The Tortilla Curtain

poor Osbert, but she fought it back and managed to croak out a reply. “Thanks” was all she could say.
    “It's a shame,” Jack said, “I know how you must feel,” and he went on in that ritualistic vein for a minute or two before he came to the point. “Listen, Kyra,” he said, “I know nothing's going to bring your dog back and I know you're hurting right now, but there is something you can do about it.” And then he'd gone into the wall business. He and Jack Cherrystone, Jim Shirley, Dom Flood and a few others had begun to see the wisdom in putting up a wall round the perimeter of the community, not only to prevent things like this and keep out the snakes and gophers and whatnot, but with an eye to the crime rate and the burglaries that had been hitting the community with some regularity now, and had she heard about Sunny DiMandia?
    Kyra had cut in to say, “How high's the wall going to be, Jack? Fifteen feet? Twenty? The Great Wall of China? Because if eight feet of chain link won't keep them out, you're just wasting your time.”
    “We're talking seven feet, Kyra,” he said, “all considerations of security, aesthetics and economics taken into account.” She could hear the hum of office machinery in the background, the ringing of a distant phone. His voice came back at her: “Cinder block, with a stucco finish in Navajo White. I know Delaney's opposed on principle--without even thinking the matter through--but it so happens I talked with the coyote expert at UCLA the other day--Werner Schnitter?--and he says stucco will do the trick. You see, and I don't want to make this any more painful for you than it already is, but if they can't actually see the dog or cat or whatever, there'd be no reason for them to try scaling the wall, you follow me?”
    She did. And though she'd never have another dog again, never, she wanted those hateful sneaking puppy-killing things kept off her property no matter what it took. She still had a cat. And a son. What if they started attacking people next?
    “Sure, Jack,” she said finally. “I'll help. Just tell me what to do.”
    She started with Delaney that night after work. He'd fixed a salade niçoise for dinner, really put some effort into it, with chunks of fresh-seared tuna and artichoke hearts he'd marinated himself, but all she could do was pick at it. Without Jordan and Osbert around, the house was like a tomb. The late sun painted the wall over the table in a color that reminded her of nothing so much as chicken liver-chicken-liver pink--and she saw that the flowers in the vase on the counter had wilted. Beyond the windows, birds called cheerlessly to one another. She pushed her plate away and interrupted Delaney in the middle of a monologue on some little bird he'd seen on the fence, a monologue transparently intended to take her mind off Osbert, coyotes and the grimmer realities of nature. “Jack asked me to work on the wall thing,” she said.
    Delaney was caught by surprise. He was in the middle of cutting a slice of the baguette he'd picked up at the French bakery in Woodland Hills, and the bread knife just stuck there in the crust like a saw caught in a tree. “What 'wall thing'?” he said, though she could see he knew perfectly well.
    She watched the knife start up again and waited for the loaf to separate before she answered. “Jack wants to put a wall around the whole place, all of Arroyo Blanco. Seven feet tall, stucco over cinder block. To keep burglars out.” She paused and held his eyes, just as she did with a reluctant seller when she was bringing in a low bid. “And coyotes.”
    “But that's crazy.” Delaney's eyes flared behind his lenses. His voice was high with excitement. “If chain link won't keep them out, how in god's name do you expect--?”
    “They can't hunt what they can't see.” She threw her napkin down beside the plate. Tears started in her eyes. “That thing stalked Osbert, right through the mesh, as if it wasn't even there, and don't you try to tell me it didn't.,”
    Delaney was waving the slice of bread like a flag of surrender. “I'm not. won't. And I'm sure there's some truth in that.” He drew in a breath. “Look, I'm as upset about this as you are, but let's be reasonable for a minute. The whole point of this place is to be close to nature, that's why we bought in here, that's why we picked the last house on the block, at the end of the cul-de-sac--”
    Her voice was cold, metallic with anger. “Close