Aaron ran into the fray, calling Joe off, making him sit while the padded villain ran off, lumbering slowly.
“Fass!”
And off again went Joe, a pale blur across the green. The man threw him down again and Joe charged again and this time the big enemy went down and Joe got a foot and thrashed it for all he was worth.
Aaron got there a moment later.
“Aus!”
Teddy saw Wade Johnson make an entry on his tablet. His face had a neutral expression. These apprehension drills were always Joe’s worst scores. Teddy had long thought that a small detection genius like Joe shouldn’t have to attack and apprehend. But who knew? Maybe he’ll have to defend his handler someday. Or an innocent bystander.
When all the trials were over and Joe and Aaron stood amid the small crowd of attendees, Teddy went to the front and knelt down in front of Joe.
Jorge, Angela, and Beatrice were with him, and they knelt, too, and Joe went from face to face licking them, then back to Teddy, at whom he smiled pantingly and lay down then rolled over at Teddy’s command.
They all rubbed his belly, which he’d always loved, and his right rear paw scratched the air around their small hands.
Teddy was going to tell Joe he loved him and would see him soon, but his throat clenched in a painful knot and his eyes burned and he said nothing.
Sitting alone in the far back seat of the big Sequoia, he stared out the window but saw nothing. Thought thoughts but felt nothing. Wondered again what it would be like to be dead, and how you could do it quickly. Thought of Anastasia but felt nothing. Thought there was a lot of nothing in this world.
Jorge reached back and swiped his hand through Teddy’s burning vision.
“Cheer up, little brother.”
“Okay,” said Teddy. “I will.”
“We got Hawaii tomorrow, you know.”
Yes, he thought: the vacation. A week of nothing on an island in the middle of nothing, without his dog.
21
Billy Ray picks up Bettina and Felix at the Queen Palms in the black March morning. She seems anxious and distracted but Billy understands that she just wants to write her stories and have a normal life again. The dog seems on edge too, hypervigilant and all business. Billy has traded shifts to watch over and help Bettina through the day.
So he gets her home to sleep for an hour and a half, sits in the living room while she showers and gets ready, then follows her to the Coastal Eddy building for her usual 8:00 a.m. start.
He goes to the Havana Café across the Coast Highway, where he can see her small cubicle window above the thickening traffic. The coffee here is strong and he pours in lots of warm milk. There’s only one door in and out of Coastal Eddy offices, and Billy’s eyes are glued to it.
“Nice morning,” he says to the guy a few stools down. Barely looks at him he’s so intent on that door.
“Perfect,” says the man.
“Boy, this coffee con leche is strong,” Billy says, sizing the guy up before refocusing on the Coastal Eddy front door. “You a tourist or a local?”
“Just visiting. I live down in San Diego. You?”
“I live here now.”
“I hear some Texas in there.”
“Wichita Falls.”
“Never been.”
“It’s a great town.”
Arnie finally calls back. “You’re damn right the message is real,” he says. “It’s El Gordo. We’ve got everything from text intercepts to voice recordings of him.”
“That’s a pretty risky thing to do — threaten someone and sign your name.”
“He thinks he’s immortal.”
“Maybe he is,” says Billy. “He’s been a fugitive from you guys for fifteen years.”
Silence. “We want Bettina to help us nail the visiting Sinaloans.”
“You’ve already left her in danger. Why should she risk her life for your career?”
“We’ll certainly protect her, Billy. We’re not cold-blooded.”
“If you don’t quit being a condescending asshole to her, she won’t help you one bit.”
“Can you get her to my division office in San Diego? Say noon? I’ve got a plan and some people I’d like you to meet.”
Billy pays up, nods farewell to the stool guy, and jaywalks back across Coast Highway for Bettina.
Less than an hour later, Bettina, Billy, and Felix wait at the entrance gate of the San Diego DEA division office on Viewridge Avenue.
Bettina looks up at the pale flank of the building, almost entirely hidden by a tree-lined battlement studded with forward-pointing steel spears. Wonders why federal buildings have to be so macho. It’s nice to have Billy here.
“Good morning,” he says to the guard. “We’re here for an appointment with special agent Arnie Crumley.”
The guard has an armored DEA Police vest, a buzz cut, and what looks to Bettina like dark snakes tattooed around his thick arms. He eyes them one at a time then takes Billy’s badge wallet and Bettina’s driver’s license back inside the booth.
A short minute later, he’s back with a placard for the pickup truck. “Visitor parking up by the stairs.”
This conference room is small and windowless. White walls, three long tables in a horseshoe, plenty of steel-framed chairs that slide easily on the short green carpet. Bettina notes the clean whiteboards and the many electrical outlets on the walls and floor. There’s a big monitor on a stand at the open end of the horseshoe.
Arnie comes in ahead of a stocky Black woman in a dark suit and a middle-aged white man wearing chinos and a golf shirt and carrying a laptop. Bettina notes that Arnie has traded his undercover border badass look for business casual and a shave.
He introduces his confederates, joining them to face his brother and Bettina across the horseshoe.
Felix lays himself at Bettina’s feet, head up, alert.
The middle-aged man is digital forensic examiner Dale Greene. He has plenty of silver-gray hair, and a face that Bettina instinctively trusts. He opens his computer, taps a few keys, then starts things off.
“This threat would terrify most civilians,” he says. “So Ms. Blazak, I’m glad you have the courage to trust us and help us. Mr. Crumley, thank you for being here too. My section recovers and analyzes digital evidence, determining authenticity for the courts. The first thing I should say is this message was surely written by Alejandro Godoy, Mexico’s most wanted narcotraficante. We’ve been surveilling him, and intercepting some of his digital mail, for years. It’s him, all right, right down to his word choice and misspellings. Some of his recurring favorite topics are here — the Holy Trinity, his family, the high value he places on friendship, the way of peace and the way of pain. We know he’s serious about cash for the dog because four hundred grand is serious money, especially for Godoy. He grew up poor in the Sierra Madre and is a legendary tightwad.”
Chuckles.
Greene touches his computer screen and Alejandro Godoy’s face appears on the big monitor.
Bettina is surprised by how young he looks. His face is impish and his wavy dark hair needs a cut. “How old is he?”
“Forty-eight or — nine. He was born in a clinic that kept poor records. Don’t be fooled by his cute face. We’ve tied him to over a dozen murders, personally. And almost a hundred more, as a coconspirator. The tonnage of illegal drugs he’s freighted into the United States is unknown. What we intercept is impressive. What gets past us is incalculable.”
Bettina watches the slide show with fascination and revulsion: