handwriting, it felt like mercy. He’d read and reread the letter over and over- it was so worn from handling, he’d taped the creases so it wouldn’t come apart in his hands. This letter did not get carried in the sack. It remained in its original envelope, tucked inside the breast pocket of his jacket. He felt the pressure of it against his chest, just over his heart.
Reaching the edge of the parking lot, he spotted the man with whom he’d made arrangements for transport to Tucson. Leaning against a mud-caked Checker, the man had long black hair combed straight back, revealing a dark, pockmarked face and an oft-broken nose. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. Abatangelo stepped forward and said, “Man of the hour.”
The driver smiled through his cigarette smoke and opened the cab door. Abatangelo ducked inside. The interior reeked of tobacco and hair oil, the heater blasted foul hot air. A necklace fashioned of wolves’ teeth and hawk feathers hung from the rearview mirror.
The driver put the cab in gear and circled away from the prison. Reaching his hand across the front seat, he said, “Got your kickout?”
Abatangelo reached into his pant pocket, withdrew his federal release check and asked for a pen. He endorsed the check and slipped it into the waiting hand. “Thank you,” he said.
The driver pocketed the check then handed back a plain white envelope. Inside, Abatangelo found a budget fare one-way air ticket from Tucson to San Francisco, plus cash.
“You’re an honest man,” he said after counting the money.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Abatangelo met the man’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Nothing,” he said, pocketing the envelope. “It’s all here, I’ll need it. Thanks.”
The driver coughed and shook his head. “How far you think that mouth will get you?”
Not free ten minutes, Abatangelo thought. Already this. “Look,” he said, “it was a poor choice of words, I admit. If it’ll help, I apologize.”
The driver tapped his temple with his forefinger. “The prison’s up here, my man. You ain’t out till you’re out up here.”
They drove in silence to the federal highway junction, then south between Coronado Forest and the Peloncillos. The oncoming storm struck in time over Greasewood Mountain to the west, and with typical desert swiftness surged overhead within minutes, showering the highway with hail and rain before journeying east, accompanied by a ghostly wind. Abatangelo rolled down the window, put his face in the storm like a little kid. The worst of it passed as suddenly as it had come. In the ensuing calm he asked if they could pull over.
“Don’t tell me you gotta pee.”
“This won’t take long,” Abatangelo assured him.
The driver sighed and slowed the car onto the berm. Abatangelo opened the door, collected the 35 mm and got out. Hiking his collar about his neck, he crossed the wet slick highway at a trot. Twenty yards beyond the asphalt he stopped, lowered his collar and idly chafed his hands. He studied the desert plain, stubbled by frost-blackened cacti and easing into low chaparral. Mt. Rayburne stood in the distance, snowcapped and shrouded in a filmy haze. To the south, the Dos Cabezas Mountains lay misted in faraway rain. The desert floor wallowed in storm shadow, with tails of sand kicked up by crosswinds.
The mere fact the view spread wide before him, unbroken by walls, free of razor wire, it shuddered up a profound relief and he found himself taking slow, smiling breaths. Lifting the Bell & Howell to his eye, he set the focus on infinity and snapped three frames, to remind himself forever of this moment. Turning left and right, he shot the rest of the roll impulsively, focusing on anything and everything that loomed suddenly before him, letting it clarify in the hot spot, triggering the shutter. Lowering the camera finally, he took a long, deep breath of the rain- tinged air, then capped his lens and turned back toward the highway.
Once he was back inside the cab, the driver turned around. The man’s eyes were a vivid blue, deep set in a way that enhanced the pockmarks on his cheeks.
“Listen,” he said, “I came on a little rough back there. You know, it’s just… not every guy I pick up at that place has a brain in his head.”
“It’s not a problem,” Abatangelo said, putting the camera away. He turned to peer out across the desert again.
“I’m not a young man anymore,” the driver said.
“Me neither.”
The driver took a moment to study him. “You been in what? Time, I mean.”
“A hard ten.”
The man whistled. “Well, now.” He regarded Abatangelo a bit more mindfully. “That’s a heavy beef. What they tag you for?”
“Pot,” Abatangelo said. Sensing this explained too little, he added, “We brought it in from Thailand.”
The driver put the cab in gear. “Bring it in from the moon for all I care.” He checked his mirror and eased back onto the highway. “What happened, you take the fall so your crew could skate?”
Smart man, Abatangelo thought. “Nobody got to skate,” he advised.
Shel and the others had served three and a half in exchange for his ten. It was his choice. His plea. The feds jumped at the chance to claim they’d taken down the main man. Their case had developed evidence problems, they’d gotten arrogant and sloppy. Not so sloppy they’d lose, but bad enough Abatangelo’s offer sounded like a bargain. Their snitch- neither the odious private investigator Blatt nor the wanna-be biker Chaney, as it turned out, but one of the Beaverton pillheads- was working a second grand jury out of Portland. The agents tried to hide that fact, and got caught in the snare of their own lies. It was fun to watch them squirm on the stand. Pity it provided no more leverage than it had.
The driver rolled down his window and spat. “Ten fucking years. Out here no less. Over smokes.”
“Yeah, well, it was a lot of smokes,” Abatangelo offered. “I’d been at it awhile.”
“Which means what, you deserved it?”
They stared at each other in the mirror.
“No,” Abatangelo said. “That’s not what I said.”
The driver held his gaze a moment longer, then offered a comradely laugh. Lifting his head, he intoned, “ ‘While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.’ ”
Abatangelo smiled.
“That funny?”
“I wasn’t expecting to hear cabbies quote Lenin till I got to San Francisco.”
The driver eased down into the front seat a little, as though finally convinced he could relax. “We got a chunk of time to Tucson. Settle back. You want, I can turn on the radio.”
“No thanks,” Abatangelo said. “I’m enjoying the quiet, actually. Prison’s a noisy place.”
“I remember,” the driver said. He reached into his pocket, withdrew the kickout check, and read the name. “Abbot’n’Jell-O?” he said.
“Nice try.” Abatangelo recited the name, the driver read along, then he tucked the check back into his pocket. “That’s Italian,” the cabby said.
“So goes the rumor.”
“It mean anything? In English?”
Abatangelo regarded again the wolves’ teeth and hawk feathers hanging from the rearview mirror. “You mean like Crazy Horse, Little Wolf, something like that?”
“Whatever.”
Abatangelo wondered at the man’s curiosity. People had the strangest notions about Italians, especially out here, the middle of nowhere.
“The prefix
“Means ‘angel,’ ” the driver guessed.
“It never got spelled out to me in so many words, but- ”
“Fallen angel,” the man said, excited, like he was a game show contestant. He uttered a snarly little laugh. “That fucking perfect or what? A hard ten for Mr. Fallen Angel.”
At the airport they drove around to the departure gates and pulled to the curb. Abatangelo stared out at the
