Give him words.
“You are Felix,” she says. “The best dog ever in the world.”
He cocks that head and taps his tail unconvincingly.
Settled.
After dark she drives to the market for provisions. Parks up close to the entrance and leaves Felix crated in the locked Jeep, a window cracked. She’s nervy about this, checks the Wrangler through the supermarket windows twice, but she’s back to it in less than eight minutes. Realizes she’ll need a service-dog license so he can go everywhere. Hell, she thinks, maybe Arnie can get me a DEA K-9 vest, scare the hell out of everybody.
Felix is asleep when she gets there.
She heats up two high-quality frozen dinners, cuts a pear and some goat cheese for sides, pours two fingers of bourbon in an old-fashioned rocks glass from home. Adds an ice cube and a slice of lemon rind.
Checks her messages and social buzz. Views and responses to “Felix: The Rescue of a Mexican Street Dog” — both print and video — continue to multiply. Even her scantily illustrated article about the boy who saved Felix, “Hero Without a Face,” has gotten major traction. There’s a voice mail on her work line from a literary agent and another two from Hollywood agents, all wanting to talk. She feels her heartbeat speed up but she’s not surprised at all. People love stories that matter.
The dog lies under the little table, at her feet, working on a cow’s hoof.
She puts Billy Ray Crumley on speaker and tries to eat the turkey and stuffing dinners without making noise.
“That was kind of ugly today,” says Billy Ray Crumley. “I would have warned you what was coming about Felix, but I didn’t know what Arnie had up his sleeve.”
“Arnie did the right thing. I have to be careful.”
She glances at the long tapering lump under the bedspread.
“Arnie likes the tough-guy Federale act,” says Billy. “When he’d catch me in baseball, he’d pop that ball back hard if he didn’t like my call or my pitch. Him throwing runners out was a thing of beauty, though.”
“Brothers,” says Bettina, thinking of her own. What a tangle of testosterone they were. “Talk about competitive.”
A beat, then: “Thanks for helping me today, Billy.”
“Anytime, anyplace.”
“You’ve got a big heart.”
“Just trying to be a friend.”
“You miss your life in Texas? Your friends and job, and the way everybody knew you were a major leaguer?”
“Hmm.”
Bettina hears a muffled gulp, figures he’s drinking a beer. And having a chew, which he tries to hide from her. But you have to spit it out somewhere. Smells like mint.
“Sure, yeah. The friends mainly.”
“Are you still friends with your ex?”
“No, ma’am. It got ugly in the divorce, and things got said that weren’t true. In a small city like Wichita Falls, everything’s everybody else’s business.”
“Laguna too.”
“Laguna’s about as different from Wichita as you can get. It’s great here. A great place to start over. I was damn lucky to have an uncle on the PD or I’d probably never have got an interview. Everybody wants to be in a cute town on the California coast. I ride a bike around and help tourists for sixty grand a year and bennies. That’s not bad.”
Another pause. Bettina sips the bourbon.
“Where’d you put the shotgun, Bettina?”
“Under the bedspread. Thanks again, Billy. For everything.”
“I am more than happy to be there for you,” he says. “I’m pissed at Arnie for scaring you, then cutting you loose.”
“That means a lot to me, Billy. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Anytime and I’ll be there.”
“Later gator. Felix says good night.”
Bettina pours another bourbon, adds ice, wipes a fresh lemon peel around the glass and puts the lemon in the tiny fridge. Straightens the kitchen, checks the door, leaves the lights on and gets into bed with Papi. That Rita Indiana is one crazy-good writer.
Tonight, though, Bettina can’t lose herself in Indiana’s funny-desperate phantasmagoria. The bourbon makes her think of Keith, and the occasional too much of it they drank together. Keith would have liked Papi, she thinks. It has his loopy humor, his wide-eyed hunger for the unexpected, his love of words and language.
Here’s to you, Keefo.
Propped up in bed, here on the second floor of the U-shaped Queen Palms Motel, she can see the far parking stalls and the face of the building. Felix lies across the wide-open doorway, angled into the bedroom to keep his patient brown eyes on her.
She thinks of Billy Ray Crumley and how he reminds her of someone she knows but doesn’t want to know. But she won’t say who. She could say who, but she won’t. Some people are better off unnamed. What a terrible time to remember all of that, Bettina thinks, but sometimes a second bourbon breaks things loose inside. Once her memory starts in, it’s as unstoppable as a freight train going down a grade.
It was her freshman year at UCI, and she was living on Balboa Island with roommates and she went to a party over on North Bayfront. Some drinking going on and she did her part to represent the Hamilton High School Bobcats, did some tequila shots, got maybe a little more than just happy but still way under control. Way. Went upstairs to use the bathroom. Some boys in the bedroom drinking and talking conspiringly, scratchy phone music, so she had to wait. Made bitchy small talk with them. One said she had a pretty face and asked what her major was. And out of the bathroom came J from Hamilton High, a familiar face to Bettina but only an acquaintance — a jock quarterback with aw-shucks manners and an easy smile — and he was weaving drunk, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand, gripping a champagne bottle by the neck in the other. A cliché drunk. Grinning when he recognized her and swayed to a standstill. Blubbered a greeting, stuttering through the Bs: “B-b-bettina B-blazak the b-beautiful...”
“You’re drunk, J,” she said, a ripple of worry when the music went louder and the lights went out. She turned for the stairs. Motion from the bed, men climbing off, then J pushing her onto it, one strong hand over her mouth, cramming her head back into the pillow, the other hand yanking her belt open. Then the zipper of her jeans got pulled down hard. “Go for it, J,” slurred someone from the corner and the door closed so even the light from outside was gone. Bettina bit J’s palm and clubbed him on both ears with her fists, and kneed him in the meat of his thigh, and then again. But J forced her back flat, and clamped her wrists to the bed. He was heavily on top of her and thrusting away even though her pants were still on and so were his as far as she knew. Then he was panting and telling her he loved her and trying to kiss her but she head-butted his nose, blood spraying into her face. Then the lights come on and J froze for a second and six-foot Bettina was strong enough to reverse the wrist-locks and use her weight to twist the big man away and off her. J sat on the foot of the bed looking bewildered, and Bettina kicked him hard in the face. J collapsed to the mattress. The guy who had turned on the light, a capable looking dude in an Anteaters Lacrosse hoodie, asked Bettina if she was all right. She nodded, not knowing, zipping up her jeans, looking down at J and wanting to hurt him badly again, right then. Just crush the bastard. Instead, she wiped her face with a pillow, looked the lacrosse guy in the eye and nodded. Then carefully went down the stairs, a trembling hand on the banister.
She walked back to her apartment in the dark, arms crossed around herself, heart pounding, crying without sound. Throat sore and body hurting. Coppery smell of blood. Made it to her bathroom without being seen by the roomies, took a long shower, put on clean clothes and laid herself on the bed.