Bettina squeezes their knees. “No, Mom. It’s nothing that serious.”
Yet, she thinks with a quick shiver, wondering if El Gordo is really able to control his soldiers — the alleged horse breeder and the hotelier.
What if his offer is just to make her believe that Felix is going to be okay? To make Felix an easier mark for a dognapping, or worse....
Is El Gordo really going to pay good money for something his actors can just steal?
After dinner and a long talk in front of the fire, Bettina and Felix board the Wrangler and head back for the coast.
She smiles to herself when she makes Strickland’s car, falling in behind her on Highway 79.
She’s got a room reserved at the La Quinta Inn and Suites in Irvine, off I-5 and not far from Laguna. It’s a converted commercial granary, with the old silos for guest rooms. She stayed here two nights nearly a year ago, while waiting to move into her Canyon View apartment.
Searching her rearview for Strickland, she almost misses the exit, has to gun it across two lanes of interstate. But the traffic is light and she accelerates up the ramp toward the hotel.
She walks Felix and a small rolling suitcase across the parking lot. It’s pushing midnight.
Felix growls, bristles, and stops short as a couple emerges from the restaurant. Midforties, Bettina guesses, the woman has bouncy red hair, the guy has nice clothes and a cool-looking straw fedora.
“Good evening,” says the woman. An accent.
“Hello,” says Bettina, then to Felix, firmly: “Quiet.”
“He is well behaved,” the woman says into the sudden silence.
Bettina notes that Strickland hasn’t yet cruised into the parking lot. Wonders if that last-second exit surprised him. Gives the leash a curt tug. “Heel.”
She begins a wide detour around the couple, Felix silent but riveted on the pair.
“You are Bettina Blazak, and he’s Felix,” says the man, his voice smooth and his Spanish accent strong. His trim dark suit is cut European-style and his tieless spread-collar white shirt looks Cuban on him.
“This is us, all right,” says Bettina.
They stop between her and the lobby, which brings her to a stop too.
“I loved the Felix video,” says the woman. Bettina sees that she’s pretty and wearing an expensive-looking black dress, black leggings, and silver-studded black ankle boots.
The woman takes a white paper bag from her purse, kneels, and offers Felix a piece of meat. Food-motivated to a fault, he wags his tail but stays put. She tosses it to him and rises, putting the napkin back in her purse.
“For our dog at home,” says the woman. “But I want the famous Felix to have it.”
If these people are who I think they are, thinks Bettina, and if Strickland comes flying in now, my cover is blown and my dog and I are in deep trouble.
But how did they find me here?
Arnie: Horses and hotels.
No. Impossible. They’re just well-dressed latinoamericanos who liked her Felix video.
Arnie again: If you start feeling paranoid you probably are.
Still, what she wants most right now is to be on her way with Felix before Strickland circles back on her after the sudden high-speed exit.
“Good night,” she says, then cinches Felix up tight to her calf and walks past them.
Catches the woman’s perfume and the man’s thin smile as he takes the redhead’s arm.
Bettina can hear them, heading down the walkway behind her, not talking.
When she looks back again, they’re getting into a shiny black Blazer.
At the front desk, she taps her credit card and watches the late-model SUV heading away.
No Strickland.
Her feet and hands are cold again. Felix stares through the glass doors toward the parking lot.
She takes a second story silo room with a view of the parking lot. Felix hops onto the bed and watches her. She has just gotten the curtains open for a look outside when Strickland’s green Maserati pulls into a space.
She feels a ribbon of relief unwind inside, which surprises her. Especially after trying to play brave to Billy.
Texts Strickland:
Think I just got cased by Joaquín and Valeria.
Black Blazer?
Yes. Didn’t look like narcos.
Did they threaten you?
No. They recognized me and Felix. Gave him some leftovers.
I’ll be out here until sunrise Bettina.
Thank you, Dan.
You doing okay?
I’m a bundle of nerves but I think I’ll be able to sleep.
I’ll be here. No one will bother you and Joe.
Felix.
Sleep well.
Joe’s First Day on the Job
Six months after the deaths of Teddy’s parents...
24
This is nothing like playing with Teddy, Joe thought, nothing like training with Wade.
Aaron was strong with the leash and his voice commands were angry and loud. He was quick to yank, quick to curse. The way he said the word fuck made Joe flinch, though he had no idea what it meant. He’d been on the job for the last hour here — a crowded strip mall in Yuma, Arizona — and he hadn’t gotten one kibble treat, even though he’s finding Drugs.
But Aaron seemed more angry than happy. Work faster. Bigger drugs! The other DEA men and women didn’t speak to him or pet him. The other DEA dogs — big German shepherds and surly Malinois — either snarled at Joe or ignored him completely. Joe wasn’t quite sure what DEA meant, but the letters were emblazoned on his mind early this morning, when Aaron pulled his gun and yelled DEA, hands up! at a Man coming out of a bus station. Joe quickly guessed that DEA meant either angry, or stop, or both. The sound of the letters had raked across his nerves like the stiff steel brush that Aaron used to get the foxtails off him.
Joe had never felt so hesitant, but more eager to please.
The strip mall shops were small and crowded with smells: spicy food like Teddy’s mom cooked, sharp hair- and nail-salon chemicals, swimming pool chlorine, new clothes and shoes, pizza.
In the back room of the pool supply store, he went from one nose-quivering carton of plastic jugs to another, as Aaron snapped the lead and tried to force Joe to the holy smells. Joe wanted to follow his nose instead, but when he found a scent cone, Aaron cursed and pulled back. Joe heard voices in the front of the store, commands for another search Dog.
He heard Aaron and the Man talking, though most of their words were lost on Joe:
“There are no drugs here, señor. And our small amount of money is in the cash register.”
“That right? Let’s see what my dog says.”
“The chemicals might damage his nose.”
“Damage that nose, and I’ll kick the living shit out of you, amigo. He’s got the best nose of all time. It’s the only reason he’s here.”
“There are no drugs.”
“Find the drugs, Joe! Find the money!”
Even though his nostrils were stinging, Joe pressed on into the storage room, investigating the boxes of new pool sweeps and skimmers, the floating toys and air mattresses, the water thermometers, the basketball and volleyball playsets. Nose up and down, short four-beat sniffs, receptors bristling.
He soon caught the scent of Drugs, just a trickle of scent at first.
But the scent got stronger and the cone narrowed into a cluttered corner of broken-down boxes and empty plastic containers, recycle bins and garbage cans filled with rubbish.