It took him just a few minutes and a few steep side streets to find his big house with Teddy. Sitting on the sidewalk, Joe looked up at it, remembering Art and Nancy and the children. Remembered Wade coming here, and the serious meeting. And going with Teddy for sandwiches in town and how sad his Boy was because Dad and Mom had left them. Then walking all the way to the freeway where the policeman put them in his car.
Joe walked the fence line past the garage to the backyard. It was a tall black fence with pointed spears, impossible to climb. He could see through it to the grass and the pond where the children used to scream and play. The old smells flooded back to him — the grass with Teddy, the strong water in the pond, even the salty odor of the beach, which was not far away. He dug hard to get under the fence but hit concrete.
He followed the spears to the front gate, which people opened by pushing a small black box on a brick stand. Raised his nose toward the house and let the river of scent wash into him, smelling for Teddy.
No Teddy.
Then, just a hint of him....
Joe stood on his back legs and put his paws to the bricks, and found him, finally, his Boy, Teddy, right there on the black box with the numbers on it!
Art was there too. And others, and Nancy, the strongest scent of all, like Mom smelled before she and Dad left him.
The front door opened and Nancy stepped onto the porch and turned to lock the door. She wore her big white padded shoes and pink sweats and a small pouch around her waist, like he remembered.
Joe whimpered and yipped and wagged his long saber tail, his happiness breaking inside him like a warm wave.
Nancy looked at him, then came over. She never touched Joe and she didn’t touch him now.
“Joe, how did you get here? After four years! I can’t take you in again. I don’t want to put Teddy through losing you again after so long. I know you don’t understand.”
Joe looked up into her sad face. Then Nancy hurried back inside. Joe heard the dead bolt clank. Was she going to get Teddy?
He knew that Nancy would come out soon, but she didn’t. He lay down on the warm bricks and waited, wondering if Teddy was inside or if he’d gone off to school with the other children like he usually did.
He didn’t understand why Nancy didn’t come out. What was she doing? What was she waiting for? He felt sad, and like something bad was going to happen, but he didn’t know what or why.
All he could do was wait.
Half an hour later, Aaron parked his truck along the curb and got out.
“Joe! Joe, come!”
He had the leash in one fist and he was not happy.
The drive to Chula Vista was almost silent. Aaron’s anger came off him in noiseless waves and Joe could smell his sour bad temper. Joe felt punished by the silence and believed that once again he had failed to do the things that would make Aaron happy. He’d never done any of those things, except for Find Drugs and Find Money. And even those didn’t make Aaron really happy. They were not enough. Aaron wanted more. So Joe wanted more.
Aaron touched some buttons on his dashboard display and Joe heard the funny sound, then a voice.
A Woman talking with words Joe didn’t recognize:
“You have reached Apex Self-Defense. If this is an emergency, please call 911. No one is available at this time. Please leave...”
Joe yawned and closed his drowsy eyes.
“I’m returning Dan’s call about a dog,” Aaron said, though Joe only understood Dog.
Joe would have asked Aaron for water but had no way of doing that. So many things a Man or a Boy needs to do without being asked, Joe thought. If he wants a Dog. Like Teddy. Like Wade.
He felt the road bumping under him, wondered why Nancy hadn’t told Teddy that he, Joe, had come home.
Back to work, he thought.
Find Drugs. Find Money.
31
After work, Bettina straightens her apartment, propping up Thunder, the Winchester, room to room as she dusts and wipes and sweeps. She’s got the pepper gel gun in her purse, and her purse on the kitchen counter.
Felix follows her, lying in protective positions in doorways, ears up, chewing his now bedraggled turkey.
“We’re a good team,” she says. “And you are a Guten Doggen.”
She’s in the kitchen, putting cut flowers in the yellow vase she bought at the border the day she brought him home. Felix cocks his head and wags his tail at the word team, as he does every time he hears it, in any context. It’s just as meaningful to him as treat.
Even with the sudden death of Páez and the detention of Valeria, Bettina’s weighted fear of the Sinaloa cartel has lifted by not one gram. She knows that Godoy can send new soldiers to capture or kill Joe and, while they’re at it, why not kill her for setting up his people and costing him $200,000? Powers and Arnie Crumley have told her it’s possible but unlikely, saying that Godoy’s risk — benefit equation won’t pencil out, given what happened up in Moulton Meadows Park. Thus, no full-time protection — only intermittent, unscheduled surveillance. Continue to vary your routine, they said. You can spend some days at home and some at work, but use hotels too. Federal witness protection is disruptive and long term and used only as a last measure, generally for people who appear in court. You would have to give up your byline and your video shows, Arnie reminds her. Basically, your career.
Thanks, guys.
Billy has offered to be with her every second he’s not working. Good of him, but she doesn’t want anybody crowding her like that.
And she doesn’t want witness protection anyway. What she wants is her old life back, even just a little at a time.
El Gordo has been silent since that brutal, surreal night. Through Powers, Bettina knows that the DEA has paid an informant to post on Blog Narco a speculative, “eyewitness” account of a kidnapping and murder of Sinaloan Cartel soldiers in Laguna Beach, California, possibly by rival Jalisco New Generation gunmen. This, to put El Gordo in his place.
Bettina assumes that, as of two nights ago, Godoy has been expecting to hear the good news that his associates had purchased Felix — the costly, humiliating, New Generation mutt made into a celebrity by Coastal Eddy reporter Bettina Blazak.
“I’d kill me, too, if I were him,” she tells the dog in her blackest humor.
Felix considers this, springs to his feet, drops the turkey, and chases his tail in a circular, whirling blur.
At exactly 6:00 p.m., the dog goes to the security screen door.
Seconds later, Strickland appears behind it, as promised. Felix wags his tail dramatically, whimpering.
Bettina unlocks and opens the heavy steel door, Felix throwing himself against Strickland’s knees as he tries to come in.
He downs the dog, who immediately flattens out at his feet, then rolls over. Bettina watches Strickland’s face as he quickly scans the living room and kitchen, holding up his empty hands.
“No flowers.” He turns a 360.
“Enough of that. I’ll take your jacket if you’d like.”
“No thank you.”
“The gun doesn’t bother me,” she says.
“It should, a little.”
“I have bubbly water, wine, and bourbon.”
“Bourbon, please. Straight, with a dribble of tap water.”
Strickland locks the security screen door.
From the kitchen, Bettina looks at Strickland and Felix as she makes two bourbons. The man looks bigger in here, or maybe her apartment looks smaller. It would be very difficult to escape if Strickland tried what Jason Graves tried. She hates that thought and everything behind it, and everything it leads to. She wonders again what to do with Jason. Hates that thought even more.