Angel Baby

by RICHARD LANGE

  “What?” Thacker says. “To the border?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You’re batshit.”

  “It’s not my decision,” Jerónimo says. “It’s what the guy I’m working for wants.”

  “Well, he’s batshit then,” Thacker says.

  Jerónimo shrugs. “He’s the girl’s father, and he wants to raise her over there.”

  “Her father, huh?”

  “It’s against the law what Luz did, bringing her up here and giving her to her aunt. It’s kidnapping.”

  “Yeah?”

  “My man’s got papers and everything to prove it.”

  Thacker can tell the guy is lying but rolls with it because there’s nothing to stop this ese from cutting his throat and taking his truck if he thinks he’s turned against him. Hell, the way things have spun now, he might end up killing him anyway, to get rid of a witness.

  “You know what?” Thacker says. “Fuck it. I’m just the driver.”

  “That’s right,” Jerónimo says.

  “I’ll take you and whoever back, get my money, and go.”

  “That’s all you got to do.”

  “That’s all I’m gonna do.”

  “Then we got no problems,” Jerónimo says.

  Thacker follows him back into the room, silently weighing his options. If he sticks to the original script, transporting Jerónimo, Luz, and the kid to the border, there’s a good chance he’ll wind up dead by the side of some dirt road. These people are fucking animals, he realizes, fucking apes, and he was nuts to think he could trust them. So what if he bugs out then, first chance he gets, and leaves Jerónimo stranded here? That’d be fine except he’d be giving up the money, and he really, really wants that money.

  The Mex walks into the bathroom and closes the door. A few seconds later the shower goes on. The little girl is asleep now, curled around a pillow at the foot of the bed, one arm thrown over her eyes. Thacker looks at her, then toward the bathroom. A new scheme begins to come together in his head. He’s not clear on the details yet, but if it’s going to work at all, he has to get moving.

  He takes his gun belt off the chair and buckles it around his waist, checks his pockets for wallet and keys, pulls on his hat. Next, he needs to put Jerónimo out of commission in order to give himself a decent head start.

  He goes to the bathroom door, shouts “Sorry” as he’s pushing it open.

  “What the fuck?” Jerónimo yells from the other side of the opaque shower curtain.

  “I gotta piss something fierce,” Thacker says.

  “Hurry your ass up.”

  “I will, I will.”

  Thacker stands in front of the toilet and scans the bathroom. Jerónimo’s clothes are in a heap on the floor, his gun and phone on top. Swiftly and silently Thacker gathers everything up and carries it out, closing the door behind him. Just then, Isabel, on the bed, sighs and wiggles into a more comfortable position, the very image of the goddamn lamb in the lion’s den. Thacker’s scalp is tingling as he picks her up, lays her over his shoulder, and hurries to the front door.

  The sky is on fire when he slips out of the room and jogs for the stairs. His foot hits funny coming off the last step, and he staggers right, then left, before recovering his balance. Dashing across the parking lot, he points his remote at the truck and presses the unlock button with his thumb. He’s breathing hard by the time he clambers behind the wheel, all the fat in his belly pushing up against his lungs.

  Isabel opens her eyes as he’s strapping her into the passenger seat, but then her head lolls to the side, and she’s asleep again. His boys used to sack out like that. A war wouldn’t have roused them. He sticks his key in the ignition and glances up at the room. No sign of the Mex. So far, so good. Sometimes one smart move can make up for ten bad ones. And with this new plan, he might even still come out ahead today.

  When the fat man finishes pissing and leaves him alone again, Jerónimo shuts off the hot water and lets the cold pound his back and shoulders. El Príncipe’s phone call started his pulse throbbing in his temples, and he jumped into the shower desperate for another sensation besides rage and helplessness. The frigid drenching helps some, but he’s still close to snapping when he cuts off the stream, draws aside the shower curtain, and steps out of the tub.

  Something’s wrong. His clothes are missing, the money in the pocket, the gun, the phone. Yanking open the bathroom door, he sticks his head into the other room. Thacker is gone, and so is the little girl. If they get away, it’s a death sentence for Irma and the kids.

  Jerónimo is almost to the front door before he remembers that he’s naked and goes back for a towel. He bursts onto the walkway and leans over the rail. The spot where the truck was parked is empty. He hurries down the stairs and walks the entire lot, then goes to the corner to check the streets. There’s no sign of the Dodge, but a passing car honks, and the teens inside hoot and shout insults at him, a tattooed loco wrapped in a towel, dripping wet, barefoot, ridiculous.

  Back in the room, a quick survey of what he has left doesn’t make him feel any better about his situation. What good are a cheap watch, a pair of socks, and some sneakers? Luz will be here in half an hour. He’s going to have to call for help. The only people he knows around here who’ll be able to get him what he needs are his old Inglewood homeboys, the vatos he ran with as a kid. It’s been eight years since he last spoke to any of them, but he’s got nowhere else to turn.

  He sits on the bed and picks up the room phone. The first number that comes into his head is Ruben’s, who they used to call Looney. He was in on the robbery Jerónimo went down for in 2000 but didn’t get nabbed, and Jerónimo, being a righteous homie, didn’t roll over on him. It takes a few calls to track him down. Jerónimo talks to the dude’s mom, his brother, and his old lady before getting through to Looney himself.

  “Apache?” Looney says. “I heard you was dead down in Mexico.”

  “Not me, ese, I’m still kicking,” Jerónimo says. “I’ve been working for someone in TJ, and I’m up here in Compton doing a thing for him.”

  “Oh yeah?” Looney says. Jerónimo hears the wariness in his voice. “And you got close to the old ’hood and decided to call me?”

  “Truthfully, man, I need you to do me a solid,” Jerónimo says.

  Looney pauses. There’s a TV playing wherever he is, and a couple of kids jabbering in the background. Jerónimo runs his finger over the bedspread, tracing the arc of a stitch, and waits for the man to compose a response.

  “I’m not really down with too much dirt no more,” Looney says. “I’m an electrician, you know, union and shit.”

  “If it wasn’t serious, ese, I wouldn’t be bothering you, believe that,” Jerónimo says.

  “Yeah, but still…”

  “Yeah, but still I did two years for jacking that motherfucker with you, took ’em like a man. You could have been in there with me real easy.”

  A siren spirals past outside the motel, and Jerónimo puts his hand over the phone so Looney won’t hear it and get any more spooked than he already is. The dude sighs and clears his throat.

  “This is fucked up, holmes,” he says.

  “Life’s fucked up,” Jerónimo says.

  “What do you need?”

  “A car and a cuete—any kind.”

  “Is that all?” Looney scoffs.

  “And some clothes. Pants, a shirt. I’ll send you money to cover it when I get back to TJ, to more than cover it.”

  “Check’s in the mail, huh?”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “How soon do you need me to get there?”

  “How about now. How about right this minute.”

  Looney chuckles. “Come on, man,” he says. “Compton? Fucking Friday, fucking rush hour?”

  “I know, I know,” Jerónimo says.

  “Gonna be at least an hour or two.”

  “Quick as you can. I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Loo
ney says.

  Jerónimo gives him the address of the motel and hangs up. He has twenty minutes to figure out what to do about Luz, how to approach her when she arrives at the gas station and get her back to the room. He checks the bathroom again, to make sure the gun is really gone, then looks around for something else to use as a come-along.

  The pen he was drawing with earlier could work as a shank with some sharpening on a patch of concrete, or what about a piece of the bed frame, brandish it like a club. The trick will be running up on her fast enough that all she gets is a glimpse of whatever he’s carrying before he grabs her and hustles her across the street. She won’t be paying much attention anyway, worked up as she’ll be about her kid.

  Malone pulls over in front of the gas station where he’s supposed to drop Luz. In the end there isn’t much to say. Good-bye. Good luck. He wonders if he should add something else, an acknowledgment of her courage in accepting her fate, but what good is that going to do? And maybe the commonplace phrases they exchange are a source of comfort to her, a well-marked path through hostile terrain where any deeper sentiment would only complicate matters.

  He offers to wait nearby in case she needs him for anything, but she’s adamant that he leave right now, worried about upsetting the men holding Isabel. He reaches for her hand at the exact moment she pulls it away to grab the backpack, and then she slides out of the truck and slams the door. It’s not as easy as he’d like it to be to drive away and leave her standing on the sidewalk. He follows a sign for the freeway, takes a corner, and she’s gone.

  There’s drinking to be done, but he doesn’t want to do it here. He’ll drive up to Palos Verdes, find a cliff overlooking the ocean, a patch of sand to pass out on. The phone rings as he’s approaching the ramp to the 91. Day is making its last stand against night, and the battle lights up the sky.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “Who’s this?” the man on the other end says.

  “Who do you want?”

  “Are you the guy that was with Luz?”

  Malone drives past the on-ramp and swerves into the parking lot of a storage facility tucked beneath the freeway.

  “Could be,” he says.

  “Put her on.”

  “I just dropped her off.”

  “At the gas station?”

  “That’s where you said, right?”

  “Go back and get her. Quick.”

  “What do you mean?” Malone doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s already turning the truck around.

  “The Mexicans were gonna kill the kid, so I took her,” the man on the phone says. “And now all I want is the money Luz is carrying. If she hands it over, she can have the girl.”

  “Where are you now?” Malone says. He makes a dangerous left and crosses three lanes of traffic to an angry chorus of horns.

  “I’ll call later with that. If she’s not at the station, go to the motel across the street. Room 215. The Mex is unarmed, but you’ll have to fight him.”

  Malone drops the phone onto the seat and concentrates on driving. He swings onto Central, tires squealing, and sees that Luz is still on the sidewalk. As he speeds toward her, a shirtless vato with a towel wrapped around his waist comes jogging out of the parking lot of the motel. Malone palms the truck’s horn, and both Luz and the vato turn to look, the vato pausing in the middle of the street. This moment of hesitation is enough to allow Malone to steer the truck between them. He screeches to a stop, the vodka bottle rolling out from under the seat.

  “Get in back!” he yells out the window at Luz.

  “No,” she protests. “I told you—”

  “He doesn’t have Isabel!”

  The vato in the towel, a big, brawny dude with tattoos twining over his chest and arms, moves to the front of the truck and points a gun at Malone through the windshield. Malone ducks behind the wheel and shouts again to Luz.

  “Come on!”

  She slings the backpack into the bed of the truck, then clambers over the side herself. The vato drops his gun and runs toward her. He grabs one of her feet, but she kicks it loose and scrambles away from him.

  Malone presses the gas pedal to the floor. The vato runs alongside the pickup, trying to climb in. He loses his grip as the vehicle gains speed, trips, and sprawls onto the asphalt. Malone rounds the corner and leaves him behind.

  “No way!” Malone yells. “No fucking way!” He lets out a whoop and bounces on the seat. The streetlights all flicker to life at once and stretch on and on, as far as he can see, a bright, safe passage to somewhere.

  20

  LUZ IS STUCK IN MIDAIR, DOESN’T KNOW WHETHER TO FLY OR FALL. She climbed into the truck in a panic when she saw the half-naked man charging her, not even sure what Malone was yelling, only hearing Isabel’s name. She needs Malone to explain what’s going on so she can be sure she did the right thing by leaving.

  She keeps her head down as he whips around one corner, then a second, slinging her from one side of the bed to the other. He finally comes to a stop on a deserted street lined with dark warehouses hunkered behind chain link and concertina wire.

  “All clear,” he calls out.

  She grabs the backpack and steps over the tailgate onto the bumper, then down to the ground. A light goes on in the cab when she opens the door, but she doesn’t get in. She wants to hear the story first.

  “I got a call as I was driving away,” Malone says. “The man on the phone—I think it was the cop—said that he had Isabel, that he’d taken her from the other guy, and that I should go back and pick you up.”

  “The cop has Isabel?” Luz asks.

  “So he said.”

  “Where, then? Where is she?”

  “We didn’t have time to get into it. He’s supposed to call back later. But listen: He also said you can have her if you give him the money.”

  “The money.”

  “He claims that’s all he wants.”

  Luz would like to rejoice at this news, but she’s still skeptical. Anybody can say anything, and nothing’s real until it happens. She’s not sure she can stand being disappointed again.

  “Why would he do that?” she says. “Why would he take Isabel?”

  Malone looks uncomfortable. “That’s the part I didn’t want to tell you,” he says.

  “Why?” Luz demands. “What happened?”

  Malone grimaces and bends forward in his seat, stalling.

  “What?” Luz says. “Tell me.”

  “He said he took her because the Mexicans were going to kill her,” Malone finally says in a rush.

  Luz reels at the words. Rolando. The bastard. The fucking bastard.

  “But she’s safe now,” Malone continues. “She’s safe, and you’re going to get her back.”

  “Are you sure?” Luz says.

  “I’m sure.”

  He’s not, though, Luz realizes. He’s just being nice. He doesn’t know any more than she does about what’s going on.

  A car with one working headlight turns onto the street, and Malone tenses up.

  “We should go,” he says.

  Luz has a bad feeling too. She climbs into the truck and closes the door. The rusted-out Bonneville draws nearer, and she reaches into the backpack for the .45. The car slows to a crawl as it passes, and two hard black faces size them up. Malone twists the key. The truck’s engine strains mightily but fails to start.

  The Bonneville continues to the next intersection, swings around, and cruises back toward them. Luz watches it approach like a marauding shark in her side mirror while Malone keeps cranking the ignition and pumping the gas pedal. When the truck finally comes to life, he jams it into gear and quickly pulls away from the Bonneville, blowing stop signs and screaming around corners until Luz tells him it’s okay, they’re not following.

  When they get back onto a wide, well-lit street, Luz makes him go over the phone call again word for word as he remembers it.

  “Did he say when he’d call?” she asks.

&n
bsp; “Nope, just that he would,” Malone replies.

  “Why can’t I call him?”

  Malone slides the phone across the seat. “The number’s blocked. He’s being real careful.”

  Luz picks up the phone to check for herself.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” Malone says. They pass a Denny’s. “What about there? You want a milkshake? I want a milkshake.”

  Luz won’t be able to eat anything but says okay, sure, because sitting in the restaurant will be safer than parking on the street someplace where trouble might find them again.

  The sun is down but heat is still rising off the asphalt of the parking lot. Luz hugs the backpack to her chest as they walk to the entrance. She’s not letting it out of her sight until she hands it over in exchange for Isabel. Stepping into the icy brightness of the restaurant is like crossing over into another dimension. She shivers at the sudden chill and squints against the fluorescents.

  The woman who seats them bustles and chirps like a little bird, and the server who comes to take their order is smiling at a secret joke—a mean one, to judge by the tilt of his lips. Malone gets a chocolate shake, and Luz orders a Coke. Malone asks if she wants to share fries, and it’s easier to say yes than no.

  “Not the wavy-cut ones,” Malone says to the server. “The regular kind.”

  Their booth is against a window that looks out onto the parking lot. Luz can see her face in the glass and extends a finger to touch the circles under the reflection’s eyes. She’ll be glad when she’s not pretty anymore.

  “Once you have Isabel, you need to go someplace nobody knows you,” Malone says. “Don’t tell your aunt, don’t tell your friends, don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a feeling these guys are going to keep looking for you for a while.”

  “Don’t worry,” Luz says. “We’re going somewhere I haven’t even thought of yet.”

  “You can have the truck, but I’d advise dumping it as soon as you can.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “What’s okay?”

  “I don’t know how to drive.”

  “Huh.”