“I miss Felix,” she says. “I wonder if he’s alive in Tijuana, working for El Gordo. Do you think that’s possible?”
Strickland looks back over his shoulder at her, apparently unwilling to leave his demanding project.
“I do. El Gordo originally said he wanted to buy Joe from you, for revenge on the New Generation. People say he’s a man of his word. Honest — for a drug kingpin. That’s his myth, anyway.”
“You know a lot about drug cartels.”
“I have friends on both sides of the border. Mostly Apex clients. Some cops from the PD.”
“And it was a DEA friend of yours who got you Joe.”
“Yes, why?”
“Just curious. Do you think he was shot on accident?”
“Possibly,” says Strickland, his back to her, consulting the stopwatch. “It’s more likely the Sinaloans did it. Joe was certainly an enemy.”
“That shoot-out must have been chaotic,” says Bettina.
She flashes back to that cold day in Tijuana, interviewing the veterinary doctors and falling in love with the wounded street dog.
“The clinic where I got him was run by a married couple,” she says. “Both veterinarians. He said the shooting was probably an accident, but his wife was absolutely certain it was an event directed by God.”
“I think God’s less interested in directing than in being entertained,” says Strickland.
His pointed spiritual arrow sticks her. “I’ve thought that too. We sure provide a lot of entertainment. We human types.”
Strickland pockets the watch, tongs the steaks and the lobster tails and asparagus to a large platter, lowers the grill top, and turns to her.
A small smile on his handsome face.
38
After dinner they sit side by side on a glider out on the deck. It gets to be another long talk, like the one at Bettina’s house just a few nights ago. She feels great to be here on this cool spring night, breezy after the storm, clouds moving fast across the starry dark. She’s got her favorite overcoat on, a red wool Navajo pattern with wooden toggle buttons and contrast stitching.
All of this — Strickland, the breezy night, the heavy coat, the smidgin of bourbon and the good food — makes her feel safe in a way she hasn’t felt in days. Safe and trusting and very eager to break the news:
“I offered El Gordo a positive story and video in Coastal Eddy, and ten thousand dollars, in return for Felix. I haven’t heard back.”
Strickland wheels on her. “That’s insane, Bettina.”
In kicks Bettina’s instinctive hatred of being told what she can and can’t do.
“Why? I don’t think it’s insane at all. I go down there, do the interview, shoot the video and pay the money. Fly home with Felix. I’ve got the right papers from the clinic.”
“Insane because El Gordo lost a good soldier and two hundred grand up at Moulton Meadows Park in Laguna that night. Two hundred grand, Bettina. And you think he’ll trade the dog back for ten thousand dollars and a story? You surprise me.”
Strickland’s solid logic hits Bettina hard. She knows this is the fundamental flaw in her proposal.
“If I had more, I’d offer more,” she says stubbornly.
Strickland abruptly rises, walks across the deck to the railing, and looks out.
An airliner lowers toward Lindbergh Field, and Bettina focuses on its blinking red lights. The jet is flying very low over the heart of the city. Bettina knows that Strickland is right, and all her worst fears regarding Felix come thundering down on her again. She feels cold sweat on her shoulders and back; it’s like being dipped in the ocean.
Strickland turns to her and leans against the railing. “He won’t take your offer.”
Bettina speaks evenly to him, trying to ground her pitch in logic, not emotion.
“What if my story means more to Godoy than you think? What if he accepts my offer, not for the money, but for his pride? And vanity? To build his Robin Hood myth? His brand?”
“And you go off alone into the heart of the Sinaloa Cartel with ten grand and your camera?”
Of course I don’t, she thinks. I’ll need backup, and some Mexico savvy. Can’t ask Billy because he’s a cop.
“We go together and bring Felix back,” she says.
“His name is Joe.”
“His name is Felix and I’m bringing him back whether you help me or not.”
Strickland stares at her in mute stillness. She can’t tell if he’s angry or ready to laugh. Over his shoulder, Bettina tracks the red lights of the jet over the building tops.
“I told you once I’d do anything to protect you and Joe,” he says. “That offer hasn’t expired, and it never will. It’s possible. It’s possible Godoy will trade back Joe for his own pride and ego. If that’s the case, we’ll take Joe off his hands. You and me.”
Bettina feels her heart filling with hope and gratitude. Surprise and relief. With other emotions, too, some contradictory or too muddled to decipher.
She pushes off the glider and joins him at the railing, turns and leans against it, facing what he’s facing.
“Whatever I say will sound so corny,” she says. “Thank you? I’m surprised at the depth of your loyalty? Holy crap, Batman?”
“Nothing corny about those. Except maybe...”
“I’m going to kiss you again but it’s going to be a long one. If you don’t, you know, faint or something.”
She takes his hand.
Bettina finishes thrice with Strickland. The first is quaky and electrical; the second like falling through clouds; the third makes time either slow down or speed up, she’s can’t tell which.
Breath and sweat, heart and muscle.
As she drifts toward sleep beside him, Bettina thinks that Strickland is, well, mantastic. Maybe a little mechanical, but sound mechanics indeed. He’s breathing deeply, not snoring but she can tell he’s out. She smiles into the pillow, qualm-less for now, her world going dark.
Before sunrise she roams the penthouse, turning on lights and touching Strickland’s things because they’re his things and he’s hers now, in some mysterious way she’s never experienced. Which makes her interested in what interests him, curious about what he likes.
What a cornball notion, she thinks: You are the corniest girl of all time. You have your own category, the CGOAT — as she runs a hand along the top of his still-gurgling coffee maker, a twelve-cup programmable Cuisinart.
She hears him down in the gym, clanking away on the weights to what sounds like an old Western movie soundtrack, all big-sky strings, timpani hoofbeats, and languid rivers of pedal steel guitar.
She catches him downstairs on the bench press, waits for his last grunting rep, then slaps a kiss on his hot wet forehead. He stands and wipes his face with his workout gloves and kisses her forehead back.
“Soon,” he says.
“Soon.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. One way or another we’ll find a way to get Joe back home.”
“Felix.”
Getting into her Jeep, Bettina calculates that she’ll be home in time to shower and change, and still make the Coastal Eddy offices by eight.
She feels lucky, confident, powerful. Because she knows that El Gordo is going to defy all odds and sell Felix back to her for a little money and a damned good story and video.
From hundreds of miles away, she can feel his acceptance starting to form in his mind, forged by her fire.
Bending to their wilds, hers and Strickland’s.
She’s halfway home, northbound on I-5, when her phone pings with a new notification: a message from Alejandro Godoy.
Dear Bettina,
I am considering of your desperate offer. It is very creative, like you. Your $10,000 means nothing to me but my true story if it made me more famous could be useful. Not only useful, but a chapter important in the history of my country, and yours.