Free Angel Baby: A Novel by RICHARD LANGE

soon be starting a family and wanted to switch to a safer line of work. It was a dangerous announcement to make—you didn’t just up and walk away from El Príncipe’s crew—but Jerónimo was now determined to be a free man, dead or alive.
    At first the Prince scoffed at him. “What the fuck else do you think you’re going to do?” he said. “All you’re good at is scaring people.” Then he got angry, deciding that Jerónimo’s wanting to go straight was some kind of insult. He drew a gun and pointed it across his desk, called Jerónimo a traitor and threatened to kill him then and there.
    Jerónimo didn’t flinch. He stared down the barrel of the gun and again asked for the Prince’s understanding. “You know I’ve been loyal to you,” he said. “And I’m here now as one honorable man speaking the truth to another honorable man.”
    El Príncipe pressed the gun to his forehead.
    “On your knees,” he said.
    “Respectfully,” Jerónimo replied. “I’ll take it standing.”
    A clock in the room ticked five times, and then the Prince sat down, the gun lying on the desk in front of him. The agreement was this: Jerónimo wouldn’t be allowed to leave the gang. Instead, he’d be moved down into the reserves. He’d no longer work directly for El Príncipe but would still be called upon to do favors for the crew from time to time. And God help him if he ever refused such a request. It wasn’t the clean break Jerónimo had been hoping for, but he knew better than to push his luck.
      
    The main corridor of B Block has been converted into a dormitory. Rows of steel bunks stacked two high, narrow walkways between them, fill the cavernous space. The din is even more intense here than it is in Jerónimo’s block, a good thing in this case. Nobody even notices when he steps inside.
    As he makes his way across the room, he hardens into something less human than he was moments before and pulls the ice pick from his sweatpants. Arriving at the last row of bunks, he starts down it, a wrecking ball in mid-swing, prepared to smash anyone who gets in his way. The cons he encounters in the cramped aisle feel the heat coming off him and fall onto their racks or step aside to let him pass.
    All he hears now is his own breathing, a rasping in his head. Salazar is lying on his bunk, thumbing a PlayStation. He looks up an instant before Jerónimo reaches him. His eyes widen. Jerónimo thought he might try to reason with him, warn him, frighten him, but an image of the last man the fucker killed—splayed in the dirt, opened up from throat to groin—comes to him, and in one swift motion he clamps his hand over Salazar’s mouth and plunges the pick into his bare chest.
    One-two-three-four-five. He stabs him as quickly as he can yank the pick out and slam it back in. Six-seven-eight-nine. He leaves the pick in on the last thrust and jerks the handle back and forth in order to do as much damage as possible. Salazar dies without a struggle, without a sound, his eyes rolling back in his head, a trickle of black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
    Jerónimo withdraws the pick and wipes it clean on the sheet. He’s sweating like crazy, panting, as he makes his way back up the alley between the bunks. Nobody tries to stop him as he hurries to the guard station. Someone will toss a blanket over the corpse, someone else will steal the dead man’s shoes. It’ll be tomorrow morning before a guard finally discovers the body.
    The pig controlling the doors barely looks up at Jerónimo when buzzing him out. A dog barks somewhere in the night as he walks across the yard, a car alarm goes off, a plane flies low overhead. He blocks his nostrils one at a time and blows them clear. When he spits, he tastes blood. An empty plastic bag rolls toward him on the wind. Before he can get out of its way, it wraps around his feet and nearly trips him.
      
    After meeting with El Príncipe, Jerónimo used all the money he had saved to