luz says. Her eyes scan the couch and the floor. “Where are my bags?”

  “On the porch,” Carmen says.

  Luz heads for the door. Carmen follows her.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, dragging us into your shit?” Carmen says. “And Isabel. Your own daughter.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luz says.

  Bernardo unlocks the door and opens it to let her out. Sunlight floods the darkened room, and Malone loses sight of her until she steps forward and is silhouetted on the threshold.

  “Did you really think you could come back
and be her mom again?” Carmen says, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the glare. “You abandoned her, remember? Ran away and left her here all alone. What the hell do you even know about being a mom?”

  Malone cringes. Val said something similar to him shortly after Annie was killed. He was in the backyard, drunk by the pool, which was where and how he spent his time in those days. More than a month had passed since the funeral, but it was still hard to walk, to breathe, to blink. He hadn’t been back to work, hadn’t even called his dad to discuss it, and was starting to think he never would.

  Val came out to the pool deck carrying a drink of her own. She stood over him, her anger stronger than her sorrow that night, a newly kindled fire blazing inside a cold furnace. A drop of condensation fell from her tumbler and hit Malone square in the chest, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak, just kept watching a cloud overhead that was about to swallow the moon.

  “Tell me something,” she said. “What made you think you’d be any kind of father?”

  Even if he had an answer, she didn’t want to hear it.

  “I trusted you,” she continued. “Annie trusted you. You were her daddy. You were supposed to protect her. You were supposed to keep her safe. But you didn’t, and nobody’s going to understand that. Oh, they’ll say this, and they’ll say that, but you’re always going to be the man who let his baby get run over.”

  She was right, and he knew it, and that was the moment when he gave up. Gave up, stopped paddling, and sank like a stone. And soon, sooner than you’d think, he found himself among the bottom-feeders—the creeps and cutthroats, the scuttlers and the slime. Settling in with his bottle and his grief, he waited to drown, and it would have been so much easier if he had.

  He walks to the door, needs some air, and almost bumps into Luz on the porch. She’s holding out the backpack to Carmen.

  “Take this,” she says. “There’s money in it.”

  “Money?” Carmen says. “Whose money? Are you trying to get us killed?”

  Luz sets the pack on the welcome mat, next to the bags containing the doll and the stuffed bear.

  “It’s for Isabel,” she says.

  Carmen kicks the backpack, knocking it over.

  “We don’t want your money,” she says.

  Luz turns to Malone. “Can I use the old man’s phone?” she says.

  “It’s in the truck.”

  She steps off the porch without another word and walks away across the lawn.

  “Isabel will always have a home with us,” Carmen calls after her, “but I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Malone picks up the backpack and follows Luz. When she gets to the truck, she yanks open the passenger-side door and climbs in. Malone sets the pack on the seat between them.

  “You might need this,” he says, sliding behind the wheel.

  “Please get me away from here,” Luz says.

  They drive past a group of kids tossing a baseball. It’s late afternoon, and the shadows of the trees have begun to creep toward the houses on the east side of the street. Luz stares straight ahead. Her face is blank, but her mind is working a mile a minute. When they come to a stop sign, Malone asks which way.

  “Just park somewhere,” Luz says.

  He takes a left and continues until he hits a strip mall containing a Laundromat, a beauty salon, a check-cashing place, and a liquor store. He swings into the parking lot and finds a spot in the shade. They’re looking into the window of the Laundromat, where a tall black man folds a pair of pants in front of a dryer, and a little Mexican boy pushes a little Mexican girl in a laundry cart.

  “I should have known,” Luz says, her voice flat, dead.

  “Known what?” Malone says.

  “He told me he could find me anywhere.”

  “Who are we talking about? Your boyfriend? Your husband?”

  “The devil,” Luz says. “The fucking devil.”

  “I’m trying to help you,” Malone says.

  “You can’t help me,” Luz says. “It was my husband who sent those men. He’s a gangster, a narco. You know what that is?”

  “A narco? Sure.”

  “You don’t know anything. He…he beat me. He raped me. He threatened to kill me if I ever left him. But I wanted to be with Isabel.” Luz breaks off here, takes a deep breath and turns away. “I stole some money from him and ran off. The maid tried to stop me, and one of my husband’s bodyguards, and I killed them both.”

  “Jesus,” Malone says.

  “That’s what I’m paying for now,” Luz says. “That’s why they have my baby.”

  Malone tugs on the collar of his shirt. His clothes feel like they’re suffocating him.

  “What’ll happen to you when you go back?” he says.

  Luz smirks at him like he’s dense. “What do you think?”

  He’s not going to give her false hope, doesn’t want to insult her that way. He can see in her eyes that she knows what she knows.

  “Will you do me one favor?” she continues. “Will you stay with me until I find out where they want to meet and then drive me there?”

  “I’ll stay with you as long as you need me,” Malone says.

  She reaches over and lays a hand on his thigh.

  “You can have the money back,” she says. “And if you want, I’ll…”

  Her voice trails off, and the unspoken offer fills Malone with sadness. Putting his hand over hers to keep it from sliding any higher, he says, “Don’t.”

  Luz pulls away, her embarrassment coming out as anger.

  “Sorry,” she snaps.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Malone says. “It’s just that you don’t have to do that to keep me around.”

  Luz can’t look at him while she processes this, stares out her window instead. Eventually she gets herself together and takes the napkin that Carmen gave her from the pocket of her hoodie.

  “So can I use the phone?” she says.

  Malone passes it to her, and she punches in the number written on the napkin. He gropes under the seat for the vodka, opens it, and has a swig. Inside the Laundromat, mama is mad at the kids playing with the cart. She lifts the girl out and sets her on the ground and swats at the boy, who laughs and runs away. Malone closes his eyes. He can’t watch anymore. He’s done with this world, has been for years. He closes his eyes and listens to the beeping of the phone as Luz calls up her doom.

  18

  THE SQUAWKING OF THE KID’S CARTOONS IS GIVING THACKER A headache, but what’s he going to do? If he tells her to shut off the TV and take a nap, she’ll start screaming again, and this is the quietest she’s been since they grabbed her. She’s happy as can be now, sitting cross-legged on the other bed, eating cold French fries and watching a bunch of monkeys or mice or whatever they are kick the shit out of each other.

  Jerónimo, on the other hand, is wound tight as a speed freak at the tail end of a three-day run. He’s hunched over the room’s little table and looks like he’s about to get on his knees and beg the phone sitting in front of him to ring. There’s more than money driving him, that’s for sure. He’s got some sort of personal stake in seeing that this girl Luz gets to where she’s wanted, and this worries Thacker, because when it gets personal is when people get stupid, and stupid people do stupid things, like kidnapping children.

  He should have said Fuck it right then, should have slipped away. But that cash, man, it’s so close now he can smell it, and if the Mex will listen to him, they can still snatch this out of the fire without burning their fingers. Everything will work out fine: Jerónimo will get Luz, he’ll get the money, the kid will be returned to her aunt, and they’ll all go their separate ways with a friendly wave and a hearty “Fuck you.”

  That’s if he listens. Right now it looks like he’s sitting over there coming up with a whole bunch of bad ideas, Plan B’s and doomsday scenarios. Step one is to get him talking instead of thinking.

  “So the phone rings,” Thacker says, adjus
ting his pillow against the headboard of the bed he’s lying on.

  “What?” Jerónimo says.

  “The phone rings, and it’s—” he glances at Isabel and lowers his voice—“you know. What are you gonna say?”

  Jerónimo hisses derisively and mumbles, “I’m not playing games with you.”

  “It can’t hurt to figure out in advance how you’re going to respond,” Thacker says. “Things have already gotten a little out of hand, after all.”

  The Mex puffs up and crosses his arms over his chest. It pisses him off to have a gringo point out his mistakes. Too bad.

  “Ring, ring,” Thacker says.

  “I’m gonna tell her to get her ass over here,” Jerónimo says. “What do you think I’m gonna say?”

  “With the money?” Thacker says.

  “Yeah, yeah, with the money.”

  “But don’t let her come up to the room.”

  “I won’t.”

  “In fact, don’t even mention the motel. Only tell her the corner.”

  Jerónimo gets up and steps over to the window, pulls the curtains aside. The room is on the second floor, off an open-air walkway. A no-name gas station and mini-mart skulk at the edge of an empty lot across the street.

  “I’ll meet her down there,” Jerónimo says, pointing at the station. “I’ll tell her to come alone and wait out in the open.”

  “That’s good,” Thacker says. “We can watch from up here to see if she tries to sneak in any backup.”

  “Right,” Jerónimo says. He closes the curtains and returns to the table. “So relax.”

  “I am relaxed,” Thacker says. “I just want to get it straight. So she does what you tell her and shows up when she’s supposed to. Then what?”

  “I go down and talk to her, and when I’m sure everything’s cool, I signal you, and you put the little one in the truck and come pick us up.”