Angel Baby: A Novel (17 page)

“Better?” he says.

“Not until I see Isabel,” Luz says.

“You should eat something,” he says. “I’m gonna get another pizza. Want one?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she says. “Cheese only.”

Malone goes to the counter, and Luz closes her eyes and presses her fingertips to her eyelids. She wishes there was music or something to distract her from thinking about all the ways things could still go wrong.

The pizza smells good when Malone brings it to her. Luz eats it right up, then shows him the toys she bought for Isabel.

“Cute,” he says.

He carries them to the truck for her, across the busy parking lot. The seat is hot against the back of her legs when she slides in. She rolls down her window after Malone starts the truck and tries to figure out how to turn up the air conditioner.

“Does it go any colder?” she says.

Malone doesn’t answer, and she looks over to find him staring out the windshield and tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel.

“I need a drink,” he says.

“A drink?”

“A
drink
drink.”

“Right now?”

He nods his head.

Please,
she wants to say,
let’s go,
but she’s been around drunks her whole life and knows how strong their weakness is.

“Where you gonna get it?” she says.

Malone shuts off the engine and points across the lot to the liquor store, the BevMo. “I’ll only be a second,” he says as he opens the door and steps out of the truck.

“Leave the air on,” Luz says.

Malone smiles and sticks the keys in his pocket. “I love you like a sister,” he says, “but I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

He walks off toward the store. Luz tells herself to hold on, it’s almost over.

Five minutes later he reappears toting two bags. One contains a twelve-pack of Bud Light, the other a fifth of cheap vodka. After starting the truck, he opens the vodka and takes three long swallows, then pops a beer and downs it in a couple of gulps.

Luz turns away, disgusted.

“Want some?” he says, offering her the vodka.

“That isn’t going to help you,” she says.

“What do you know about it?” he says.

He opens another beer, sets it between his legs, and starts to drive out of the parking lot.

“Hey,” Luz says, grabbing for the can. “What if we get pulled over?” She rolls down her window and tosses the can out. “After you drop me off you can do whatever you want.”

 They get back on the freeway and cross into L.A. County. It’s a tense, silent ride. Luz tells Malone to exit at Alameda, and there it is: Compton, California.

Luz remembers the first time she saw this place, back when she was thirteen years old, a scared little girl running from somewhere bad to somewhere she hoped would be better. Her fantasy of Los Angeles had been shaped by MTV and gossip magazines, so what a disappointment it was when Carmen picked her up at the bus station and brought her here. Compton was sad little factories and roaring freeways. Compton was bunker liquor stores and ghetto swap meets. It was a million miles from the beach, from Sunset Boulevard, from the Hollywood Hills.

An hour after she arrived, one of her cousins showed her the bloodstains and bullet holes from a recent drive-by, and that night she lay in bed paralyzed with fear as a helicopter circled above the neighborhood and sirens wailed in the distance. She’d come all the way from TJ for this? It felt like someone had lied to her.

There wasn’t time to brood though. Her aunt expected her to pull her weight and fend for herself right off the bat, so Luz had to learn quickly where she could walk and where she couldn’t, who it was okay to talk to and who to avoid. The city was a tricky maze to navigate, dodging cops on this block, gangsters on the next. You had to think ahead, you had to plan, and after a while those movie star daydreams she’d brought with her dried up and blew away without her even noticing.

The street her aunt lived on looks the same as it did when Luz left three years ago. So much has happened to her since then that she expected it, too, would have changed somehow, but, no, same houses, same cars, same trees, same sidewalks. She presses a hand to her chest as if that will stop the pounding behind her ribs. She’s waited so long for this.

“Right here,” she says, pointing out Carmen’s place. She recognizes the minivan in the driveway, the one with the
Jesus Es Rey de Reyes
bumper sticker. She was living here when Carmen’s husband, Bernardo, bought it. And there are the dogs, Lobo and Woof, and the rosebushes.

Malone pulls the truck to the curb, and Luz grabs the bags containing the doll and the stuffed bear and reaches for the door handle. On her way out she looks over her shoulder at Malone and wonders what she should say.

“Thanks for driving me,” is what comes out.

“Glad I could help,” he says.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter,” she says. “I hope you find peace someday.”

He answers with a nod.

She starts up the walkway to the porch and is going over the speech she’s been preparing for Carmen when Malone calls her name. She turns back to see what he wants.

He gets out of the truck with the backpack, brings it over to her.

“Take this,” he says. “It’ll just get me into trouble.”

“You’re a good man,” she says.

“No, I’m not,” he says.

She heads for the house again. Her legs are shaking as she steps onto the porch. She presses the doorbell and hears it chime inside. Footsteps approach at a run, and the door flies open. Carmen is standing there, a phone pressed to her ear, her face streaked with tears.

“What have you done?” she screams.

“What do you mean?” Luz says.

“Isabel.”

“What about her?”

“She’s gone. They’ve taken her.”

Luz’s knees buckle, and she collapses onto the porch, struck down for her sins. The last thing she sees before she fades away is the sun shining red through the smog, an angry, all-seeing eye.

T
HE
D
ODGE IDLES ON
A
LAMEDA, THE ROAD BLOCKED BY A PASSING
train. Isabel screams and kicks and slams the back of her head into Jerónimo’s chest as he watches the freight crawl past. He counts its cars in an effort to calm himself. The train seems endless. It’s another trial, Jerónimo reflects, another misery to be endured, like cold rain or a sleepless night.

His first thought was that they’d wait for Luz at Carmen’s place and grab her when she showed up to see her daughter. But while talking to Carmen, he began to worry. If Luz went to the police or got help from somebody else, he and Thacker would be sitting ducks at the house. Better to take the kid and go, and then use the little girl to force Luz to meet them at another location.

“We have to get the child out of here,” he said to Carmen. “Right now.”

“What?” Carmen said.

“For her own safety.”

“No.”

“We’re not going to hurt her,” Jerónimo said. He turned to Thacker, who was standing against the refrigerator. “Do you have something to write with?” he asked him.

Thacker passed him a pen, and Jerónimo plucked a napkin from a wrought-iron dispenser on the table. He took out the phone El Príncipe gave him, pulled up its number, and wrote it on the napkin.

“When Luz gets here, have her call me,” he said. “If she does what I tell her, I’ll return the child to you.”

“Please,” Carmen said. She looked up at Thacker and pleaded with him in English. “Please don’t take the girl.”

“We’re taking the girl?” Thacker said.

Jerónimo made a face to warn him to shut the fuck up, then grabbed the distraught woman’s shoulder.

“Listen,” he said. “The man I’m working for is an animal. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he’ll come to this house and kill you, your husband, your children, your whole family. Be smart, and let me handle this. Make sure I get Luz, and everything will be okay.”

Carmen’s eyes were shut tight. She twisted her head from side to side.

“In the living room,” Jerónimo said. “Which one is she?”

“No,” Carmen whispered.

“I’ll take them both if I have to.”

Carmen opened her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Don’t scare them,” she said. “Let me explain it.”

“Fine,” Jerónimo said, “but do it now.”

The woman wiped her face with a towel lying on the counter, then stood and walked into the hall without another word. Jerónimo followed and motioned for Thacker to come too. He thought of his own children, how frightened they must have been when El Príncipe’s men took them from their home. And now here he was, terrorizing another family for that son of a bitch.

He made himself smile as he entered the living room. Both girls looked up when Carmen said, “Did you see who’s here, Isabel? It’s your uncle, your mamá’s brother.”

The smaller child, the one with the Dora the Explorer T-shirt and bright red shorts, said, “My real mamá?”

“That’s right,” Carmen said. “This is her brother. He’s come to take you to McDonald’s.”

Isabel gave Jerónimo the once-over, skeptical.

“My real mamá lives in Mexico,” she said to nobody in particular.

“So do I,” Jerónimo said. “And she told me to stop here and visit you.”

Looking past him at Thacker, the little girl said, “Are you a policeman?”

Carmen clapped her hands. “Hurry, hurry,” she said. “It’s hamburger time. Put your shoes on.”

Isabel kept her eyes on Thacker as she sat up and slipped her feet into a pair of pink flip-flops.

“Can Lizzy come?” she asked Carmen.

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” the other girl chanted and started to put on her flip-flops too.

“No, Lizzy,” Carmen snapped. “This is special time for Isabel and her uncle.”

Lizzy sank back onto the couch, a disappointed scowl twisting her face.

Isabel hesitated, sensing that something was up.

“I don’t want to go,” she said quietly.

“What are you afraid of?” Carmen said. “This is your uncle, like Uncle Jorge and Uncle Rafael. He’s come a long way to see you.”

Jerónimo squatted in front of the girl. “It’s okay,” he said to her. “We’re gonna have fun.”

“I want Lizzy to come,” Isabel said.

“Not this time,” Jerónimo said. He picked up the girl. She stiffened and began to sniffle, tears flooding her big brown eyes, and he hurried for the door to get her out to the truck before she broke down.

“Say good-bye to everyone,” he chirped as he stepped onto the porch. “Tell them you’ll be back soon.”

Isabel didn’t say anything, just sucked in a chestful of air. Jerónimo carried her across the street and was sliding into the Dodge when she cut loose with a high-pitched wail.

Thacker climbed in and started the engine.

“This is going too far,” he said. “You never said anything about snatching a kid.”

Isabel tried to squirm out of Jerónimo’s grasp, but he held her tightly.

“I’m tempted to drop your ass off right here,” Thacker continued. “That’s what you deserve for springing this on me.”

“You want your money?” Jerónimo said. “Shut up and drive.”

Thacker is still fuming when the train finally clacks off down the tracks. He mutters to himself and bounces his knee. Jerónimo considers shooting him in the head and taking the truck, but there’s still a chance a cop might come in handy today.

“Where to, genius?” Thacker says.

“Find a McDonald’s,” Jerónimo says.

Isabel is finally running out of steam. She’s stopped struggling, and her sobs have tapered off into pitiful whimpers. Thacker reaches over and pats her leg. “That’s a good girl,” he says. From a compartment in the dash he fishes out a quarter and hands it to her. “Look at that,” he says. “Candy money.”

“You ready for a hamburger?” Jerónimo asks her.

She nods, staring down at the coin.

“You like French fries too?” he says.

“I like Happy Meals,” she says.

“’Cause of the toy, right?” he says.

She nods again.

Thacker uses his phone to locate a McDonald’s over on Santa Fe. By the time they get there, Isabel has calmed down enough to ask Thacker if she can have a second quarter, for her other hand. She insists on coming to the counter with Jerónimo and ordering her own food, not trusting him to make sure she gets a
girl
Happy Meal. She reminds him so much of Ariel it hurts.

He carries the tray to the booth where Thacker is waiting for them. The fat man grabs his Big Mac and fries and digs in. Jerónimo snaps together Isabel’s toy for her—a yellow plastic flower that spins like a windmill—then unwraps his own burger. He’s too keyed up to eat, though, can’t take his eyes off the phone sitting on the table in front of him.

“Would it piss you off too much if I asked ‘What now?’” Thacker says.

“We wait for the call.”

“Driving around until it comes?”

Jerónimo ignores him. He hates everything about Thacker—his sunburned bald spot, the faggoty way he purses his lips when he sucks his straw, how he pretends to be thinking when he already knows what he’s going to say.

The fat piece of shit picks a shred of lettuce off his shirt and pops it into his mouth. “Why don’t we get a room?” he says. “Motel 6, Holiday Inn. We can beat the heat, screw our heads on straight. And the kid’s gonna need a nap at some point. I mean, who knows when
mamacita
’s gonna make it to town.”

Jerónimo picks up the phone, checks it, and puts it back down.
Ring, you fucker.
Taking a room will be an acknowledgment that this thing might drag on longer than he wants it to. He keeps picturing El Príncipe back in TJ, staring at the second hand of his Rolex and getting angrier every time it sweeps around the dial.

“We’ll be more comfortable with a home base,” Thacker continues. “I don’t know about you, but I think a whole lot better with my feet up and a beer in my hand.”

There’d also be less chance for trouble if they laid low. All it would take to blow everything is a cop pulling them over and asking the wrong questions. Jerónimo twirls a fry in a puddle of ketchup. He’s surely tempting fate, wandering around in a city he doesn’t know anymore.

“Find someplace close,” he says.

Thacker takes out his phone and starts searching.

A skinny black woman darts around the restaurant, placing small cards on the tables. Jerónimo picks one up and examines it.
I am deaf,
it says.
Can you help me with a donation?
On the other side is the alphabet in sign language, little drawings of hands clutching and pointing.

He knew a deaf kid once. Bobby Escobar. They used to sneak behind the guy and yell as loud as they could, then bust up when he didn’t react. For the longest time they thought he couldn’t talk either, until one day he got into a fight with another boy and began to bray obscenities like an angry donkey. Months later you could still get a laugh by imitating his strangled fury. Jerónimo can’t believe that after killing six men and hurting many others it’s this childish cruelty that’s stuck in his memory.

The woman makes her second pass through the dining room, retrieving the unwanted cards and collecting a few handouts. Jerónimo reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dollar.

“What are you doing?” Thacker says.

“What do you care?” Jerónimo says.

“She’s not deaf. It’s a scam.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t be a chump.”

Thacker calls to the woman.

“Hey!” he says. “You can hear me, can’t you?”

Confused, she shows him one of the cards.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jerónimo says to her as he shoves the dollar bill into her hand. Thacker shakes his head and goes back to his phone.

“There’s a Budget Inn a couple blocks away,” he says.

Isabel is humming to herself and rocking back and forth. She’s only eaten a few bites of her burger, is more interested in the toy. Jerónimo pushes the tray closer to her and says, “Sit still and finish your food.”

She ignores him and continues to fidget.

“Hey!” Thacker shouts at her.

She looks up at the fat man, wide-eyed.

“Eat,” he says. “That’s an order.”

Pouting, she reaches for her burger.

The floor is sticky under Jerónimo’s feet. There’s a sucking sound when he lifts one sneaker, then the other. He opens and closes his phone and wonders why Thacker can’t chew with his mouth closed. A kid brings in a bunch of balloons and presents them to a girl working behind the counter. She blushes and giggles as the whole crew sings “Happy Birthday.” Isabel stands on her seat to watch, and Jerónimo’s patience runs out. He can’t sit here any longer. He packs what’s left of the girl’s meal back into the box and says, “Let’s go.”

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.