Angel Baby: A Novel (12 page)

“I’m guessing it will be,” Murph said. “Freddy says this girl paid him twenty-five grand, and it didn’t even make a dent in her pile. Whatever you get off her, we’ll split sixty-forty, me and Freddy on the big end.”

Thacker thought it over for all of ten seconds before saying yes.

It’s 4:30 when he finishes his breakfast. The girl is crossing around ten, and he wants to be at the Tecate crossing by eight to scope things out and be ready to intercept her. That gives him some time to kill, time for a couple of hands of blackjack. Just a couple.

The Chinese guy is still at the table, a pretty good stack of chips in front of him. Thacker sits down and tosses the money he took off the
pollo
onto the felt.

“Change five hundred,” the dealer calls to the pit boss, then starts counting out green chips. “How’s it going?” he says to Thacker. His name is Scott. Thacker has played with him before.

“We’ll soon see,” he says.

He loses five hands in a row right off the bat, the dealer never busting once. The Chinaman snaps his tongue against the back of his teeth and shakes his head like it’s Thacker’s fault the table’s gone cold. Two more losing hands, and the chink colors his chips and walks away. Fuck him.

It’s back and forth after that, Thacker winning one here and there, then losing two. After a shuffle he presses his bet to $50 for no good goddamn reason and is dealt a pair of aces. He splits these, and another ace falls on the first one. He splits again. The pit boss strolls over to watch. Thacker’s second cards are a three, a six, and a five. The dealer, showing a three, draws into a nineteen.

Thacker wants to break something but merely purses his lips and slides out his bet for the next hand. A woman is vacuuming the carpet behind him, and the noise makes him antsy.

“Can we do something about that?” he asks Scott.

The dealer talks to the pit boss, who talks to the woman, who grudgingly rolls up her cord and goes away. Doesn’t make any difference. A half hour later Thacker has lost all of the wet’s money and $200 of his own. Disgusted with himself, he tosses a five-buck chip to Scott, and, after a stop in the men’s room, heads out to the parking lot.

The sun is about to crest the mountains to the east and is chasing the last of the stars from the rapidly pinking sky. The cool morning air smells of dust and sage. Thacker is so pissed off he doesn’t notice any of it. He scuffs to his truck, bone tired, swearing for the thousandth time that he’ll never again throw away money like that.

“Excuse me, sir.” A skull-faced kid beckons from the open window of a filthy Toyota. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Thacker stops but doesn’t move any closer. He adjusts his windbreaker in order to have easy access to his P2000, holstered under his left arm.

“What about?” he says.

The kid steps out of his car and stands with his hands in the air like he knows Thacker’s carrying. His hair is cut short, revealing a quarter-sized sore on his scalp.

“I got my baby daughter here,” he says, “and we don’t have nothing to eat.”

Thacker looks past the kid into the Toyota. He sees a car seat on the passenger side, covered with a Winnie-the-Pooh blanket.

“I ain’t never begged in my life, sir, but she needs food,” the kid continues.

“Where’s her mom?” Thacker asks.

“Well, sir, she’s a crackhead and run off with a bunch of Mexicans. I’m trying to get some food and gas, and then we’ll go on to my mom’s place in Hemet.”

“You on dope too?”

“Me? Oh, hell no, sir. Hell no.”

He’s lying. His eyes are spinning in his head like carnival rides. Thacker pulls a twenty from his wallet and steps up to pass it to him.

“Thank you, sir. God bless you,” the kid says.

“Put it in your pocket before you lose it,” Thacker says.

“Right, right,” the kid says. As soon as his hand drops, Thacker hits him in the temple with a quick left, knocking him to the ground.

“Please, sir, please!” the kid yelps. He curls into a ball and protects his head. Thacker steps over him and reaches into the Toyota to yank the blanket off the car seat. The seat is empty.

“You used the same story on me last week, you fucking moron,” Thacker says.

The kid doesn’t reply, just lies there breathing hard. Thacker kicks him twice in the ribs.

“Give me back my money.”

The kid digs into his pocket and brings out the bill. Thacker snatches it from his hand and tells him to get the fuck out of there. The kid scrambles to his feet and jumps into his car. Thacker waits until he drives out of the lot and disappears down the frontage road before walking to his own truck.

The sun is up now, and a bright creep of light spreads across the asphalt. Thacker sits behind the wheel and watches a couple of stray dogs sniff around the casino’s dumpsters. He thinks about going to the motel for a few hours’ sleep but decides he can’t bear the place this morning. He thinks about calling Lupita, but she’s made it clear there’ll be no more honey without more money.

So he’ll crash here for a while. He unfolds a silver sunscreen and places it against the windshield. With his shades on, it’s dark enough that he might be able to doze off. Reclining his seat as far as it’ll go, he closes his eyes. A black tornado spins in his head, minutes and days and years, voices and faces, his whole life. It’s always there waiting for him, and he always hopes it’ll slow down enough for him to pinpoint exactly when everything went wrong. But it never does.

M
ALONE WAKES UP LYING IN A PUDDLE ON THE FLOOR.
H
IS
HAIR IS
wet, his face. Luz is standing over him with a dripping Subway cup.

“Time to go,” she says, her shoes already on, already holding the backpack.

The sun on the ceiling is as blinding as a welder’s arc. Malone sits up and takes a moment to put together where he is and what’s going on. Most of it falls into place before his headache kicks in, with only a few details eluding him, mainly how he got back to the room last night. He stands with a groan, his back feeling like there’s a knife stuck in it. He’s too old to be sleeping on linoleum.

A few minutes in the shower help, but there’s blood on the toilet paper when he blows his nose. He pulls on his shorts and shirt and checks his watch: 9:15. The border is open, and Freddy’s man is on duty. A quick call to find out which traffic lane the guy’s working, and they’ll be on their way.

His phone, though. It’s not in the pocket where he usually keeps it. He walks back into the room and checks the floor and under the bed.

“Do you see it anywhere?” he asks Luz. She’s sitting in the chair by the door, frowning at him as he searches.

“This is a joke, right?” she says.

“It’s probably…” He pats his shorts again, all the way around. His wallet is there, his keys, but no phone.

“I don’t believe this,” Luz says.

“No big deal,” Malone assures her, recalibrating. “We can call from the office here.”

Luz opens the door and steps out into the hall. Malone decides not to get too worked up about disappointing her. All he can do now is bring this thing in for a safe landing. He makes one more circuit of the room, then follows Luz to the front desk.

The crippled woman is there in her wheelchair. Luz does the talking again. The woman shakes her head when Luz asks about using the phone, says it’s not possible.

“Why not?” Luz says.

“It’s not allowed,” the woman says.

“Why?” Luz says.

“Does she want money?” Malone asks Luz in English. He pulls a twenty from his pocket. “Money?” he says to the woman.

The woman shakes her head.

“Don’t be stupid,” Luz says to her.

The woman picks up the phone. “Maybe you want to talk to the police,” she says.

“What’s your problem?” Luz says.

Malone takes hold of Luz’s arm and hurries her toward the stairs. She’s fuming when they get down to the street.

“Don’t touch me again,” she says, shaking off Malone’s hand.

“Don’t freak out,” he says. “We’ll buy a card and call from a pay phone. It’ll take five seconds.”

“Unless you find some way to fuck that up too.”

They cross to the tree-shadowed park and ask a man sweeping leaves off the sidewalk where the nearest store is. He points them to a place on the corner, a small, dark shop that smells of bad meat. While Luz handles the transaction, Malone stands with his elbows pressed against his sides, afraid of knocking something off a shelf. He pays for the hundred-peso card and the bottle of Corona he pulls from a cooler. The old woman at the register slips the beer into a little plastic bag. A preacher yells in Spanish from a radio on the counter.

There’s a phone at the edge of the park. Luz sits on a nearby bench, tense in the shade. Malone opens the beer and takes a big swallow before searching his wallet for Freddy’s number. He thought he had it on a scrap of paper, but it doesn’t seem to be there. He calls information for the number of Goyo’s Body Shop. Goyo answers, and Malone is able to make him understand that he needs to speak to Freddy.

“Dígame,”
Freddy says when Malone finally reaches him.

“It’s me,” Malone says. “What’s up with our man in Tecate?”

There’s a pause, then Freddy says, “Where were you last night? I called and some crazy woman answered.”

“I guess I lost my phone.”

“You should be more careful.”

“Excellent advice.”

After another long pause, Freddy says, “Our friend is in the booth on the left.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck.”

Malone finishes the beer and leaves the bottle on top of the phone. There’s Tylenol in the Beamer, he remembers. He cleans his sunglasses on his shirt as he walks over to Luz. Strange black birds sing strange black songs in the park, and the shoeshine guys are opening their stalls.

“We’re all set,” he says.

The announcement doesn’t cheer Luz up any, and Malone feels dumb for thinking it would. She lifts her arms to straighten her ponytail, and the glimpse Malone catches of a red scallop of bra strap gives him a thrill that’s all kinds of wrong. Sneering at him like she can read his mind, Luz picks up her backpack and sets off for the car.

Traffic has died down since the early morning rush. The Explorer is parked in an empty lot overlooking the one-way road leading to the Tecate border crossing, and Jerónimo sits behind the wheel, watching the occasional car or truck pass by. He scouted this vantage point when he arrived last night and has been here since before the crossing opened, knowing that Luz and the white boy driving her will have to use the road to reach the port of entry.

 He’s too close to the checkpoint to stop the BMW before it gets to the border, so what he’ll do is slip in behind it, follow it through the crossing, and grab Luz once they’re in the U.S. If she decides to come easy, fine; if not, he’ll do what it takes. Either way, El Príncipe will have his woman by noon, and Irma and the kids will be free.

The truck heats up as the sun climbs higher in the dead-white sky. Jerónimo sips from the gallon jug of water he bought last night and eats some of the bread. His eyeballs feel like they’ve been rolled in sand, and his blood fizzes in his veins. He hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours and is slightly out of phase. It’s as if the morning is being projected onto a screen and he’s watching it brighten and busy there.

A loud bang startles him. He ducks and reaches for the Smith & Wesson. Something hits the side of the truck, and the rear window shatters. He lifts his head above the dash and sees a ragged, barefoot boy hurl a rock at the Explorer. Slipping out of the truck, he points the gun at the kid.

“What are you gonna do now,
pendejo?
” he yells.

A rock strikes him in the small of his back and another bounces off his knee. He whirls and spots two more boys and waves the gun at them, but the barrage continues, targeting both him and the truck, until he finally raises the pistol and fires a shot into the air. The urchins scatter, five or six of them, and disappear into scrub. All that’s left behind are their taunts.

“Fuck you!”

“Fucking faggot!”

“Tecate Locos for life!”

Sweat rolls off Jerónimo’s shaved head and stings his eyes. He rubs his back where the rock hit him and walks around the truck, checking for damage. His phone rings. Freddy again.

“The gringo called just now,” Freddy says. “They’re on their way to the crossing.”

“Good,” Jerónimo says. “And you didn’t say anything to your man at the border about me, right?” He doesn’t need any kind of cop up in his business.

“Of course not,” Freddy says. “This is between me and you.”

“Excellent,” Jerónimo says. “I trust you.”

But that’s a lie. Freddy’s a rat like all the other rats. The ones in prison and on the street, in the churches and police stations and government offices. More rats than men. It’s a plague.

Jerónimo moves the truck closer to the road so he’ll be ready. He keeps the engine running. Five minutes later a battered silver BMW rattles past, a white man driving. Jerónimo puts the Explorer into gear, but in the time it takes him to pull onto the asphalt, a black Honda and a big rig get between him and the Beamer. That’s cool. It’s better that he hangs back anyway, so he can come out of nowhere when he wants to.

Tecate being fifty miles from anyplace, there are only two lanes for passenger vehicles at the crossing, a couple more for trucks. Two lanes, two booths, two inspectors. Malone is in the left lane like he’s supposed to be, but Luz still feels anxious when she sees the backup ahead, three or four cars deep.

A uniformed inspector is walking a German shepherd past the waiting vehicles, encouraging the dog to sniff tires and bumpers and door panels. All Luz can think about is the money and the gun hidden in the trunk. Her heart pounds as the dog approaches the car, but it merely circles the BMW twice, then moves on.

Malone stares straight ahead, silent behind his sunglasses. He was shaky back in town—dropping his keys while unlocking the car, fumbling with the Tylenol bottle he took from the glove compartment—but he seems to be doing better now. Which is incredible, considering what a mess he was when he returned to the room last night, reeking of tequila and a whore’s perfume.

Luz hadn’t slept since he left—didn’t sleep all night, in fact. She lay in bed seething as he staggered into the bathroom to piss and then stood unsteadily in front of the window, hands pressed to the glass, head lowered.

“If you fuck this up for me, I’ll kill you,” she said to him.

“Go ahead,” he replied, and it didn’t sound like he was joking.

The line of cars moves forward. The BMW is next up at the booth. Luz tries to figure out the best way to sit so she doesn’t look nervous. She puts her hands under her thighs, then rests them in her lap. The inspector examines the documents of the driver ahead of them and keys something into a computer. Malone is whistling softly. He turns to Luz and says, “Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one,” as the BMW rolls up to the booth. Luz tenses the muscles in her legs to stop them from shaking. She reminds herself to breathe.

“How long have you been in Mexico?” the inspector, a big man with a gray flattop and mustache, asks.

Malone hands over his passport and Luz’s expired California ID.

“Just for the night,” he says. “Visiting Freddy.”

The inspector nods slightly.

“Bringing anything back with you?” he says.

“Nope, nothing,” Malone says.

The inspector glances at the passport and ID, then hands them back.

“Have a nice day.”

“You too,” Malone says.

Luz tries to tamp down her happiness, not wanting to jinx the successful crossing by celebrating too soon, but relief gets the best of her as they begin climbing the narrow, winding road leading away from the border, and she laughs and claps her hands.

“Thank God,” she says.

“God?” Malone says, giving her a stupid look. “You should be thanking me.”

Luz ignores him. She’s already thinking ahead to her next move. She’ll have Malone drop her at the Greyhound station in San Diego, where she’ll catch a bus to L.A. Her aunt Carmen will be surprised when she shows up, and probably angry. Luz hasn’t sent money like she promised, hasn’t even called in the three years she’s been with Rolando. Partly it was because she worried that Rolando would find out about Isabel, but she was also ashamed of how badly she’d screwed up her life. But what’s Carmen going to say when Luz opens the backpack and hands her a big pile of money? No?

And then she’ll grab Isabel and hug her for a solid hour. She’s imagined the moment many times, run through it in her head again and again. The past will be the past, and they’ll begin anew as mother and daughter somewhere Rolando will never find them. They’ll be happy like nobody else has ever been happy, just the two of them. She smiles thinking about it, beams at the dirty sky and the desert and the road cutting through it.

“Oh shit,” Malone says, staring into the rearview mirror.

“What?” she says. “What?” But he waves her quiet.

Thacker’s truck is backed onto a dirt turnout that’s shielded from the road leading up from the border by a thick stand of scrub oak. He changed into his uniform, covered the truck’s plates with duct tape, and now he waits, crouched behind the trees, watching the crossing through a pair of binoculars. Murph won’t be able to call from his booth when he passes the BMW through, so this is the only way Thacker will know the car is headed in his direction.

A big green fly keeps trying to crawl into his ear. He can see over the fence into downtown Tecate, and the breeze brings him bits of music. Some Saturdays when the boys were young, he and Marla would take them over there for lunch at a restaurant they all liked. He remembers the time Mike Jr. played a trick on Brady, pretending to eat a jalapeño from a dish on the table but actually palming the pepper and dropping it into his napkin. Determined not to be outdone by his big brother, Brady bit into a pepper himself and ended up spitting it out and crying furious tears when he realized he’d been duped. The whole family used to laugh at that story whenever anybody brought it up, back in the days when they used to laugh.

The sun glints off a silver car leaving the inspection area. Thacker messes with the focus on the binoculars until the image sharpens. Older-model BMW, white man driving, Mexican female passenger, just like Murph said. He hurries to his truck and slides into the front seat.

Pulling to the edge of the road, he idles there and waits for the Beamer. The radio is playing country music. He snaps it off and turns on the loudspeaker he added a few years ago, clicks the mike to check the volume. He notices his shirt is missing a button over his gut. It must have popped off somewhere between the casino parking lot and here. This irks him. He hates looking like a slob. Using his thumb and forefinger, he pinches shut the gap to hide his sweaty undershirt.

The BMW clatters past, struggling up the hill. Thacker bumps onto the road behind it but keeps his distance. Where he wants to do this is in a canyon about half a mile up. Railroad property, nice and secluded. The pair in the car won’t know what hit them. “Huh? What?” and he’ll be gone. If the girl is carrying as much money as Murph says she is, it’ll be as close as Thacker’s come to winning in a long time. He’ll pay off fucking Hutchinson, fucking Marla, and start making plans.

He hits the gas as the car nears the top of the hill, crawls up the Beamer’s ass, and presses the switch of the mini–light bar suction-cupped to the inside of his windshield. The red and blue strobes catch the driver’s attention right away, and the guy slows and drifts to the shoulder. Thacker gets on the mike and orders him to keep moving.