Angel Baby: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

to?”
    “Shut up, you fucking dog,” Theresa yells back.
    Luz feels like she’ll never get away if she doesn’t go this instant. The old witch will put a spell on her, steal her breath, and feed her to the monster in the other room.
    “A pollero, ” she says.
    “Go to Goyo’s Body Shop in Libertad,” Theresa says. “But don’t you dare tell him who sent you.”
    Luz turns to leave without a good-bye, riding the runaway horse of her fear and revulsion down the stairs and out to the waiting cab. Theresa appears in the doorway, a mocking sneer twisting her face.
    “Tell Isabel Grandma loves her,” she calls after Luz. “Give her kisses for me.”
    A jet roars low over the house on its way to a landing at the nearby airport. The noise drowns out Theresa’s cackle and rousts a flock of ravens that had been commiserating on the sagging electrical lines, sends them flapping into the dirty brown sky.
    Luz tells the driver where they’re headed. He holds out his hand and watches in the rearview as she takes another hundred from the backpack and passes it to him. Sensing his hunger, Luz reaches into the pack and grabs the .45. It flashes like a mirror when she pulls it and points it.
    “Don’t be stupid,” she says.
    The driver lowers his eyes and shoves the money into his shirt pocket. It takes two twists of the key to get the car started, and then he heads down the hill. Luz slides low in back and returns the gun to the pack but keeps her finger on the trigger. She breathes easier with every turn that takes her farther from her mother’s house. Now if only it were possible to set fire to the past and everyone in it.
      
    Colonia Libertad lies right on the border. It’s a crowded, noisy slum with clear views of the new Mediterranean-style subdivisions spreading across the hillsides in California. Residents heave their household trash over the border fence into the U.S., and the Border Patrol launches tear gas canisters into the neighborhood to drive off the rock-throwing kids the smugglers hire to create diversions for their crossings. The Border Patrol agents and the residents know one another by name. They exchange taunts at night and waves and hellos in the morning.
    Luz’s driver pulls into a gas station and asks the other drivers gathered there about the body shop. One of them has heard of the place, gives him directions. Goyo himself turns out to be a sweaty gordo who plays stupid until Luz throws some money around. A hundred dollars gets him on the phone to his boss.
    “Freddy’s on his way,” he says when he finishes the call. “You want to wait in the office?”
    The office contains a cot, a hot plate, and a pile of porno magazines. It smells like the monkey cage at the zoo.
    “I’m fine here,” Luz says.
    She sits on a stack of tires and keeps a tight hold on the backpack. Goyo goes to work with a rubber mallet on a dented fender. Every blow makes Luz jump.
    Freddy shows up half an hour later, a wiry little crook with a busted nose who talks too fast and constantly shifts his weight from one foot to the other, making him look like a snake about to strike.
    “Who sent you?” is the first thing he asks.
    “Who cares?” Luz replies.
    “Obviously I do,” Freddy says.
    Luz hands him a bundle of hundreds from the backpack. She realizes it’s dangerous to reveal that she’s carrying so much money, but she needs to let him know she’s serious about doing business with him. Freddy thumbs the bills and purses his lips.
    “Whose is this?” he says.
    “Mine,” Luz says.
    “Whose before?”
    Luz reaches out to take the bundle back, but Freddy, he’s quick, pulls it away.
    “You seem like trouble,” he says. “Are you trouble?”
    “If you can’t help me, say so,” Luz says.
    “What else is in there?” Freddy asks, gesturing at the backpack.
    Luz hauls out the pistol and gives him a good look at the business end. His eyes widen, but he recovers quickly and shows his teeth. The smiles