I am now confirming that you will sell Felix to me. As you know, my offer is $200,000.
Bettina gets right back:
Dear Mr. Godoy,
Yes, I will sell him to you but you have to promise to treat him well.
Bettina forwards Godoy’s email to Special Agent Powers, who calls immediately and orders her to stay where she is and wait for instructions.
Unfortunately, El Gordo doesn’t get right back.
So she sneaks off with Felix to the nearest Turner’s Outdoorsman, where she buys a “point and fire” pepper gel pistol with a special trigger and a grip “deployment system” that will allegedly deliver maximum strength pepper gel bursts at fifteen feet. Plenty close for Valeria and Joaquín. It’s a stubby little thing, black with an orange slide, and small enough to fit into her purse.
El Gordo gets back fourteen hours later, at 10:00 p.m., by which time Bettina is crazy with frustration in her grain silo hotel room.
Dear Señorita Blazak,
I am very happy. We will be very kind to Felix.
Please bring him to the famous lifeguard tower of Laguna Beach in one hour. At eleven. You must be alone and have no weapon. Make sure your phone is on, as there may be changes. The dog must be on a leash. When you have passed the leash to my companero, Joaquín, then his wife, Valeria, will give you her fashionable bag. It will contain the money and will weigh over two pounds. Go back to your car immediately. Do not look into the bag until later. If any of these laws you break then there will be no money and maybe bad consequences. Very simple.
Of course, if you have had contact with the Roman and can supply us with his name, my friends will deliver to you $200,000 more, once we have verified your information and his relationship to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
With Sincerity and Friendship,
Bettina answers:
Yes, Mr. Godoy, I will do that, exactly. You have promised me you will take good care of Felix. I need the money. But I don’t know who the Roman is.
All of which Bettina sends to Powers, who tells her again to stand by and wait.
One thing that Bettina hates almost as much as being told what to do, is waiting.
But Powers is soon back to say they’ll have their people in place. All Bettina has to do is follow El Gordo’s instructions exactly. When she gets back to her car with the money, drive to the Laguna Riviera motel on Coast Highway, where a room has been reserved for her. Paid for, of course. The DEA will deliver Felix to her.
“Don’t let them take my dog.”
“They won’t get your dog. They won’t even know what hit them.”
This late, she easily finds a spot in the Laguna Beach Library parking lot, leashes up Felix, and crosses Coast Highway to Main Beach. The coastal eddy is in, and the night is misty and chill.
Nearing the lifeguard tower, Felix looks up at her three times. Sensing her nerves — Bettina guesses — that are surely running down the leash from her unusually jerky hands.
“I love you, Felix,” she says. “Don’t be afraid. I’m going to protect you.”
Which makes her think of the DEA, Billy Ray Crumley, and Dan Strickland, all offering to protect him. Her too.
“You have a good team on your side,” she says, and Felix looks up again, cocking his head intently.
The boardwalk foot traffic is light. The beaches are open until 1:00 a.m. Bettina watches the people coming across the sand, their bodies faint at first, then solidifying as they approach the lifeguard stand and its floodlights. A helicopter cruises by. Voices and bits of conversation drift past her as she joins the northwest bend of the boardwalk, headed for the big white plaster Laguna Beach Lifeguard tower, with its well-lighted emblem:
Laguna Beach
LIFEGUARD
Dept. Est. 1929
Her phone says 10:52 p.m., so she passes the tower on her left, heading toward the hulking black outcropping known as Rockpile. The waves are throwing up so much white water against the rocks that she can see the spray from a hundred yards away.
A runner pads by in big foamy shoes; a Dalmatian stops Felix for a friendly sniff; Bettina smiles faintly at the guy while she studies the faces coming past — no obvious Joaquín or Valeria among them, that she can see.
“Is this Felix?”
“Yes.”
“I loved that story. Really moved me.”
“He’s a terrific little guy. Night.”
“Good night, Ms. Blazak. I’m a big fan.”
“Thank you.”
“Richard.”
“Richard. Come on, dog!”
She takes a bench, studying faces, phone out, checking the minutes. Felix studies faces too. The March night is cold and Bettina buttons her wool duster all the way up.
At 10:59, she’s standing at the far inland side of the boardwalk, twenty feet or so from the lifeguard tower, Felix sitting at her feet. Bettina turns a slow, casual circle, degree by degree, meeting each oncoming face with a steady deadpan.
Sees Powers out on the grass, dressed in running clothes, stretching.
And Arnie Crumley sitting on the boardwalk facing the ocean, wearing an Angels jacket and cap, a white fast-food bag open on his lap.
Bettina’s really hoping and praying there’s not another Richard out here tonight, who might somehow foul the takedown. She wonders if Valeria will maybe pull a little gun from her purse, and if Joaquín will pull something bigger and more deadly. She knows that they were the ones at the La Quinta. Knows. Fingers the pepper gel gun deep in the pocket of her coat. Felix looks up at her with a mixture of concern and trust that breaks her heart. What have I gotten you into? she wonders.
“It’s going to be okay.”
Five minutes. Ten.
Then a woman’s accented voice by phone:
“Go back to your car and drive the dog to Moulton Meadows Park. When you get to the parking lot, park but do not get out of your car. Make sure Felix is on the leash. Control him.”
The park is in the hills above South Laguna, a tidy little place where Bettina filmed part of her video special on the club she belongs to, the Biker Chicks. Bettina drives toward it just under speed limit, hoping to give her confederates an easy target to follow.
Moulton Meadows Park is long closed tonight and the lot is empty. Bettina pulls into a space facing the street, cracks the windows and kills the engine. Up here, the fog is lighter. Felix sits in the Jeep’s passenger seat, curious as always, ears up, flaps out.
“They’re probably checking us out,” she says softly. “I didn’t see our federal friends, but I texted them. You heard me. We’re not on our own, little dog.”
Feeling that first little spark of hers, Bettina reaches into the back, flips the beach towel off the Model 12, and, hand on the grip behind the trigger, draws it carefully beside her. Wedges it barrel-down between the console and the floor.
She watches Capistrano Avenue, and the parking lot, and the homes across the street. Occasional cars. An SUV. Could that be her cavalry? Then a throaty, exotic-looking thing that looks green in the misty streetlights, and very much like Dan Strickland’s ride. Her wannabe guardian angel? Somehow, she’s not surprised. And she’s glad her self-defense guru is here.
Bettina feels the spark trying to light the flame that can become the fire inside her, the fire that stokes her excitement, lets her accept the danger, and, say, race down Coast Highway at forty miles an hour on her Cannondale with the Biker Chicks. Or, all alone, lets her drop into a marching six-footer at Brooks Street, the entire Pacific behind her, pushing her like a giant’s hand. Or stand in front of a video cam and let the world see her for what she is, a former shy tomboy who has become a reporter with a good story to tell, has her own show, and a possible Pulitzer in her future.