He swiftly delivers them to Bettina’s Jeep, parked not far from Factoria Calderón and now of interest to two uniformed Municipal Police officers. Two green-and-white Policía Municipal vehicles — one a sedan and the other a pickup truck — are parked on the sidewalk. Two more uniformed cops lean against the truck and watch her.
Bettina, rattled by the dealers, takes the offense in her passable Spanish, telling the police to get away from her Jeep as she digs into her purse for her key. She tells them that she learned Spanish in college and understands every word they say. At which the stocky sergeant laughs, and his beanstalk-thin officer smiles, further provoking her.
Billy tries to intervene, his LBPD badge wallet in hand, his voice in full Texas hospitality mode, but the thin cop takes him by the arm and draws his club. Billy yanks his arm free with a loud “Hands off!”
Which penetrates straight into Bettina’s sprung temper, and, pulling angrily on her wad of keys, she spills half the contents of her purse onto the sidewalk.
The sergeant grabs up her phone and barks an order at his officer. The man lets go of Billy, belts his baton, and strolls to the prowl car.
Bettina follows the sergeant as the two men leaning on the truck come forward as if to intercept her.
“Do not return to Tijuana to purchase narcotics,” says the sergeant, poking the phone at Bettina. “You will be arrested and charged.”
“Give me that!” she barks in Spanish.
“Evidence,” says the sergeant.
Bettina reaches for her phone, and the burly sergeant backs away toward the now idling prowl car, where the skinny officer waits behind the wheel.
Bettina has traveled in Mexico enough to know that local cops shake down gringo tourists all the time. She manages to get both her emergency hundred-dollar bills from her wallet, and, hands shaking, now advances on the cruiser.
The intercepting officers stop short, hands on their clubs. She holds out the money to the sergeant as the big man climbs into the car.
He slams the door and looks at her without expression. The driver guns the car off the sidewalk and bounces it into the traffic, lights on and siren blazing.
Billy’s already behind the wheel of the Jeep, says he’ll drive.
“Follow them to the cop house so I can get my phone back,” snaps Bettina.
“No,” says Billy, pulling into traffic. “The last place you need to be is in their cop house.”
“They can’t rip me off.”
“They don’t want your phone, they just don’t want you using it.”
“There’s a Camacho number on the incomings,” she says.
“The police can’t break into your phone without a code and password,” says Billy. “Don’t worry. The video and pics are on mine.”
Bettina can only think of one appropriate thing to say: “Son of a fucking bitch.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re getting out of here now. We’re lucky they let us go.”
“Son of a... son of a... son.”
“There’s another police car behind us right now.”
“Get us out of here, Billy.”
“Bet on it.”
Bettina stays turned in her seat, glaring at the cop car all the way to the border in San Ysidro. She’s furious and frustrated, her least favorite emotional cocktail. If she had her phone, she’d be shooting video and taking pictures of these surly bastards. If she had her trap gun, she could shoot out their front tires. Instead, she uses Billy’s phone and calls her landlord, who had volunteered to dog-sit. Felix has been very good, he says, sleeping most of the time in his crate, out by the hot tub.
She calls Jean Rose at Coastal Eddy with the news that she had some problems down in Mexico today but don’t worry, I’m almost home now.
“I’ll write the ‘Hero Without a Face’ story tonight, and put together the video tomorrow. I’ve got some decent location video, of where things happened the night Felix was shot, and how he got to the doctor, and a terrific account from the boy who saved him. It’s going to be strong, Jean. A brave boy and a wounded dog.”
Jean Rose says she fully understands, then tells Bettina that she’s had some complaints from Coastal Eddy readers that the Felix story and video were too violent and don’t really matter to people in Laguna Beach.
“Don’t matter to what people?”
“They employ us.”
Bettina rings off, sets Billy’s phone in the cup holder.
“I guess I’m not just telling a story about a dog and a boy.”
Billy considers this as they grind to a halt a quarter mile from the crossing.
“They’re only parts of a bigger story, Bettina. Or what happened just now would not have happened.”
“What’s the bigger story, then? What am I not seeing?”
He looks at her with his open face, his soft eyes. “Bettina, I wish I knew. But you got yourself a good dog and a couple of good stories out of him, so maybe you should just move on.”
“I’m not moving on, Billy.”
“I know you’re not.”
“I’m digging in.”
At home that evening, Bettina writes her story, “Hero Without a Face,” but with no pictures or video of Fidelito himself. With no recording of what he told her, it’s very hard work. She has to put Fidelito’s eleven-year-old, simple, expressive Spanish into her own dispassionate reporter’s English. Yet make the reader feel the fears of both boy and dog as Fidelito — she names him Julio — runs through the night, clutching a wounded dog to his chest. How can that ever, in a thousand years, not matter? Finally, she finds a voice that sounds like Fidelito’s and manages to remember some of his phrases too:
There were many bullets... and the dog he climbed over the dead men and he ran... men screamed and machine guns fired... here on my knees I pulled him out... he closed his teeth on my arm but he didn’t bite hard... I had a dog when I was little... The voice of God told me...
Felix seems to sense her tension, dozing near his crate, sometimes looking at her with a placid expression and worried eyes.
“Who are you?” she asks out loud.
He cocks his head and his ears rise, but only one flap is down. She loves the way his ears often act independently, giving Felix a random cuteness that makes her smile.
“Did you lose some of your courage when they shot you? That would make anyone sad. And cautious.”
He lays his head on his front paws and looks up at her.
Bettina knows he’s missing someone. Teddy? The person who trained him in English commands? Or his Spanish commands? Are they one person or two, or three? Is Teddy even real? Did you really have a home once?
Four and a Half Years Before the Shoot-Out...
11
Six-month-old Joe was wired with excitement there at the Excalibur K-9 Training Center with Teddy and Dad and an old man they called Wade. Joe had never felt energy like this. He was forty pounds of energy and happiness, with a seriously wagging saber tail.
Dogs everywhere! Some in cages with people ordering them to do things — almost all fun things that he could do very well, thanks to Teddy. Other dogs were running free in a big field of grass, playing with toys, barking. Some of them leaped through the air and bit people with pillows on their arms and legs! Whistles blew and clickers clicked and guns popped and the people voices were loud and clear. Then their voices become higher-pitched and full of kindness: Good girl Susie. Attaboy, Dismas. You’re the best, Doll!