Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  “She might go nuts when she sees her daughter.”

  “I’ll handle that.”

  “She might try to grab the kid and make a run for it or causes a commotion.”

  Jerónimo pulls his nine from his waistband. “Not with this between her legs,” he says. “This’ll keep her quiet while we drop the kid off and drive back to the border.”

  Isabel is watching them now, instead of the TV. She can’t make out what they’re saying, but she’s old enough to know what a gun is, or at least to know that it’s something to be afraid of. Thacker is about to tell Jerónimo to put the damn thing away when the phone on the table flashes and plays a song. Jerónimo snatches it up.

  The conversation is a quick one and entirely in Spanish, but Thacker gets the gist. Luz asks Jerónimo who he is, and he tells her it’s none of her business, just be at the gas station in an hour, her and the money. She wants to know how the kid is doing, and Jerónimo says, “Fine, as long as you follow orders.” Then she says something like “Prove it,” because after a lot of no’s, Jerónimo gets up from the table and walks over to Isabel.

  “Say hello,” he tells her, and holds out the phone.

  “Hello?” Isabel warbles, close to tears. After listening to Luz for a few seconds, she says in English, “I want to go home.”

  Jerónimo pulls the phone away, makes a quiet threat, and ends the call.

  “She get the message?” Thacker says.

  “She got it,” Jerónimo says.

  “Good. Good deal.”

  Thacker settles back onto the bed and stares up at the stucco ceiling, acting like everything is cool even though it’s not. Worry coils around his backbone like a jungle vine. He’s always known he’s not what you’d call a good man and admitted it to himself readily enough, but this, the kind of bad he’s knee-deep in now, is way more serious than fucking with wetbacks and stealing pussy from whores. This shit is hard-core.

  The air conditioner is roaring, but he can still feel the heat from outside pressing against the windows, the walls, the roof. Jerónimo peeks out between the curtains like Luz might already be waiting across the street, then turns to Isabel, who’s lying on the bed, crying softly, her face buried in a pillow.

  “What’s the matter, mija?” he asks her.

  “I want my aunt,” comes the muffled response.

  “You’ll be back there soon,” he says. “Right in time for dinner.”

  The room is closing in on Thacker. He gets up from the bed and grabs a Styrofoam cup off the table. When he goes to step outside, however, Jerónimo stops him with a hand on his arm.

  “What’s up?” the Mex says.

  Thacker shows him his tin of Skoal. “Having a dip,” he says. “Want one?”

  Jerónimo takes his hand off him but says, “Leave the door open.”

  Out on the walkway, Thacker steps to the rail and tucks a bit of tobacco between his cheek and gum. A car exits the gas station across the street and speeds off, leaving behind a cloud of black smoke that hangs in the air for some time afterward. A man comes out of the market with a broom and a long-handled dustpan and begins sweeping up. Jerónimo’s right; they’ll have a clear view from here when Luz arrives—the parking lot, the surrounding streets. That’s one thing in their favor.

  But Thacker is still uneasy. The kid changes everything. With her around the possibility for disaster is huge. She gets hurt or, God forbid, killed, and the shit storm that will rain down on them will be fatal, as in Special Circumstances, as in Death or Life-Plus-One. He spits into the cup and scratches a new mole he discovered on his neck last week. What the hell did you get into? he asks himself.

  Luz closes the phone and sets it on the dashboard. One hour, the man said. Don’t be early, don’t be late. He won’t be the one to kill her, Luz is pretty sure of that. He’ll take her back to Tijuana and let Rolando have his fun. She’s also pretty sure he’s not going to listen to any pleas for mercy. Rolando wouldn’t have trusted this job to someone who could be swayed.

  Perhaps a small request. Five minutes with Isabel. If she’s going to believe that this guy will release the little girl when she turns herself over to him, she might as well also believe that he’ll grant her five minutes to hold her and tell her how much she loves her. It’s something to look forward to at least, something to keep her going.

  The resignation she feels now is a relief after the agony that overwhelmed her when she learned they’d taken Isabel from Carmen. At first, she was so ashamed of putting her daughter in danger that all she wanted to do was die. But then it hit her that she was the only person who could save the girl, and that gave her the strength to finish this. Her escape attempt was a failure, but at least she’ll have a chance to clean up the mess she made before she pays for crossing Rolando.

  Malone is trying to pretend he’s not watching her out of the corner of his eye. He looks sadder than she does. The man had a shotgun pulled on him and still hasn’t cut and run. God sure picked a crazy one.

  “He wants me to come to Central and Walnut in an hour,” Luz says. “A gas station there.”

  “Do you know where that is?” Malone asks her.

  “Right off the freeway, I think,” she says.

  “All right,” he says and takes a swallow of vodka.

  His face ripples like the surface of a pond disturbed. He’s not done yet, Luz can tell. He’s got more to say. He caps the bottle and slides it under the seat, straightens his shirt and brushes back his hair.

  “I know the cops are out of the question,” he begins.

  “Stop,” Luz says.

  “It’s just, there has to be—”

  He needs to leave it alone. Now.

  “I stole from him and killed his people,” Luz says. “I made him look stupid. He’s not American, okay, he’s Mexican, and for a woman to do that, he’s not gonna quit until he gets back at me.”

  “What about someone above him?” Malone says. “He has a boss, and that’s the guy you need to talk to. You go to him with the money and make your case, tell him how this asshole treated you and why you did what you did.”

  “They’ve got my baby,” Luz says. “I’m going to do whatever they want.”

  Malone strokes the stubble on his chin and turns away from her.

  “I wish I was smarter,” he says. “Smart enough to come up with something else.”

  Luz wishes she was smarter too. She starts going over things she might have done differently when it came to planning her escape, and in seconds her mind is revving toward panic. She concentrates on her surroundings—a woman unloading a washing machine in the Laundromat, a stray dog trotting past, the little girl who tries to pet it and the old man who warns her not to, the way the reflection of the parking lot in the window of the liquor store pulses every time the door opens and closes—but it doesn’t help.

  She tries to think of somewhere quiet nearby where they might wait out the hour left to her. The answer is like a kick in the stomach when it comes, and she rouses Malone and tells him there’s one more place she’d like to see before he drops her off.

  They get onto Greenleaf and go west. The sun is low enough now that it’s shining right into their eyes. Even with her visor down, Luz has to squint through her lashes to see the road ahead. They drive past the entrance to the cemetery the first time and end up circling the block to get back to the gate.

  SACRED GROUND, 15 MPH a sign orders. Malone cruises slowly past the graves while Luz tries to find the spot she’s looking for. She remembers a tree and a fountain. It’s been almost four years, though, and a whole lot of life since she was last here. The best she can do is get them what she thinks is close.

  “Do you want me to wait in here?” Malone asks when she opens her door.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “You can come if you want.”

  He gets out of the truck, too, and follows her up a hill toward a sickly pine with downcast needles. The ground is covered with more weeds than grass, but at least th
ey keep the place mowed. The markers in this section are all identical granite rectangles that lie flat on the ground, row after row of them. There’s enough room on each for the name and dates and maybe a brief tribute or a small etching of a cross or a lily.

  Luz moves from stone to stone, searching for Alejandro’s. She passes a baby’s marker decorated with a drawing of Minnie Mouse—Camilla Washington, May 19, 2006–January 5, 2007. A wilted bouquet sits on Daniel Martinez’s grave, and someone has left a New Testament for Donita Hughes, Beloved Mother, Sister, and Friend. Luz is jealous of them all. Nobody will remember her when she’s gone, and there’ll be no grave to visit.

  She comes to the end of one row and moves on to the next. Malone trudges along behind her, head down. He’s thinking about his little girl, Luz knows. After being with him less than a day, she already recognizes the face he gets when the memories come blacking. Three ravens circle overhead, their ugly croaks like curses. Luz almost trips, glaring up them, and then there it is, right at her feet.

  Alejandro Delgado Gonzalez, May 19, 1991–October 5, 2009. His nickname’s on it too: Smiley. Luz is sad to see it again, but the sadness is different now, after so much time, mellower but truer. For a month after he died she came here every couple of days, her and baby Isabel. She’d bring a boom box to play her and Alejandro’s favorite CDs—Morrissey, Selena, RBD—and sit on the grass beside the stone and weep until her eyes burned and her chest ached. Her grief was real back then, but she realizes she was crying mostly for herself, for her loss. The tears that sting her eyes today are for a sweet, big-eared boy with a silver tooth and the softest lips in the world.

  Malone is standing beside her. “Who is it?” he asks.

  “Isabel’s daddy,” she replies.

  “So young.”

  “Something was wrong with his heart.”

  It’s true. One day he just fell down dead. He was the first and last boy Luz ever loved, the embodiment of so many words that have lost their meaning for her since then: good, kind, honest. He lived on the same street as Carmen and her family, but Luz barely noticed him during her first hectic years in L.A. Thinking about it later, she wondered if that’s how it was when it was real. You didn’t crash into each other and hang on for dear life the first time you met. Instead, you came together slowly, a long succession of revelations and reassessments gradually closing the gap.

  How clearly she remembers some of the things that made her love him. There was the time she watched him comfort his little sister after she’d fallen off her bicycle, rocking and tickling her until she laughed away her tears. There was his voice when he tried to sing a song he knew Luz liked, even though they were still months away from holding hands.

  And she’ll never forget the morning they were walking to school with all the other kids and the two of them fell behind because they were talking so much and the sun hit his green eyes exactly right and whatever had been smoldering between them for so long finally burst into bright, billowing flame.

  They were inseparable after that. If Luz wasn’t at his house, he was at hers. Carmen was as crazy about him as Luz was, and Alejandro’s parents treated Luz like a daughter. None of them were happy when Luz got pregnant, but her and Alejandro’s love was like a steamroller, flattening any opposition. In the end, both families swallowed their disappointment and did what they could to help. Isabel was born with Alejandro’s eyes and Luz’s mouth. The nose they couldn’t figure out.

  Three months later Alejandro went to play basketball with some friends and didn’t come home. He collapsed on the court and was gone before he hit the ground. The doctor told Luz he didn’t feel any pain, but how could he know that?

  And so she was alone again. An eighteen-year-old illegal with a new baby. The daughter of a whore with her back against the wall. She’s glad Alejandro can’t see what a mess she made of everything.

  She crouches to brush a leaf from the stone and lets her fingers trace the letters carved there. Malone shifts from one foot to the other, uncomfortable.

  “I’m gonna wait over there,” he says, pointing to the fountain.

  Luz says a prayer for Alejandro and another for Isabel. Keep her safe a little longer. Something is wrong. She’s always believed in a God who listens to the pleas of the wretched, but today she feels like she’s talking to herself, like the words are going nowhere. He’s turned away from her, she realizes, even Him.

  She walks to the fountain. It’s not working, hasn’t in a long time. Four angels stand back-to-back blowing trumpets. The pool surrounding them doesn’t have any water in it, only dead leaves, a Burger King cup, and a condom wrapper. Malone is staring at the freeway in the distance, where ten lanes of cars and trucks crawl along under a noxious pall. To the west a few wispy clouds are starting to color as the sun drops lower.

  “I better get going,” Luz says.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Malone says.

  “I’m ready.”

  On the way back to the truck, Malone suddenly reaches out and wraps an arm around Luz. Her first instinct is to pull away, but she stops herself, and then, just like that, folds into Malone so that he’s supporting her as they walk. She says sorry, and he says it’s okay, and it feels so good to be propped up for a second, to not have to bear everything by herself.

  19

  THIS LAST HOUR WILL BE THE WORST. EVEN THOUGH JERÓNIMO trusts that Luz is going to show up, he still can’t relax. He’s been to the window three times in the last five minutes to check the gas station. Thacker is lying on one of the beds again, pretending to be asleep, and Isabel has settled, gone back to watching TV. Jerónimo picks up a pen from the table and scribbles on a Budget Inn scratchpad. He draws a star and a crescent moon, a spaceship, and a dwindled Earth.

  The cell phone ringing almost does him in. He sees that it’s El Príncipe and steps out of the room to take the call.

  “You got my wife?” El Príncipe says.

  “She’s on her way here,” Jerónimo says.

  “So the answer is no.”

  “She’s coming,” Jerónimo says. “I have something she wants.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her daughter.”

  “Daughter?” El Príncipe says. “She doesn’t have a daughter.”

  “Yeah, she does,” Jerónimo says. “About four years old. She’s been living with her aunt up here.”

  El Príncipe’s silence pleases Jerónimo. It feels good to catch him off guard. But the bastard recovers quickly. “I knew it,” he says. “I always sensed it.”

  “Luz was coming to see her,” Jerónimo says. “I got to the aunt’s house first and took the girl, so now she has to come to me.”

  “What balls,” El Príncipe says. “That’s thinking like a man.”

  “Once I have her, I’ll take the kid back to the aunt and bring Luz to you.”

  “The sneaky fucking bitch,” El Príncipe says, then goes silent again.

  A woman emerges from a room on the first floor and walks to the ice machine. Jerónimo pulls back so she won’t see him if she happens to look up. Thacker was right about things getting sloppy. It’s time to tighten up and make a clean getaway.

  “I have an idea,” El Príncipe says.

  “What?” Jerónimo says.

  “Bring me the daughter as well.”

  The words jolt Jerónimo like a raw electric shock. He holds the phone away from his mouth, afraid some noise coming from him will give him away. A few seconds pass before he feels calm enough to resume the conversation.

  “Is that smart?” he says. “Involving a child?”

  “I don’t know about smart, but it’s what I want,” El Príncipe says. “So do it.”

  “But, jefe, the kid has no part in this.”

  “Are you—” El Príncipe begins, but Jerónimo keeps talking.

  “You’ll have Luz, and she’s the one you’re pissed at,” he says. “Taking the little girl will only lead to trouble.”

  “Hey, hey, h
ey,” El Príncipe says, raising his voice to cut Jerónimo off. “Where were you yesterday?”

  “Where was I?” Jerónimo says.

  “Where were you before I had my guys come get you?”

  “I was in La Mesa,” Jerónimo says.

  “That’s right!” El Príncipe shouts. “In fucking prison. And where was I? In a fucking mansion. So you tell me, you piece of shit, who’s smarter, you or me?”

  “All I’m saying is that you should have mercy on an innocent child,” Jerónimo says.

  “And your family, do they deserve mercy too?” El Príncipe says.

  Jerónimo closes his eyes and grits his teeth. It’s all over. The son of a bitch has won. “Of course,” he says.

  “So here’s your choice: Save the whore’s kid, or save your own.”

  “I understand.”

  “Make sure you do, because the next time you defy me, I’ll beat your son to death in front of his mother. I’ll break every bone in his body. And then I’ll think of something to do to your daughter.”

  “You’ll have the woman and the girl by midnight.”

  Jerónimo ends the call and drops into a squat, his back pressed against the rough stucco wall. He glances at his watch. Still forty-five minutes to go until Luz is supposed to arrive. He reaches into his pocket for the necklace he took from Irma’s jewelry box. Opening it, he stares down at the faces of his children. Then he makes a fist and punches himself in the head once, twice, three times. He doesn’t feel a thing. That’s good. That means he’s almost there. Not his own man for the next few hours, but another man’s monster instead.

  Thacker opens one eye when the Mex pokes his head into the room and asks him to come outside. He gets up off the bed and tucks in his shirt, wonders what the hell has gone wrong now. Stepping onto the walkway, he pulls the door shut so the kid can’t hear them.

  “Things have changed,” Jerónimo announces. “The little girl’s coming too.”