“No.”
“It’s totally my fault,” said Nancy. “My allergies are really doing a number on me, and the meds make me drowsy. I’ve always been that way with dogs. I’ve never even been able to have one. I am so very sorry, Teddy. I tried. I thought I could do it.”
Teddy didn’t know whether to grab Joe and run for it, or scream at his uncle and aunt, or just go to that quiet place inside and accept this horrible thing.
“I’ll keep him in my room.”
“The hair, dander, and bacteria won’t stay in your room,” said Uncle Art. “And I agree with Nancy, the dog will have a much better life out at the center. You can go visit him anytime you like. Heck, stay all day if you want. Mr. Johnson told me on the phone that he’s serious about continuing Joe’s training. Right, Wade?”
Mr. Johnson looked pale and solemn. “You know I’ll take good care of Joe,” he said. Joe’s tail thumped at the sound of his name. “You’re always welcome at Excalibur. You can help me with the dogs. I can use a good assistant. And I think I can put Joe to work someday. For real. As a detection dog. I know a handler who wants a small dog with a big nose. I hope that cheers you up.”
“I’d be happy for Joe but not for me.”
“You can still see him until he’s ready for work,” said gray-faced Wade Johnson.
“No,” said Teddy, rallying his will, tears running down his face. “He’s mine. Uncle Art, Aunt Nancy, I’ll buy one of those air filters and keep my door closed and run it all day. None of Joe’s germs will—”
“That’s an awful lot of electricity,” said Uncle Art. “And those filters really don’t do anything a good air conditioner can’t. A Kensington, of course.”
“Excuse me just a minute,” said Teddy. There was a lump in his throat so big it hurt, and his eyes were blurring and burning.
He called Joe to heel and headed up the stairs to his room, leashed the dog, made sure he had his wallet and the twenty-six dollars in it, grabbed Joe’s half bag of kibble, and went out the front door.
Bag under his right arm, dog leash in his left hand, Teddy ran down long, steep Avenida de La Jolla all the way to Girard, downtown, to a sandwich place that allowed dogs on the patio.
He sat there, heart pounding, wanting to cry but sucking it up, an eleven-year-old boy in mute agony. The waitress brought water for him and for Joe.
Ten minutes later Teddy saw his aunt and uncle patrolling down Girard in their Range Rover with the blackout windows and the DELGADO 100M plates. Turned away and stared at himself in the café window. A few minutes after that, the Excalibur SUV came by the other direction. Teddy turned away again.
He ate the cheapest sandwich and looked out at the crowded, bustling city. Everybody was beautiful and rich. Dogs all over, and cars so rare he didn’t even know what they were.
Teddy didn’t know squat about La Jolla except that he had to get out.
He didn’t know the best way to the freeways from here. He had another uncle, his mom’s brother Phil, in Yuma, which he remembered from last year’s visit was, like, three hours from here in a car.
So, take a bus, he thought. Right?
He waited half an hour for his aunt and uncle and Mr. Johnson to give up looking for him. It only took him twenty minutes to get to a bus stop.
He stood there looking up at the maps on the signs, Joe sitting at his feet. He didn’t know La Jolla and its surrounding cities at all, and wasn’t sure which bus would get him and Joe to Yuma. Didn’t think the buses took dogs anyway.
He was still looking up at the sign to divine when the next bus would stop here, when a La Jolla cop car pulled up fast, lights flashing, and stopped right in the street. A big man in uniform got out of the car and came toward him.
“Teddy Delgado?” he asked, stopping a few yards away.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is your dog friendly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to come with me.”
“To where?”
“Get in the car, son. You’re going home.”
“They’re going to take my dog away.”
“They’ll do what’s best for you, Teddy. You’ve been through a lot. But don’t argue with me.”
17
Bettina wakes at sunrise in the Queen Palms, Felix warm on one side of her, the Winchester Model 12 cold on the other.
Just three hours of sleep, haunted by J, and by spooky sicarios possibly dispatched to kidnap Felix, and by Daniel Knowles Strickland.
She cracks open a curtain on dark storm clouds and a breeze through the three wretched queen palms in the courtyard. Gets dressed to run, leashes Felix, and peeks out the window again. Imagines herself slipping into the near dark, heading for the Dana Point marina.
God, it would feel good to move, to run. But good enough to risk being seen by the two cartel representatives that Arnie Crumley’s DEA says might be here?
She backs away from the curtain and detaches Felix’s leash.
“Sorry, pup-pup,” she says. “No run for us out of an abundance of caution. I hate that shit, caution. But I’m worried about you.”
Angered at being a captive of her fears, she makes some coffee in the rinky-dink drip maker, props the Winchester in a corner, and checks her email and text messages.
She’s got twelve new Felix emails and twenty new text messages to her phone. Some are accompanied by pictures of Felix’s “relatives.” Some want Bettina to return him to them, the rightful owners. Some offering to buy him, just as Strickland had done.
Five of the new emails are pleas from Teddy Delgado, reiterating his story of raising “Joe” in Otay Mesa for a year when he was a puppy. That Joe worked for the DEA for four years and was about to retire but he either ran away from, or was stolen by his handler, Aaron. So Teddy says. Teddy has eighty-five dollars and he won’t take no for an answer and he’s trying to get to Laguna but he can’t drive yet.
The same basic story Arnie Crumley gave her, she thinks.
It further annoys Bettina that three of Felix’s alleged “owners” — mysterious Dan Strickland, grating Arnie Crumley and now this pushy Ted Delgado — all want to see the dog. Not just see, but two of them want to take Felix away from her. To own him. A thought: Are they working together to get him away from me?
If you start feeling like you’re paranoid, you probably are.
On the other hand, others online have claimed that his real name is Max, Spots, Jason, Scout, Magnum, Streak, Andy, Falcon, and on and on. One said that Felix knows over a thousand Russian words. One said she had raised Felix from birth, feeding him baby formula with an eyedropper. Another said he’d taken Felix skydiving when the dog was Murphy, his puppy. Another said her dog had been featured in a traveling circus and could answer addition and subtraction problems by raising and lowering his right front paw. Some wanted their dog back; others only to be featured in one of her videos.
Such as “Felix: The Rescue of a Mexican Street Dog,” which is now just over a week old, and still getting lots of views and likes. There are more hustlers, liars, and cheats after her dog than ever, she thinks.
Annoyance rising, Bettina tells Ted that she understands his feelings for his former dog, but can’t sell her Felix back to him. I’m really very sorry, she says, and she is. But not sorry enough to sell Felix.
Blood pressure high, as usual — she can feel the blood surging in her veins and arteries, trying to get through — Bettina updates next week’s Coastal Eddy calendar from her voluminous emails and press releases. It takes over an hour to replace the outdated listings with the new ones. It’s nice to have something distracting to do.
She’s just pressed the Send button on her laptop when she decides what to do about Strickland.