The Rescue

10

Bettina and Billy Ray step around the potholes on Coahuila Street, where the bloody cartel shoot-out took place over a month ago.

Leading them is Luis, an old man they’ve just met, who knows the family of Fidelito Camacho, the boy who took a wounded dog to an animal hospital one night last month. He’s well dressed and walks with a sprightly limp.

In the Coahuila barrio, he says, everybody knows everybody.

Luis speaks little English, so Bettina explains in Spanish that she and Billy are researching a story for a small newspaper in California, Coastal Eddy.

“I will protect Fidelito,” she says. “But I need to tell his story because it matters, because that boy risked his life for a street dog.”

“Fidelito will not talk to you, because the dog maybe was shot by the cartels,” Luis explains in his native tongue.

“I will not use his real name. I want to talk to him privately, where we won’t be seen.”

“Everything is seen. They will see me talking to you, but I am old and without value and I do not fear them.”

“We don’t need pictures or video,” says Bettina. “Only to hear his story.”

“I will explain this to his father and mother, but they are pious and proud. They won’t let you inside.”

“Please tell them we are honest reporters who believe in God,” says Bettina with a guilty current of sacrilege coursing inside her.

A Tijuana Municipal Police cruiser rolls by.

A street dog who looks like Felix hustles across the street in front of it, well out of range.

Luis tells Bettina to stay here while he talks to Fidelito’s mom and dad.

“Wait,” she says. “If Fidelito’s parents won’t let him talk to me in person, maybe they’ll let him talk by phone.”

“Maybe,” says Luis. At Bettina’s suggestion, Luis accepts her number on a small scrap of her notepad paper. He gives her a conspiratorial look.

Bettina and Billy watch from a small zócalo featuring a leafless sycamore tree and a flock of pigeons competing for food from an old man on a bench.

Luis knocks on a side window of a squat pink house on a dirt road intersecting Coahuila. The glass slides open and Luis talks to the screen.

A moment later Luis disappears around the back of the house.

Five minutes come and go, then Bettina’s phone rings with a number not in her contacts.

“This is Fidelito but you can’t use my name. My father has allowed me to talk to you only on the phone.”

Fidelito’s voice is high and sweet, and he mixes in some English with his Spanish.

“This is Bettina. I’m a writer. I will change your name and not take your picture or video.”

“Do you have the dog? I saw him two weeks ago at the clinic and he looked good.”

“I adopted him and took him to California and named him Felix. I want to write about you for my paper. I want to present you as a hero.”

“I heard God’s voice tell me to save the dog. He ran under a car in the back of Factoría Calderón. It was dark. Is that you in the zócalo, with the tall man? I can see you through a window.”

Bettina waves. “Yes, Fidelito, I’m right here.”

“If you look down Coahuila behind you, you will see the furniture factory. There is a back door and a loading dock. That was where I first saw the wounded dog running.”

“I’m going to walk over there so my assistant can shoot some video.”

“I was hiding behind a house. I heard many bullets. I saw two men run from the building, and two men who were lying in the doorway. And the dog, he climbed over the dead men and he ran. He was limping.”

They approach, Billy shooting video and stills on his phone. The factory is old and the plaster and bricks are crumbling and patched over. It’s kind of ominous, she thinks, a place where bad things could happen. Her viewers will see that. Billy shoots another police car going slowly past. The driver rests his elbow on the window frame and looks at them through his aviators, then smiles and waves. Bettina waves back.

“We need basic establishing shots for ‘Hero Without a Face,’” she tells Billy.

The pedestrians give them a wide berth and study Bettina with stoic calm. Billy Ray gets some video of the back side of the factory. Bettina notes Billy’s tight expression. Wishes he could relax some. Fidelito tells her about that night, the rain cold and some wind too.

Tells her that his father used to work in the Factoría Calderón.

They circle the building back to its entrance and go inside.

“We’re inside,” she tells him. “Excuse me while I talk to this man. Don’t hang up. This will only take a minute.”

Señor Juan Calderón greets them with a smile and a suspicious glance at the phone in Bettina’s hand. Bettina tells them who they are, and explains the story they’re doing about the dog wounded in the shoot-out back in February.

“Please to not take pictures here,” says Calderón. “It is proprietary.”

“Of course, sir,” she says. “I understand.”

The factory is well lit, with high ceilings. Tall racks of lumber and hides and cloth line the four walls, and the workbenches are fitted with power tools. Bettina sees the bedstands and the armchairs and the dining sets and the sofas, dozens of them, some apparently complete and others in progress.

She thanks him, looks at the workers at their stations, who watch her back, this gringa wearing a knit suit and white tennis shoes. Señor Calderón is clearly uncomfortable.

“We have never had any problems here before,” he says, echoing what he had told the newspaper El Sol de Tijuana. “We have been here forty years.”

Bettina surveys the big open factory and warehouse as best she can, itching for pictures and video. She looks at all the boxes of supplies and the tall walls for bullet holes. Thinks she sees some high up by the ceiling fans, but at that distance they might just be chipped paint or flies.

Back outside, she asks Fidelito if Felix came to him when he called out to the dog under the car.

“He was in the gutter near the back tire,” Fidelito says. The call breaks up, then clears. “He was licking his belly, near his hind leg. I was on my hands and knees right there, looking under the car so I could see him. He looked at me only once. That’s when I saw the blood. He whined. He looked afraid. He was patiently licking. There was still shooting from the factory. Men screamed and machine guns fired. I had a dog when I was little. He disappeared. A feeling came over me. The voice of God told me to take the dog to the clinic. Everyone knows the clinic is good and doesn’t charge money.”

“But he didn’t come to you?”

“He was afraid. I pulled him out. He yipped and closed his teeth on my arm but he didn’t bite hard. I thought he was thanking me. He let go and I ran with him all the way to Vía Rosa to get away from the guns. I didn’t know if maybe who shot him would come after us to finish killing the dog. When I was far down Vía Rosa, I was able to slow down. The dog was hard to carry because he was very heavy and wet, and I held him in both arms like a baby and he curled into me and licked himself. I knew the fastest way to the clinic. And I kept looking back to see if men were coming after us, and I saw people in the darkness. I thought maybe the bullet hit the dog by accident and nobody even knew that he had been shot. God told me to run or the dog would die. The dog whimpered as I ran. The rain got heavier and I kept running and I timed my breaths to my steps. The streets and sidewalks were slippery. When I got to the clinic, I saw there was a light on in the office. There was a bell and a man finally opened the door.”

Fidelito verbally coaches her down Coahuila Street to Vía Rosa, then sends her down two alleys that bring her to within eyeshot of Dr. Rodríguez’s clínica.

“I can see the clinic, Fidelito! It’s a harrowing story, Fidelito,” says Bettina. “But you saved his life!”

“I only carried the dog. God saved his life. God and the doctor.”

“You’re too humble. You should be aware of your unselfishness and true bravery. When people read this story and see my video, they’re going to be inspired by your courage. But I will never say your name or show your image. All because of what you did. You will be a hero without a face.”

“Gracias, Señorita Blazak.”

Bettina and Billy set off down Vía Rosa to retrace their steps to the Factoría Calderón. At the corner of Avenida Revolución, a rough-looking young man in a ratty silk sport coat right out of Miami Vice, wearing a belt with an enormous silver-and-turquoise buckle, offers to show them his cocaine, pure from the Sierra Madre, or his highest quality “super-ice” meth — both containing a safe amount of fentanyl, both on sale today.

Billy Ray badges him. “Can I help you?”

The young man backs away, then wheels and runs into the busy Avenida Revolución sidewalk.

Bettina and Billy continue on Vía Rosa, but two blocks later, the drug peddler and two beefy associates are coming up the sidewalk from behind them. Billy with his cop antennae spots them first. He gently ushers Bettina into a narrow curio stall filled with hanging blankets, serapes, hoodies, guitars, dresses, and chino pants. Steers her deep into the garments.

“I know you don’t like being told what to do, Bettina, but stay here. I mean it.”

He’s gone before she can answer.

Through the hoodies and blankets and hanging guitars, she can see him in the open doorway of the shop, his back to her, feet spread, arms crossed.

Sees the three men confronting him, Billy shaking his head, hands at his sides now. Leaning into them, leading with his big open face. From Bettina’s perspective, all four men seem to be talking at once. Billy steps through them toward the street, one hand waving high as if hailing a cab.

Which is exactly what he does.

Then he turns and waves Bettina out to the sidewalk, where he shepherds her into a clean white-and-orange Taxi Libre while the original drug seller curses them in loud foul language that Bettina understands.

The driver U-turns and barely misses the drug men, who follow the taxi down the street. He berates them through his open window, shaking a fist and calling them names and also trying to apologize to his fares in English.

He swiftly delivers them to Bettina’s Jeep, parked not far from Factoria Calderón and now of interest to two uniformed Municipal Police officers. Two green-and-white Policía Municipal vehicles — one a sedan and the other a pickup truck — are parked on the sidewalk. Two more uniformed cops lean against the truck and watch her.

Bettina, rattled by the dealers, takes the offense in her passable Spanish, telling the police to get away from her Jeep as she digs into her purse for her key. She tells them that she learned Spanish in college and understands every word they say. At which the stocky sergeant laughs, and his beanstalk-thin officer smiles, further provoking her.

Billy tries to intervene, his LBPD badge wallet in hand, his voice in full Texas hospitality mode, but the thin cop takes him by the arm and draws his club. Billy yanks his arm free with a loud “Hands off!”

Which penetrates straight into Bettina’s sprung temper, and, pulling angrily on her wad of keys, she spills half the contents of her purse onto the sidewalk.

The sergeant grabs up her phone and barks an order at his officer. The man lets go of Billy, belts his baton, and strolls to the prowl car.

Bettina follows the sergeant as the two men leaning on the truck come forward as if to intercept her.

“Do not return to Tijuana to purchase narcotics,” says the sergeant, poking the phone at Bettina. “You will be arrested and charged.”

“Give me that!” she barks in Spanish.

“Evidence,” says the sergeant.

Bettina reaches for her phone, and the burly sergeant backs away toward the now idling prowl car, where the skinny officer waits behind the wheel.

Bettina has traveled in Mexico enough to know that local cops shake down gringo tourists all the time. She manages to get both her emergency hundred-dollar bills from her wallet, and, hands shaking, now advances on the cruiser.

The intercepting officers stop short, hands on their clubs. She holds out the money to the sergeant as the big man climbs into the car.

He slams the door and looks at her without expression. The driver guns the car off the sidewalk and bounces it into the traffic, lights on and siren blazing.

Billy’s already behind the wheel of the Jeep, says he’ll drive.

“Follow them to the cop house so I can get my phone back,” snaps Bettina.

“No,” says Billy, pulling into traffic. “The last place you need to be is in their cop house.”

“They can’t rip me off.”

“They don’t want your phone, they just don’t want you using it.”

“There’s a Camacho number on the incomings,” she says.

“The police can’t break into your phone without a code and password,” says Billy. “Don’t worry. The video and pics are on mine.”

Bettina can only think of one appropriate thing to say: “Son of a fucking bitch.”

“Yes, ma’am. We’re getting out of here now. We’re lucky they let us go.”

“Son of a... son of a... son.”

“There’s another police car behind us right now.”

“Get us out of here, Billy.”

“Bet on it.”

Bettina stays turned in her seat, glaring at the cop car all the way to the border in San Ysidro. She’s furious and frustrated, her least favorite emotional cocktail. If she had her phone, she’d be shooting video and taking pictures of these surly bastards. If she had her trap gun, she could shoot out their front tires. Instead, she uses Billy’s phone and calls her landlord, who had volunteered to dog-sit. Felix has been very good, he says, sleeping most of the time in his crate, out by the hot tub.

She calls Jean Rose at Coastal Eddy with the news that she had some problems down in Mexico today but don’t worry, I’m almost home now.

“I’ll write the ‘Hero Without a Face’ story tonight, and put together the video tomorrow. I’ve got some decent location video, of where things happened the night Felix was shot, and how he got to the doctor, and a terrific account from the boy who saved him. It’s going to be strong, Jean. A brave boy and a wounded dog.”

Jean Rose says she fully understands, then tells Bettina that she’s had some complaints from Coastal Eddy readers that the Felix story and video were too violent and don’t really matter to people in Laguna Beach.

“Don’t matter to what people?”

“They employ us.”

Bettina rings off, sets Billy’s phone in the cup holder.

“I guess I’m not just telling a story about a dog and a boy.”

Billy considers this as they grind to a halt a quarter mile from the crossing.

“They’re only parts of a bigger story, Bettina. Or what happened just now would not have happened.”

“What’s the bigger story, then? What am I not seeing?”

He looks at her with his open face, his soft eyes. “Bettina, I wish I knew. But you got yourself a good dog and a couple of good stories out of him, so maybe you should just move on.”

“I’m not moving on, Billy.”

“I know you’re not.”

“I’m digging in.”

At home that evening, Bettina writes her story, “Hero Without a Face,” but with no pictures or video of Fidelito himself. With no recording of what he told her, it’s very hard work. She has to put Fidelito’s eleven-year-old, simple, expressive Spanish into her own dispassionate reporter’s English. Yet make the reader feel the fears of both boy and dog as Fidelito — she names him Julio — runs through the night, clutching a wounded dog to his chest. How can that ever, in a thousand years, not matter? Finally, she finds a voice that sounds like Fidelito’s and manages to remember some of his phrases too:

Felix seems to sense her tension, dozing near his crate, sometimes looking at her with a placid expression and worried eyes.

“Who are you?” she asks out loud.

He cocks his head and his ears rise, but only one flap is down. She loves the way his ears often act independently, giving Felix a random cuteness that makes her smile.

“Did you lose some of your courage when they shot you? That would make anyone sad. And cautious.”

He lays his head on his front paws and looks up at her.

Bettina knows he’s missing someone. Teddy? The person who trained him in English commands? Or his Spanish commands? Are they one person or two, or three? Is Teddy even real? Did you really have a home once?