Angel met her at The Mall. He was making his rounds before noon one morning in April, seeing the managers of The Weathervane and The Limited, the owner of the little Gourmet Take-out place, all of whom were his regular customers. Angel sold recreational drugs. Marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy K, even – however reluctantly –  the occasional Roofie. He had it all for the ordering. Working The Mall was a pretty good life for a guy from Camp Hill Terrace and it kept Angel in gold chains and $200 sneakers. The best thing it did for him was get him off those mean streets back in his own neighborhood. There weren’t many who could have worked this particular gig. You had to have genuine sophistication, a sense of culture. Fortunately, Angel had been formed as much by his mother’s ambition as by the street. Deliberately grooming their little darling for what they conceived to be his obvious destiny, getting them all out of the neighborhood, she and his older sisters had drilled and corrected his English grammar and pronunciation and cultivated in Angel a polite and reasonable demeanor that obscured a less than tranquil heart. From them, he had learned that when you step beyond the limited frame of the homeboys, too flashy clothes and lousy grammar marked you as the lowest of the low. They had had something else in mind for their Angel, something other than this upscale drug beat, but their training had served him well. Angel had come to deeply resent the scorn they had for his success. This Mall was a cultivated environment; they should have been happy for him, but they weren’t. They were such hypocrites. They never even thought of shopping here; too expensive, they complained, taking themselves off to the mills in Fall River for last year’s styles at reduced prices. Yet in their bargain-basement apparel, they were more than willing to talk down The Mall, to criticize Angel for being satisfied with a life here. Not that Angel would have been willing to work at The Mall in any other capacity than his present calling. All these salespeople and management types who bought the goods Angel peddled so politely didn’t make in a year what he could make in a couple of weeks. Suckers. Angel did appreciate the superior ambiance of The  Mall. Sometimes there was a piano player in the mid-Mall Garden who wore a tuxedo and closed his eyes and played with a passion that seems to transport him to another realm. And Angel was pretty sure he didn’t do any dope. Art exhibits lined the nook beside the frame shop and sometimes people stood around in front of the pictures discussing them. Angel had discovered it a very serviceable point for picking up women, especially those who could afford his wears. The Mall catered to a different type than you found in Camp Hill Terrace. His opinionated older sisters with their scrubs and stingy paychecks would never have been able to fit in at this mall. It gave Angel great satisfaction and self-affirmation that he could.

He first caught sight of Caroline Shorter drifting around looking in through the big windows of Saks Fifth Avenue when he was on his way to The Gourmet Take-out. She wore a full-length fur coat open over a velour running suit that had never known a droplet of sweat. She looked like she had just come to Hawthrone Hill by way of Aspin and Angel’s mouth watered. He resolved to find her when he finished his business. She’d be perusing the paintings or having herself an expresso. The languid aimlessness of her manner was a sign to Angel that she was killing time. The elegant types who frequent The Mall in the early morning were easy to pigeonhole. Those who meant business traveled double-time and quickly accumulated large stuffed parcels in bags from Saks and Bloomingdales. This one looked exactly like the pigeon he’d been hoping to catch. She was drifting, maybe waiting for something to happen to her, something that would give her a little rush, maybe something just like this Angel

Angel had a way with women. It was his long suit. It was the one thing he had learned in school which he thought was a skill worth attending to. In the beginning, it has been an astonishing surprise. There he was, a  ninth-grader suddenly thrown into the big time at Benjamin Butler High School, wound up tight as a drum from the tension of staying on his feet, keeping peace with the homeboys and the gangs just trying to get his portion of respect and not lose too much in the process, when suddenly he discovered his marketable talent. All Angel Machado had to do was smile and the girls lined up to fall into bed. It was like magic. All he had to do was smile.

There’d been a class trip that year to Washington, DC. The parents had raised money and the kids had had car washes and walkathons so even the underprivileged kids had an opportunity to get out of the neighborhood for a week. Angel, being interested in culture and such, I had wanted to go. His Ma had not had the bucks right off, but then the aunts and his sisters all chipped in, all telling him they had high hopes for him and were willing to make sacrifices. Angel had felt kind of sorry for them doing it because he knew they were trying so hard to define him as someone who was so special he could defy fate and stay in school. He had begun to suspect that that was a pipe dream, a matter of hope over reality, a typical mother’s dream, but he had not known that for certain then and so was willing to take their jing and fancy himself a sophisticated and superior dude, a world traveler even.

So he’d seen the Lincoln Memorial and that huge national cock, The Washington Monument, goofed off with everyone else at the Air and Space Museum, but he’d learned his most valuable lessons at night. Girls came to him. They fought with one another, clawed and pulled the hair if need be, to come to his room at night and get laid. It was a marvel like none he had so far encountered; it was like winning the lottery, or finding you could play basketball good enough for the NBA.

In the morning two or three of the girls might be shooting daggers at one another over breakfast but not a one of them was reeling him in. They learned early not to piss him off or he’d walk. In fact, he made sure they knew from the beginning he was a free agent and intended to stay that way. In part that had been fear of his mother but there was also in Angel an inherent conservatism. Initially, he had been apprehensive, fearful of being hooked by this new high. So he cultivated a cheerful bravado about staying free and it turned out to be fortunate. While Angel himself was just having fun, he found he was able to set up the homeboys with ripe little sluts from other neighborhoods, a service so immediately and thoroughly valuable that he thought for a while it might keep him in school.

But such was not the case. Angel did not make it through high school. The lure of easy money was too much. He believed he was meant for something more than getting up at the crack of dawn on winter mornings and having his ma hounding him every night to study that boring shit they assigned in school. He was a smart kid, smooth and charming to women as well as girls, and he carved out virgin territory doing business at The Mall. The guys on the street who controlled the supply appreciated his incentive, maybe, so they took care of Angel and it was a damn good thing because Angel couldn’t have taken care of himself, that he had learned early.

Angel just wasn’t that tough. He hadn’t the stomach for it. Blood from a bad cut was enough to make him dizzy; he had more than once fainted. Guns made him absolutely sick: terror, of which there was always an ample supply in his neighborhood, had more than once made him wet himself. There were chicks doing business in his neighborhood – some younger than him – with more balls than he had. They were the rollers who peddled to strangers right off the street and held their own while they were doing it. The rich suburbanites would just cruise down certain streets in Angel’s neighborhood and find a roller selling stuff on a corner. Apparently, the ladies were more approachable for the marauding yuppies who tooled in from Newton and Eastwood and Wellesley. To an insider like Angel that action was a great joke. There were the yuppies thinking they were safe, making their contract with a roller without ever having to get out of their cars, probably thinking these broads could never do them a bit of harm, maybe even contemplating the big kill, taking the drugs and peeling off without paying. Of course that never actually happened because these ladies had a system, airtight and money guaranteed. Angel respected them. They had something he did not. Balls. Cold courage balls. They wielded guns. Some of them could shoot straight right into another human being, watch the blood flow and just walk away. They kept a bunch of paid bodyguards, stupid thugs with limited ambition but loyal enough to take out a cop if need be. Angel had respect for them. It was an art keeping up an operation like that, and Angel knew he didn’t have the nerve for it. Once he got hold of a gun and sort of hung around with it. Set it down next to him on the couch. Let it sit on the pillow beside his head. He’s been convinced the proximity would ease his discomfort, but he’d been wrong. He just could not get used to the thing. It gave him the creeps, continuous. Made him feel liquid in his gut. Maybe that made him a terminal wimp but there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. You needed to be pretty hard to make it in that kind of operation, in almost any street operation. It was just luck that he’d found himself an insider-type situation. Fate had cut him a break, so to speak. Whatever. He had been golden – for a time at least.

Another thing, Angel did not have the stomach for was jail. Once, the summer after he finished ninth grade, he had to take the rap for an older guy, a wheeler-dealer named Roger who could absolutely not afford to get pulled in again. They had him for grand theft auto unless someone else admitted having done it. It had been a necessity.  Angel had not questioned that;  it was something he just had to face and endure. Others before had done their time. He hadn’t even waited to hear the threats, he just went. He was fifteen years old, cherry, a juvenile with no record and they let him out as soon as his mother came around. She put up a convincing show and they’d given him a suspended sentence with her promising that she’d straighten him out. He heard more shit about how grand theft auto was a gateway gig and next time he’d be carrying; those cops were such losers. They thought they had it all figured out, but they really knew nothing. The whole process had gone exactly as Roger and promised him it would and he had had it to do it. It has been the end of his Ma’s delusions unfortunately but that had had to happen sometime. So he’d had to put in some time with a juvenile probation officer who lost interest in those interviews faster than Angel did. That was no big deal. The major lesson he had learned had been during those few hours in jail, that he did not have the stomach for jail either, that he had to stay the hell out of trouble and take no more falls for the brothers. Fortunately, his fine style with the ladies had already begun to manifest itself and he’d become too busy getting Roger laid to even consider wanting Angel Machado in the can.

But who really knew how long he could keep this up? Angel knew he was vulnerable in the long run. The single guy was always threatened with extinction. It had become more and more necessary to affiliate with a gang. No longer were Lone Rangers tolerated, no matter what their gimmick. Angel could see the writing on the wall. These days there was a new guy, a nigger, moving on Roger’s business and the word on the street was that it was a shoo-in, Roger was just doing too much of his own stuff. Angel’s girls told him all Roger wanted was to chase the dragon, a sure sign of financial difficulties. Angel expected he would not be all that valuable to the new guy, who had a steady lady, an icy fox who did not look like she was about to be replaced even temporarily. Either way, it had put him back to wondering how to get himself out.

He sure as hell could not hang around hoping to win the lottery, though he sunk ten bucks into tickets every week on the longshot. He’d thought of pimping. As it was he did that line of work effortlessly and for nothing. It was a cakewalk. But he abandoned the idea. In operation, the pimps looked as ominous as the dealers. Angel could recruit a stable, no sweat, but where would he set himself up? And how would he keep order? He’d need a gun or a thug who carried one. But even if he hired one some hooker with bigger balls than his could turn on him and blow him away for diddling some new face. Either way, he’d get himself killed, of that he was certain. 

Eventually, he conceived of winning a different kind of game. The Mall was frequented by rich suburbanites from Newton, Wellesley Hills, and Chestnut Hill. Some of them just wandered around, all dressed up but adrift, not unlike the high school girls he’s been picking up in The Mall for years. They were all just looking for something, some means of escape, some distraction, maybe a little of Angel’s goodies, maybe a little of the Angel himself.

Angel began to envision himself as a potential happening in the life of some wealthy, easily duped older lady. How hard could they be to handle? Were they so different? Of course, he might have trouble getting rid of them. Walking away from women was Angel’s real forte. He was nobody’s keeper. No hungry fox was about to hold Angel’s life in her twat. Forgetaboutit. He would take them and leave them. And he loved the leaving, in fact, just patting ass and telling her he’d see her around gave him a rush. They loved it, too. That was the real mystery. He’d wait, disappear even, and they’d come looking for him. Like clockwork. He’d puzzled over that plenty but never abandoned the practice. He just perfected it as much as he could. Now and then some little jewel disappeared like she didn’t have the self-respect to come looking or maybe she had too much but he seldom had the feeling that he’d been dropped for spit or because she was too good to come looking. Let her come to me, he’d tell himself whenever he was tempted to call a woman or whenever he found himself wanting one again. Sure as sunrise, they always came. Then he knew he had them good. Eventually, they might get tired of it, might even get mad, but he’d just shrug. After all, he had not been the pursuer. What else could a broad expect who chased after a guy? But the biggest rush for Angel was when he held back, didn’t call, just waited and didn’t think about it and sure enough, the lady came to him. One after another. All he needed to do was to wait her out. 

So he’d started looking, started taking notes on the variations of the breed and which of them might have something to offer him. He’d had to practice, to flirt, to bumble even, all of which was part of feeling out the stock. Angel had never known any wealthy or educated women personally, unless he counted the manager of The Weathervane, who had gone to some junior college and studied marketing, thought she was something special because of it, too. Angel was very polite and deferential, but he really thought it was a crock. He suspected that the rich ones weren’t all that different, just icier, more full of themselves. When he first started trying to make time and found himself cut off with cold or astonished dismissals, he had been surprised to discover that his feelings were hurt. Cunts. But he had worked on his attitude, polished his come-ons, learned to move in when they were gazing at their paintings, listening to the musicians or drinking cappuccino while they watched the passers-by and wondered what the hell to do with the rest of their day.

At first, he’s been very careful and conservative. He definitely did not want to get a reputation, didn’t want his Mall customers in the know. One woman he met told him he was “an aspiring gigolo” and that she was flattered but she unavailable. She suggested he rent “Midnight Cowboy,” this ancient movie about these two losers. It was incredible that that guy, Dustin Hoffman, was the same one as in “Tootsie.” The guy was definitely into weird stuff. Angel sold the woman some cocaine, which was always to the good, but when he saw her around after renting a movie, he avoided her. The bitch was just waiting for him to ask her what the hell she meant telling him to rent that movie and he was not about to give her the satisfaction. Let her come to me, he’d tell himself whenever he was tempted and sure enough, she did. Showed up out of nowhere as he was leaving The Gourmet Take-out place and they’d sat at one of those little tables while she lectured him all about the movie. She was worse than those guys on TV who do the movies. It was nuts. But Angel understood that there had been something important about sitting at that little table, leaning toward one another as she chattered excitedly about this movie they had both seen – like they shared some special secret. He could see that she got off on this stuff and he wasn’t scornful as much as intrigued.

Angel did worry briefly that they might be too smart for him. He started listening to those two dorks who give movie reviews and one day on a whim he bought a book at DALTON BOOKS on art, planning to read a little. It turned out to be a massive success even before he cracked the binding. He’d tossed the plastic bag and stuck the thing in his pocket and gone down to the little gallery. Right away he saw a woman there browsing and he walked right up to her and started shooting the breeze with her about the paintings. At first, she was very cool, looking down her nose at him, but then he reached in his pocket and asked her if she’d read this book and whammo! He was golden. After that, he bought books off the front racks on movies, but he got so he would call them films. He could bullshit better about movies than he could about art, but he learned a little about one or two painters – Jackson Pollard, Jasper Johns – what was not to like? He just talked them up, which usually got him through the first few minutes and sometimes bought him a cappuccino, but he couldn’t seem to get much further than that. He had begun to think he needed to make an initial investment, which was actually against his principles, but he began to contemplate the possibility of picking up the check for the cappuccinos or whatever, just to see where it might go from there. It was clear enough that you couldn’t tell these bitches to hit their knees if they wanted to score. 

The morning he spotted Caroline Shorter he did not have a book. It had been his intention to pick up something before homing in on her. With the book as a prop, he was more confident, he felt he came on more sincere. But by the time he finished his business she had moved down to the gallery and that was always his best setting, so he double-timed to down there, never letting her see he was cruisin’ and before he got within a foot of the broad he knew she was high. Ten-forty-five on a Wednesday morning and this babe in the fox fur smelled like the night before, smelled like she was sportin’ a blood-alcohol reading of .09, minimum. Angel knew in his soul he was golden.