Richard Lange's Angel Baby

This is the colonia, or neighborhood, where Luz grew up. An impoverished section of the city, far from the tourist traps, its notoriety stems from the fact that Mexican presidential candidate Luis Colosio was shot and killed here after giving a speech in 1994. Here’s how the neighborhood is described in the novel: “The colonia looks the same as it did when Luz left it. A maze of tin-roofed shacks clogging a dry, dusty canyon next to the airport. A slum cobbled together out of plywood, old garage doors scavenged from the U.S., cinderblocks, and blue plastic tarps. A barrio where fear rules, and anger flares quickly into violence.”

This is the beach town where the character of Malone lives. (It was also the setting for the HBO series John From Cincinnati.) It’s so close to the Mexican border, you can see Tijuana from the end of the pier. “The waves roll in pale green, veined with white foam::text like liquid marble, bellies full of sunlight. They rise only waist-high before flopping with barely enough energy left to make their runs up the sand. Malone sits cross-legged above the high-tide line south of the Imperial Beach pier and watches a flock of plovers work the swash zone. The skittish little birds chase the retreating waves, pausing now and then to peck the wet sand in search of mole crabs. No alcohol is allowed on the beach, but the cops and lifeguards recognize Malone as a local, another sunstruck idler who’s dead-ended in this last-stop surf town, so they ignore the Tecate in his hand.”

This is where Luz and Malone cross the border into the U.S. The city is best-known for the brewery where Tecate beer is made and bunch of fancy spas for rich white women. I’ve stayed at the Hotel Tecate and done a bit of barhopping here. Not a bad place to spend a day if you don’t expect too much. The park in front of the hotel is charming in a scruffy sort of way. “The locals are out in force in the park. The old people take the benches while the teenagers congregate on the edges, where they can keep an eye on who’s driving by, sometimes stepping out into the street for quick conversations. A family – Mom, Dad, a pack of kids – approaches a clown twisting balloon animals. The kids are shy at first, but warm up when presented with colorful giraffes and poodles. The youngest throws a fit when it’s time to go, and his cries carry all the way to Malone’s table.”

This is where Luz lived during her early years in the U.S. Made infamous by the rap group N.W.A., the city is a working class enclave that’s been plagued over the years by gang violence. The racial makeup of the place has shifted over the last couple of decades from predominantly black to predominantly Latino. Bludso’s BBQ on Long Beach Boulevard is highly recommended. “Luz remembers the first time she saw this place, back when she was thirteen years old, a scared little girl running from somewhere bad to somewhere she hoped would be better. Her fantasy of Los Angeles had been shaped by MTV and gossip magazines, so what a disappointment it was when Carmen picked her up at the bus station and brought her here. Compton was sad little factories and roaring freeways. Compton was bunker liquor stores and ghetto swap meets. It was a million miles from the beach, from Sunset Boulevard, from the Hollywood Hills.

“An hour after she arrived one of her cousins showed her the bloodstains and bullet holes from a recent drive-by, and that night she lay in bed paralyzed with fear as a helicopter circled above the neighborhood and sirens wailed in the distance. She’d come all the way from TJ for this? It felt::text like someone had lied to her.”

This is the notorious prison where the character of Jerónimo is locked up before being released to track down Luz. It’s located smack dab in the middle of the city and surrounded by houses, restaurants and shops. At night, when things quiet down inside the prison, I imagine the sounds of normal life drifting over the walls to torment the inmates lying awake in their airless cells and cramped dormitories. “The central corridor of A Block is called Revolución, after Tijuana’s main drag. The inmates congregate there, playing cards on the picnic tables and sitting stoned against the concrete walls, seeing nothing and everything. Music blares out of a hundred radios, and cons stand in the middle of the corridor and carry on shouted conversations with other prisoners in the three tiers of cells towering above them. Jerónimo nods to a couple of acquaintances as he moves through the chaos. He keeps his circle small. The fewer motherfuckers who know your business, the better, especially if you’re trying to avoid trouble.”