T. Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain

Delaney's car and Kyra arrived at the same instant, and as the attendant jumped out to collect his tip, Kyra took hold of his arm. “Whose car is that?” she demanded, indicating the green Jeep. “The one with the dog in it.”

The attendant's face drew in on itself; his eyes flashed on the Jeep and then came back to Kyra. “Doan know,” he said. “This,” pointing from the Acura to Delaney, “him.” He held up the ticket stub to show her.

“I know that,” Kyra said, raising her voice in exasperation. “What I want to know is whose car is that”-pointing again-“because they're breaking the law locking a dog in like that. The animal could die of heat exhaustion, you understand?”

He didn't understand. “Doan know,” he repeated, and broke away from her to snatch the stub from the man in the painted tie and dash across the lot.

“Hey!” Kyra shouted, the furrow Delaney knew so well cut like a scar between her furious eyes. “Come back here! I'm talking to you!”

Three men emerged from the restaurant in a burst of laughter, fumbling for their sunglasses; a fourth man stood in the doorway behind them, patting down his pockets for the parking stub. “Honey, Kyra,” Delaney coaxed, catching at her arm, “calm down, we'll ask in the restaurant-” But she was already on her way, brushing past the knot of men with her shoulders held rigid, purse and briefcase forgotten, while the new Acura softly purred at the curb, door flung open wide, keys in the ignition. It took him a moment to reach in for the keys, scoop up her purse and briefcase and dodge back into the restaurant.

Kyra was standing in the front room, sizzling in the light through the window, the smell of curry hanging like a pall over the place, clapping her hands like an athletic coach. “Excuse me,” she called out, “excuse me!” Conversations died. Waiters froze. The maître d' looked up miserably from his stand behind the potted palm at the front door, ready for anything. “Does anybody here own a green Jeep? License plate number 8VJ237X?”

No one responded. The waiters began to move. The maître d' relaxed.

“Well somebody must own it,” Kyra insisted, appealing to the crowd. “It's parked in the lot out back with a dog locked in it-an Afghan.” People had turned away from her; conversations resumed. She clapped her hands again. “Are you listening to me?” she demanded, and Delaney saw the maitre d's face change all over again. “An Afghan? Does anybody here own an Afghan?”

Delaney was at her side now. “Kyra,” he said softly, “come on. It must be somebody else. We'll ask outside again.”

She came, reluctantly, muttering under her breath-“I can't believe these people, can you imagine somebody being so stupid, so unaware?”-and for a moment Delaney forgot about the miserable morning, the new car, the theft and the Mexican and his growing sense of confusion and vulnerability: she was glorious in her outrage, a saint, a crusader. This was what mattered. Principles. Right and wrong, an issue as clear-cut as the on/off switch on the TV. In that instant, the cloud was dispelled, and he felt a kind of elation that floated on the wings of the beer and made him feel that everything would ultimately work out for the best.

As soon as they passed back through the door and into the glare of the lot, the feeling was gone, killed in the cradle: the green Jeep was there, at the door, and the man who'd been patting down his pockets for the ticket stub was handing the attendant a folded-up bill. Kyra was on him like a bird of prey.

“Are you the one?” she cried, snatching at the door handle.

The man was of medium height, a little bit of a paunch, long blondish hair swept back in a graying ponytail, blue metallic discs for sunglasses. He wore a tiny diamond stud in his left ear. “Excuse me?” he said, and Delaney could see the dog panting behind him in the passenger's seat.

“Do you know you locked that poor animal in the car, in this heat-?”

The man stood there, looking from Kyra to Delaney and back again. The attendant had vanished from sight. “So what of it?” the man said.

_“What of it?”__ Kyra threw the words back at him in astonishment. “Don't you know you could've killed the poor animal? Don't you care?”

“Kyra,” Delaney said.

She threw him a furious look and turned back on the man with the ponytail. “They could take the dog away from you, are you aware of that? Animal Control, by law, can break into any vehicle with a pet locked in it and-”

Something happened to the man's face beneath the dead blue discs of his glasses. His jaw set. His lip curled. “Why don't you just fuck off, lady,” he said finally, and he stood there rigid as a statue, holding his ground.

“Now wait a minute,” Delaney said, stepping forward, the purse and briefcase still clutched in his arms.

The man regarded him calmly. The dog had begun to whine. “Fuck you too, Jack,” the man said, and then he very slowly, very deliberately, eased himself into the car, shut the door and rolled up the window. The locks clicked. Delaney pulled Kyra aside and the Jeep was gone, a belligerent cloud of exhaust left hanging in its place.

Kyra was trembling. So was Delaney. He hadn't been in a fight since high school, and for good reason-he'd lost that one, badly, and the humiliation of it still stung him. “I can't believe-” Kyra said.

“Me either.”

“They should lock people like that up.”

“I don't know why everybody has to be so, so”-he was searching for the right word-“so _nasty__ all the time.”

“Urban life,” Kyra said, and there was a depth of bitterness to the pronouncement that surprised him. He wanted to say something more, wanted to pursue it, have another beer, a cup of coffee, anything, but she glanced at her watch and gave out a gasp. “My god,” she said, snatching the purse and briefcase back from him, “I've got to run.” He watched her hurry up the sidewalk and disappear round the corner at the front of the building, and all the gloom and anger came up on him again.

What next? he thought, sinking wearily into the car seat. He hadn't sat there half a second before some moron was honking behind him, and he jerked the car angrily out into the street, ignoring the manufacturer's warnings, and roared up Ventura Boulevard for the canyon road.

He was in a rage, and he tried to calm himself. It seemed he was always in a rage lately-he, Delaney Mossbacher, the Pilgrim of Topanga Creek-he who led the least stressful existence of anybody on earth besides maybe a handful of Tibetan lamas. He had a loving wife, a great stepson, his parents had left him enough money so he didn't have any worries there, and he spent most of his time doing what he really wanted to do: write and think and experience nature. So what was the problem? What had gone wrong? Nothing, he told himself, accelerating round a car trying to make an illegal U-turn, nothing at all. And then it came to him: the day was shot anyway, so why not go straight out into the hills? If that didn't calm him, nothing would.

It was barely two. He could go out to Stunt Road and hike up in the hills above the ocean-he wouldn't have to be back until five for Jordan, and they could go out to eat. He turned west on Mulholland and followed it to where the houses began to fall away and the stark naked hills rose up out of the chaparral, and he cranked down the windows to let the heat and fragrance of the countryside wash over him. For once, he'd have to do without his daypack-he always carried a smaller satchel with sunscreen and bottled water no matter where he went, even if it was only to the supermarket or the Acura dealer, and he glanced over at it on the slick new spotless seat beside him. If he went home for his things he'd have to deal with the fence people-somebody new, somebody Kyra had got through the office-and he just wasn't in the mood for any more hassles today.