Bettina considers his handsome, matter-of-fact face. “Felix. But what a beautiful confession.”
A small smile from Dan the man. “I don’t talk much about myself, so that’ll probably be it for a while.”
“I don’t either,” Bettina says. “I can go on and on about myself with Felix. People are a little tougher.”
The trail is steep and narrow, with long switchbacks down the flank of the canyon. Felix puts up a covey of quail from a big patch of prickly pear, and Bettina’s heart jumps as the birds tear into the sky. She picks one out and imagines her shotgun lead, and her squeezing of the trigger, regretting having shot so many of these quirky little birds when she was young. She calls her dog back.
“I used to hunt those when I was a girl.”
“I hunted snakes and lizards.”
“There’s lots of those in this canyon. Two kinds of rattlers.”
“Mom found my snake collection in my toy chest when I was ten. Crawling around the balls and helmets and in-line skates. I drilled holes in the back for air.”
“We had snakes in Anza Valley but I never liked them. One of our Labs got bit and it almost did her in.”
“Tell me about Anza Valley,” says Strickland. “I’ve never been there.”
Bettina’s Anza Valley monologue carries them almost all the way down to the Laguna Canyon Road, then back up in a long gradual loop that brings them back to where they started at the park.
They sit facing each other across the picnic table, Felix at their feet.
Silence settles over them. Bettina gets water for the dog, then watches the tennis players and listens to the pop of the balls on the rackets. Watches Strickland as he sets out the cheeses and grapes and chocolate and two cans of fizzy water.
One thing about having lunch with a hunky self-defense guru, Bettina thinks, is you feel safe. Even if you hardly know him. Even if he inappropriately brings flowers. The flowers are actually pretty nice: sturdy protea and eucalyptus shoots. Strickland carries a gun in the small of his back, but a sweater mostly hides it. Maybe not a surprise, she thinks, given his occupation.
“Tell me more about how you got Joe,” she says.
Felix raises his head at his name. Bettina sees him looking at her from down by her feet. He studies her, then he plunks his chin back down to the ground.
“When he got retired from DEA, a friend called. He knew I was looking for a dog. Joe and I took to each other immediately.”
Bettina finds Arnie Crumley’s forwarded DEA photos of Felix, hands her phone to Strickland.
Who looks up from the screen to her. “It’s him, all right.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Apparently the Sinaloans hate him,” says Bettina. “He’s cost them millions of dollars with that nose of his. DEA says two Sinaloans have possibly been dispatched from Tijuana to California, possibly to steal him. Senior people, heavies. So I’m living away from home for a while. Different places every few days. Working remote. Not going out in public or falling into a pattern.”
“They should offer you a safe house.”
“They only use them on actionable intel. The intel they have on Felix is unverified. They said the Sinaloans want him, not me.”
“That’s the most gutless thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah. But there’s no arguing with them.”
Strickland hands back Bettina’s phone. Shakes his head and squints out at the hills.
“I know people who can protect you and Joe,” he says. “Professionals. I trained some of them. They’ll give me a good rate, and I’ll pay for them.”
“No, you’re generous. But no.”
“They would have to be in your life twenty-four seven, until this resolves. They’ll keep you and Joe safe. It’s what they’re trained for.”
“No. I said no.”
“I don’t understand you, Bettina.”
“Felix and I are moving targets in a state with twenty-three million people in the lower half, and God knows how many dogs. I have my Model 12. And Felix was trained for attack by the DEA, even though he wasn’t real good at it.”
“You’re stubborn and naïve.”
“Just stubborn.”
“They’ll kill you to get the dog, if they need to.”
Bettina feels that spark starting up inside, the one that so easily kindles her instincts for fight and flight.
“Flowers,” she says. “A free protection team for me and Felix. What do you want from me besides my dog?”
“All you offer.”
The words land like a blow. “That’s a creep-show thing to say to someone you don’t even know.”
Bettina flashes back to those strange first minutes with Daniel Strickland:
You made my day.
“You know what I think? I think guys like you almost always get what they want. And if they don’t, it’s no big deal.”
“I’ll do anything to protect you and Joe. I’ll put you through my Apex program, no charge. Joe likes watching the training. You can bring him.”
“Where you can take him off my hands, for his protection?”
“It could come to that.”
“Not on my watch, Dan Strickland,” says Bettina, rising. “Thanks for lunch but I’m going now.”
Strickland takes a knee beside the picnic table, rubs Felix’s ears with his big hands. Mutters his name while he pets him. Bettina feels like a villain.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I feel strongly about things sometimes.”
“We shouldn’t do this again,” says Bettina, surprised how bad she feels about what she’s decided. Like she’s lowering blinds on a sunny new morning.
Strickland stands and holds out the leash. Bettina takes it, studying his fine, hard-to-read face.
“You’re new to me,” he says. “I’m not sure what to do or say.”
She nods and leads the dog away through the park, Felix trying to get back to Dan Strickland, whining as Bettina pops the lead smartly, bringing him to heel.
18
Strickland doesn’t get off Interstate 5 until he passes his exit for home, then stops in San Ysidro. He fills the Quattroporte’s tank with premium, pushes the cheese and protea flowers into the trash can, washes the windshield, and crosses the border into Tijuana.
Less than an hour later, he’s drinking a beer in the great room of Carlos Palma’s beachfront compound near Rosarito.
Through the enormous picture window, the sun is sinking into the Pacific. Orange ribbons on black water. Men with machine guns stroll the property, loiter in the arcade and gardens. There’s a helicopter draped with camouflage net not far from the swimming pool. And a private marina made of enormous boulders, in which a gunship bobs, the guns themselves stowed on board for secrecy and quick deployment.
Here in the gaudy, over-furnished great room that reminds Strickland of a Miami hotel, the muted big screen shows recorded fútbol.
Strickland knows that Palma is unusually old to be running the Tijuana plaza of the CJNG — the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Carlos was born in Veracruz, so he’s not just old, he’s a fish out of water. Midsixties; thick gray hair; a suspicious, doubting face. Strickland has seen cartel life eat its young members alive. Yet Palma soldiers on. His wife, Camille — svelte and beautiful — reclines in a bowl-shaped rattan chair on a pedestal, her legs crossed under a white linen dress.
The men weave back and forth between Spanish and English, Strickland nearly fluent after classes in high school and a semester of college, and living in Mexico months at a time. Palma is conversant after his years at San Diego State University, and nonstop American movies and TV here in Mexico