They went to a shady place on the grass and Wade released him.
Joe sprinted into a boiling cauldron of dogs who immediately knocked him down and kept running, but in a blink he was after them, no way they could outrun him, not with those long legs.
Out of Joe’s earshot, the people discussed him:
“He’s got a good nose,” said Wade. “And he’s only six months, so it’s going to get stronger. If he knew his target odors and his discard odors, he’d be even better. He’s obedient and controls himself. The question is, what do you want me to do with him, Teddy?”
“Make him a detection dog and train me to handle him. He can find anything. He can help people find things they’ve lost. He can help find bad guys.”
“He’s small for K-9 work,” said Wade. “Detection, maybe. Security, patrol, or protection — no. Takes more dog than Joe to deal with a two-hundred-pound criminal high on meth.”
They watched Joe on the grass with the other dogs, all larger than him. If any of them had belligerent intent, none showed. Joe rolled and tumbled and sprinted and cut. An enormous black-faced German shepherd knocked him down, then ran off in victory, hotly pursued by Joe, shrieking, gull wing ears flapping.
Twenty minutes later, Wade called Joe in and took him to the water nozzle. When he was done drinking, Joe crashed onto his side in the shade, flank heaving rapidly, tongue on the ground.
“Tony,” said Wade. “I’m willing take on both your fine son and Joe. As a favor to you and to your father. I miss him and I know you guys do too. And to be truthful, this little dog has potential. Can you tell me, Teddy, what you’d like to see in your future with Joe? You’re eleven now. Your dad tells me you’re thinking of law enforcement.”
“I want to work with Joe someday,” he said. “Be his handler. Let him find important things. Like drugs and bombs and missing people.”
“Yes, but the soonest you could work with Joe would be seven years from now. He’ll be ready to retire by then.”
Joe saw and heard Teddy suddenly go sad.
“Yeah,” said his Boy. “I know. I wish we could do it right now. I want Joe to do what he’s so good at.”
“You don’t mean you’d give up your best friend for training, and for work, do you?”
“No, sir. Never. I can’t give up Joe.”
Joe lifted his head at the sad tone of his own name just now. Teddy almost never sounded like this. Matching that unhappy voice were the tightness of his face and the glistening of his eyes. Joe wondered what was happening, felt wrong inside. Things were suddenly so bad. And he was a bad dog.
Joe clunked one side of his head down on the grass again, still panting, still listening to the words that he understood were important.
“I have an idea, Teddy,” said Dad. “Let’s do the fun part. We can bring Joe here on the weekends for basic training, and they’ll show you how it’s done, and how to work with him. Someday you may get certified as a K-9 handler, if that’s still what you want. Joe will be your dog the whole way through training, and you’ll get another dog to work with when you’re old enough. Everyone wins.”
Joe lifted his head again when he heard Another Dog. He understood Dog, but this word, another, worried him. Teddy’s face was still not happy. So Joe was not happy. All the joy he’d brought to his Boy earlier today seemed to have changed into something else.
“Yeah, okay,” said Teddy. “Let’s do the fun part. That would be good.”
Joe heard some happiness back in his Boy’s voice. Humans could go from sad to happy very fast.
He would have said that it makes a dog tired, keeping track of mysterious emotions, but he didn’t know a single one of those words except Dog.
He felt them, though, deeply and clearly.
12
“Bettina,” says Marin, the Coastal Eddy receptionist, sticking her head into Bettina’s cubicle. “There’s a Dan Strickland here in the lobby to see you. “Somewhat hot.”
Felix sits suddenly, faces the open doorway to the cubicle, ears up, tips out and alert.
“That got his attention,” says Marin.
“It sure did.”
“Shall I show him in?”
The dog studies Bettina with his full attention.
Bettina studies him back. “I’ll come to the lobby. Felix, kennel-up.”
The dog whines softly but goes into his crate. Bettina hooks the door closed.
The Coastal Eddy lobby is small and well lit, with a Scandinavian sofa and chairs in blue leather and steel, glass tables, and windows facing Coast Highway. Two of the interior walls are mostly glass, giving open views of Marin at the front desk and beyond, to the editorial, sales, and production areas.
There’s only one other person here, a blond guy in tan cords and a black sweater with the sleeves casually hiked. Polished brown boots, gold watch. He stands, cants his head, and offers a polite, post-pandemic spread of hands from six feet away, which Bettina answers with her own.
“I’m Dan Strickland and I’m really sorry to barge in on you like this. But I wanted to meet you in person. I absolutely loved your dog video, and the story in the paper. I sent a donation to the clinic. Your stories really moved me. And I don’t move easily.”
He’s half a head taller than she is at six feet, which puts Bettina at ease. His face is lean and closed, the opposite of Billy Ray Crumley’s. Gray eyes. Thirtysomething. Handsome. He reminds her of Nick, her oldest brother, up in San Francisco, raising a family.
“Well, I’m happy you like the stories, Mr. Strickland.”
“I love them. The clinic video, that poor dog. The doctor. The boy who carried the dog through the rain. Wow — it’s a story with meaning. I’m familiar with Tijuana, too, and I know how violent it can be.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a self-defense instructor. I have a school down in San Diego.”
“A dojo?”
“Part dojo, part gym, part shooting range. Classrooms, a lunchroom, kitchen, showers and locker rooms.”
“Serious stuff.”
“I take it seriously.”
“I like to shoot trap,” she says, wondering why.
A small smile. “No room for a trap range. Sorry.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Strickland?”
Bettina tries to read his expressions but she can’t sort them out: reluctance, hesitation, determination? What can she do for him? she wonders. He’s got the air of a man who gets what he wants.
“Felix’s name is Joe,” he says. “He’s a washed-out DEA detection dog that the agency placed with me after his retirement. He ran away from home six months ago. They said he was a wanderer, and they were right. I’m astonished that he’s still alive. Especially after being shot, down in Mexico.”
“My God — Felix was yours?”
“Well, Ms. Blazak, that’s why I’m here. Because Joe is mine.”
“No, he isn’t, and you can’t have him.”
This Strickland looks surprised. “Can I see him?”
“Absolutely not. I rescued that dog from the needle. I paid good money to the clinic. He likes me and he’s happy. He was shot on your watch, Mr. Strickland. I don’t think he needs a reminder from his past. He needs to move forward into a new life. Your part of his miracle is to let him go. You can’t prove it anyway.”
“Nonsense. He’s my dog who wandered off.”
“But he’s mine now.”
Strickland gives her a sympathetic look, takes out his phone, sits on the long blue leather-and-steel sofa. Bettina sits four feet away from him, staring unhappily out the window at Coast Highway. Her heart pounds with contradictory emotions: If Felix was really this guy’s Joe, am I morally required to give Felix back to him, or am I permitted to keep him?