Angel Baby: A Novel (14 page)

“They booked, huh?” the fat man says.

Jerónimo shrugs. He doesn’t want to give too much away to a crooked cop. But the fat man doesn’t back down.

“Do you know where they’re headed?” he says.

“Just drop me at my truck,” Jerónimo says.

“What? I thought we had a good thing going.”

“Don’t be corny, man. I’m not playing.”

The fat man exhales loudly and slips a finger behind the lens of his sunglasses to rub his eye. He’s silent for a minute, then says out of nowhere, “You know you need my help.”

Jerónimo stares out the windshield, doesn’t even blink.

“Do I?” he says.

“Think about your next move, whatever it is,” the fat man says. “What’s going to get you farther?” He points at the tattoos on Jerónimo’s neck and arms. “This shit?” he says, then taps the badge pinned to his own chest. “Or this?”

The fucker’s pulling rank, saying, “You’re down there, and I’m up here.” He thinks everybody’s afraid of what he’s afraid of, that his world is the only one there is. Typical cop. Learned everything he knows off TV. Jerónimo’s been running circles around fools like him forever. He draws his gun with a flourish, like a lawyer brandishing courtroom proof.

“How about this?” he says.

“Please,” the fat man says. “You’re smarter than that.”

They pass the site of the shootout and round the bend in the canyon to pull up beside the Explorer. Jerónimo opens the door and hops out as soon as the truck stops. He’s had enough talk. He walks to the Explorer and starts to get in, but then notices that the left front tire is flat. Part of him panics, the other part refuses to. He steps to the back of the vehicle and bends over to check underneath for a spare. Nothing there. The first option that comes to mind is the one he goes with. He turns to face the Dodge, gun in hand.

The fat man has seen the flat too, and anticipated Jerónimo’s move. He’s already out of the truck, already crouched behind the door, already has his pistol pointed at Jerónimo’s head.

“Here we go again,” the fat man says.

Jerónimo feels like an idiot for letting the bastard get the jump on him.

“I need your truck,” he says.

“Well, I need the money that bitch is carrying,” the fat man says. “So what are we gonna do?”

“I bet you’ve got an idea.”

“Just the same one I had before,” the fat man says. “I’ll drive you where you need to go and put myself at your disposal. Use me. Use my uniform, my gun, my ugly white face. I can talk to bad guys for you, I can talk to cops. You need a plate run, I can do that. You need me to put the fear of God into someone, I can do that too.”

Jerónimo grinds his teeth, thinking it over. He can shoot it out with the asshole, may the best man win, or he can take him up on his offer. A partner on this might not be a bad thing, at least for now. He can always get rid of him later if it doesn’t work out. What’s important is catching up to Luz as quickly as possible, getting her back to TJ, and freeing his family. He can’t let his pride screw that up.

He lowers his gun but continues to stare into the fat man’s eyes like he can see all the way through to his thoughts.

“What’s your problem?” he asks him.

“What do you mean?” the fat man replies.

“Why do you need this money so bad that you’re willing to rob motherfuckers in order to get it?”

“You go first,” the fat man says.

“What?”

“Who are you working for?”

“Fuck that,” Jerónimo says. “You got to read me my rights first.”

The fat man’s face hardens. He doesn’t like getting the runaround, the big, bad cop.

“I suck at blackjack,” he finally says. “How about that?”

Jerónimo grins, can’t help himself.

“So we on or what?” the fat man says.

Jerónimo shoves his gun in his waistband. The fat man holsters his piece and steps out from behind the door of the truck.

“The girl has a kid in L.A., a daughter,” Jerónimo says.

“And you think she’ll try to get to her?” the fat man says.

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Let’s hit the road then,” the fat man says. “I’ll have you there in three hours.”

Jerónimo returns to the Explorer and gathers up the money and the jug of water and bag of
bolillos
he bought in Tecate, then walks over to the Dodge. The wind catches the door when he opens it, would bend the hinges back if he wasn’t holding it.

“We’ll pick up a tire on the way back,” the fat man says as Jerónimo settles into the passenger seat.

“Don’t worry about that,” Jerónimo says. “Just get going.”

They head for the mouth of the canyon. Jerónimo tries not to think about the long drive ahead, about Irma and the kids, about El Príncipe. The job is the job, and the circumstances that led him here don’t matter. Get. That. Girl. He sends her a message, wherever she is, sends it on the wind, through the telephone lines, trying to break her spirit from afar:
No sense running. No sense hiding. You know I’m going to find you.

L
UZ CAN’T BELIEVE IT.
T
HEY
’VE BEEN RUNNING FOR MAYBE THIRTY
seconds, and Malone already wants to stop.

“To see…to see…if they’re following,” he pants.

He drops to his stomach next to some coyote bush and motions for her to do the same. Reluctantly, she stretches out beside him in a narrow patch of winking shade. Licking her dry lips, she scans the plain for pursuers. She can see all the way back to the canyon. Boulders and chaparral bake in the heat, and a shimmering quicksilver mirage reflects the sky like a pool of standing water. Malone’s breathing gradually slows. He stinks of liquor and sweat.

Five tense minutes pass. A buzz, an electric sizzle, fills the air. Cicadas. The sound tickles the back of Luz’s brain, makes her wish she could scratch it somehow. She’s about to get up and start running again when she sees movement at the lip of the canyon. A man appears, the tattooed one from before. He stands staring in their direction with hawkish intensity.

“Keep still,” Malone says.

The man crouches to examine something on the ground, then stands again. After another glance their way, he turns and climbs back down into the canyon.

Luz raises herself onto her elbows, but Malone stops her from sitting up.

“Not yet,” he whispers.

She watches the spot where the man disappeared. Her attention wanders after a few minutes, the sleepless night catching up to her. A tall clump of grass sways in the breeze with undersea gracefulness, and she drowses staring at it. Suddenly, she’s back in the bedroom of Rolando’s house. He wants to show her a knife he bought, joins her on the bed, and mimes stabbing someone. She snaps back to attention, angry with herself for drifting off.

“This is dumb,” she says. “He’s not coming back.”

She scrambles to her feet and slaps the dust off her shirt.

“Come on.”

Malone glares at her, irritated, but then stands himself and picks up the backpack.

They continue across the plain, jogging at first, then walking. Coming upon a trail worn into the hardpan, they follow it without discussion, like water grateful for a channel. Luz lets Malone lead because he seems to have some notion of where they’re headed. She hopes she’s not giving him too much credit.

The trail takes them to a set of train tracks on a raised bed. They climb to stand on the rails, which run forever in both directions. On the other side of the tracks is a dirt road. To the left, it parallels the tracks until it fades into the distance. They follow it to the right, where it turns to enter a copse of willows and cottonwoods.

It’s at least twenty degrees cooler in the shady grotto formed by the overhanging branches, and the road dips quickly to cross a small but noisy creek. Luz kneels beside the stream and splashes water on her face while Malone lowers his mouth to the trickle for a drink. After one swallow, he spits and grimaces.

“Not good,” he says, warning Luz away.

She notices a paw print in the mud, then another, and another. The track crosses the creek and continues up the other bank before disappearing into the thick undergrowth. She reaches for a rock, imagining some animal preparing to pounce.

Malone is lying on his back with his eyes closed like he wants to stay here all day. Luz tosses the rock so that it thumps on the ground next to his head. He sits up and stares at her.

“What’s your problem?” he says.

“Let’s go.”

He gets up but then sits again and lowers his head between his knees.

“What’s wrong?” Luz says.

He leans over and vomits into the bushes. Luz scoots away until she’s backed against a tree. Her own stomach kicks when the sour smell reaches her. He’s probably just sick from the heat, but what if it’s something worse? It makes her angry to think that this bum, this surfer boy, has so quickly become her only hope.

Malone wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He’s pale and sweaty but still grins when he says, “Got any gum?”

“Can you go on?” Luz says.

He dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “I knew a football player in college who puked before every game,” he says. “He claimed it was his body getting rid of fear.”

“Well, you must really be scared then,” Luz says.

The rumble of an approaching engine drowns out the warbles of the birds and the hiss of the breeze through the leaves. Luz sits stock-still, trying to pinpoint where the sound is coming from, but Malone jumps to his feet. He snatches her up with one hand and grabs the backpack with the other, then pushes her in front of him to a fallen tree lying on the bank of the creek.

They step over the trunk together, and Malone pulls her to the ground so that they’re both hidden behind it. The feeling of him lying on top of her starts her hands shaking. She can’t stand being pushed, being held down. Too many bad memories.

The noise is louder now, the vehicle definitely coming closer. Luz’s cheek is pressed to the dirt, but she can see under the tree to where the road crosses the stream. A Border Patrol truck roars into the grove and skids to a stop straddling the creek. The driver, a short Latino in a green uniform, steps out and stands facing their hiding place as he unzips his pants.

“Not in the water, man,” another uniform calls from inside the truck.

“Fuck off,” the first agent says.

He pisses long and loud, all the while staring up at a squirrel cavorting in the branches of a cottonwood, a chittering gray spasm anchored by an angry plume of tail. Luz’s panic gets the best of her, and she tries to squirm out of Malone’s grasp. He holds her tightly, whispering “Shhhhhh” until she settles.

The agent finishes with a grunt, then zips up and slides back into the truck. He revs the engine a couple of times before climbing out of the creek bed and turning to follow the road along the tracks. The sound of the motor fades away.

When the birds begin singing again, Malone rolls off Luz, and she stands and paces the clearing until she feels human. This takes some time. There’s a part of her that can’t bear to be touched by a man. It goes back to the day she left her mother’s house for good.

She was thirteen, lying in bed, watching TV. Her mother came in with some guy, some fat pig in a dirty shirt, a customer. Luz sighed and turned off the television, got up to go for a walk like she always did while Mamá took care of business. This time, however, Theresa stopped her, told her to sit.

“This is Ramón,” she said.

“So?” Luz said.

“He wants to get to know you.”

Luz understood immediately what her mother meant. A trembling started deep inside her, and to this day it’s never quite gone away.

“Look,” Mamá said. “How much do you give for rent here? How much for food?”

Luz couldn’t speak.

“I’ll tell you,” Mamá continued. “Nothing and nothing.” She gestured at the pig, who scratched his belly and licked his lips and looked just like a man who would pay to fuck a little girl. “This is Ramón.”

Ramón stepped up to the bed and reached for Luz, put his fat, sweaty hands on her cheeks, and smiled into her face.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’m very gentle.”

Luz tried to pull away, but he held her tighter. She lashed out like an animal desperate to escape a trap, pummeled him with fists and feet until he released her, then sprang up, pushed past her mother, and ran out the front door.

For the next couple of weeks she bounced between the homes of various friends. Another fight with Mamá, she told them, too ashamed to reveal what had really happened, and they fed her and lent her clothes like they had every other time she’d run away. But this time was different. This time she wasn’t going back.

One of her friends had a cousin visiting from the U.S., an eighteen-year-old marine named Victor. Luz noticed how he looked at her, and it gave her an idea. She told the kid she was sixteen and flirted hard with him for the few days he was in town, let him tongue-kiss her and stick his hands up under her blouse. The poor
pendejo
fell for her like she knew he would and was almost in tears at the thought of leaving her behind when it was time for him to return to San Diego.

“So take me with you,” she said, putting tears into her own eyes.

That night he hid her inside the toolbox in the bed of his pickup and managed to sneak her across the border. They checked into a motel afterward, where he planned to celebrate their success by fucking her for the first time. Luz jumped up off the bed as soon as he dropped his pants, though, and locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out.

“What’s the matter?” the kid asked through the door.

Luz began to cry for real then, blubbering out the truth: “I’m only thirteen.”

“No way,” the kid said.

“I swear,” Luz replied.

Victor was upset at being played like that but eventually calmed down. He put his pants back on and was kind enough to drive her to the bus station and buy her a ticket to L.A.

“I’m gonna come looking for you in five years,” he said. “See if you’re still pretty.”

It was a nice thought, but Luz never heard from him again.

Something stirs in the bushes, making her jump. Nothing, just a bird. She shakes off the past and refocuses on Isabel. Malone is now sitting on the log with his head in his hands. If he’s not ready to move, she’ll have to leave him behind.

“Are you going to vomit again?” she says.

“Nah, nah,” he replies, pushing himself up and grabbing the backpack. “Let’s do it to it.”

Luz takes the lead now, sticking to the road, eyes and ears alert for more vehicles. Her mouth is full of dust. She spits weakly, and the wind blows the gob back onto her shirt. As she trudges along she replays the shootout in the canyon. Freddy betrayed them for sure, but she’d bet Rolando was also somehow involved. The thought sends a shudder through her and makes her walk even faster.

The road swings around the base of a hill, and the landscape changes abruptly. A fire burned through here recently, leaving in its wake gray ash, scorched boulders, and the skeletons of oaks and sagebrush and spiny yuccas. Barbed wire still clings to the charred posts of a fence defining some boundary in the midst of the desolation, and the blackened chassis of an abandoned car lies rusting in a ditch.

Luz hurries through the blight, but Malone lags behind, plodding along with his head down. Luz doesn’t dare risk shouting for him to hurry, but she’s not willing to slow down either. When the road curves again and she loses sight of him completely, tension builds inside her, agitation on a slow boil. She decides she’ll wait for him up ahead, where the way straightens some.

An unexpected sight greets her when she reaches the spot: A hundred feet further on is an expanse of unburned ground with a couple of trees and a bit of green grass growing on it. A sunbaked trailer sits on the property, a few sheds, and, most important, an old blue pickup truck. Her frustration is suddenly washed away by a rogue wave of joy, and she thinks this must be what it’s like to be saved.

Malone feels as if he might puke again. Counting his steps in order to keep his mind off it, he places one foot in front of the other and attempts to get a rhythm going. He smells smoke and then notices the burned landscape he’s now walking through. It seems like a trick, some blasted vision brought on by heat and thirst.

Luz runs up the road toward him, motioning for him to stop.

“There’s a trailer,” she says when she gets close.

“How far?”

She points back the way she came. “There. Right there.”

They creep around a bend and come upon a dilapidated aluminum Airstream sitting on a green island in a sea of black and gray. Malone goes first as they approach it and keeps a lookout for any sign of the residents. You’ve got meth labs out here, Nazi bikers, drug runners, coyotes—all kinds of outlaws who are serious about being left alone.

A dog the color of sand rockets out of its shady haven beneath the trailer to charge them when they turn into the driveway. Malone raises his foot, ready to fend off the animal, but the gristly old mutt stops short, plants its paws, and howls its guts out.

“Cassius!” a man’s voice shouts. “Quiet!”

The dog returns to its lair, and a geezer in filthy jeans and a T-shirt advertising a liquor store appears in the doorway of the trailer. What’s left of his white hair sticks straight up on his head, and a cigarette dangles from his lips.

“Howdy,” Malone says, hand raised in greeting.

“Howdy,” the old man says.

“Our car broke down,” Malone says. “Do you have a phone we could use?”

What good a phone is going to do them, he doesn’t know. It’s the first thing that came to mind is all.

“Broke down?” the old man says, a suspicious squint crinkling the thin skin around his blue eyes. He waits with his hands on his hips as Malone and Luz draw nearer.

“Overheated, most likely,” Malone says.

“Whereabouts?”

Malone gestures vaguely. “Ten minutes away. We just need to call someone to come get us.”

“I have a cell phone,” the old man says. “But you have to go up to the highway to get a signal.”

“We’d appreciate it if you’d let us use it,” Malone says.

“No problem.”

“And if you could spare some water, too, that’d be great.”

The old man points him to a hose attached to a pipe sticking up out of the ground. Malone walks over, sets down the backpack, and turns on the spigot. The water gushes so hot at first that he spits out his initial gulp, but the stream soon cools, and he guzzles until he sloshes.

“Don’t be such a pig,” Luz says.

She drinks daintily when he hands her the hose, like a cat lapping milk.

The old man is sitting at a rickety wooden picnic table shaded by a partially burned oak. Malone lowers himself onto the bench across from him, but Luz remains standing, radiating impatience.

“When was the fire?” Malone asks the old man.

“Couple weeks back.”

“Looks like it was a close call.”