Bettina finishes the article, but it says nothing about a dog or a boy.
She has no better luck with La Crónica, El Sudcaliforniano, or Frontera.
Nothing anywhere about a boy and a shot dog or a veterinary clinic.
Which makes sense to Bettina: Why would the boy talk to the press about a cartel gun battle? The cartels are famous for killing and disappearing witnesses to their crimes. Running through the streets with Felix, the boy was probably scared, but maybe even more so as he lay in bed that night and thought about what he’d done.
She calls the Veterinary Clinic of Saint Francis of Assisi, and gets Dr. Lucero.
“He came home late last night,” she says in her rapid Spanish. “He was never taken to the police station. He was held in a small apartment in Agua Caliente. He was interrogated and beaten and driven to Chapultepec Park, where they let him out. He was disoriented and got lost in the forest. He was mugged, but finally someone gave him a ride home.”
It takes Bettina a moment to process and organize her words in Spanish. Wasn’t all this violence at least partly her fault, for taking Felix from the clinic, right under the noses of the policemen? Maybe she should have just kept to her gringa business and stayed here in Laguna to do her city council and calendar stories. Stories that matter? Such as a veterinarian who saves a dog’s life and gets beaten by the police? Yes, Bettina thinks. This is exactly a story that matters. A lot.
But at what cost? Her voice is a trembling whisper. “I am so sorry. I’m so sorry. Is the doctor okay?”
“He is angry and humiliated but he is fine.”
“May I speak with him?”
“Surely.”
“Buenos dias, Señorita Blazak,” says the doctor, his voice soft but resolved. He says the police were interested in two things: Who had adopted the shot dog that the clinic treated in early February, and which sedatives and painkillers was he dispensing at the clinic perhaps for people, not animals? Of course, the veterinarian explains, he is not a drug peddler. And he told them nothing of Bettina and the dog. He destroyed the adoption forms as soon as he got home. But the doctor plays down the horrors of last night, sounding more embarrassed than anything.
“I am honored you gave him my name,” he says.
“I’m so moved by what you did. And the price you have paid.”
“It was a terrible thing,” he says. “But maybe a small good came of it. When they were beating me and asking questions, I tried to ignore the pain. Let my mind go free. And when they asked again about the dog, I remembered that you wanted to write an article about the boy who brought him in. And through the pain, I remembered the boy told me he lived on Coahuila Street, across from Furniture Calderón. Surely you could find him, but you must now realize how dangerous it is to do anything in Tijuana. Anything, even good things. If you write about him, you and the boy could both pay a large price for a small story. You should consider not writing it. I would not write it if I were you.”
Bettina Blazak — always up for a fight when told what she can and cannot do — feels a familiar spark beginning inside her. She’s had that spark ever since she can remember. She likes it. Considers it a genetic plus, a Polish-Irish thing. And it can become a flame in the blink of an eye. Then a fire. The fire that made her fight her brothers when they turned on her, the fire that forced her to outshoot everybody on the trap range at the Olympic team tryouts, the fire that sends her down Coast Highway on her road bike at forty miles an hour, that makes her paddle hard to drop in on a hollow five-foot wave at Brooks Street beach in Laguna. She likes the fire.
But she knows that Rodríguez is right: she’d be putting the heroic boy in danger if he were seen talking to her by the wrong people.
“Yes, I understand,” she says.
“How is he, Felix?”
“He’s warming up to me and his new life. I think he likes me a little more than he did yesterday.”
“I saw your video. It is very good.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“You and your dog will be wonderful together. Tell him Dr. Rodríguez says hello.”
Before leaving the office, Bettina checks her Coastal Eddy mail and media feeds again, sees another batch of Felix look-alike pictures. Some are from Mexico, but most are from the United States. She had no idea how many “relatives” her Mexican street dog has.
Also, scores of messages. Many of them are accounts from other dog rescuers. Many say how lucky the dog was; others how lucky Bettina is. Some congratulate her. Some warn her about the terrible diseases that street dogs often carry. Others say she should adopt more animals and bring them to the United States for adoption. Some tell her she should have left the dog south of the border, where all Mexicans belong. There are plenty of American dogs that need help.
And an interesting email from someone calling himself Teddy Delgado:
Dear Ms. Blazak,
Felix’s real name is Joe, and I raised him from when I was ten. It was the best time of my life. When my parents died, Joe was taken away from me. I said goodbye to him and have not seen him since. Then today I saw your video. I am very sorry what happened to him. But so incredibly, incredibly happy that he’s alive! Do you mind if I come to Laguna Beach to see him? I don’t have a lot of money but I want to buy him from you. I love him more than any living person or thing.
Sincerely,
Bettina thinks before answering. That last sentence from the boy is among the most beautiful and — given Teddy’s circumstances — saddest she’s ever read. On the other hand, what if he just made this story up? He could be an adult, a bad actor, delusional. Or just mistaken. Look at all the look-alikes! But his story really is fantastic.
Bettina would like to hear more of it.
Dear Mr. Delgado,
You can visit Felix and tell me your story, but I won’t sell him to you or anyone else. Before you come here, I need to know more about you. I want you to write me again and tell where you were living when your parents died, and how they died. And why Joe was taken away from you. And where he went.
Teddy gets right back:
I will do that and call you when I get to Laguna. It might be a while. I’m trying to do well in school, and I can’t drive yet.
Teddy’s mention of the death of his mom and dad is much more than just sad and intriguing to Bettina Blazak.
It’s a powerful, mainline connection to Keith, her youngest older brother, dead at age twenty from a fentanyl-laced vape pen. Jobless and homeless. Living under Highway 163, near the zoo in San Diego. An achingly sensitive boy and man. Once a writer of poetry. Former student, former bass player, former horseman, former janitor, former dishwasher, former carpet cleaner, former drug dealer. Once described himself to Bettina as a “former human.” Prone to bad decisions, alcohol, and strong pharmaceuticals.
Older than Bettina by thirteen minutes.
Her beautiful, quiet, tortured twin.
Beena and Keefo: their names in their small, private language.
Which their mom, an English teacher, called cryptophasia, and forbade in the Blazak home, warning that it would slow down their English language development.
Which of course Beena and Keefo found extremely funny, given that their English was just fine.
Sitting in her office on Coast Highway, Bettina gazes out the window and remembers when they were five, Keith saying his book, Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond, was way better than her book, “Let’s Get a Pup,” Said Kate.
There was another book back then, in the You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series: Very Short Stories to Read Together. They agreed it was very good and read the stories to each other.