Angel Baby: A Novel (7 page)

Jerónimo sets out for B Block, walking across the basketball court and the weight pit. It’s a hot night but still a relief from the swelter of the cellblock. And he can see the stars out here, faint in the purple sky, at least until the tower guard decides to fuck with him by shining a spotlight in his face. Jerónimo raises a hand to block the beam and keeps his eyes on the ground, not missing a step.

When he reaches B Block, he pushes a button next to the door that sounds a buzzer. A guard appears at the window in the door, and another twenty gets Jerónimo inside.

He met Irma at the pharmacy where she worked. He liked how classy she looked in her white coat and pants, but she cut him off with a cold stare when he tried to flirt with her as she rang up his chewing gum and deodorant. Catching a glimpse of his shaved head and tattoos in a mirror on his way out, he couldn’t blame her. A woman like that could do a lot better than a thug like him.

Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He found himself remembering her eyes while he ate lunch and mooning over her dainty hands as he drove to a barbershop to squeeze a payment for El Príncipe out of the owner. He returned to the pharmacy the next day for more gum and asked Irma if she could recommend some vitamins, said he’d been feeling a little run-down. She came out from behind the counter and spent ten minutes with him, explaining the different pills and what they were supposed to do for you. When he asked if she knew of anything that’d make him better looking, she smiled the faintest of smiles and said, “You’re a funny one, aren’t you.”

“I’m trying,” he replied.

He replayed this exchange over and over for the rest of the day, searching for deeper meaning in Irma’s every word, every gesture. And then, that night, as he once again tossed and turned in his narrow bed, feverish with visions of his bleak future, it came to him as suddenly as a bullet to the head: He loved her, and loving her was the only thing that would save his life.

He began to court Irma with all the desperation this realization inspired, showing up at the pharmacy every day with a small gift and a compliment. After two weeks she agreed to have coffee with him, two weeks later, lunch. Every time he was with her, he found something new to admire. There had been other women in his life, but none like her. Her sincerity and kindness seemed to alter the composition of the air he breathed and transform the chemistry of his blood.

He told her the truth from the very beginning, that he was a murderer, a thief, a weapon in the hands of evil men.

“But there’s something good in me,” he said. “It’s growing every day, taking over.”

Irma told him later that his honesty had taken her by surprise. She’d been expecting gangster posturing and crude boasts, but instead was moved by the tears she saw in his eyes when he expressed his desire for a new kind of life. After a month of listening to him lay himself bare, she finally reached across the table and took his hand.

“That’s enough looking back,” she said. “From now on, we only think about the future.”

This was all the encouragement Jerónimo needed. He met with El Príncipe the very next day to tell him that he’d soon be starting a family and wanted to switch to a safer line of work. It was a dangerous announcement to make—you didn’t just up and walk away from El Príncipe’s crew—but Jerónimo was now determined to be a free man, dead or alive.

At first the Prince scoffed at him. “What the fuck else do you think you’re going to do?” he said. “All you’re good at is scaring people.” Then he got angry, deciding that Jerónimo’s wanting to go straight was some kind of insult. He drew a gun and pointed it across his desk, called Jerónimo a traitor and threatened to kill him then and there.

Jerónimo didn’t flinch. He stared down the barrel of the gun and again asked for the Prince’s understanding. “You know I’ve been loyal to you,” he said. “And I’m here now as one honorable man speaking the truth to another honorable man.”

El Príncipe pressed the gun to his forehead.

“On your knees,” he said.

“Respectfully,” Jerónimo replied. “I’ll take it standing.”

A clock in the room ticked five times, and then the Prince sat down, the gun lying on the desk in front of him. The agreement was this: Jerónimo wouldn’t be allowed to leave the gang. Instead, he’d be moved down into the reserves. He’d no longer work directly for El Príncipe but would still be called upon to do favors for the crew from time to time. And God help him if he ever refused such a request. It wasn’t the clean break Jerónimo had been hoping for, but he knew better than to push his luck.

The main corridor of B Block has been converted into a dormitory. Rows of steel bunks stacked two high, narrow walkways between them, fill the cavernous space. The din is even more intense here than it is in Jerónimo’s block, a good thing in this case. Nobody even notices when he steps inside.

As he makes his way across the room, he hardens into something less human than he was moments before and pulls the ice pick from his sweatpants. Arriving at the last row of bunks, he starts down it, a wrecking ball in mid-swing, prepared to smash anyone who gets in his way. The cons he encounters in the cramped aisle feel the heat coming off him and fall onto their racks or step aside to let him pass.

All he hears now is his own breathing, a rasping in his head. Salazar is lying on his bunk, thumbing a PlayStation. He looks up an instant before Jerónimo reaches him. His eyes widen. Jerónimo thought he might try to reason with him, warn him, frighten him, but an image of the last man the fucker killed—splayed in the dirt, opened up from throat to groin—comes to him, and in one swift motion he clamps his hand over Salazar’s mouth and plunges the pick into his bare chest.

One-two-three-four-five. He stabs him as quickly as he can yank the pick out and slam it back in. Six-seven-eight-nine. He leaves the pick in on the last thrust and jerks the handle back and forth in order to do as much damage as possible. Salazar dies without a struggle, without a sound, his eyes rolling back in his head, a trickle of black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Jerónimo withdraws the pick and wipes it clean on the sheet. He’s sweating like crazy, panting, as he makes his way back up the alley between the bunks. Nobody tries to stop him as he hurries to the guard station. Someone will toss a blanket over the corpse, someone else will steal the dead man’s shoes. It’ll be tomorrow morning before a guard finally discovers the body.

The pig controlling the doors barely looks up at Jerónimo when buzzing him out. A dog barks somewhere in the night as he walks across the yard, a car alarm goes off, a plane flies low overhead. He blocks his nostrils one at a time and blows them clear. When he spits, he tastes blood. An empty plastic bag rolls toward him on the wind. Before he can get out of its way, it wraps around his feet and nearly trips him.

After meeting with El Príncipe, Jerónimo used all the money he had saved to pay the various bribes that would allow him to drive a taxi. He rented a cab and began working sixteen-hour days ferrying passengers around Tijuana. He and Irma married and settled into a little house in a quiet neighborhood. He worshiped her, she rooted for him, and they were happy. Ariel came along, then Junior, and the plan was to save $10,000 and move to San Diego or L.A.

The errands Jerónimo was required to do for El Príncipe were usually simple tasks. Every couple of months a call would come: Pick this up here and drop it off there. One night, however, he was ordered to torch a car, and on another occasion he beat an old man who owed money. That kind of thuggery weighed on him now like it never had before, and he looked forward to the day he and his family would cross the border and he’d leave the gangster life behind for good.

They were three months from making the move when he drove his cab to an address El Príncipe’s man gave him, honked twice as instructed, and waited for someone to come out of the house and get the package he was carrying in the trunk. The car was suddenly surrounded by masked soldiers dressed in black. They laid him facedown in the street and kicked him in the head after showing him the five pounds of heroin he’d been hauling. Whose is it? they wanted to know.

“Whose do you think?” he said. “It’s mine,” and he’s been in La Mesa ever since.

El Príncipe rewarded him for taking the fall. He gets enough money to live like a man in here, and every month Irma picks up an envelope full of cash for her and the kids. Now all he has to do is survive the two years remaining on his sentence. He’s been keeping his hands clean and taking it day by day. Until now.

Back in his cell he strips and washes up, then puts on aftershave and a clean T-shirt and shorts. Lying on his bunk, he aims the fan at his face and sets it to high. The Dodgers are playing. He plugs his headphones into the TV and turns it up so that the crowd is the loudest thing in his head. When Baldy comes for him, the pig has to step into his cell and jab him in the shoulder with his club to get his attention. Jerónimo takes off the headphones, and the clamor of the block returns.

“Let’s go,” Baldy says.

“Where to?” Jerónimo says.

“Your friend wants to see you.”

N
IGHT HAS FALLEN, AND
L
UZ IS STILL WAITING AT THE BODY SHOP
for the driver to arrive. She asks again when he’ll be there, and again Freddy says, “Soon.” She needs to leave town
now
. It’s agony being stranded here in the dark and imagining Rolando moving from shadow to shadow, closing in, murder on his mind.

She paces the parking lot, walks from the stack of tires she’s been sitting on to the fence and back. She keeps one hand in the pack, finger curled around the trigger of the pistol. Once or twice today she’s caught Freddy staring at her and going over in his mind various ways to take the money. She stared right back at him, thinking,
Try it, you
hijo de puta, and if he comes after her, she will, she’ll shoot him, no problem. The money is Isabel’s, the down payment on their future, the foundation for their new life.

She reaches the fence, turns, and starts back toward the tires. When she’s halfway there the lot is flooded with light. A car has pulled into the driveway. Freddy and Goyo freeze, but Luz draws the .45 and crouches beside the fence. Dust swirls in the beams of the car’s headlights, and Freddy and Goyo, hands raised weakly against the glare, are bleached into ghostliness.

The car’s horn bleats twice, and a voice calls out in English, “Open up, already.”

Goyo waddles over and takes hold of the gate, drags it sideways. A beat-up silver BMW pulls into the lot. The engine sputters and dies, and darkness and quiet return. Luz lowers the gun into the pack but stays where she is, back pressed against the chain-link fence.

A white man steps out of the car, some beach bum, tall and thin, older, maybe thirty, thirty-five. He’s wearing a T-shirt advertising a surf shop, plaid shorts, and black Converse tennis shoes. Surely this isn’t the guy Freddy’s been talking up all day, his best driver. This
pendejo
can’t even keep his hair out of his eyes, has to brush it back every time he turns his head.

“Just so you know, this isn’t going to be a regular thing,” he says to Freddy. “Nighttime is the wrong time to be fucking around down here.”

“If you have trouble with anyone, tell them you know me,” Freddy says.

“Yeah, right,” the bum says. “I do that, I’ll end up in the river.”

“Hey, we’re all going to end up in the river someday,” Freddy says.

He leans in close to speak quietly to the bum. The bum listens for a while, nodding agreeably, but then suddenly stops Freddy and says, “In the morning? You didn’t say anything about in the morning.” Apparently there’s a disagreement over the details of the trip. Not being able to hear what’s being said, all Luz can do is watch the men argue in urgent whispers. The bum puts up a fight, but Freddy is relentless and eventually gets his way. He slaps the bum on the back and steers him to where Luz is waiting.

“Now come and meet our friend,” he says. “She needs our help.”

“There any beer around?” the bum asks.

“Goyo,” Freddy calls and tips an imaginary can into his mouth. Goyo grunts and walks into the office.

Freddy brings the bum over, and Luz moves away from the fence, standing up straight to squint down her nose at him. His blue eyes are bloodshot, and he looks as if he could use a shower.

“
Señorita
Luz, this is Kevin Malone, who’s going to take you across,” Freddy says.

Malone lifts his chin by way of greeting, doesn’t even meet her gaze. It’s like he could take or leave this job. This infuriates Luz. She can’t believe she’ll be putting her life in the hands of this
cabrón.

“This is what I have arranged for you,” Freddy continues. “Tomorrow morning you two will drive to Tecate, where a friend of mine will be working at the crossing. At ten a.m., you and Kevin will pass through his station into the U.S. It will be very quick and very simple with no possibility of being stopped. You won’t even have to hide; you can sit right up front in the car. Then, once you are across, Kevin will drop you wherever you would like, and you can be on your way.”

“I told you I need to leave today,” Luz says. She struggles to keep her voice under control.

Freddy raises his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I know, I know, but it’s late,
señorita,
and my man isn’t on duty until tomorrow.”

“I want to cross tonight. I want to cross right now.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. Everything will be fine though. I promise you’ll be safe and comfortable. Kevin will take you to a nice hotel, and —”

“No,” Luz interrupts. “I want to leave tonight, and I’m not getting into a car with him.”

“What do you mean?” Freddy says.

“I want another driver.”

“Another driver? But Kevin is the best. He’s already taken five people across today.”

Goyo returns with a can of Modelo. Malone opens it and has a sip.

“Look at him,” Luz says. “Drinking like this is nothing. And he doesn’t even speak Spanish.”

“Sure, I do,” Malone says in Spanish. “A little. Do you speak English?”

“Fuck you,” Luz replies in English. “How’s that?”

Freddy steps between them. “Listen,” he says.

“You listen,” Luz says. “I’m paying you a lot of money—more than I should be—for this special deal or whatever it is, and I want someone sober, I want someone smart, and I want to cross tonight.”

Malone turns to Freddy with a shrug. “Customer’s always right,” he says. He takes another swig of beer and walks to his car, leans against the trunk, and tilts his head back to look up at the sky.

“Chingada madre!”
Freddy shouts. He advances on Luz with clenched fists and bulging veins. Luz’s breath catches in her throat. She draws the Colt and stops him in his tracks. He mutters to himself, tugs his goatee, then points at the gate.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he says.

“Fine,” Luz says. “Give me my money back.”

Freddy reaches into his pocket for the stack of bills he took from her earlier. He pulls off five hundreds—“For my trouble,” he says—and throws the rest at her feet.

“And you better make your peace with God,” he continues. “Because whoever you took that money from is gonna get you real quick.”

Luz picks up the cash and shoves it into the backpack. She heads for the gate but slows as she reaches it. The dark, empty street outside frightens her. Freddy’s right: She’s dead if she leaves here. Rolando is waiting in every doorway, all the alleys, and she has nowhere else to go, nobody else to turn to. Though it wrenches her pride all the way to its roots, she wheels to face Freddy again.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay what?” Freddy replies. He’s going to make her say it.

She nods at Malone. “He can drive.”

“Why, thank you,
señorita,
” Freddy says with a sneer. “Thank you very much.”

“But we leave for Tecate now,” she says. “I’m not spending another night in this city.”

Malone smiles and lifts his beer in a mock toast, and Luz tightens her grip on the gun inside the backpack. So he thinks this is funny, does he? Well, that’s okay. She’s got more than enough bullets left to make a joker like him cry.

As he pulls away from the body shop, Malone sticks his arm out the window of the Beamer and flips Freddy off. It’s thirty miles to Tecate on the toll road. He and the girl will be there in less than an hour. He’ll check her into a hotel, go out for a few beers, drive her across the border in the morning and dump her where she wants, and then he’s done. His money will be waiting for him at one of the drop houses in San Ysidro.

He sneaks a look at his passenger. She’s staring out the windshield, her backpack clutched to her chest. There’s money in it, Freddy told him, and he saw the gun himself. Definitely not your typical
pollo.
She speaks English for one, and you can tell someone has put her on a pedestal, spoiled her a little. Most of the people he hauls are so meek they won’t even look him in the eye. This girl has an attitude. That’s what happens when you’re as nice-looking as she is. Even dressed down, she’s a natural beauty. Long black hair, dark eyes, smooth brown skin. The kind of woman men make all kinds of mistakes for.

“The air-conditioning’s busted,” he says, “but you can roll down the window.”

No response, not a twitch.

“Roll down your window if you want,” he says again, louder, thinking she didn’t hear him.

“I’m fine,” she snaps.

Good deal. If he doesn’t even have to talk to her, this job’ll be cake. He turns on the radio and fiddles with the knob until he picks up a classic rock station out of San Diego that’s playing a Neil Young song he’s never heard before. He passes a little pickup chugging along with a load of old refrigerators, and then a big black SUV with tinted windows and chrome wheels blows by both of them. A
narco
, most likely. They’re the only ones who can afford vehicles like that around here.

He’s almost at the entrance to the toll road when flashing lights appear in the rearview mirror. It’s where he’d wait, too, if he was a cop looking to shake down tourists with a bit of money in their pockets. He searches for a place to pull over as the fuckers give their siren a workout.

Luz glances over her shoulder at the police car, and all the haughtiness drains out of her. She turns to Malone with panic in her eyes and says, “Don’t stop.”

“Are you kidding?” he says.

“They’re going to kill us.”

“What are you talking about? You know how it goes. They’ll tell me I ran a stop sign, I’ll give them twenty bucks, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Please,” Luz says.

Malone switches off the radio. The girl is scared, and that scares him.

“Look,” he says. “I have to stop, but it’ll be okay. Stay cool and, whatever you do, don’t let them see that
pistola
you’re carrying.”

Luz starts to say something else, but then sits back and chews her lower lip.

Malone eases to the shoulder in front of a Home Depot. The cruiser rolls up behind them, and the Beamer is suddenly filled with white light. Luz sets the backpack on the floor at her feet.

“Tranquila,”
Malone says. He watches in the side mirror as a shadow slides out of the cruiser and comes toward the BMW. It’s impossible in the glare to make out any details, so he sits and sweats, waiting to see who appears at the window.

“Buenas noches.”

It’s a cop, a regular old cop.

“Buenas noches,”
Malone says.

The officer asks in English for his license, and Malone removes the card from his wallet and hands it to him.

“Where you going so fast?” the cop says. His partner has moved up to stand on the passenger side of the car.

“We’re meeting friends for dinner in Tecate,” Malone says.

The cop nods at Luz.

“Who’s she?”

“My girlfriend,” Malone says.

“Buenas noches, señorita,”
the cop says to Luz.

“Buenas noches,”
she replies.

“You like Mexican girls?” the cop says to Malone.

“I like this one,” Malone says.

The cop smiles. He’s missing a tooth. He adjusts his hat and puts his hand on his gun.

“You were speeding,” he says. “Follow us to the station to pay your fine.”

“Oh, man,” Malone says. “Is there some way to take care of this here? We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

An eighteen-wheeler rockets past, stirring up dirt and trash and shaking the BMW. The cop stands up straight and presses himself against the door. Two more trucks pass in quick succession.

When the road clears, the cop bends to look in the window again. “Forty dollars,” he says.

Malone can tell the man is eager to move on. He slips two twenties from his wallet and hands them over. The cop folds them carefully and tucks them into his ticket book. He glances once more at Malone’s license before returning it.

“Slow down, Mr. Malone,” he says.

“I will,” Malone says. “Sorry to trouble you.”

The cop then nods at Luz and says something to her in Spanish that Malone doesn’t catch, something that tightens her jaw. This makes the cop smile. He motions for his partner to return to the cruiser, and Malone waits until they get in and turn off the spotlight before starting the Beamer.

“Do you know how many times I’ve been through that?” he says to Luz. “I’m surprised I didn’t recognize the guy.”

Luz doesn’t respond, is back to staring blankly out the windshield.

Malone doesn’t feel completely in the clear until they hit the toll road and are beyond the jurisdiction of the city cops. He sits back in his seat then and releases his death grip on the steering wheel. A sliver of moon is rising over the scrub-covered hills, and the warm air smells of sage. He reaches for the radio but decides against it, enjoying the silence. The sky is full of stars.

Luz finally stirs, rolls down her window. Malone notices a tattoo on the back of her neck, up under her ponytail.
Angel Baby.

“What’d that fucker say to you back there?” he asks her.

“He wanted to know how much for me to suck his cock,” Luz replies.

“Awww, man, that’s terrible,” Malone says.

Luz shrugs and sticks her hand out the window to feel the air rushing past. Malone is sad looking at her, sad thinking about her life. He should have brought a bottle along. You’ve got to be ready for moments like these, ready to drown your ruined heart as soon as it starts beating again.