The Rescue

33

The next morning, Bettina grinds through the entertainment calendar listings for this week’s Coastal Eddy. She gives top billings to her favorite entertainers and artists, lets her not-so-favorites have the bottoms. Felix sleeps in his crate.

She feels lighter than she’s felt since Arnie Crumley’s “credible but unverified” warnings at the Cliff nearly a week ago. Since sleek Páez and stylish Valeria came to their grim ends. Since obnoxious Arnie turned out to be right, and his robotic DEA troops really did make short work of El Gordo’s people here in Laguna. Scary short. And having Strickland around, even making him dinner last night, has made Bettina feel safer. She almost kissed him goodbye; glad now she didn’t.

By ten o’clock, she and Felix are at the hilltop mansion of the retired MLB five-time All Star, two-time MVP, and the thirteenth leading home run hitter of all time, Rod Foster.

They conduct the interview on his putting green, Felix lying in the shade of a picnic table under a magnificent magnolia while Bettina asks questions, makes notes, shoots video.

The day is bright and cool and Foster is dressed like a tournament PGA player, right down to the white Titleist visor.

Foster putts and talks and intermittently drinks from a liter stein of iced lemonade so loaded with rum that Bettina can smell it, resting in the shade of a picnic table twenty feet away. Her stein is next to it, but she’s just sipping. She notes that Foster’s putts don’t often go in, that he seems impatient. He talks about pressure being a privilege in sports, how the younger stars fritter away their time and talents on social media. He squats to line up a shot, misses it, claims his drink, and gulps it down to the ice.

The interview and video shoot go on forever. Foster’s assistant delivers two more lemonades.

When it’s over, Foster smiles and shakes Bettina’s hand warmly, then pulls her in for nice wet kiss on her cheek, his lips cold, his breath sour-sweet with lemons and rum.

Felix growls.

By lunchtime, Bettina is walking Felix across Alta Laguna Park, on her way to her favorite concrete table, over by the playground. In a small cooler she’s got take-out sashimi, a can of sugar-blasted iced tea, kibble and water, and Felix’s shiny metal travel bowl.

There are people out and about, most of them in coats and sweatshirts against the chill. Brown women push white infants in elaborate, state-of-the-art strollers. Runners run and joggers jog and the tennis players whack away.

Bettina brushes fresh fragments of orange peel from the bench of her table and sits down.

She feels good right now. At least better. Foster wasn’t so bad, and she’ll get a decent story out of him, and she has the rest of the day off, and again she feels relief that Joaquín is dead and Valeria on her way to being deported. She knows that El Gordo might become vengeful when he learns what happened that night, and deduces her betrayal. She’s got the DEA, Billy, and Strickland to call on, if needed. She tries to dismiss the possibility of revenge from El Gordo, get it away from this bright, clear beautiful day.

Feels good until she hears her phone ping and sees another message from Billy Ray. He’s concerned, wonders if she might be free for lunch. She sighs, leaves the cooler closed, and sends back another message of her own, trying to sound pleasant. Sure, she tells him, I’m up at Alta Laguna right now if you can make it. Already have my lunch, though...

Billy’s there ten minutes later, in his street clothes, a white bag in one hand. When he takes a knee in front of Felix, his face is heavy and his eyes are all worry. She hates to see him this way, knows it’s her fault.

Billy does his usual thing with the dog — sit, down, roll over — then a vigorous belly scratch that gets the dog’s right leg going, always the right leg when Billy does this.

He talks to Bettina the whole time, looking up at her with those beautiful eyes of his, explaining how he got today off, covering for Benson on patrol tonight, trying to keep the conversation light until she cuts him off.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” she says. “I’ve been so distracted since that thing up at Moulton Meadows. I just need some trust and some privacy, that’s all.”

A doubtful look from Billy. “Okay. I get that, Bettina. I really do. And I don’t mean to crowd you. I care about you, though, and I know you’ve been through a lot. Just trying to help, if I can.”

“I know. I appreciate it.”

He sits on the same side of the table as Bettina, at the end of the long, cool concrete bench.

“The canyon is beautiful today,” he says. “Look at that sky. Who’d believe rain tonight?”

They eat mostly in silence, the cooler on the bench between them, Felix under the table.

When Billy’s done with his dinky little burrito, he puts the foil in the bag, rolls it tight in his big hands, and rises.

“I’ll see you around,” he says.

She squeezes his free hand. “Good.”

“Are you scared?”

“Some.”

“Felix? You take care of Bettina. She needs you.”

Felix is standing, tail wagging, but Bettina sees uncertainty in his expression when he looks at her. All the heaviness coming off me, she thinks.

She watches Billy walk away.

She sits a while, takes Felix down the canyon trail a few hundred yards, doubles back and heads for her Jeep.

When she rounds the Jeep to get the passenger door for Felix, he growls.

“Hola, Bettina! Hola, Felix,” says the man. Thick accent, short, sunglasses and a Pacifico ball cap pulled down tight.

He arches something to Felix, who snatches it midair.

“And for you, Señorita Blazak — El Gordo forgives you.”

When he extends a thick bundle of cash Bettina turns away, yanking the leash hard, and crashes into a big man in a black ski mask who twists her wrist back with instant, serious pain, easily prying her fingers off the leash.

“Fass!” Bettina orders, but it’s too late.

Ski Mask is already leading him away, calmly ordering Felix to heel while Pacifico firmly grips Bettina’s shoulder and drops the bundle of money at her feet

“Come! Felix, come!” she yells. He looks back at her, whimpering in confusion, tugging at the leash to come, his body twisting and his front feet off the asphalt, paddling air.

“Don’t follow us,” says Pacifico. “We will not hurt your dog. El Gordo is a man of peace and truth, and he loves dogs.”

“Fuck El Gordo! I want my dog back.”

“Give thanks for your life, señorita. Joaquín Páez has no life because of you.”

Over Pacifico’s shoulder Bettina watches Ski Mask yanking Felix into a white SUV. When Pacifico turns and breaks into a run Bettina stuffs the money in her purse, grabs the key fob, unlocks the doors, and clambers in. Across the lot she sees Pacifico climbing into the white SUV, which is already moving toward the exit.

Bettina cranks the Wrangler’s engine but hears only the crisp click of a starter with a dead battery.

She jumps back out and grabs the Model 12. Her spark jumps to flame then fire. She’s more than pissed. Slams the door shut and runs toward the white SUV, which by now is out of sight.

She makes okay time across the parking lot and starts down Rimcrest toward Alta Laguna Boulevard, wobbling in the low-heeled fashion boots she’d worn to be slimed by Rod Foster, the Winchester balanced in her hands. But she’s fast losing hope because the white SUV has to be at least half a mile downhill by now, and her balance is bad in the boots, and Alta Laguna Boulevard is steep as hell and because running around in public with a shotgun is really, really dumb.

So she slows to a stop, breathing deeply, the shotgun butt to the ground and her hands on the barrel for something to lean on.

A guy coming up the road in a convertible slows and studies her. Two women in a Mercedes coming down from the park stop, and the driver’s window goes down and Bettina meets the woman’s stare, then the window goes back up and the sedan rolls widely around her, headed back to town.

She’s traipsing back uphill, brimming with fury and adrenaline, when she hears the siren. She knows whom it’s for but what the hell can she do now — run away from the cops with her shotgun?

She lays it down and stands panting on the shoulder of the road. Raises her hands as the cruiser approaches, siren off but the lights still on, flashing in the afternoon light.

“Police! Do not move. Do not move!”

Bettina just nods, hands still up, wondering if breathing counts as moving, telling herself there’s no way this can turn into a cop shooting — she’s just a local citizen out for a run with a loaded 12-gauge shotgun, right?

The two officers come crabbing out of the car, crouched low and weapons drawn. A man and a woman. Bettina recognizes both faces but doesn’t know their names. Susie, maybe. Their gear jangles and the red and blue lights of the cruiser flash behind them.

“Step away from the weapon!” yells the man.

She does.

“Down on one knee, keep your hands raised!” he commands.

The shoulder gravel bites through her $300 suit pants.

“Bettina Blazak?” asks the woman.

“Yes, Susie?”

“Don’t move,” the man calls out. “Keep your hands up!”

He sidles out wide around her and she hears him come up from behind.

“Put your hands behind your back,” he says. “Slow now.”

Bettina lowers her arms. Feels his grip, then the tight cinch of the plastic.

“Bettina, what’s going on here?” Suzie asks, holstering her gun. “Are you all right?”

“They stole Felix! Do a BOLO on him! Set up roadblocks on Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road!”

“Well, maybe, but...,” says Suzie.

Then a fresh storm of tears hits Bettina. She’s not just humiliated by her own circumstances, but she knows — just knows — that those two assholes have probably already killed her dog, and Animal Control will probably find him in a ditch off Laguna Canyon Road when he starts to draw vultures, so Bettina cares not one bit what these cops think of her or what they’re going to do with her.

“Please go after him! Find Felix! He’s the famous one from the Coastal Eddy show. I’ll walk to the cop house and turn myself in!”

“Is that your gun?” asks Suzie.

“I tried to make the Olympics with it. Can I stand up now?”

The man helps her up with a firm hand on her upper arm.

Bettina thanks him and bows her head and squeezes her eyelids closed and prays that this is not happening, has not happened, will not happen — her wonderful, loving, goofy, inspiring, historied, funny-eared Felix taken by cartel killers — and she, the great journalist Bettina Blazak, headed for jail.