The Rescue

31

After work, Bettina straightens her apartment, propping up Thunder, the Winchester, room to room as she dusts and wipes and sweeps. She’s got the pepper gel gun in her purse, and her purse on the kitchen counter.

Felix follows her, lying in protective positions in doorways, ears up, chewing his now bedraggled turkey.

“We’re a good team,” she says. “And you are a Guten Doggen.”

She’s in the kitchen, putting cut flowers in the yellow vase she bought at the border the day she brought him home. Felix cocks his head and wags his tail at the word team, as he does every time he hears it, in any context. It’s just as meaningful to him as treat.

Even with the sudden death of Páez and the detention of Valeria, Bettina’s weighted fear of the Sinaloa cartel has lifted by not one gram. She knows that Godoy can send new soldiers to capture or kill Joe and, while they’re at it, why not kill her for setting up his people and costing him $200,000? Powers and Arnie Crumley have told her it’s possible but unlikely, saying that Godoy’s risk — benefit equation won’t pencil out, given what happened up in Moulton Meadows Park. Thus, no full-time protection — only intermittent, unscheduled surveillance. Continue to vary your routine, they said. You can spend some days at home and some at work, but use hotels too. Federal witness protection is disruptive and long term and used only as a last measure, generally for people who appear in court. You would have to give up your byline and your video shows, Arnie reminds her. Basically, your career.

Thanks, guys.

Billy has offered to be with her every second he’s not working. Good of him, but she doesn’t want anybody crowding her like that.

And she doesn’t want witness protection anyway. What she wants is her old life back, even just a little at a time.

El Gordo has been silent since that brutal, surreal night. Through Powers, Bettina knows that the DEA has paid an informant to post on Blog Narco a speculative, “eyewitness” account of a kidnapping and murder of Sinaloan Cartel soldiers in Laguna Beach, California, possibly by rival Jalisco New Generation gunmen. This, to put El Gordo in his place.

Bettina assumes that, as of two nights ago, Godoy has been expecting to hear the good news that his associates had purchased Felix — the costly, humiliating, New Generation mutt made into a celebrity by Coastal Eddy reporter Bettina Blazak.

“I’d kill me, too, if I were him,” she tells the dog in her blackest humor.

Felix considers this, springs to his feet, drops the turkey, and chases his tail in a circular, whirling blur.

At exactly 6:00 p.m., the dog goes to the security screen door.

Seconds later, Strickland appears behind it, as promised. Felix wags his tail dramatically, whimpering.

Bettina unlocks and opens the heavy steel door, Felix throwing himself against Strickland’s knees as he tries to come in.

He downs the dog, who immediately flattens out at his feet, then rolls over. Bettina watches Strickland’s face as he quickly scans the living room and kitchen, holding up his empty hands.

“No flowers.” He turns a 360.

“Enough of that. I’ll take your jacket if you’d like.”

“No thank you.”

“The gun doesn’t bother me,” she says.

“It should, a little.”

“I have bubbly water, wine, and bourbon.”

“Bourbon, please. Straight, with a dribble of tap water.”

Strickland locks the security screen door.

From the kitchen, Bettina looks at Strickland and Felix as she makes two bourbons. The man looks bigger in here, or maybe her apartment looks smaller. It would be very difficult to escape if Strickland tried what Jason Graves tried. She hates that thought and everything behind it, and everything it leads to. She wonders again what to do with Jason. Hates that thought even more.

Concentrate on the here and now.

The three of them join Canyon Cocktails around the firepit. Bettina feels safer — maybe even bolder — with Strickland at her side. The evening is cold for Laguna but the swimming pool is heated. Two of the Canyon View residents talk and tread water in the deep end, the recessed light illuminating them from below. Legs like pale fish. The whirlpool is crowded, steam and words rising above the noisy bubbles.

Bettina introduces Strickland around; Felix takes a chaise lounge for himself, sitting upright, eyes on them, raising his nose to the cool canyon breeze.

Bettina likes Strickland’s manners, slightly formal, controlled but genial. He answers questions about himself and his work with ease and apparent honesty, though he’s quick to redirect his questioners back on themselves. Bettina is exactly the same way: the first thing she learned to do as a shy girl was to let people talk about themselves, which 99.9 percent of the time is what they wanted to talk about anyway. Which, years later, made her a natural reporter. Questions as a profession and a defense. Questions as armor.

She watches as Felix suddenly jumps from the chaise and, nose high, wends his way around a group of people standing near the pool. His limp hardly noticeable, he weaves his way along the water with his nose down, following a scent trail through the faint mist rising off the heated pool.

He angles away from the water, into a cluster of chaise lounges and patio chairs, to a round glass table on which purses and bags have been stashed. Sweaters and heavy jackets and scarves hang from the chairs around the table.

Bettina breaks away from the group.

“Felix, sit!”

He ignores her and, wagging his tail excitedly, drops back onto all fours and pokes his nose into the side pocket of a peacoat draped over a patio chair. Then he sits and looks at Bettina as she arrives.

By then the dog has everyone’s attention, and some of the partiers have come over.

He sits now, a foot away from the coat, staring at that pocket.

“Whoa, dog, that’s my jacket.”

“Sorry about that,” says Bettina.

Strickland arrives next with his practically untouched bourbon and an amused expression.

Peacoat swings the heavy jacket on. “Okay, dog. Good idea — this will definitely cut the chill.”

Felix braces his little front paws on Peacoat’s leg and jams his snout into the left pocket of the jacket.

“Felix, down!” Bettina commands. “Down!”

He pushes off and downs himself at Peacoat’s feet, dropping a small plastic bag on the concrete.

Bettina sees the foil-wrapped item inside, the small pipe, and a box of wooden matches.

“Leave it,” says Bettina.

Felix looks up at her with glee in eyes, then turns his attention back to the bag.

Which Bettina picks up and hands to Peacoat, who stuffs it back into his pocket with a nervous grin.

By then every Canyon Cocktailer present tonight has gathered around.

“Bust-ed!”

“Don’t let that dog into my place!”

“What is it?”

“What’s it look like?”

Peacoat steps back, dangling the bag to the audience. “Anybody want some more hash?”

Felix jumps for it but misses.

Bettina snaps his leash on and walks him back over to his original chaise lounge, lets him jump back up.

“Sit and stay, dog,” she says too harshly, regrets it because she knows he’s only done what he’s been taught to do. It brings him joy.

Bettina looks over at Dan, who has amusement on his face.

“Good dog,” she says. “Now, sit and stay, will you?”