Earth Angels (24 page)

At that moment the cassette player made a clicking sound and "Earth Angel" began to play again. Though for the life of him he'd never been able to memorize the words, he found himself swaying softly to the beat. "Earth angel, Earth angel, will you be mine? My darling dear, love you all the time. I'm just a fool. A fool in love with you." Feeling an urge to get even higher, Payaso considered popping some reds, then suddenly remembered he'd taken the few remaining pills he had left shortly before making the cruise to Hazard Park to shoot the cops.

Hell, maybe he'd run down to the store for a can of spray paint.

Sleepy came out of the kitchen. Payaso had always been attracted to her big, healthy tits, black lipstick, heavy eye makeup, and long black hair ratted high. And he knew the feeling was mutual because since he'd been shot, she'd been hanging around him a lot. She'd accompanied Smokey and the others to visit him in his hospital room, and Payaso remembered the way she had sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand, allowing it to brush against her chi chis as they chatted. As a matter of fact, he'd been more than thankful neither she nor the others had noticed his hard on bulging under the sheet.

"Are you hungry?" Sleepy said, flexing tit. Though high, Payaso noticed the others in the kitchen had stopped talking to eavesdrop.

"I never eat when I'm getting high," Payaso said, maintaining a stern macho expression.

"You should eat something. You lost weight in the hospital."

"Getting shot is nothing," he said in heavy barrio dialect. "I mean, it's like shit to me."

"Smokey said you were the driver two nights ago."

He nodded. "The pigs went down into the dirt. We rode on the pigs."

Avoiding eye contact, she sidled next to him. As he stood there, looking down at the courtyard and feeling high as a motherfucker, Payaso felt her hesitantly place her arm around his waist.

"'Earth Angel' is your favorite song, isn't it?" she said.

"How did you know?"

"Because you been playing it so many times, homey," she said, taking his hand and placing it on her shoulder as to dance. He stopped himself from refusing, as he usually did because he considered himself clumsy. Instead he began to move slowly with the beat. Her tits, restricted in a tight black brassiere he detected easily under her sheer blouse, were close against him and his hands dropped low to hold her ample but firm waist. As they danced, almost as an invocation, he repeated the words of the song: "I fell for you. And I knew the vision of your love's loveliness. I hope and I pray, that someday I'll be the vision of your happiness." He imagined Sleepy as his
ruka
, sitting next to him in his Chevy, riding low, riding in fine style with just his fingertips guiding the steering wheel, cruising smoothly, with only green lights all the way down Whittier Boulevard and out of the barrio and down to the Pacific Ocean. At the end of the song he continued to stand there holding her, and she didn't try to move away.

As the homeboys continued to guzzle beer and the women en masse wandered hesitantly into the room and begged them to dance, he lit another joint and offered it to Sleepy. She cupped her hands around the joint and took a puff, then handed it back to him. He felt his cock growing between his legs.

Later, at her insistence, she fixed a plate of tamales for him.

By three, when the party was starting to break up, he took Sleepy's hand and led her down the stairs to his car, parked on the street in an unlighted spot.

In the backseat they necked for a while and he reached inside her blouse to massage her breasts. As her nipples hardened and she began to breathe harder, a momentary fear passed through his mind that because of the mixture of booze and dope, he might not be able to get a full hard on. As though she were reading his mind, her hands slipped between his legs and unzipped his trousers. His cock was out and she was stroking him gently. By the time the windows were steamed over, he was as rigid as a steel bar and Sleepy was moaning with desire.

Suddenly straightening her legs, she arched her back. Reaching behind her, she unzipped her tight fitting leather pants and yanked them and her bikini panties down and off. He lifted her onto him and felt her warm, slippery wetness. She moaned fiercely. Then Payaso was in her and the car began to rock with the rhythm of sex.

"Fuck me, homes," she said. "Fuck me. Fuck me. Give it to me. Come in me. I want you to come in me." Payaso, his clumsy feet planted firmly on the floorboard for leverage, coiled powerfully into her.

Afterward, with the windows steamy and the interior of the car smelling of sex, they necked for a while. Then she told him she had to get home because she was only sixteen and every time she got home late her father always kicked the shit out of her.

They dressed and climbed into the front seat. Payaso sat low in his Chevy and Sleepy sat close to him on the way to her home. When he pulled up in front of the house, they kissed and he felt her hand caress him between the legs. "I love you, homes," she said.

"I want you to be my woman."

"I am your woman, homes," she said, kissing him.

"If you get pregnant from tonight I'll get married to you."

She put her head on his shoulder and hugged him tightly. Then the lights came on in her house and she sat up. She slid across the seat, climbed out, and hurried toward the house. Her tits jiggled as she waved at him.

He waved back.

During the short drive home he relived being in the back seat with her and felt his cock coming to life again. It felt good to have his own woman.

Payaso turned into the dirt alley leading behind the houses on Ortega Street and crunched slowly down a gravel driveway to a space next to a dilapidated garage where he always parked his car. He turned off the engine, pulled the door handle, and stepped out of the car.

Suddenly someone grabbed him from behind. His neck was in the crook of an arm and he was being choked. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He kicked frantically as he was pulled backward toward the driveway.

"Keep your mouth shut, motherfucker," Stepanovich hissed into Payaso's ear, pulling him backward in a secure chokehold.

A police sedan driven by Black sped down the driveway and skidded on the gravel to a stop. The passenger door flew open and Arredondo jumped out.

Stepanovich lifted his knee sharply into the small of Payaso's back, dropping him to his knees. As Stepanovich continued to choke, Arredondo twisted his arm into a hammerlock and ratcheted handcuffs onto his wrists.

Rapidly Stepanovich and Arredondo dragged Payaso, still kicking, the last few feet to the car. As Arredondo opened the door, Stepanovich pulled Payaso inside. Arredondo slammed the door and climbed quickly in the front seat. Black slammed the car into gear and sped down the driveway and into the street.

Stepanovich released his hold and Payaso gasped for air.

"I didn't do nothing," he said.

Neither Stepanovich nor the others said a word. Stepanovich felt his heart pounding, and he was slightly out of breath.

"Where are we going?"

Black turned the corner onto Soto Street. Because of the hour, the road was deserted. Two blocks away at the freeway, he entered the onramp and accelerated into the stream of traffic.

Stepanovich could feel a slight vibration on the car seat. It was Payaso shaking with fear.

"Am I under arrest?"

A minute or so later, Black swerved off the freeway at the Vignes Street exit and entered an industrial area that, because of the hour and the poor street lighting, appeared cavernous. Turning frequently, he wound past the shadows of a brewery, a soap plant, and some huddled industrial warehouses. Finally turning off the headlights, he steered slowly along a dirt road leading to a wide cement border stretching along the edge of the Los Angeles River. The car lurched slightly as the front wheels bumped slowly over the edge and hummed down a steep cement bank. Stepanovich remembered having driven over the edge on his bicycle as a child. There was a lurch as it reached the flat cement bed of the river, which was the color of blued steel in the moonlight. There was only the sound of tires rolling on the waterless plain as Black continued to the middle of the riverbed.

Then the car stopped.

Black opened the car door and pulled Payaso out and away from the car. Arredondo followed and grabbed Payaso's arms roughly. He unlocked and removed the handcuffs.

Stepanovich stepped out of the car. "How did you know we were set up at Hazard Park?" he said, hearing his voice echoing along the man made riverbed.

Payaso, his complexion a metallic bronze in the dimness, returned his glare.

Black moved closer to him. "Who told you we were going to be there?"

Payaso, realizing he was within punching distance of the three men, cringed visibly. "I don't know nothing," he said, his voice cracking.

Stepanovich stepped closer. "You knew we were set up at Hazard Park, and you and your homeboys rode on us," he said calmly, in his best cop out and save-yourself fatherly tone. "There's nothing anyone can do to change that. But right now, it's time to do the right thing. It's time to help Payaso."

"I didn't shoot nobody," Payaso said.

"A policeman was killed," Stepanovich said. "You know we aren't just going home without finding out who the shooters are."

"I don't know nothing about no drive by. I don't know nothing about no ride."

"We're all alone here tonight," Stepanovich said as a come on. "Your homeboys never have to know what you tell us."

"I ain't gonna tell you pigs nothing. I ain't no
rata
.

"You're alone,
ese
," Arredondo said. "There are no homeboys to protect you."

"You ain't got shit on me."

Stepanovich felt his fists double up involuntarily. His limbs tingled. He was ready to fight.

Black punched Payaso in the stomach and there was the unmistakable sound of air being knocked from human lungs. Payaso dropped to his knees, gasping.

"The party's over, fuckface," Black hissed. "Now we're gonna kill you."

As Payaso staggered slowly to his feet, Stepanovich grabbed him by the hair. "Who fingered us,
vato
? How did you know we were at the park?"

There was animal's fear in Payaso's eyes as he shook his head. His arms covered his stomach in anticipation of another blow.

Arredondo punched Payaso squarely in the throat, throwing him backward. His back made a hollow thud as it slammed against the cement.

Payaso gasped for breath. "Fuck you pigs," he cried, scrambling to his feet and lunging at Stepanovich. He merely sidestepped and punched Payaso solidly in the ribs to avoid leaving marks. Payaso fought back wildly, but Stepanovich countered the punches, catching him solidly with heavy blows to the kidneys and ribs. Payaso went down again and curled into the fetal position.

Stepanovich, breathing hard, restrained the surge of adrenaline inside him that demanded to kill. He squatted next to him. "We want names, homeboy. We want to know who was with you."

Payaso shook his head.

Arredondo came forward quickly. Shifting his balance onto his left foot and extending his arms outward like a punter, he kicked Payaso fully between the legs. Payaso cried out and doubled up. Now Black was kicking him. Stepanovich, his face burning with the heat of uncontrollable rage, joined in and there was a flurry aimed everywhere on Payaso's body except his face. Under the rain of kicks Payaso made little grunts at first that changed quickly to breathless cries.

Stepanovich at last regained control of himself, but the others kept on kicking. "That's enough!" he shouted, shoving them away.

Everyone was breathing hard. Payaso was sobbing.

Stepanovich reached down, grabbed Payaso by the hair, and pulled him to his feet. The cowering youth covered his groin with both hands.

"You wanna die, homeboy?"

Payaso shook his head.

"Then you'd better start jacking your jaws."

Payaso just stood there cringing in the darkness, waiting for the next blow.

Black panted as he pulled his revolver. "Let's kill the cocksucker," he said, aiming at Payaso's head.

Payaso, with his hands up protectively, slowly backed away. There was a click as Black cocked his revolver. Though the night was warm, Stepanovich felt a sudden chill.

"Let him have it," Arredondo said. "Kill him."

"OK," Payaso said, crying and gasping for breath, "I'll tell you how we knew you were at the park."

Stepanovich stepped forward and touched Black's gun hand. Black lowered the weapon.

"We're listening," Stepanovich said.

"Your
puta
told us," he shrieked. "How's that, pig? I bet your homeboys didn't know that! Your woman did a number on you."

Stepanovich felt his stomach tighten. The others turned to him. "Who is my woman?" he said.

"Gloria Soliz."

Stepanovich's insides swelled with nausea. "That's a goddamn lie," he heard himself say.