The Rescue

17

Bettina wakes at sunrise in the Queen Palms, Felix warm on one side of her, the Winchester Model 12 cold on the other.

Just three hours of sleep, haunted by J, and by spooky sicarios possibly dispatched to kidnap Felix, and by Daniel Knowles Strickland.

She cracks open a curtain on dark storm clouds and a breeze through the three wretched queen palms in the courtyard. Gets dressed to run, leashes Felix, and peeks out the window again. Imagines herself slipping into the near dark, heading for the Dana Point marina.

God, it would feel good to move, to run. But good enough to risk being seen by the two cartel representatives that Arnie Crumley’s DEA says might be here?

She backs away from the curtain and detaches Felix’s leash.

“Sorry, pup-pup,” she says. “No run for us out of an abundance of caution. I hate that shit, caution. But I’m worried about you.”

Angered at being a captive of her fears, she makes some coffee in the rinky-dink drip maker, props the Winchester in a corner, and checks her email and text messages.

She’s got twelve new Felix emails and twenty new text messages to her phone. Some are accompanied by pictures of Felix’s “relatives.” Some want Bettina to return him to them, the rightful owners. Some offering to buy him, just as Strickland had done.

Five of the new emails are pleas from Teddy Delgado, reiterating his story of raising “Joe” in Otay Mesa for a year when he was a puppy. That Joe worked for the DEA for four years and was about to retire but he either ran away from, or was stolen by his handler, Aaron. So Teddy says. Teddy has eighty-five dollars and he won’t take no for an answer and he’s trying to get to Laguna but he can’t drive yet.

The same basic story Arnie Crumley gave her, she thinks.

It further annoys Bettina that three of Felix’s alleged “owners” — mysterious Dan Strickland, grating Arnie Crumley and now this pushy Ted Delgado — all want to see the dog. Not just see, but two of them want to take Felix away from her. To own him. A thought: Are they working together to get him away from me?

If you start feeling like you’re paranoid, you probably are.

On the other hand, others online have claimed that his real name is Max, Spots, Jason, Scout, Magnum, Streak, Andy, Falcon, and on and on. One said that Felix knows over a thousand Russian words. One said she had raised Felix from birth, feeding him baby formula with an eyedropper. Another said he’d taken Felix skydiving when the dog was Murphy, his puppy. Another said her dog had been featured in a traveling circus and could answer addition and subtraction problems by raising and lowering his right front paw. Some wanted their dog back; others only to be featured in one of her videos.

Such as “Felix: The Rescue of a Mexican Street Dog,” which is now just over a week old, and still getting lots of views and likes. There are more hustlers, liars, and cheats after her dog than ever, she thinks.

Annoyance rising, Bettina tells Ted that she understands his feelings for his former dog, but can’t sell her Felix back to him. I’m really very sorry, she says, and she is. But not sorry enough to sell Felix.

Blood pressure high, as usual — she can feel the blood surging in her veins and arteries, trying to get through — Bettina updates next week’s Coastal Eddy calendar from her voluminous emails and press releases. It takes over an hour to replace the outdated listings with the new ones. It’s nice to have something distracting to do.

She’s just pressed the Send button on her laptop when she decides what to do about Strickland.

Writes her message and sends it off:

I have important news and some questions for you. I’ll be walking Felix at Alta Laguna Park at one this afternoon.

His answer comes thirty seconds later:

She wonders if she’s making a bad decision. Maybe even falling into a trap. But she knows it’s paranoid to think that a war hero, ex-cop, self-defense teacher would steal a well-known journalist’s dog in a popular public park in broad daylight.

Paranoid indeed.

But after her meeting with Arnie, Strickland has some explaining to do.

She thinks of calling Billy Ray, maybe he could just sort of glide by and keep an eye out for her and Felix. Decides not to.

Strickland’s résumé proves he’s on the up-and-up, right?

And she’ll have Thunder with her in the Wrangler.

Dan Strickland rises from one of the picnic tables as Bettina approaches. She notes the cardboard box on the table. She drops Felix’s leash and he sprints to his former owner, who takes a knee and lets the dog lick his face, then rolls Felix over and scratches his underside.

“Mr. Strickland...”

“Dan.”

“Bettina.”

They sit.

“Dan, you were right. Felix was a DEA drug-sniffing dog until six months ago. His name was Joe. I’ve seen pictures of their Joe and he’s definitely Felix. Joe was about to be retired for poor behavior and depression. He either ran away from his handler or was dognapped. Shortly after that, DEA thought that their retired Joe was being used by the New Generation cartel to locate drugs and cash belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel. Up until the time he was shot last month. Possibly by the Sinaloans. Who have possibly sent two of their people to Laguna to deal with Felix in some way.”

“Deal in what way?”

“They don’t know.”

Strickland stands, brushes the dirt off his pants. His smile is slight. “Jesus, are you serious?”

“I’m scared. They told me to vary my patterns. Stay with friends or in motels.”

“That’s big of them.”

“That’s what I thought.

“No safe house for you and Joe?”

“Felix and me. No. They’re interested in a guy called the Roman.”

“The what?”

“He handled Joe for the New Generation. Nobody seems to know his real name.”

Strickland shakes his head and meets her stare, no amusement in him.

Bettina is proud to have better information than this know-it-all self-defense genie. And she must ask the big question, because that’s what she does, that’s how you find stories that matter.

“Maybe you’re the Roman?” she asks. “Technically, you could be.”

His expression is tight and unreadable but she sees anger in his eyes and hears it in his voice.

“Well, actually not, Bettina. I run a successful self-defense company. I’ve never used or sold drugs. I don’t have time to be running all over Tijuana with a dog, putting my gringo head in the crosshairs of cartel soldiers. But mainly, as I already told you, I lost Joe over a year ago and haven’t seen him since.”

Bettina vets his story and his tone. Does the math. “I had to ask. People surprise you, sometimes.”

“You surprise me, Bettina. With your naïveté and gullibility. Where’s that great reporter in you? Open your eyes and use your brain. Don’t make me up. If this Roman is a gringo, he’s more likely undercover DEA than a small businessman like me.”

Which makes sense to Bettina as she thinks of Arnie Crumley’s appearance and arrogance. Arnie as undercover Roman? Extravagantly far-fetched, but possible. Loyal to DEA or the New Generation, or only to himself?

Felix looks up at Strickland, ears limp with submission.

Bettina sees the worry on his face, knows that Felix has picked up on his former master’s anger.

But Strickland’s reaction helps a weight lift inside her, because she wants to believe that Strickland is a decent guy. Maybe more than decent. He gives her a somber glare.

“Okay,” says Bettina. “All right. My eyes and brain are not perfect, but they work just fine.”

“Well.”

“Pardon my questions and suspicions. The DEA has me rattled. I don’t rattle easy, but my imagination does have a mind of its own.”

“It sure does.”

“Reset?”

“I’m happy to. Let’s sit.”

Felix gives Bettina a hopeful look.

“Thanks for meeting me here on such short notice,” she says. “You barely had time to make the drive from San Diego.”

“I’m staying at the Montage here in town.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to be close to Joe and you. I was hoping you’d call.”

“Nice hotel.”

“It’s the ocean you pay for.”

“I stayed there once to write an article about it. Felt like a princess.”

“You’d be good one.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re uncommon.”

“Don’t flatter me. I know who I am.”

Strickland purses his lips and nods, gives her a gaze. His anger is gone and his eyes are gray and cool.

“You might not like what’s in this box,” he says.

Bettina has already registered the curious items, the most puzzling of which is wrapped in clear plastic and propped in a corner of the pasteboard box on the picnic table.

“Flowers?”

“I thought you’d like them.”

“You have the manners of my grandfather.” It looks like Strickland blushes but the sunlight through the clouds is strong right then.

“There’s also food and some things for Joe.”

“Felix.”

“Joe to me.”

“This is not a date, Dan.”

“No, it absolutely is not.”

Bettina shakes her head.

Strickland’s face is a map of contradictory lines. Something in his posture, as he pulls what looks like a Montage hand towel out of the box and covers the dumbass flowers against the sun, makes Bettina see him as not just another egocentric, self-obsessed man. He looks embarrassed.

“Let’s take a walk,” says Bettina.

They take the trail that leads down from Alta Laguna Park into Laguna Canyon. There are enough hikers and bikers and dogs to further dilute Bettina’s paranoia that Strickland is going to take off with her dog.

The canyon views are beautiful: gray clouds, winter-green hills, a peek of the silver Pacific. Felix zigzags the narrow trail ahead of them, nose up, nose down, nose up again. Bettina is sorry for lecturing Dan Strickland on his manners. She wonders for the millionth time in her life why she’s so quick to take offense, and so quick to anger. But sometimes accepting of risk and willing to face danger. Wanting to face it. Like she gets things backward. Her mother used to tell her to slow down, Bettina, take a pill. But which one?

“I love my grandfather,” she says, the stiff canyon breeze in her face. She likes the way the wind snatches the words from her mouth, like they’re valuable. “I shouldn’t have bitched you out.”

“I’ve never done that before. Flowers.”

“In your whole life?”

“Whole.”

“Why today?”

Strickland stops and turns and the breeze moves his hair. “As a kid I thought I was just simple-minded. It took me forever to read and write. When I got to high school, I saw how different I was. Different shrinks had different names for it. ADHD was the one I heard most. I knew I didn’t have certain feelings other people had. Certain behaviors. Certain fears. I heard, ‘high risk tolerance’ a lot. I heard ‘impulse-driven’ a lot. ‘Low dopamine, high adrenaline.’ But when I looked at other people, I seemed to be as good as them. Sometimes better. I closed off my mom and dad and sister. I never asked anything of them or anybody. But the flowers were asking you to like me, and to thank you for letting me see Joe.”

Bettina considers his handsome, matter-of-fact face. “Felix. But what a beautiful confession.”

A small smile from Dan the man. “I don’t talk much about myself, so that’ll probably be it for a while.”

“I don’t either,” Bettina says. “I can go on and on about myself with Felix. People are a little tougher.”

The trail is steep and narrow, with long switchbacks down the flank of the canyon. Felix puts up a covey of quail from a big patch of prickly pear, and Bettina’s heart jumps as the birds tear into the sky. She picks one out and imagines her shotgun lead, and her squeezing of the trigger, regretting having shot so many of these quirky little birds when she was young. She calls her dog back.

“I used to hunt those when I was a girl.”

“I hunted snakes and lizards.”

“There’s lots of those in this canyon. Two kinds of rattlers.”

“Mom found my snake collection in my toy chest when I was ten. Crawling around the balls and helmets and in-line skates. I drilled holes in the back for air.”

“We had snakes in Anza Valley but I never liked them. One of our Labs got bit and it almost did her in.”

“Tell me about Anza Valley,” says Strickland. “I’ve never been there.”

Bettina’s Anza Valley monologue carries them almost all the way down to the Laguna Canyon Road, then back up in a long gradual loop that brings them back to where they started at the park.

They sit facing each other across the picnic table, Felix at their feet.

Silence settles over them. Bettina gets water for the dog, then watches the tennis players and listens to the pop of the balls on the rackets. Watches Strickland as he sets out the cheeses and grapes and chocolate and two cans of fizzy water.

One thing about having lunch with a hunky self-defense guru, Bettina thinks, is you feel safe. Even if you hardly know him. Even if he inappropriately brings flowers. The flowers are actually pretty nice: sturdy protea and eucalyptus shoots. Strickland carries a gun in the small of his back, but a sweater mostly hides it. Maybe not a surprise, she thinks, given his occupation.

“Tell me more about how you got Joe,” she says.

Felix raises his head at his name. Bettina sees him looking at her from down by her feet. He studies her, then he plunks his chin back down to the ground.

“When he got retired from DEA, a friend called. He knew I was looking for a dog. Joe and I took to each other immediately.”

Bettina finds Arnie Crumley’s forwarded DEA photos of Felix, hands her phone to Strickland.

Who looks up from the screen to her. “It’s him, all right.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Apparently the Sinaloans hate him,” says Bettina. “He’s cost them millions of dollars with that nose of his. DEA says two Sinaloans have possibly been dispatched from Tijuana to California, possibly to steal him. Senior people, heavies. So I’m living away from home for a while. Different places every few days. Working remote. Not going out in public or falling into a pattern.”

“They should offer you a safe house.”

“They only use them on actionable intel. The intel they have on Felix is unverified. They said the Sinaloans want him, not me.”

“That’s the most gutless thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah. But there’s no arguing with them.”

Strickland hands back Bettina’s phone. Shakes his head and squints out at the hills.

“I know people who can protect you and Joe,” he says. “Professionals. I trained some of them. They’ll give me a good rate, and I’ll pay for them.”

“No, you’re generous. But no.”

“They would have to be in your life twenty-four seven, until this resolves. They’ll keep you and Joe safe. It’s what they’re trained for.”

“No. I said no.”

“I don’t understand you, Bettina.”

“Felix and I are moving targets in a state with twenty-three million people in the lower half, and God knows how many dogs. I have my Model 12. And Felix was trained for attack by the DEA, even though he wasn’t real good at it.”

“You’re stubborn and naïve.”

“Just stubborn.”

“They’ll kill you to get the dog, if they need to.”

Bettina feels that spark starting up inside, the one that so easily kindles her instincts for fight and flight.

“Flowers,” she says. “A free protection team for me and Felix. What do you want from me besides my dog?”

“All you offer.”

The words land like a blow. “That’s a creep-show thing to say to someone you don’t even know.”

Bettina flashes back to those strange first minutes with Daniel Strickland:

You made my day.

“You know what I think? I think guys like you almost always get what they want. And if they don’t, it’s no big deal.”

“I’ll do anything to protect you and Joe. I’ll put you through my Apex program, no charge. Joe likes watching the training. You can bring him.”

“Where you can take him off my hands, for his protection?”

“It could come to that.”

“Not on my watch, Dan Strickland,” says Bettina, rising. “Thanks for lunch but I’m going now.”

Strickland takes a knee beside the picnic table, rubs Felix’s ears with his big hands. Mutters his name while he pets him. Bettina feels like a villain.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I feel strongly about things sometimes.”

“We shouldn’t do this again,” says Bettina, surprised how bad she feels about what she’s decided. Like she’s lowering blinds on a sunny new morning.

Strickland stands and holds out the leash. Bettina takes it, studying his fine, hard-to-read face.

“You’re new to me,” he says. “I’m not sure what to do or say.”

She nods and leads the dog away through the park, Felix trying to get back to Dan Strickland, whining as Bettina pops the lead smartly, bringing him to heel.