Angel Baby: A Novel (20 page)

“Hello,” he says.

“Who’s this?” the man on the other end says.

“Who do you want?”

“Are you the guy that was with Luz?”

Malone drives past the on-ramp and swerves into the parking lot of a storage facility tucked beneath the freeway.

“Could be,” he says.

“Put her on.”

“I just dropped her off.”

“At the gas station?”

“That’s where you said, right?”

“Go back and get her. Quick.”

“What do you mean?” Malone doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s already turning the truck around.

“The Mexicans were gonna kill the kid, so I took her,” the man on the phone says. “And now all I want is the money Luz is carrying. If she hands it over, she can have the girl.”

“Where are you now?” Malone says. He makes a dangerous left and crosses three lanes of traffic to an angry chorus of horns.

“I’ll call later with that. If she’s not at the station, go to the motel across the street. Room 215. The Mex is unarmed, but you’ll have to fight him.”

Malone drops the phone onto the seat and concentrates on driving. He swings onto Central, tires squealing, and sees that Luz is still on the sidewalk. As he speeds toward her, a shirtless
vato
with a towel wrapped around his waist comes jogging out of the parking lot of the motel. Malone palms the truck’s horn, and both Luz and the
vato
turn to look, the
vato
pausing in the middle of the street. This moment of hesitation is enough to allow Malone to steer the truck between them. He screeches to a stop, the vodka bottle rolling out from under the seat.

“Get in back!” he yells out the window at Luz.

“No,” she protests. “I told you—”

“He doesn’t have Isabel!”

The
vato
in the towel, a big, brawny dude with tattoos twining over his chest and arms, moves to the front of the truck and points a gun at Malone through the windshield. Malone ducks behind the wheel and shouts again to Luz.

“Come on!”

She slings the backpack into the bed of the truck, then clambers over the side herself. The
vato
drops his gun and runs toward her. He grabs one of her feet, but she kicks it loose and scrambles away from him.

Malone presses the gas pedal to the floor. The
vato
runs alongside the pickup, trying to climb in. He loses his grip as the vehicle gains speed, trips, and sprawls onto the asphalt. Malone rounds the corner and leaves him behind.

“No way!” Malone yells. “No fucking way!” He lets out a whoop and bounces on the seat. The streetlights all flicker to life at once and stretch on and on, as far as he can see, a bright, safe passage to somewhere.

L
UZ IS STUCK IN MIDAIR, DOESN’T KNOW WHETHER TO FLY OR FALL.
She climbed into the truck in a panic when she saw the half-naked man charging her, not even sure what Malone was yelling, only hearing Isabel’s name. She needs Malone to explain what’s going on so she can be sure she did the right thing by leaving.

She keeps her head down as he whips around one corner, then a second, slinging her from one side of the bed to the other. He finally comes to a stop on a deserted street lined with dark warehouses hunkered behind chain link and concertina wire.

“All clear,” he calls out.

She grabs the backpack and steps over the tailgate onto the bumper, then down to the ground. A light goes on in the cab when she opens the door, but she doesn’t get in. She wants to hear the story first.

“I got a call as I was driving away,” Malone says. “The man on the phone—I think it was the cop—said that he had Isabel, that he’d taken her from the other guy, and that I should go back and pick you up.”

“The cop has Isabel?” Luz asks.

“So he said.”

“Where, then? Where is she?”

“We didn’t have time to get into it. He’s supposed to call back later. But listen: He also said you can have her if you give him the money.”

“The money.”

“He claims that’s all he wants.”

Luz would like to rejoice at this news, but she’s still skeptical. Anybody can say anything, and nothing’s real until it happens. She’s not sure she can stand being disappointed again.

“Why would he do that?” she says. “Why would he take Isabel?”

Malone looks uncomfortable. “That’s the part I didn’t want to tell you,” he says.

“Why?” Luz demands. “What happened?”

Malone grimaces and bends forward in his seat, stalling.

“What?” Luz says. “Tell me.”

“He said he took her because the Mexicans were going to kill her,” Malone finally says in a rush.

Luz reels at the words. Rolando. The bastard. The fucking bastard.

“But she’s safe now,” Malone continues. “She’s safe, and you’re going to get her back.”

“Are you sure?” Luz says.

“I’m sure.”

He’s not, though, Luz realizes. He’s just being nice. He doesn’t know any more than she does about what’s going on.

A car with one working headlight turns onto the street, and Malone tenses up.

“We should go,” he says.

Luz has a bad feeling too. She climbs into the truck and closes the door. The rusted-out Bonneville draws nearer, and she reaches into the backpack for the .45. The car slows to a crawl as it passes, and two hard black faces size them up. Malone twists the key. The truck’s engine strains mightily but fails to start.

The Bonneville continues to the next intersection, swings around, and cruises back toward them. Luz watches it approach like a marauding shark in her side mirror while Malone keeps cranking the ignition and pumping the gas pedal. When the truck finally comes to life, he jams it into gear and quickly pulls away from the Bonneville, blowing stop signs and screaming around corners until Luz tells him it’s okay, they’re not following.

When they get back onto a wide, well-lit street, Luz makes him go over the phone call again word for word as he remembers it.

“Did he say when he’d call?” she asks.

“Nope, just that he would,” Malone replies.

“Why can’t I call him?”

Malone slides the phone across the seat. “The number’s blocked. He’s being real careful.”

Luz picks up the phone to check for herself.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Malone says. They pass a Denny’s. “What about there? You want a milkshake? I want a milkshake.”

Luz won’t be able to eat anything but says okay, sure, because sitting in the restaurant will be safer than parking on the street someplace where trouble might find them again.

The sun is down but heat is still rising off the asphalt of the parking lot. Luz hugs the backpack to her chest as they walk to the entrance. She’s not letting it out of her sight until she hands it over in exchange for Isabel. Stepping into the icy brightness of the restaurant is like crossing over into another dimension. She shivers at the sudden chill and squints against the fluorescents.

The woman who seats them bustles and chirps like a little bird, and the server who comes to take their order is smiling at a secret joke—a mean one, to judge by the tilt of his lips. Malone gets a chocolate shake, and Luz orders a Coke. Malone asks if she wants to share fries, and it’s easier to say yes than no.

“Not the wavy-cut ones,” Malone says to the server. “The regular kind.”

Their booth is against a window that looks out onto the parking lot. Luz can see her face in the glass and extends a finger to touch the circles under the reflection’s eyes. She’ll be glad when she’s not pretty anymore.

“Once you have Isabel, you need to go someplace nobody knows you,” Malone says. “Don’t tell your aunt, don’t tell your friends, don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a feeling these guys are going to keep looking for you for a while.”

“Don’t worry,” Luz says. “We’re going somewhere I haven’t even thought of yet.”

“You can have the truck, but I’d advise dumping it as soon as you can.”

“That’s okay.”

“What’s okay?”

“I don’t know how to drive.”

“Huh.”

“It’s no big thing,” Luz says. “We’ll take the bus.”

Malone raises his hand to silence her. “No, now, see, keep even that to yourself,” he says. “I don’t want to know anything.”

The server brings their drinks, still with that smirk on his face. Luz peels the wrapper off her straw and has a sip of her Coke. The phone is on the table. She picks it up to make sure there’s a signal.

A man and woman are arguing over a parking space outside, their voices coming muffled through the window.

“I was waiting for that.”

“You passed it by.”

“I did not. I was waiting.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“So open your fucking eyes.”

“Open
your
eyes, bitch.”

Luz resists the urge to duck. It’s as bad up here as it is in Tijuana, people turning on each other over the smallest things.

“Are you from L.A.?” she says to Malone.

“Orange County,” he says. “Anaheim Hills.”

“That’s like all rich over there, isn’t it?”

Malone shrugs as he spoons whipped cream into his mouth. “They’d say middle class.”

“I don’t trust rich people,” Luz says.

“I don’t trust anybody,” Malone says.

“Me neither,” Luz says.

“Not even you,” Malone says with a smile.

Luz smiles too. “Right,” she says. “Not even
you.
”

For a second she feels like a normal person sitting in a restaurant, joking with a friend. For an instant it seems like another way the world could be. But then Malone goes dark, sucker punched by the past again, and her arm brushes the backpack lying on the seat beside her, the one containing stolen money and a gun, and she realizes there’s no hope of normal ever. Even the server knows it. He returns with Malone’s fries, still wearing his strange, scornful grin, and the reason comes to Luz like a curtain whisked away: He sees right through them.

Thacker gets on the 91 and keeps driving until his blood pressure drops and he’s breathing normally. Somewhere around Anaheim he starts feeling like he’s far enough from Jerónimo that the Mex isn’t going to catch up to them. The kid is awake now and a little fussy, so when he sees the giant stucco castle up ahead, King John’s Fun Zone, it seems like the perfect place to make the exchange with her mom.

He takes the next exit and works his way back on surface streets. The castle is painted white but dyed an ethereal blue by the floodlights shining up at it. Thacker has to wait to get into the busy parking lot. That’s fine. He wanted a place where they’d be part of a crowd. Isabel is wide-eyed as he pulls into an empty slot.

“Are we going here?” she says.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Do you want to?”

She nods happily, understanding that he’s joking with her.

“Okay, then,” he says. “But you have to promise to be good.”

“I promise.”

She tries to free herself from the seatbelt, but he tells her to hold on, there’s something he needs to do.

Reaching behind the seat, he brings up Jerónimo’s belongings. He gets out, walks around to the back of the truck, and sets the stuff in the bed. A quick search of the guy’s pants turns up a roll of twenties and hundreds. He pockets the money, then unlocks the toolbox mounted to the cab and lifts out the duffel bag he keeps his civilian clothes in. He takes off his gun belt and uniform shirt and puts on a clean T-shirt, a shoulder holster, and a windbreaker to cover it.

After stowing the Mex’s gun and clothes in the box, he moves around to help Isabel out of the truck. She won’t let him carry her, says she wants to walk. He says okay as long as she holds his hand. She grabs his index finger and sets off across the lot, dragging him behind her.

The castle is the centerpiece of a complex containing a mini-golf course, a go-kart track, and an immense arcade. Twenty-five years ago it might have been something, but now the artificial turf is worn and wrinkled, the video games are out of date, and the stucco needs patching and paint. Still, it draws sullen teenagers with nowhere else to go and younger children whose parents are lured by bargain birthday packages.

Thacker pauses as soon as they enter. The screams of a hundred kids zip around the cavernous space like ricocheting bullets, and he needs a second to get his bearings. Isabel isn’t having it. She yanks him into the midst of the unruliness and makes a beeline for the first flashing lights she sees.

“I want to do this,” she says, pointing to a game played as best Thacker can tell by jumping up and down on an illuminated platform in time to tinny music. Two oriental boys with spiked hair are bouncing on it now, and a long line of other kids wait for turns.

“Let’s golf first,” Thacker says. “We’ll come back to this later.”

He pays for the putters with the Mex’s money.

The course is outside, away from the worst of the noise. There’s still the muted rattle of go-kart engines and the rumble of the freeway on the other side of a ten-foot sound wall, but at least here Thacker can string two thoughts together. He and Isabel stand at the first hole, waiting for the family in front of them to finish up. Isabel keeps swinging her club at a trashcan, and Thacker keeps telling her to stop.

“When am I going home?” she says.

“Soon,” he says.

“Is this for my birthday?”

“How’d you guess?”

When the family moves on, he lets Isabel chase her ball around the Astroturf while he uses Jerónimo’s phone to call Luz.

“Hello?” she says.

“Hey there, sexy,” he says. He’s remembering how she looked when he pulled them over at the border. Thin, with long, black hair and a cute mole on her lip. A hot
mamacita.
Just his type. “You’re still alive.”

“That’s right,” she replies.

“What’s up with Jerónimo?”

“The guy at the gas station? We got away from him.”

“You sure about that?”

“He was laying in the street, all messed up.”

“And my money?”

“It’s right here.”

Thacker smiles. Hard to believe, but it’s all working out. “So come get your kid,” he says.

“Tell me where.”

Isabel hits her ball too hard, and it ends up lost in the bushes. She turns to Thacker for help. He tosses her his ball to play with.

“It’s this place called King John’s off the 91,” he says into the phone. “Big white castle. You can’t miss it.”

“I know where it is,” Luz says.

“We’ll be playing mini-golf. Look for the Border Patrol cap.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

“We?” Thacker says. “No way, baby doll. I only want to see you and the money.”

“That’s what I meant. Me.”

“I’m serious. If I even suspect you’re fucking around, the deal is off, and your little girl pays the price.”

“I’ll be alone. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, I won’t. I’m not the worrying type.”

Thacker ends the call and watches Isabel kick the ball into the cup, then stand there waiting for something to happen.

“That’s it, kiddo,” he says to her. “How many strokes?”

He wouldn’t mind being a grandpa someday, if he ever manages to get back into his sons’ good graces. They’re full of Sunday school superiority right now, but life will kick them in the ass soon enough, and then they can all sit down in the dirt and talk like men.

A big pink unicorn guards the second hole. Isabel swings away. A security guard approaches, a tall skinny Mexican with a shaved head and baggy uniform.
What the fuck is this
about?
Thacker wonders.

“How’s it going?” the guard says.

“Oh, you know,” Thacker says. “Trying to stay cool in this heat.”

“You Border Patrol?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Your hat,” the guard says, touching the bill of his own cap. “I’m thinking about applying.”

“Is that so.”

“I’m finishing my B.S. in criminal justice at Argosy next semester, and my professor says I shouldn’t have any problem getting hired once I got that.”

“He’s steering you right. We’re always looking for qualified people.”

“Where you stationed? San Ysidro?”

“Campo,” Thacker says, then wishes he hadn’t.

“I might go to Arizona,” the guard says. He’s doing his damnedest to grow a mustache, but getting only fuzz. “My girlfriend’s family is there and everything, and it’s cheaper to live, too.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Thacker says. Isabel is trying to climb onto the unicorn’s back. “Get down,” he calls to her.

“I want to play Dance Dance now,” she says.

 “Looks like we’re going inside,” he says to the guard. “Good luck to you.”

“You never know, maybe we’ll see each other on patrol or something someday,” the guard says.

“You never know,” Thacker says. Isabel is already skipping toward the arcade, and he heads off in pursuit. He’s pretty sure the guy is just some idiot who’s genuinely excited about joining the patrol, but all the same, he’s nervous. He doesn’t need him hanging around when Luz gets here.