The Rescue

7

That evening at sunset, Billy Ray Crumley leans against a streetlamp outside the Coastal Eddy building, watching the front door, nervous as hell. He’s fresh from the PD showers, his best mother-of-pearl snap-button western shirt on — white with black piping on the yokes — and jeans he ironed himself the night before. Lucchese boots, a boxy brown blazer against the chill. It feels weird to dress up for somebody who isn’t Lorna.

Through the windows, he tracks Bettina as she passes the cubicles, her leash hand extended. A blue bag over one shoulder. She’s got on that red satin blouse and black jeans and her black duster. She’s a big woman and pretty, and watching her now, his heart does a little hop. It’s been a long time since he’s felt like this, and he’s not at all sure if what he’s about to do is right.

The leash in one hand, here she comes through glass front door.

He holds open the door for her, sees the surprise on her face. Felix sniffs his boots as Billy and Bettina retreat from the sidewalk pedestrians. Felix sits and looks up at her.

“Bettina, I was just wondering if you might like to get a cup of something or a drink maybe, sorry to just surprise you, but my shift started early today, and I covered for Hanson yesterday, so, it was all, you know, it worked out perfect so I had this free time all the sudden and...”

Billy feels this whole thing spinning away from him. He can never just shut himself up when he gets enthused about something. Felix senses his excitement.

“Yeah, Billy, sure,” says Bettina. “A drink after work is a good thing.”

“Oh man, this is great. Thanks, Bettina.”

“You bet. The Cliff is dog-friendly.”

“I love that place.”

They take two stools at the end of a long narrow table that spans the entire length of the restaurant. Felix lies down under the table, between them. Bettina gets the water bowl from her bag, and the waiter fills it from a sweating steel pitcher. They order drinks and he leaves menus.

The western sky is a cloud-jam of gray and black, illuminated by orange from beneath. Billy’s glad he’s sitting next to her instead of smack-dab in front of her, where he’d look at that face and just say one stupid thing after another. He knew upon meeting her those several weeks ago that she was intelligent, much more intelligent than him, making her both attractive and scary.

Billy talks about growing up in Wichita Falls: a family of five. Mom a school librarian and Dad a deputy, both Wichita Falls High School jocks — Mom fastpitch softball and Dad baseball. Billy threw his first baseball at age three. Went through a living room window and landed on the lawn, but Billy was already in love with the game. By the time he hit high school, he had an easy natural delivery and an unnaturally live fastball. His brother Arnie caught him, not an easy thing to do, with that velocity and the ball veering, dipping, sailing. College offers but he signed with Kansas City out of high school. No agent — dumb, Billy admits — got a small bonus, spent two solid seasons in Triple-A before they called him up. He made twelve appearances in middle relief, gave up buckets of runs on hits and walks. Lots of strikeouts, though.

“It was always the control,” he says. “Even back as far as Little League. Not wild. Just fractions of an inch. But you get up to the pros and they’ll just wait for the mistake and if you make it, you will pay. And I always made it. They sent me back down and I played out the contract, then went to college back in Wichita. I was a major-league hero in town but I felt like a loser. Took me a while to shake that off.”

They drink beers and eat dinner and watch the heaving, twinkling Pacific.

Billy hopes he doesn’t sound self-pitying, because he isn’t. He’s just a little touchy about it — MLB — and he doesn’t follow the Show at all now, doesn’t keep up with his friends who still play, doesn’t talk or think about it much except when he must, like right now.

“I still get to play, though,” he says cheerfully. “They got this Southern California Amateur League, and we have us a time.”

Billy is relieved when Bettina starts talking about herself. Not just relieved, happy. He likes that her family in Anza was close, kind of like his was, that they had horses and hunted birds with dogs, and her getting invited to try out for the Olympic trap team proves she was as good at shooting as he was at baseball. Heck, maybe better.

Billy’s phone rings and he sees who it is. Bets this isn’t a social call.

Apologizes to Bettina, steps away from the table, and finds a place between the little shops where he’s away from the crashing sound of the waves.

“Arnie, what’s up?”

“Just checking my feeds here and I see that your reporter friend posted a dog story last night. Everybody here’s talking about it.”

Billy isn’t so sure he should have mentioned Bettina to his professionally nosy older brother. Too late now. “Yeah, so?”

“Well, I want to know when and where that dog was shot.”

“Then read the story.”

“It’s not in the story. The veterinarian speculates about a shoot-out, and the police aren’t sure.”

“Why do you care?”

“You know damn well why, Billy — because I take my territory seriously. I need to know exactly when and exactly where. If she knows, maybe she’ll tell you, Romeo.”

Billy has to think about this, but he already knows he’ll do what he can for Arnie. Because he’s my brother, Billy thinks. Because Arnie doesn’t ask for favors lightly. Because he’s DEA and serious as a heart attack.

“If she knew when and where the dog got shot, she’d of put it in the story,” Billy says.

“Please ask her. Don’t say anything about me and what I do. I really appreciate this, little brother. Hope it doesn’t put you in a spot. I’m going to call you back in one hour.”

“Okay. She’s cool. We’re cool.”

After dinner they head north on the Main Beach boardwalk, past the lifeguard stand, toward Heisler Park.

“Bettina, do you know where and when Felix got shot?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Just me, curious is all.”

“Don’t bs me, Billy.”

He feels stupid he can’t get away with a simple white lie. “That was my brother, Arnie, on the phone. He saw your video and liked it.”

She looks at Billy skeptically. “The answer is no — I don’t know exactly where or when. Only that the boy brought the dog to the clinic, which was February first, like my video said. There was a big cartel shoot-out that night in Tijuana. I read every newspaper account I could find, and there was nothing about a dog being shot. Not that there would be, with six human beings dead. Why does your brother want to know, Billy?”

Billy feels trapped between Arnie and Bettina, but he also feels like he owes her some basic honesty. He tells her what Arnie does for a living.

Bettina comes to a stop on the boardwalk, and Felix sits immediately and looks up at her again. “Strange,” she says.

“How so?”

They leave the boardwalk for the shoreline, and Bettina tells Billy all the odd things about Felix: from his unknown life on the streets of Mexico that left him likely uncared for yet neutered; to his mysteriously inflicted and near-fatal wound, possibly not an accident, possibly sustained during a cartel versus cartel shoot-out; to his miracle rescue by an anonymous boy and the good doctor Rodríguez; to the Tijuana police, who were looking for a shot dog thirty days later, on the very day that she adopted him at the clinic; to the same Tijuana police who brutally interrogated Rodríguez about the dog, then lied to his wife and to Bettina about it; to Felix’s fine off-leash behavior and his perfect understanding of English commands.

She tells Billy about the message from Teddy Delgado, a boy claiming to have raised her dog, whom he called Joe, from puppyhood, and who of course wants him back.

Now the DEA is suddenly interested.

“That’s a lot of mystery around one little dog,” says Billy.

“I want to interview the boy who saved him. He’d be able to explain some of this, and he’d make a great story.”

“You know where to find him?”

“I can find him.”

“I’m not so sure how far you should go, poking into this, Bettina. Anything to do with drug cartels is bad news.”

She stops again and Felix sits and looks at her. Billy smiles welcomingly but Bettina’s voice goes sharp.

“Billy Ray, anytime someone tells me what I can and cannot do, that makes me mad. And I will fight and I do fight.”

“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m saying it’s dangerous to be asking around about cartel crimes in Mexico. That’s all.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“You’re smart. But I see the other side of things. From being a cop. I’d just hate to see you and that boy mixed up in trouble.”

“The dog is mine and his story is mine.”

“Well, okay, Bettina. I’m telling you to be careful, so if I have to fight you just to say that, then I guess I will. Be careful, woman.”

She gives Billy Ray a look he can’t read. He feels examined.

“I will, Billy. And if you’re that worried about me, maybe you should come too. Down to Tijuana to find the boy and get his story. It matters. We can’t be seen talking to him. We can’t name him or show him on video or in pictures. But I want to tell his story.”

Truth is, Billy Ray would follow this woman to the gates of hell if that’s what it would take to save her fool ass. He’s felt this way about a lot of people in his life, from family to friends to the general public he has sworn to protect and serve. His father told him a lot of cops feel it, this need to be of help. Which, of course, occasionally gets them killed.

“I’m off Tuesdays and Fridays.”

They climb the concrete stairs to Heisler Park. Billy likes riding his bike up here on patrol. The Pacific is different every day, sometimes gray and solemn, other times chipper and sparkling, still others pale green and churning with whitecaps. He thought Wichita Falls was beautiful until he came here. Tonight, the Laguna Art Museum is lit up and the path through the rose garden has only a few late-winter tourists.

Billy and Bettina stand at the gazebo railing, looking out at the ocean. Waves slam into the big rocks below, and the spray rises white against the dark sea. Felix sits between them. Billy pats the dog’s head and sneaks a look at Bettina in profile.

On the railing, her little finger touches his little finger, an event as emotionally charged as any that has happened to Billy Ray Crumley in some time.

“Tomorrow is Friday,” notes Bettina. “Can you go on short notice?”

“I can and will.”

A wave of gratitude breaks inside her.

“Sorry,” she says. “But I need to know this boy’s story — the boy who ran Felix through the rain. Billy, I hate being told what to do. And I will fight. I have this spark that leads to fire. I’m not saying it’s good. But you should know.”

“Peace, Bettina.”

“Peace, Billy.”

Back home, after Bettina turns off the lights, Joe waits for a while in his beloved Crate, with the blankets and plush Toys and chew things Bettina got for him at the big store that lets dogs in.

When he hears her breathing change, like people do when they stop moving at night, he rises and stretches and goes downstairs to the living room.

The security floodlights down in the parking garage throw a pale light through the sliding glass doors. Joe smells the big rug on the floor, its dust, and a sharp chemical deodorant that stings his nasal passages. He follows his nose along one wall: a mouse not very long ago; floor cleaner like where he grew up with Teddy, one of the many scents of Woman. He stops where one of those bugs with pincers has recently left his smell, a good smell but not to eat.

To the leather sofa with its animal scent, then under the small glass table on wooden stumps that smell like trees, to a splendid blooming kernel of popcorn like Teddy and Dan sometimes give him, which crunches deliciously on his molars. In one corner of the living room stands a tall thing with a smell that Joe recognizes but has no word for: the coconut in the surfboard wax that sits in clumps on the top and is rough and salty on his tongue.

The kitchen tile is cool on Joe’s feet as he hunts crumbs around the refrigerator and under the counters, nothing much here but the floor cleaner again and some fine sand. In the room where Woman sits and does things, Joe smells the piquant tires of the big-wheeled thing like Billy had in Bettina’s room in the city. Possibly a Bike. And there’s a tall wooden box, from between the doors of which comes the Gun smell that was always very strong on Aaron and sometimes strong on Dan, too, and that Billy has.

Back upstairs, Joe sits on the floor and rests his snout on the bed, drawing in the smells of the Bettina, who breathes steadily just a few feet away. He can see one side of her face, but the rest of it is buried in the pillow. She has many scents and he likes them all. Bettina is a long name to remember. On the bedstand is an empty glass that smells similar to Aaron’s many empty glasses and a book that smells old. Joe touches his nose to the small, flat, angled piece of ribbon that protrudes from between the pages. He sniffs down where the bedspread almost meets the carpet: old dust.

Joe lies down next to the bed, where the smell of Bettina is strong and good, sets his head on his front paws, and thinks of Dan, who was very happy when Joe found the drugs and money. Who took him to the beach. Then Aaron, who was sad when he didn’t find enough drugs and money, no matter how hard he tried. Then he remembers his happiest times of all: wrestling with Teddy when he was a puppy, and the way Teddy taught him to find things.

The Teams.