Read Online Angel Baby: A Novel by RICHARD LANGE - Free Book Online
Authors: RICHARD LANGE
Tags: thriller
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and they lived in a converted garage off Prairie, near Hollywood Park, the four boys sharing one bedroom, the four girls the other. They had decent food, clean clothes, cable TV, but Jerónimo always felt like he was just crashing there. One of his sisters was retarded, so she got most of Mom’s attention, and all his dad did was work and sleep.
His oldest brother, Arturo, joined Inglewood 13 at age twelve and was wounded in a drive-by a few years later. He’s been sitting in a wheelchair and shitting in a bag ever since. Tony, two years older than Jerónimo, joined the gang next, and at sixteen was tried as an adult for the murder of a liquor store clerk and sentenced to fifty years. Jerónimo was jumped in shortly afterward. He started as a lookout for one of the set’s drug corners, soon wound up slinging crack himself, and then became a tax collector, shaking down local merchants and forcing them to pay for protection.
He committed his first murder at eighteen, killed some punk who was messing with his crippled brother, trying to muscle in on the little slice of the dope business the gang had given him. Jerónimo warned the dude a bunch of times to back off, but he wouldn’t listen, so Jerónimo stepped up to him one day, put a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. He didn’t feel any guilt afterward, had no nightmares or regrets. It was something that had to be done, and he did it. Like a soldier.
The cops never even came close to solving that one, but his luck ran out soon afterward, when he put together a crew of his own and began robbing other drug dealers, relieving them of their stash and cash. The money was rolling in until they hit a rock house that turned out to be an LAPD sting operation. Jerónimo ended up doing five years in Corcoran behind that.
He got out when he was twenty-four, went back in at twenty-six for robbery, got out at twenty-eight, and was back in by the end of that year for some bullshit assault charge. Looking at serious time if he was popped in the U.S. again, he moved down to Mexico, to Juárez, after his release. A cousin there set him up with a job at a maquiladora, a place that made TVs. It was supposed to be a new start, but six months later he was busted for selling flat screens he’d smuggled out of the factory.
An inmate laughs maniacally, another gives a grito. Steel doors clang, toilets flush, and someone bounces a basketball off a wall. Jerónimo is usually able to block out the ceaseless cacophony of prison life, but not this evening. Tonight every sound makes him squirm.
He rolls off his bunk and washes up at the sink, shaves his face and head, then changes out of his shorts into a prison-issue gray T-shirt and sweatpants. Leaving his cell, he walks down the tier to see Armando. Armando is a little guy with one eye who also did work for El Príncipe on the outside. He has a phone hidden in his cell.
“You know anybody in B Block you can call?” Jerónimo asks. He doesn’t have to say “anybody you can trust.”
Armando looks up from a magazine. “Sure.”
“Can you find out which bunk Salazar’s in? You know, the killer?”
Armando has Jerónimo keep a lookout while he retrieves the phone from behind the air shaft grate and makes the call. Two minutes later Jerónimo has the information he needs: last row, last bunks, bottom.
Jerónimo has a small shank hidden inside his mattress, but this calls for something more certain. He walks down the stairs to the second tier. El Punisher is sitting on the edge of his bunk, doing bicep curls with a dumbbell and watching a beauty pageant on TV.
“Órale, hombre,” Jerónimo says.
The big man motions him into the cell with a nod.
“I need something nice for like half an hour,” Jerónimo says.
El Punisher drops the barbell and reaches for a Bible. The pages of the book have been glued together and a space carved out to hold contraband. There’s an ice pick inside, a steak knife, and two good-sized
His oldest brother, Arturo, joined Inglewood 13 at age twelve and was wounded in a drive-by a few years later. He’s been sitting in a wheelchair and shitting in a bag ever since. Tony, two years older than Jerónimo, joined the gang next, and at sixteen was tried as an adult for the murder of a liquor store clerk and sentenced to fifty years. Jerónimo was jumped in shortly afterward. He started as a lookout for one of the set’s drug corners, soon wound up slinging crack himself, and then became a tax collector, shaking down local merchants and forcing them to pay for protection.
He committed his first murder at eighteen, killed some punk who was messing with his crippled brother, trying to muscle in on the little slice of the dope business the gang had given him. Jerónimo warned the dude a bunch of times to back off, but he wouldn’t listen, so Jerónimo stepped up to him one day, put a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. He didn’t feel any guilt afterward, had no nightmares or regrets. It was something that had to be done, and he did it. Like a soldier.
The cops never even came close to solving that one, but his luck ran out soon afterward, when he put together a crew of his own and began robbing other drug dealers, relieving them of their stash and cash. The money was rolling in until they hit a rock house that turned out to be an LAPD sting operation. Jerónimo ended up doing five years in Corcoran behind that.
He got out when he was twenty-four, went back in at twenty-six for robbery, got out at twenty-eight, and was back in by the end of that year for some bullshit assault charge. Looking at serious time if he was popped in the U.S. again, he moved down to Mexico, to Juárez, after his release. A cousin there set him up with a job at a maquiladora, a place that made TVs. It was supposed to be a new start, but six months later he was busted for selling flat screens he’d smuggled out of the factory.
An inmate laughs maniacally, another gives a grito. Steel doors clang, toilets flush, and someone bounces a basketball off a wall. Jerónimo is usually able to block out the ceaseless cacophony of prison life, but not this evening. Tonight every sound makes him squirm.
He rolls off his bunk and washes up at the sink, shaves his face and head, then changes out of his shorts into a prison-issue gray T-shirt and sweatpants. Leaving his cell, he walks down the tier to see Armando. Armando is a little guy with one eye who also did work for El Príncipe on the outside. He has a phone hidden in his cell.
“You know anybody in B Block you can call?” Jerónimo asks. He doesn’t have to say “anybody you can trust.”
Armando looks up from a magazine. “Sure.”
“Can you find out which bunk Salazar’s in? You know, the killer?”
Armando has Jerónimo keep a lookout while he retrieves the phone from behind the air shaft grate and makes the call. Two minutes later Jerónimo has the information he needs: last row, last bunks, bottom.
Jerónimo has a small shank hidden inside his mattress, but this calls for something more certain. He walks down the stairs to the second tier. El Punisher is sitting on the edge of his bunk, doing bicep curls with a dumbbell and watching a beauty pageant on TV.
“Órale, hombre,” Jerónimo says.
The big man motions him into the cell with a nod.
“I need something nice for like half an hour,” Jerónimo says.
El Punisher drops the barbell and reaches for a Bible. The pages of the book have been glued together and a space carved out to hold contraband. There’s an ice pick inside, a steak knife, and two good-sized
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