He box-breathes for a minute, feels his pulse slow down and the fearful static in his mind begin to quiet.
Glances back at snoring Palma, at his slipped eyeglasses and slack mouth, which strike Strickland as the perfect rewards for human lust and vanity. He wonders if that could be him someday, decides it most certainly could. Wonders if he would regret his life. And admits now that he would probably regret all but a few relatively minor moments of it. The rest just meaningless pursuit of things. Reflex, distraction.
He feels himself changing and isn’t sure he likes it.
He looks through his reflection on the window glass, all the way to the dim line where the twinkling black ocean meets the dull black sky.
These sudden notions of fear and regret are new to Strickland, and they gnaw at him.
But what’s bothering him just as much is Bettina Blazak and his unprecedented desire to give her what he has. All he has. His protection, attention and consideration. His words and emotions. His past; his stories. His occasional smiles and laughter. All his cool stuff, all the things he’s collected from all the places he’s been. And, of course, there might also be things they’d acquire and the places they’d see, together. All they would make together. He wonders for the thousandth time what exactly has been happening to him since he first watched her Felix video online and saw his Joe in the company of a beautiful bright woman who reminded him of someone, or some thing. He’s never used the word love in any but the most mundane way, and never regarding a whole, fellow, human being. I love a rare ahi steak. I love the way the Quattroporte grabs the road and won’t let go. I love the smell of money and the things it can buy. I love her legs.
So when Strickland tries to solve himself, he sees that fear plus regret equals his desire to give. Not to take. To give. That is love, correct? To give all.
He remembers asking the same of Bettina Blazak:
All you offer.
He feels a cold shudder down his back as he considers the “honorable” Frank and Héctor. Has he loosed the hounds of hell on Joe and Bettina? Or found the most expedient available way to keep her and Joe from being harmed by the Sinaloans, and getting Joe returned to his rightful owner?
The light from the TV suddenly changes. Strickland turns to find the fútbol on again and Camille in a green satin robe, her sleek black hair up, regarding him. She looks empty and exhausted.
She sets the remote on the couch and walks out, glancing back at Strickland before heading into a dark hallway.
Back home, Strickland sends a text message to Bettina Blazak’s Coastal Eddy number:
Sorry for “all you offer” this morning. I can’t get you out of my mind.
19
Tough titties, thinks Bettina, reading the text twice, then deleting it. In fact, she’s having trouble getting Strickland out of her mind, and she cusses herself for this. She wishes he’d never seen her video, never walked into the Coastal Eddy. But then, well, she’s kind of glad he did. And did she have to be a bitch? Bust his ass for flowers?
It’s late now, the Alta Laguna Park playdate with Felix and Dan Strickland is a full twelve hours old. She’s got her work laptop set up on the small Queen Palms desk, the Winchester Model 12 propped in the corner, and a bourbon glass sweating into a paper towel beside the computer.
Felix has been morose since the park, where she dragged him away from his former master. He rests his head on his front paws, eyeing her, his forehead creased. She wonders why she feels so bad about keeping him when she has every right to — moral, ethical, financial. God-given and approved by fate. Finders keepers. Did she believe for one second that Strickland would give the dog back to her if their roles were reversed?
Being locked in this tiny motel room for two nights and a long day and a half has given her more than enough time to interview the Laguna Beach Art Festival directors by phone, and get their bullish chamber-of-commerce-ish thoughts on this year’s event. It has taken her some hours to write it up, though, earnestly boring as they are. The fact that people use reporters to further their own agenda is her least favorite part of the job. Turns her into a flak. She’d love to work for a paper or a show with enough weight and independence to just tell the truth about stories that matter.
Today has been one of the longest of her life, and she sees by the bedside clock that it’s become tomorrow.
She’s about to pour a nightcap when a new message lowers into her email feed.
She doesn’t recognize the sender:
La señorita Bettina Blazak,
It is very good to meet you. I very much love “Felix: The Rescue of a Mexican Street Dog.” I am almost certain that this dog has been robbing me. My soldiers have witnissed him doing this. Therefore, will you please sell the dog to me? I have already dispatched two friends to Laguna to pay you $200,000 for Felix. If you will not give him up, I must order him to be confiscated, of course. And, Señorita Blazak, they will pay you another $200,000 if you can identify the dog’s handler. He is known to us only as the Roman. I believe if he has seen your happy story about the wounded dog he will contact you about getting him back. You should understood that I am a kind man and prefer the way of peace to the way of pain. I have a family and many dogs for my children. I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I would consider you a friend forever and I do not make friends with lightness. I would not harm the dog, of course. Only to use him against my enemies as they have used him against me.
With Sincerity,
Five black-and-white photographs are attached. They’re all of the same subject, likely taken on a cell phone with a rapid-snap setting.
They’re dark, fuzzy shots of a black-clad man in a black ski mask, gun in hand, caught mid-stride along railroad tracks in what looks to Bettina like a switching yard. Taken from behind and aside, at night.
A medium-sized dog carves a path out ahead of the gunman, his body pale, his saber tail raised, his head down.
Felix, she sees, her heart in free fall.
The man has his gun in one hand, raised high and pointed slightly down. Man and dog are at some distance from the photographer.
The man could be any race, any nationality, anybody. The Roman, Bettina can only assume.
But the dog is Felix, no doubt.
My new friends, thinks Bettina — El Gordo and the Sinaloa Cartel.
Who now know where their devil dog is, and what I look like, and where I work.
Two of my friends are in Laguna Beach now... and if you will not give him up I must order him to be confiscated...
Her heart thumps and sweat cools her forehead.
There’s a giant miracle in all of this, though: Godoy wants to buy Felix, not kill him!
She checks the curtains and turns off all the lights except the small desk lamp. Surveys the Queen Palms Motel and the parking lot and the cars sliding up and down Coast Highway in this dark early morning.
Forwards El Gordo’s message to Arnie and Billy Ray. Thinks of sending it to Dan Strickland but she doesn’t quite trust him. She wants to, just can’t.