The Rescue

45

The next day, a cool March morning in Laguna Canyon, Bettina and Dan Strickland load their luggage into the Wrangler. Felix’s pad, food, and bowls go in last. When Bettina pulls out of her assigned parking place, Strickland backs in the Quattroporte, locks it with a chirp, and climbs into the Jeep. Felix licks the back of his head.

Bettina steers out Laguna Canyon Road to SR 241, bound for Highway 395 and, eventually, Mammoth Mountain. She’s well rested but bothered by a nagging fear: What if Jean Rose changes her mind? Or her Coastal Eddy publisher kills the stories at the last minute?

Last night she and Strickland — trying to break her agitation — agreed that this Mammoth Mountain ski run should be relaxed and as unscheduled as possible, and dog friendly. They could go where they wanted, trying to enjoy the road and the motion and the freedom.

She remembers Felix’s expression last night in her apartment, a look that said: This is the best day of my life. Bettina loved that a dog can do that, have one best day of his life, followed by another and another.

Wishes she were simple like a dog.

“I love this day,” she says. “This moment with Felix and you. I’m trying to let go of the worries for now.”

“Me too,” says Strickland, setting down his phone. “Sorry — just checking with Charley at Apex.”

“I’m glad he could cover for you.”

“My clients don’t mind. He’s a better teacher than I am.”

“Maybe I should take your course someday.”

Strickland nods. “I was serious when I offered.”

“What would you teach me first?”

He looks at her, then back out the window. “Risk assessment. When to de-escalate. How to avoid weapons and bear spray and breaking bones in the first place.”

“But that’s the fun stuff.”

Strickland cracks a slight smile, takes his time replying. “There’s some truth in that.”

“That’s why I packed Thunder,” she says, the real reason being a very nice little trap range near Bishop where she’s hoping to get in a few rounds, maybe show Strickland the basics.

“I saw that,” he says in a casual tone.

Jean Rose calls and Bettina puts her on the speaker:

“Just wanted to tell you the El Gordo video has blown up and it’s not even noon!”

Bettina’s smiles, heart swelling.

Strickland watches the sere desert around Adelanto slowly scrolling toward him through the windows, a marching horizon of twisted yuccas and large stucco homes crammed wall-to-wall behind more walls.

Of course, he wasn’t checking in with Charley at Apex, he was following today’s Blog Narco story, in English and titled “Top Dogs the Latest Secret Weapons.”

Blog Narco says cartel pit bulls, long used for ring fighting, have been bred into aggressive scent hounds. They’ll fight any dog and anybody but their handlers to get to the dope and money first.

Thank God there’s no mention of the Jalisco New Generation or Carlos Palma or El Gordo or anybody else Strickland knows. This blog is mostly Gulf Cartel and Zeta sicarios yapping about their enemies using dogs to steal their booty. They freely admit to using dogs for that purpose too. One Tijuana-based La Familia Cartel soldier describes a dog used by Sinaloans to raid their coffers. He offers no description of the dog other than “small,” which sends a ripple of nerves down Strickland’s back. The pit bulls can be small, he thinks, but what else might suspicious Carlos extrapolate from that word?

Strickland has always believed his training, nerve, and luck will prevail against his enemies. Lately, however, he’s doubled his enemies by doubling his friends, and sometimes his everyday sense of threat is strong. If he thought that Palma had discovered his duplicity, he wouldn’t be anywhere near Bettina Blazak. His vow is to protect her, not expose her to his professional risks.

Protect her. Through his sunglasses Strickland studies her in profile as she drives. This woman.

The fact is, Strickland is happier now than at any time in his life. He’s got it all: a prospering dual career as a self-defense instructor and a thief; a great dog; a totally cool home in San Diego, and a woman who makes him feel needed and generous, and who apparently likes his heavily redacted version of himself.

And he’s got this new thing in his heart, something MIA for most of his thirty-three years. It’s almost certainly love, he thinks. What else but love could fill you with wonderful things that you can’t wait to give away? Answer me that.

He’s never seen a future until now, not even from the corner of his eye. But here it is, in the form of this beautiful being steering a red Jeep up Highway 395 with him in the passenger seat.

“I love this day, too, with you and Joe too,” he says. “I don’t know how I suddenly got to be so corny — to use your word.”

Bettina refrains from correcting Felix’s name. “You surprise me.”

“And myself.”

“Do you tell me things just to make me happy?”

“Now and then.”

“Like last night?”

“That was all true.”

“Do you even like skiing?”

Strickland laughs. “Well, I did fib just a bit about that. I’ve never tried it.”

But he does fine on the beginners’ slopes, and manages the intermediate runs with long-legged aplomb, some of that rhythm coming back to him from the International Practical Shooting Conference matches where he could glide and angle and sprint and never lose balance, punching out those targets with such unthinking, almost unconscious accuracy.

He follows Bettina down the Lower Dry Creek run, loves the sound his skis make in the snow, smiles as he watches her carving the turns, getting a little air, skis throwing off white sparks. When he dares to raise his eyes from the snow he can see for miles through blue sky to the jagged White Mountains.

He thinks of Joe at the dog-sitter’s, pictures him curled up by that fireplace on his red plaid pad.

They eat an early dinner at Skadi, a skier’s hangout that Bettina knows. A customer recognizes her and comes over for a selfie. Strickland feels mild annoyance that Bettina has been to this restaurant without him and knows how selfish and childish this is. He wants to own her past, present, and future.

The food is good. He even enjoys some wine. His legs feel heavy and his heart light and he can’t wait to pick up Joe and get back to the rental condo and make love to Bettina.

Strickland gets his wish: Joe is chewing his ragged turkey in the middle of the living room rug when Strickland closes the bedroom door on him.

They heat up the bedroom so fast he has to turn the wall heater off. The windows sweat as Mammoth Mountain looks through the glass at them, a pale behemoth packed in stars.

Ski by day, love by night.

Best week of Strickland’s life, bar none. Sounds like something Joe would say, he thinks.

Two days in Death Valley at the Oasis, the last of Bettina’s vacation time. Gazing out at the sere majesty of Zabriskie Point that morning, Strickland lobbies for more days of this, but Bettina needs to get back to Coastal Eddy tomorrow.

“It’s seven hours to your place,” she says. “How about a good dinner in a dog-friendly restaurant?”