Angel Baby: A Novel (21 page)

Jerónimo lies on one of the beds in the motel room. He’s holding a damp washcloth to the scrape he got on his knee when he fell in the street and staring at a cop show on the television. He’s not paying much attention, but he can tell that the TV cops are smarter than real ones, like they always are in movies.

He closes his eyes and tries to relax. His foot keeps bouncing, shaking the whole bed. He can’t stop thinking about the fact that every minute he wastes in this room is one more minute his family is in danger.

Looking on the bright side, nothing is broken, nothing is bleeding too much. He can still run, still scrap if it comes to that, and the pain in his knee will make him meaner and smarter. It wouldn’t matter if he was missing an arm, though, he’d keep chasing Luz. The trigger’s been pulled, the bomb’s been dropped.

There’s a knock at the door. Jerónimo wraps a towel around his waist and limps over to open it. Looney and some kid, a little
vato
of fifteen or sixteen, are standing there.

“Híjole,”
Looney says and pretends to hide his eyes. “What kind of party you having?”

“Hey,
ese,
” Jerónimo says. “Come on in.”

Looney steps inside and motions for the boy to follow.

“You look good,” Jerónimo says.

“No I don’t,” Looney says. “I’m fat as a motherfucker.” He gestures at Jerónimo’s knee. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Jerónimo says. “I tripped on the stairs.” He closes the door and locks it. “I don’t have any beer or anything. You want some water?”

“Nah, we’re fine,” Looney says. The kid stands there fidgeting, not knowing where to look. Looney puts his hand on his shoulder and says, “This is my oldest, Ruben Junior. He’s my ride home. Junior, this here’s El Apache.”

“Hey, Junior, good to meet you,” Jerónimo says.

“Good to meet you too,” the kid replies in a soft voice, uncomfortable with the formality of the exchange.

Looney holds out a plastic grocery store bag and says, “Put these on. You’re making me nervous.”

“Thanks again, holmes,” Jerónimo says. He takes the bag and walks to the bathroom.

“It’s some of my old stuff,” Looney says. “I didn’t know what size you were, but there’s a belt.”

The Lakers T-shirt fits okay, but the pants, a pair of gray Dickies, are too short in the legs and too big in the waist. Jerónimo slides the belt through the loops and cinches it tight. He’ll need to make a new hole.

“You got a
filero?
” he says to Looney when he steps back into the room. Looney fishes in his pocket, pulls out a folding knife, and tosses it to him. Jerónimo uses the tip of the blade to bore through the leather of the belt. A few seconds later he’s all set.

“How do I look?” he says to the kid.

“Better,” the kid says with a shy grin.

Looney picks up the length of curtain rod that Jerónimo bent and then blacked with oil from a stain in the parking lot. It was supposed to fool Luz into thinking he had a gun when he went down to meet her.

“What’s this?” Looney says. “Some
Escape from Alcatraz
shit?” He points it at his son, changes his voice. “Put your hands up, motherfucker.”

Jerónimo shrugs while the two of them laugh. “It ain’t been my day,” he says.

Looney sets the curtain rod on the dresser and reaches into his back pocket for something wrapped in a small brown paper bag. He hands it to Jerónimo, who looks inside and sees a pistol.

“Ain’t nothing but a .25, but it’s clean,” Looney says. “Got six rounds in it, too.”

“It’ll do fine,” Jerónimo says.

“Better than that fakie anyway,” Looney says.

“And you ought to know, right?” Jerónimo says. He’s talking about one night when they were kids and Looney tried to hold up a liquor store with a comb held like a gun. The Korean who owned the place leaped over the counter swinging a collapsible baton and came close to catching him. Jerónimo doesn’t tell the story outright, not knowing how much Looney has revealed to his son about his past, but he sees that Looney is uneasy nonetheless.

“You’re thinking of that dude Clown, I think,” Looney says.

“Riiiight,” Jerónimo says like he’s all of a sudden remembering. “
That
dumbshit.” He shoves the gun, still in the bag, into his pocket.

“Let me show you this car and get out of here,” Looney says. “My old lady’s like, ‘You better get your ass back in time for dinner.’”

The three of them leave the room and walk downstairs to the parking lot. Looney is talking about a job he’s on, wiring a new shopping center, all the overtime he’s pulling, time-and-a-half, double-time. He doesn’t shut up, doesn’t give Jerónimo the chance to bring up any more old mischief. The car he’s brought is a beat-to-shit Honda Civic with mismatched headlights, a bungee cord holding the hood shut, and a temporary spare on the right rear hub.

“Don’t get pulled over,” Looney says, dangling a key. “I don’t have the registration. And the brakes are shot too.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool,” Jerónimo says. “Could you also slide me, like, twenty bucks?”

Looney makes a face, then takes out his wallet and passes him two tens. It’s funny, him bragging one minute about all the money he’s making and the next giving his old friend that kind of look when he asks for a loan.

Nonetheless, Jerónimo clasps the big man’s hand and pulls him close, so they’re standing chest to chest.

“You came through for me, holmes, and I mean it, I’ll take care of you as soon as this job is done,” he says.

Looney grips him tighter and pulls him closer. Jerónimo feels something poking his stomach and looks down to see a gun, held low, so the kid won’t notice.

“I don’t want nothing from you,” Looney whispers in his ear. “We’re even now, and you’re gonna forget all about me.
Comprendes?
”

Jerónimo’s not angry at him. The guy has a family, a house, a life, and Jerónimo knows what it’s like to lose that.

“Comprendo,”
he whispers back.

The gun disappears, and Looney slaps him on the back as they separate. “Say good-bye to El Apache,” he says to the kid. “He was a real loco back in the day.”

Father and son walk to a tricked-out Supra and crawl inside, the kid behind the wheel. Looney sticks his arm out the window as they pull away and flashes Jerónimo a peace sign.

All of a sudden it’s night. Two kids roll by on skateboards, one of them tossing a cigarette that sparks when it hits the street. Jerónimo takes the bag out of his pocket and opens it to look at the gun again, then gets into the Honda. The seat’s broken, won’t move forward, but the engine turns over, and the radio works.

There’s still a line for the dance game Isabel wants to play, so Thacker eases her on to something else, a race car that rocks back and forth when she steers it. The arcade echoes with gunfire and explosions, barked orders, and the recurring groans of the wounded. Across the way two Mexican kids dressed in black aim bright pink pistols at shambling zombies whose heads erupt into mushroom clouds of blood and brain when hit.

Thacker watches the entrance for Luz. He’ll call her over as soon as she comes in and take the money off her right here. He’s counting on her not trying anything funny, hopes he’s scared her enough.
Wait ten minutes,
he’ll tell her.
I mean it.
I have eyes on this place.

“Excuse me again.”

The security guard. Snuck up out of nowhere.

“Is there a problem?” Thacker says, his irritation showing.

“No problem,” the guard says. “It’s just, I’m thinking of taking the test for the Border Patrol.”

“Right. You told me that before.”

“Well, I was wondering, like, if I could get your card.”

“What for?”

“I figure it’d be cool if I could say I knew someone when I went down there.”

Thacker still can’t figure out if the kid is stupid or up to something, but all of a sudden it feels like everyone’s looking at him. Paranoia makes him reconsider his plan. This place was a bad idea. There’s got to be somewhere better to meet Luz.

“You know what,” he says as he lifts Isabel from the race car, “I’m all out of cards.”

“I’m not done!” Isabel yells.

“That’s okay,” the guard says. “Just give me your name, and I’ll write it down.” He reaches into his shirt pocket for a notepad and pen.

“Johnson,” Thacker says. “Don Johnson.”

“I want to finish!” Isabel yells.

“I gotta go,” Thacker says to the guard and carries the kid toward the entrance.

“Thanks a lot, Agent Johnson,” the guard calls after him.

Isabel is in the midst of another meltdown by the time they get out to the parking lot.

“Where’s Aunt Carmen?” she screams. “Where’s Aunt Carmen?”

“I’m taking you to her,” Thacker says, and belts her into the truck.

L
UZ SPOTS THE CASTLE FROM THE FREEWAY, AND IT LOOKS EXACTLY
like she remembers it from when she and Alejandro used to go there on double dates with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. She tells Malone to get off at the next exit and directs him to the entrance to the parking lot.

“Don’t go in,” she says. “Let me out here.”

“I’m sure it’s fine if I drop you off,” Malone says.

“He said to come alone.”

Malone eases to the curb, keeps the engine running. Luz reaches into the backpack and pulls out the silver-plated .45.

“Take this,” she says.

“Maybe you should keep it,” Malone says. “Just in case.”

“I don’t want it,” Luz says. “It’s bad luck, and there isn’t going to be any ‘just in case’ this time.”

Malone takes the gun from her. He turns it so that it catches the neon of the sign overhead and flashes red, yellow, and blue.

“Fancy,” he says.

“He had it made special,” Luz says. “You can get a lot of money for it.”

Malone points to the engraving on the ivory grip, a skeleton wearing a hooded robe. “What’s this?” he asks.

“Santa Muerte,” Luz replies. “She’s like a saint for
narcos.
They pray to her.”

“Saint Death?”

“Like I told you,” Luz says as she opens the door and steps outside. “Bad luck.”

“Don’t forget this,” Malone says, grabbing the phone off the seat and handing it to her.

“Thanks,” Luz says.

“Don’t worry,” Malone says. “Everything’s going to be fine.” The flashing lights of the sign claw at his face, and his smile is a little white lie.

Luz can’t think of anything to end with this time. She closes the door and steps away from the truck, waits to make sure Malone drives off. When he turns the corner, she starts walking across the parking lot.

It’s a confusing bustle of vehicles and people. Minivans disgorge swarms of children who carom off one another as they race to see who can get to the castle first, and teenagers slouch in their cars flamboyantly smoking cigarettes and courting through open windows.

A loud kissing sound from the shadows spins Luz around. Two boys perched on the tailgate of a Toyota pickup eye her, one of them tugging at the crotch of his baggy jeans. The little
pendejos
are lucky she gave the gun to Malone. With a disdainful toss of her head, she continues on her way, the boys’ laughter quickly drowned out by the sputtering of go-karts circling the track.

Luz is rocked by a flood of familiar sights and sounds when she enters the castle. The dusty suits of armor flanking the door, the swaying shoulders of the boys hunched over games in the arcade, the radio blaring Today’s Hottest Hits. She passes the bench where she and Alejandro used to sit, his lips tickling her ear and making her laugh, and the snack bar, where the same pale, bug-eyed woman still doles out popcorn and nachos.

Walking out to the golf course, she keeps her eyes open for a man in a Border Patrol hat and a pretty little girl. They’re nowhere in sight, so she leaves the castle behind and sets off down a narrow path that winds among the holes. The course has a number of hills and gullies, and the candy-colored lights play tricks. A child with something familiar in her face attracts her attention, but as she moves closer, a woman calls to the girl, who skips off to join her family.

Luz makes two quick circuits of the course, from the grinning purple dragon to the haunted house, from the freeway to the jungle waterfall, and doesn’t see Isabel or the border patrolman anywhere. Worried that she misunderstood the instructions, she returns to the castle and scours the arcade, then pushes through the heavy glass doors that lead out to the go-karts, where the stink of gasoline and burning rubber poison the hot air and cranky little cars rattle around an oval track beneath fiery, moth-swarmed floodlights.

There’s no sign of the pair out there, either, and Luz starts to feel a little frantic. As she turns to reenter the castle, eyes darting wildly, the backpack clutched to her chest, a teenaged attendant in grease-stained coveralls regards her with suspicion.

“Can I help you?” he says.

“I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Is she lost?”

Luz ignores the kid and pulls open the door to the arcade, ready to search the whole complex again. Only then does she notice that the phone, in the pocket of her hoodie, is vibrating, has been for who knows how long, the ringer having somehow been turned off.

“Hello?” she says. “Hello?”

“Hola, guapa,”
the border patrolman croons.

“Where are you?” Luz says. “Where’s Isabel?”

“Are you at the golf course?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Like you wanted.”

The border patrolman chuckles. “You know what I love?” he says. “A hot chick that follows orders.”

“Tell me how to get this money to you,” Luz says.

“Me and Isabel are checking into a room at the Best Western on Lincoln and Euclid. Think you can find it?”

“I’ll take a taxi. What room?”

“Tell you what: stay in the parking lot when you get here, and I’ll be watching for you.”

“I’ll be there soon,” Luz says.

“Goody,” the border patrolman says. “I can’t wait.”

Back on the streets.

Jerónimo thought he’d be on his way to TJ by now, mission accomplished, but here he is cruising through Compton again, trying to remember the way to Carmen’s house. He’s going back to see if he can squeeze more information out of the woman. His hope is that she knows more than she let on before. Maybe Luz told her where she was headed next. Maybe she left a number. He’ll get rough this time, hold her daughter’s hand over the stove if that’s what it takes.

He sees the sign,
CHILDREN PLAYING
, and recognizes the van. By the time he pulls over to the curb, the dogs are at the gate, waiting for him to show himself. So no sneaking around back. He’ll have to sweet talk his way through the front door and bring the hammer down once Carmen lets him inside.

He steps out of the Honda, and the dogs go nuts. At first glance it looks like nobody’s home, but he can see a glow behind the drawn curtains.
My wife, my kids—
he rehearses his plea as he moves up the walkway to the dark porch. The white flowers clinging to a trellis there give off a sweet smell.

Knocking on the door, he stares at the tiny circle of light shining through the peephole. The light disappears for a second, returns, goes dark again. He hears whispers inside. A bare bulb comes on overhead, and the door flies open. He sees a man first, some guy in work clothes, then a shotgun pointed at his head.

“Wait,” he squawks. “Hold on.”

He starts to reach for his pistol, but something smarter wins out, and he finds himself backing off the porch, hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot!”

The man keeps coming. Jerónimo sprints for the Honda and dives behind it just as the guy pulls the trigger. Jerónimo hears the
BOOM
of the gun and the pop of breaking glass. Red-hot pellets burrow into his face and neck. He drops to the street.

The shot echoes through the neighborhood. Jerónimo presses his belly to the pavement and peers under the car, trying to track the gunman. The curb blocks his view, so he gets up and looks over the hood. The guy is standing on the lawn, staring at the smoke curling out of the barrel of the gun like he can’t believe it actually went off. Jerónimo opens the car door and scrambles inside.

The windows on the passenger side are gone. Pebbles of shattered glass glint on the seat. Jerónimo gets the car running and hits the gas. The Honda slowly picks up speed, and the wind whistling through the broken windows sounds like a distant siren. The man on the lawn points the gun but doesn’t fire again. He must have used up all his guts the first time.

When he’s sure nobody’s following him, Jerónimo checks the damage to his face. The rearview mirror reveals a bloody constellation on the left side. The worst wound is below his eye, where a pellet gouged a deep gash as it rode the curve of the cheekbone. Adrenaline dulls the pain for now, but he knows he’ll be hurting soon.

He pulls into the parking lot of a Rite Aid and wipes away the blood with a dirty rag from the floor of the car. He keeps the rag pressed to his face when he walks into the store. The security guard up front is playing a game on his phone, doesn’t give him a second look. Jerónimo wanders the aisles in a daze, tasting metal and feeling the buzz of the fluorescent lights inside his eyeballs.

When he finds the bandages back by the pharmacy counter, the array of choices confounds him. He grabs a box of Band-Aids and a bottle of peroxide. A skinny black girl approaches as he’s searching for tweezers. At first he thinks she works here, is coming over to ask if he needs help, but she’s not wearing a nametag or a smock, and her eyes are crazy bright.

“Hey,” she says with a nervous glance at the pharmacy counter. “You got any pills you want to sell?”

“Huh?” Jerónimo grunts.

“Oxy or Vicodin,” she says, one hand scratching at her throat, nails bitten ragged. “Anything like that?”

Begging dope in a drugstore. Fucking junkies always creating their own bad luck. Got to stay as far from that kind of stupidity as possible.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Jerónimo says.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” the girl drawls.

“I said move along.”

Jerónimo knocks a pair of tweezers off the display while snatching one for himself. The girl doesn’t follow when he heads up front. The cashier is black, too, her hair piled in thick orange curls on top of her head. Jerónimo pays her with the money Looney gave him, gets back three bucks in change. The cashier acts like she doesn’t see the bloody rag.

He hurries out of the store. The passenger side of the Honda is freckled with tiny holes from the shotgun pellets. Looks like somebody went to town on it with an ice pick. Jerónimo collapses in the driver’s seat and lowers his forehead to the steering wheel. His face is on fire now, and he can’t think straight around the rhythmic pulsing. Best to go back to the motel, get his shit together, then figure out what to do next.

“Do you have any kings available?” Thacker asks the desk clerk at the Best Western. The clerk is a Mexican kid who must be new on the job, the way he pauses before each step of the check-in process, as if reviewing it in his head.

“A king?” the kid says.

“Yeah, it’s just me,” Thacker says. “I have my granddaughter with me now, but her mom’s coming for her shortly.”

Thacker doesn’t intend to be in the room for more than an hour, but he wants it to seem as if he’s staying all night, like any other guest. A little too cautious, maybe, but he’s doing everything he can to get out of town without making any ripples.

“Let me check,” the kid says.

Isabel is asleep in the truck, parked in front of the office. She passed out as soon as they left the arcade. Thacker can see the top of her head through the window. He picks up a brochure somebody left on the counter. The Hollywood Wax Museum. The figures in the photos look more like department store mannequins decked out in wigs and mustaches than the movie stars they’re supposed to be. Pretty pitiful.

The clerk lets Thacker pay the room deposit in cash and then hands over a keycard. He points out the room on a map and where Thacker should park. Thacker drives down to the shorter leg of the L-shaped complex and finds a spot, but as he’s opening his door, a family spills out of a room on the first floor and begins to load into a van parked next to the truck, blocking his way.

“Sorry,” the redheaded, sunburned daddy calls to him. Thacker gives him a wave and a smile, whispering “Fuck you” through gritted teeth.

The Disney parks are only a couple of miles away, Knott’s a couple more, so the motel is full of rowdy kids and harried adults. That’s why Thacker chose it, thinking that he and Isabel would blend right in. When the last child has climbed into the van and daddy pulls away and heads for the entrance, Thacker gets out of the Dodge. Walking around to the passenger side, he takes the seatbelt off Isabel and carries her up to their second-floor room.

He opens the door and lays her on the bed. She doesn’t stir when he lifts her head to slide a pillow under it. After checking the bathroom and closet for bogeymen, he grabs a cup to spit in and steps outside to wait for Luz.

The walkway overlooks the motel’s swimming pool. Lit from below, it’s a quivering rectangle of the palest blue. A dozen children splash in the water, sending up reflections that wriggle across Thacker’s face as he places a bit of dip in his mouth and leans forward to rest his elbows on the railing. He can see the whole parking lot from here, all the way back to the office and the IHOP across the road. The catbird seat. The kids’ shouts resound into nonsense as they bounce around the motel.

“Marco!” “Polo!” Back and forth they go.

Three teenage girls leave the pool together, and the gate in the fence that surrounds the deck slams shut behind them. Thacker watches them scuff across the parking lot in their flip-flops and feels his breathing change. They’re carrying towels but don’t use them to cover themselves as they bounce up the stairs in their bikinis.

Thacker stands up straight when they pass by him on the walkway, sucks in his gut, and says, “Ladies.” This makes them giggle, the funny old fat man. Anger flashes like lightning behind Thacker’s eyes.
You don’t know how lucky you are this isn’t some dark road,
he thinks. Marla called him a pervert when she found out about Lupita, and he wanted so badly to say to her, “Shit, baby, you think
that’s
sick?” She’d drop dead if she could see the stuff that comes into his mind sometimes.

He leans over the rail again, spits into his cup. The sky lights up with fireworks bursting silently over Angel Stadium or Disneyland, bright skittering blooms that fade into spiders of smoke. A taxi pulls into the driveway and a young woman carrying a backpack gets out and eyes the motel. Her. Thacker waves his arms.