The Rescue

34

An hour later Bettina is delivered back to Alta Laguna Park in a PD cruiser driven by Officer Susie Ortega. Bettina’s hands are still shaking, her Model 12 locked in the trunk.

“I hope the BOLO for the dog and the Pacifico guy helps,” says Ortega, opening the trunk and handing Bettina her gun and an evidence bag with the shells. “It’s all we can do without the plates, or a good description of the SUV.”

“White. Late model. Dark windows,” says Bettina, dazed and tired of repeating herself. The surge and ebb of adrenaline has left her exhausted, like after a high-velocity bicycle ride, or surfing a six-foot day at Brooks Street.

“Don’t be running around town with that gun again, Bettina. You could have killed someone. Or yourself. Are you going to do a story on this?”

“Absolutely yes, I am.”

“I’ll talk on camera if you need me to.”

“I’m going to find Felix. My story’s going to have a happy ending.”

“Be realistic.”

After Officer Ortega drives off, Bettina is not surprised to find the hood of her Wrangler ajar and the battery cables disconnected. She gets a wrench from the toolbox and hooks them back up, a sudden orange pop scaring the hell out of her and bringing fresh tears to her eyes.

She drives all over Laguna looking for Felix. Downtown, south and north, the hills, Dodge City and Canyon Acres, and Stan Oaks and Sun Valley. Can’t believe how many late-model white SUVs there are, and how many dogs. How many U-turns and dead ends and fruitless drive-bys.

Gets her binoculars from home, trades her wobbly boots for athletic shoes, then takes Laguna Canyon Road to the 73 South, which takes her to Interstate 5 and the border crossing at San Ysidro.

In the dark, Bettina sits in a pay-to-park lot near the crossing lanes, scanning the cars heading into Mexico through a tall chain-link fence topped with gleaming coils of concertina. The binoculars are good ones and she feels like she’s looking at these people from the back seats of their cars, not a hundred feet away. They talk on phones or with each other; they smoke cigarettes and pick their noses. Only one bouncy dog in a Chevy. No Pacifico ball cap. The powerful lights blaze down from their standards and the vehicles belch exhaust but hardly move.

And really, she thinks: just what the hell are you going to do if you spot him?

She knows she won’t. Knows she’ll probably never see him again. Faith unrewarded is a bitterness to the soul. Her dad used to say that. Much bitterness ahead, she thinks.

She feels the thump of her heart, heavy and broken.

She hasn’t felt this bad since the frat party on Balboa Island, when Jason Graves ripped away her happiness and her trust.

He’s still not done with me, she thinks. Hates herself for that as much as him.

And realizes that now, exactly right now — emptied of hope, filled with helplessness, and fueled by nothing that resembles reason — is the perfect time to get her revenge on Jason, forgive herself, and set things right.

She parks the Jeep across the street from Inland Frontier Realty in Anza. It’s cold and late. She downs her 7-Eleven hot dogs, Funyons, and a decaf.

The back of the Wrangler is big enough for her to stretch out, so she takes off her shoes and gets into the sleeping bag she always carries. It’s not exactly comfortable, but the folding pad helps.

Felix’s hair is everywhere, which weighs heavily on her. In the weak dome light she counts the money thrust upon her by Pacifico Man — $10,000 in hundreds. She can’t understand why El Gordo gave her this instead of killing her.

Her phone pings and it’s a message from Strickland, saying he had a great time with her and Joe — let’s do that again soon.

She texts back that Felix was kidnapped by two of El Gordo’s killers up at Alta Laguna this afternoon. That she’s talked to DEA and they’re sending agents to Laguna to search for him. Says she’s fine, don’t worry. But doesn’t have the spirit to talk to Strickland when he immediately calls back.

She texts Billy because she feels she has to:

Teddy Delgado’s third email comes through a few minutes later.

She watches the sunrise scrunched down in the front seat, head just high enough for her to see Inland Frontier Realty through the steering wheel. The western, saloon-look building sits alone on the outskirts of Anza, windblown tumbleweeds stacked against a chain link fence. Not much around. The Circle K is way down the road, the DQ half a mile away. She feels like a fool, hunkered down here, hiding from nobody. Her whole body is sore from the shotgun chase and the cold night in a steel Jeep.

Jason Graves’s Escalade with the rearing horse and roping wrangler on the doors bellows to a stop in the same parking spot out front, just feet from the hitching rail. A moment later the door opens and he swings his pale boots to the ground. Dust rises from the gravel parking lot. Jason unlocks and goes in and CLOSED becomes OPEN.

She gets out and crosses the street, the heavy Model 12 cradled in her arms, fully loaded, a hand on the sliding forearm.

She marches past the hitching rail, up the steps, and onto the wooden porch. Throws open the door and steps in in. Jason’s behind his desk. His mouth opens, and his face goes pale.

Bettina levels the shotgun at him. “You touch your phone, and I’ll blow it out of your hand.”

“Bettina.”

“Correct. I thought your memory might improve.”

Jason’s wide-eyed face looks like a child’s.

“I came here for an apology,” she says. “And I won’t accept a denial of the truth. If you can’t or won’t remember what you did, I’ve got John Torres lined up to talk to the UCI campus cops. I’ve read his statement. It’s detailed and graphic. It would also make a real easy post. Talk about viral potential. I even took pictures of the house, and the room where it happened.”

Almost none of which is true, except that she has talked to John Torres and he’s still willing to tell the cops what he saw that night.

“Please don’t do that,” says Jason. “I tried to put it out of my mind. For years I did. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I saw you. Thinking about it, like, every second. I’m not just sorry, Bettina — I’m really, really sorry. I was horrible and there’s no forgiving what I did and I’m so sorry I hurt you. I won’t ask you to forgive me. I won’t even ask myself to do that. But don’t tell the world. Don’t tell my wife and children. Please. I beg you.”

“I want you to feel like I did.”

“I have money.”

“You’ll need it for the Escalade. Thanks for the confession and apology. Wipe the slobber off your lips, Jason.”

Bettina kicks open the door and hustles back down the steps and blows out the right front tire of the SUV. Pumps the gun and destroys the left tire, then rounds the Escalade, steps back a few yards and blasts the Inland Frontier sign and its rearing horse and roping wrangler not just once but three times, the big 12-gauge, #6-shot pheasant loads crushing through the paint and bending the metal into a giant pucker that takes up almost the whole door.

She goes back inside, finds Jason still at his desk, trembling and loading a big revolver.

“No, please,” he says, dropping the gun and cartridges to the floor.

“Stand up and kick it here.”

Jason lurches up, manages to kick the gun on his second try. The revolver spins across the floor, cylinder free and two cartridges spilling out. It stops just short of Bettina’s boot.

“I want to hear you apologize again.”

“I did it. I assaulted you and I apologize!”

“Say ‘rape,’ Jason. Use that word.”

“I tried to rape you but I didn’t. I didn’t.”

She takes his revolver back outside, heaves it over the chain-link fence and into the tumbleweeds.

Quickly stashes her shotgun in the sleeping bag, jumps into her seat and fires up the engine. Stomps on the gas and fishtails out of the parking lot in a storm of gravel, sand and dust.

Screams “Yeeesss!” for her new freedom, for the improved, industrial-strength fire she believes is inside her now. For the burden of vengeance lifted. For the liberty to feel something for a man besides suspicion. All of this locked away by Jason Graves until today.

And most of all for her plan — hatched last night in a fearful dream in the back of the freezing Wrangler — to get Felix back.

A bold and beautiful plan.

If he’s alive, she can get him back.

Home in Laguna, Bettina emails Alejandro Godoy:

She hits Send, knowing full well that El Gordo will probably not give Felix back to her for $10,000 and a Coastal Eddy story and video.

And that her editor, Jean Rose, will certainly frown upon a video interview with one of the most violent cartel traffickers on earth in her slick, puffy, paradise-flaunting Coastal Eddy.

And that Billy and her DEA handlers will feel betrayed.

She feels like she’s betrayed everybody around her except Felix and Strickland. Felix she trusts. Strickland, close to.

Bettina, she thinks: these are the least of your problems.

Fortune favors the bold.

Sanity optional.

She stares across her home office at her beautiful blue swallowtail surfboard, can practically hear it talking to her.

Felix’s abduction has kindled the spark that makes the flame that becomes the fire that now chews through her. Her wild. Jason Graves stood no chance against it, and neither will El Gordo or Jean Rose.

Or the March storm-swell that’s pounding the Laguna coast right now in advance of the rain, the water a bitter 56 degrees and the wind whipping whitecaps into her face as Bettina drops in on a large and chaotic wave that encloses her in its spitting maw before dashing her into the water like a bathtub toy.

The guys in the water hold up, bobbing on the chop and watching her.

She takes another wave.

Back home, her teeth chatter and she’s so tired and cold she can barely get out of her dry suit and thermals. It’s five thirty and there’s a light rain falling.

She looks at Felix’s crate and starts bawling again. Takes a scalding bath, heats a frozen pizza, downs three neat fingers of bourbon, and falls asleep.